The lord sends a storm 1:4-9
1:4-5
“But the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken.”
The sea may represent the world we live in, with its unquiet conditions, its tempestuous upsets, its stormy strifes, its multitudes of wickednesses, its angry threatening faces, its propensity for damage. God has ordered it so, and if we are fleeing from His presence in any way we will be faced with the tempests of life. Our secure hiding place seems then to be liable to fall apart under us, to split at the seams and leave us exposed to the mercy of the storm. “Then the mariners were afraid, and cried every man unto his god, and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, , to lighten it of them.” In a world of turmoil every man acts as he thinks best, and even material possessions become less important than life itself. “But Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship; and he lay and was fast asleep.” Jonah ignores the conditions around him. Secure in the knowledge of his own salvation, he sleeps while the souls of men are in danger, ignoring their helplessness. Once again we must ask ourselves at this point if we are not following some “Don’t get involved” philosophy of our own, rather than the plan of God for our lives. Are we asleep? Secure in the knowledge of our own salvation are we going to ignore the peril of our fellowmen in the tempests of life? God has told us to preach repentance in such-and-such a place, and instead are we not following our won wills, asleep to the conditions around us, ignoring the peril of souls ready to perish? Where would we be ourselves if Christ had chosen His own freedom instead of God’s will?
1:6
“So the shipmaster came to him, and said unto him, What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not.”
The shipmaster is he who runs the ship, the man who bears the responsibility of the ship, the man in charge. The call is to a day of prayer. Every man is required to call upon his god, in the hopes of saving the ship. Even today there is ever a call to prayer in a last hope of winning respite from the tempests of life that threaten the ship. It should awaken our conscience, if nothing else. If unbelievers call for us to pray for them, as a nation, as a community, as a group, does it not reveal their desperate straits? Who would suggest prayer except as a last resort in the contingencies of life? Is it not an open acknowledgement of a desperate need? Should it not awaken us to the peril we have been so securely ignoring? Not our peril, but their peril. We are in no danger, but they are, among whom we sleep. Their souls are in danger every hour, and in desperation the call goes out to pray, from one in authority. What do we mean by sleeping in an hour of need? They need us to pray for them, for their prayers are to false gods, but the prayer of one righteous person can change their lives. Let us listen to their appeals for prayer, and awaken to their peril, and realize that our security is selfish, our neglect is indefensible, our position is unpardonable in the light of present circumstances around us. “What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God.” And God will see that we are awake, and that we realize we should not have slept while souls around us are ready to perish, and God will begin to focus their attention on us as His witnesses.
