Sermons on Biblical Characters

by Clovis Gillham Chappell

Now, I am fully convinced that Jonah's danger is the danger of a great many, both in the Church and out. You who are listening to me at this moment are kindly and cultured men and women. You are full of good will toward the Church. You love it and desire its prosperity. Yet many of you are doing practically nothing to make its desired prosperity a reality. One of the most discouraging features about the Church to-day is the large number of utterly useless people within its fold. And these are not only useless, but saddest of all, they are content with their uselessness. They seem to feel that it is God's best for them; that it is all that God expects or has a right to expect.

Did you ever make out your religious program and look at it? What does discipleship cost you? What is involved in your allegiance to the Lord? Coming to church once or twice a month on Sunday mornings and making a small contribution. Only this and nothing more. The Sunday School is not your burden. The prayer meeting is not your burden. Visiting the new members that have recently come into our Church and into the Kingdom and need your help is not your responsibility. Helping by your presence and by your prayers to give spiritual fervor to all the services, is not your responsibility. Yours is to make your way up to the doors of the House of Many Mansions by and by without ever having made one single costly sacrifice in order to follow the Lord.

Are you running away from your duty this morning? You know what it is. At least you may know it. This is a needy world. This is a needy Church. It has an opportunity to touch the uttermost parts of the earth if it is spiritually alive and spiritually mighty. Are you making your contribution? Are you accepting your responsibility or have you turned your back upon it for no other reason than just this, that it is too much trouble? If that is true of me and if that is true of you, may the Lord wake us up this morning and give us to see our deadly danger.

So Jonah turned his back on his duty and turned his back on God. He took ship for Tarshish and went to sleep. Surely his situation is critical indeed. But though he has forgotten God, God in His mercy has not forgotten him. God still loves Jonah, still longs for him and still hopes for him. And so in mercy He sends a storm after him. That was dangerous cargo that that ship had on board. It had better have had gasoline or T N T than a rebellious prophet.

It was in mercy, I say, that the Lord sent the storm after Jonah. Coverdale translates it, "The Lord hurled a storm into the sea." Let us thank God for the storms that rouse us, that wake us up, that keep us from sleeping our way into the pit. May the Lord send us any kind of storm rather than allow us to fling ourselves eternally away from His presence. I am so glad God will never allow a man to go comfortably and peacefully to eternal death. He never allows any man to be lost until He has done His best to save him.

I read some years ago of a New England farmer who was driving to town on a cold winter's day. He overtook a woman on the way who was walking and carrying a baby in her arms. He took her up on the seat beside him. The cold became more bitter. He noticed after a while that the woman replied to his questions drowsily. A little later he saw that she was asleep. Ho knew that unless awakened she would sleep the sleep of death. So he did what at first seemed a cruel thing. He sprang from the wagon, dragged her out into the snow and took the child from her clinging arms. With the child he sprang into the wagon and started his team down the road at a trot. The woman roused herself and began to totter feebly forward. A little later she quickened her pace. At last she broke into a run. And as she caught up with the wagon a little later and the farmer put the baby back into her arms, life had come back to the mother. A temporal loss was a blessing to this woman. Let us thank God for any losses that may come to us that will keep us from sleeping our way to ruin.

So Jonah was down in the sides of the boat asleep. Meanwhile the tempest was raging. Meanwhile the fear-filled crew was rubbing elbows with death. Then a hand is clapped on Jonah's shoulder and he is being given a vigorous shaking and a voice is calling to him. And though it is a heathen voice it is full of rebuke. "What meanest thou, O sleeper? How is it that you can sleep amidst all the agony, amidst all the danger that is about us? When the situation is as it is, how is it that you are not on your knees? Else and call upon thy God."

I wish through this message that I might take some of you who are sleeping so soundly and peacefully and shake you awake. I wish that God might speak through my voice to my heart and yours and say to us, "What meanest thou, O sleeper? What do you mean by sitting idly and stupidly in the House of God Sunday after Sunday and never doing anything? What do you mean by having children growing up about you and not being enough interested in their spiritual welfare to even have a family altar? How is it that amidst the tremendous issues of moral life and moral death that you can be as complacent and as undisturbed as the dead? Why in the name of all that is reasonable will you continue to 'lie like huge stones across the mouth of the sepulcher where God is trying to raise some Lazarus from the dead?'"

That shake and that message got Jonah awake. He sprang out of his berth and rushed upon the deck. And the sight that met him there made a new man out of him. It changed him from a provincial Jew into a world citizen and a missionary. What did he realize as he looked into the pallid faces of those death threatened men about him? He forgot all about their being heathen. He only remembered that they were one with himself in their common danger and their common need. They were all threatened with death. They all needed somebody to save. And, men and women, that is true still. We folks differ in many respects, but we are all alike in this: We have all sinned and we all need a Savior.

He not only saw that they were one in their needs but that they were also one in their hopes. He realized what we have been so long in realizing, and that is the oneness of the race. He came to know, even in that distant day, that since we are one body, one member could not suffer without all members suffering with it. He faced the fact that his own wicked rebellion against God had not only brought wretchedness upon himself, but that it was bringing it upon all that sailed with him. No man ever flees from duty without incalculable hurt, not only to himself, but to others as well.