I've always been fascinated by the story of Jonah and the big fish that swallowed him. As a young boy I remember my Sunday School teacher telling this story with flannel graphs and illustrations which made my imagination run wild.
In “Jonah: A Veggie Tales Movie,” there is a scene where Jonah is sitting in the belly of a whale, and some angels appear out of nowhere and began explaining to Jonah how God wanted to give him a second chance to be obedient; and thus, they broke out into song about the God of second chances.
What’s really neat is how the artists animated some sailing ships that were swallowed by the whale. While the angels were singing about the God of second chances, the masts of the ships formed the backdrop, and they were in the shape of crosses; thus, communicating how each of us has a second chance through Jesus Christ.
God told Jonah to preach in the city of Nineveh, but Jonah was disobedient and ran away. Our passage states that he fled to the city of Tarshish from the seaport of Joppa. The distance from Joppa to Nineveh was nearly 700 miles; however, the distance from Joppa to Tarshish was about 2200 miles! Tarshish was on the Spanish peninsula and Nineveh was in Assyria; therefore, these two cities were on the complete opposite sides of the known world at that time.
Jonah did a complete U-turn and went in a totally opposite direction of God’s will. Because the Lord asked him to do something that he didn’t want to do and that he didn’t understand, he deliberately disobeyed. When Jonah fled to Tarshish he went three times the distance that God had asked him to journey when he was commanded to preach in the city of Nineveh.
You see, when we are in deliberate defiance to God, our guilt can sometimes result in running as far away from the Lord as we can possibly get. We will try to run from God, because we are hoping we can hide from His face. For example, in the story of the Prodigal Son, we read that the prodigal fled to “a far country” (Luke 15:13). We can certainly run from the Lord, but we absolutely cannot hide from His presence; no way, no how.
I can never escape from your Spirit! I can never get away from your presence! If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to the grave, you are there. If I ride the wings of the morning, if I dwell by the farthest oceans, even there your hand will guide me, and your strength will support me. (Psalms 139:7-10 NLT)
We might choose to run from the Lord; but even if we do, we will still have to come face to face with God at some point or another and reckon with Him.
I want to briefly point out what happens when we run from the Lord. In verse 3, we read that “He went down to Joppa . . . and [he] went down into the [ship].” We are going to notice later in the story that he also went “down into the sea,” and “down into the belly of a great fish.”
Whenever we run from the Lord we wind up going down, and still farther down, until we hit rock bottom.
When we do our own thing this will only lead to death and destruction, for we read in Proverbs 14:12, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.”
Acting apart from the will of God is what the Bible calls sin, and Romans 6:23 tells us, “The wages of sin is death,” meaning spiritual death. As we will see, because Jonah ran from the Lord and entered a downward spiral, he was going to have a brush with death.
Jonah Was Given a Second Chance (1:4; 1:17; 2:1-2; 2:10)
1:4 – 4 But the Lord sent out a great wind on the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship was about to be broken up.
1:17 – 17 Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
2:1-2 – 1 Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the fish’s belly. 2 And he said: “I cried out to the Lord because of my affliction, and He answered me. Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and You heard my voice.”
2:10 – 10 So the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.
Here we see Jonah’s brush with death that resulted from his disobedience to God. As Jonah sailed for Tarshish, a terrible storm arose that threatened the lives of everyone on board the ship. If we take a look at verse 7, we read that the men cast lots (or gambled), in order to find out who brought the disaster upon them, and the lot fell on Jonah; and then in verse 15, we see that they threw Jonah overboard in order to save their own lives, and they abandoned him to die at sea.
You would think that things couldn’t get any worse for Jonah, with the storm and being tossed overboard, but next we see that Moby Dick came along and gobbled him up. We read here that a great fish swallowed Jonah and he was in the belly of the fish for three days and nights.
We don’t know exactly what this fish was; however, most children’s stories call the fish a whale. As I like to say, God made a fish just Jonah's size.
In chapter 2, verses 1-2, we read that Jonah was in the belly of sheol - the Hebrew word for "grave." For Jonah - it was a spiritual grave until he came into obedience to God's call on his life.
This great fish swallowing Jonah was not God’s punishment; it was actually His provision to save Jonah from drowning. After Jonah’s deliberate running and outright disobedience, God had compassion on him and spared his miserable life. The Lord revealed here that He is indeed “a God of second chances.”
However, God had heard him in his state of spiritual distress, and answered him by having the fish spit Jonah out onto dry land. Whenever we are in a state of spiritual death and the grave, God hears us too when we choose to call out to Him.
You can run from God and protest His call upon your life but you will not win. God loves you too much to allow you to go your own way. No, He won't force you to follow Him but He will allow life to become tough and hard until you surrender fully to Him.
Jonah is a story of second chances. It's my story and it's many of your stories. It is a reminder that I can't run from God and be successful. Until I surrender to His will I will never be who God wants me to be. The sooner any of us surrender to Him - the sooner our lives will be at total peace.
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