1:10 “Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, Why hast thou done this? For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them.”
We are living epistles, known and read of all men. We do not need to tell them in words that we are disobedient messengers because they will already know it. Our lives proclaim it, our position in the ship speaks volumes to them. They have only one last question for us – “why?” “Why hast thou done this?” Can we give a good answer to that? Jonah’s answer is found in chapter four, but what answer have we to give them in their peril that will make sense to them? In the ship, in the midst of their tempest, Jonah can find no answer to their query. “Why hast thou done this?” At the last judgment, when we see our contemporaries lines up to go to hell, will they look on us at the last to ask “Why hast thou done this?” If we called on them now to repent and they repented not then they will have nothing with which to reproach us, but if we are silent, asleep in the ship, disobedient to God, mute witnesses in a day of trouble, will we then be able to answer their final question? It is not enough to be saved ourselves, but we bear a responsibility to others given us by God Himself. Ezekiel says if we tell them and they repent not we have freed ourselves from their blood, but, if we forbear to speak, their blood is upon our hands. (Ezekiel 33:8-9) Can we come into the presence of God as those with blood on our hands, as disobedient messengers, as those who in life fled from our responsibility? Clearly these things should not be so.
1:11 “Then said they unto him, What shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto us? for the sea wrought and was tempestuous.”
We are taught in the New Testament that if we judge ourselves we will not be judged. Here we see that godliness is being forced upon Jonah because he had refused to do God’s will. The reverse is true. If we do God’s will there can be no occasion for any to force us into it. If we judge ourselves we will not be judged, of others or of God. It is the conditions about him that cause Jonah to take the step of faith he should have taken long before this. But we need not wait till others wake us up, till others question our faith, till others have to ask, “What must we do to you to get you to do what God told you to do in the first instance?” We can see the truth for ourselves and go and work today as our Father wanted us to do rather than wait to be forced into it. No one forced Christ to give up His glory with the Father. No one forced Him to come to earth, to be born in a manger, to submit Himself meekly to Joseph and Mary. No one forced Him to go to Jordan to John to be baptized, or to do the work which His Father gave Him to do. No one forced Him to go to Jerusalem to die on Calvary’s Cross for us. He volunteered. He came to us without coercion. He went to the Cross alone, He died for us and was buried of His own free will, and He rose for us the third day of His own volition. In like manner He will come for us at the last day. How much more acceptable to God is our voluntary offering of ourselves, for we are told the Lord loveth a cheerful giver.
