Jonah: A Call to Repentance and Spiritual Vigilance

"Jonah is unlike all the others. Jonah is a narrative. It's a story. It's not necessarily a book of prophecy at all, which is probably why it's by far the most well-known of the 12 minor prophets. A story, a narrative is so much easier to share, and to tell people about, and to retell, and to, you know, turn into an animated action comedy musical adventure film about anthropomorphic vegetables." [00:06:27] (25 seconds)


"Jonah says, I fear the Lord, meaning I worship the Lord. And in the very beginning, Jonah says, I fear the Lord, in the very next sentence, the author makes sure to remind the audience that actually, in fact, Jonah was indeed fleeing from the Lord. Some scholars suggest that Jonah must have repented to have made this comment, but it's not a very popular idea because although he says he fears the Lord, his actions" [00:23:46] (24 seconds)


"Therefore, they cried out to the Lord, O Lord, let us not perish for this man's life and lay not on us innocent blood for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you. So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea and the sea ceased from its raging. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. Whoa, what is happening?" [00:25:13] (22 seconds)


"Despite the fact that, ironically, Jonah literally doesn't even repent for his sins while this is happening. is all going on. Seriously, the sailors ask God to forgive them for throwing Jonah overboard before they even do it. But even though Jonah fully understands that his own sins are at fault for the danger that he has put these men in, he still doesn't repent. He just gives up and just accepts death." [00:26:22] (31 seconds)


"Look, in the Hebrew, with the most literal translation, there is this gradual process by which the sailors' fear of the storm is replaced by an awe of God. The sailors feared in verse 5. In verse 10, then the men feared with great fear. Then in verse 16, then the men feared with great fear the Lord." [00:26:46] (21 seconds)


"Now, let's be clear about this. Jonah could have turned back and done the right thing when he got to Joppa before he bought the ticket onto the boat. He could have repented once he got down on the ship. He could have gotten back out and just left to go and follow God's instructions. He could have repented once the boat left and started to sail away from his calling. He could have just asked the sailors to turn around." [00:27:19] (24 seconds)


"To be clear, Jonah is not Jesus, first of all, not by a long shot, but it's a valuable reminder that when God sends us a sign, if not a warning, when storms are raging and the very ship that keeps us afloat is threatening to tear itself apart, when a single crashing wave is all that separates us from a watery grave, we must repent." [00:30:15] (26 seconds)


"We must come back to God. We must rely on the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross to appease God's wrath against us. Because most importantly, we cannot save ourselves. When those storms come and threaten to destroy our ships, we can try throwing cargo overboard, right? We can try getting rid of things that we think will make our lives easier." [00:30:48] (23 seconds)


"We can try reaching out to other people or other things or ideas to help us, the false gods and idols in our lives. We could do all the soul searching, read all the self-help books and try to scour all the world's information. We can even try to fight the very storms themselves and literally try to weather them out. But it will never be enough." [00:31:04] (22 seconds)


"The only way that we can be made right with God is to ask him to forgive is to look at our lives and ask ourselves whether we've fallen asleep. we need to ask ourselves whether we've been missing the warning signs or even just deliberately ignoring them. Maybe we even need to ask God to reveal to us the mistakes we've made along the way." [00:31:24] (27 seconds)


"If there's one thing that this story makes very clear it's that no one not even a prophet from among God's chosen people is incapable of making such mistakes that lead them to a place where they look around and realize that even the non-believers around them are more in tune with God than they are." [00:32:37] (23 seconds)