11 Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?” For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. 12 He said to them, “Pick me up and hurl me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.” 13 Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them. 14 Therefore they called 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.” 15 So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. 16 Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.
We are still in the midst of this great storm that God sent while Jonah was trying to flee to Tarshish, and we ended with verse 10 last week, as the sailors said to Jonah, “What is this that you have done!”
This was more of an accusation than a question, because by now, the sailors had figured out that this rebellious prophet of God who was on board their ship was the cause of the great danger they were in, but as events continue to unfold, we see a remarkable change in the hearts and attitudes of the crew, which further added to Jonah’s shame.
Jonah was beginning to understand the futility of running away from God, but the great irony is how Jonah’s sin is further highlighted and exposed through the way the sailors behaved.
At first, they were terrified by the storm God unleashed on their ship, which caused them to cry out in vain to their own false pagan gods. Then after casting lots, which identified Jonah as the culprit, they were “exceedingly afraid” as verse 10 records, when they realised the power of this God who sent the storm.
When they realised that Jonah was rebelling against such a powerful and mighty God, they asked him, “What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?” (Jonah 1:11). Jonah’s answer was, “Pick me up and hurl me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.” (Jonah 1:12)
An important detail in the account of Jonah was that it was not the sailors who came up with the idea of throwing Jonah overboard - it was his.
As a prophet of the Lord, Jonah’s response to the question as to what they should do should have been for them to repent of their sin and turn to God for forgiveness. The problem was that Jonah was caught up in the middle of his own sin, so it would’ve been hypocrisy of the highest order for him to point out the sins of others while he was so deep in his own rebellion and disobedience to the will of God.
Another option would be for Jonah to try and evade the whole thing and simply answer that he didn’t know what to do, but by now he knew that would be a very bad idea. He couldn’t risk incurring the wrath of God even further, as the intensity of the storm would probably have increased, resulting in the deaths of everyone on board.
He could also have told them to turn the ship around and return to Joppa, so he could finally go to Nineveh as he was supposed to. That would almost certainly have stopped the storm, but he chose not to.
Sadly, Jonah’s sin had caused his heart to be so hard by now, that his response was, “Pick me up and hurl me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.” (Jonah 1:12) In other words, “I would rather die than do what God has called me to do.”
This brings us face to face with a very important and difficult question: Is it possible for a Christian to become so hard of heart that he would rather die than submit to God? Jonah’s story proves that the answer is yes. His is an extreme case, but rebellion against God, which always begins with one small step in the wrong direction, can be the first step on the road to complete self-destruction.
Our defence against making the same mistake as Jonah is to stay rooted in the Word, and seek the Lord through prayer and praise. Paul writes in Philippians 4:4-8, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
It’s the peace of God which will guard our hearts, but for Jonah, there was no peace - there was just a raging storm brought about by his own sin.
Of course, we know how things eventually worked out for Jonah, but by this point it would seem he’d reached the point of no return.
And then we see the great irony in this part of the story. The only thing Jonah had ever done for these men was bring them trouble. It’s a wonder they didn’t decide to throw him overboard without asking his opinion first.
Jonah, who should have known better than these pagan sailors, was put to shame as they understood the value of his life more than Jonah did. There is an important detail in verse 13 which is easy to overlook. “Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them.” (Jonah 1:13) They didn’t want to throw him overboard. They were trying to save Jonah’s life.
What was it that caused them to put their own lives at even greater risk by trying to preserve Jonah’s life? Part of the answer is in their reaction to Jonah’s confession that we see in verses 9 and 10. “He said to them, ‘I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.’ Then the men were exceedingly afraid.”
Jonah said he feared the Lord, but those were just words. He didn’t really fear the Lord. If he had, he would’ve been in Nineveh, not trying to get to Tarshish. The sailors though, having glimpsed just something of the sheer power and might of God, now feared Him as they should.
In these sailors we see a complete transformation. Just a few verses earlier they were praying futile prayers to gods that don’t exist. They resorted to a superstitious, pagan practice to try and identify who the cause of all their troubles was, but now they not only feared God, but they suddenly understood the value and sanctity of human life.
It’s easy to forget that theirs was a brutal profession. Throwing troublesome sailors overboard in the middle of the ocean was a common practice in the ancient world, even for the most minor offences. Life had little value, so we can only imagine how radical and how sudden their transformation was. Not only that, but it appears from the text that the hearts of the entire crew were changed. There is no record of a debate or argument as to what they should do with Jonah. They all tried to get to shore. This is the power of God at work. When God, in accordance with His sovereign will, changes the hardened hearts of rebellious sinners, there is no limit to what He can do.
All the sailors had to do was toss Jonah overboard and their problems would be over, but instead, they desperately tried to save him. And the reason is that God had changed their hearts.
We can only imagine how Jonah must have felt. After telling the sailors to throw him into the sea, it suddenly appeared that his life would be spared, but he must have been so ashamed when he realised what these men were trying to do for him, even though he was the reason they were in such danger.
The theologian Owen Robertson wrote in his book on Jonah’s story, “He, the believer, closes his heart toward the massive metropolis of Nineveh. Although his people had experienced the grace of God for generations, he closes his heart to another people. But in dramatic contrast these coarse sailors do everything they can to spare the life of Jonah, even after he has caused the loss of all their cargo, and now may cause their loss of life.”
The sovereign will of God though, was that they would not be able to row to safety. We can only speculate about what they discussed as they realised they were going to have to do the unthinkable, but look at their desperate prayer to the Lord in verse 14. “They called 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.” (Jonah 1:14-15)
As remarkable as it was that they tried to save Jonah’s life, they now plead with God to not hold them responsible for the death of this man.
They had been believers for what, five minutes? And yet they showed more spiritual maturity than a man who had been a prophet of God for years. Don’t ever underestimate just how dramatic the grace and mercy of God can be in changing hardened hearts, and this is just one of the great lessons we need to learn from the story of Jonah.
Jonah, in his sin of disobedience and rebellion, was quite happy for the Ninevites to die in their sin, because he knew that if they listened to his warning of the judgment to come, God might show them mercy and save them.
The sailors though, who, like the Ninevites, were pagans, tried to do all they could to spare the life of just one man - the very man who had caused all their trouble - and again they showed remarkable spiritual maturity in verse 15. “You, O Lord, have done as it pleased you.”
And so finally, after praying first for God’s mercy, they threw Jonah over the side of the ship, and immediately the sea was calm.
Chapter 1 ends with verse 17, as Jonah is swallowed by the great fish, which is what we’ll be looking at next week, but this chapter should really end with verse 16, which is the highlight of what is really a very depressing chapter. “Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.”
There has been much debate down the years as to whether the sailors were truly converted into belief in God, or whether their confessions of faith, their prayers to God as they threw Jonah overboard, the sacrifices they performed and vows they made in verse 16 were all a result of the obvious danger they were in, only for them to slip back into their pagan ways once they returned home safely. The Bible is silent on this, but as we look at the progression of their short, yet dramatic journey to faith, a very strong case can be made that their confession and faith was genuine, because it tells the story of how genuine confessions of faith and salvation in Christ come to us today.
In verse 16 we see for the third time that the sailors feared something or someone. In verse 5 it was the storm, in verse 10 it was the realisation that Jonah was a Hebrew who worshipped the one, true God of creation, and now, they fear God Himself.
There is a clear progression in the story of the sailors. Now that the storm has finally stopped, they worshipped God by performing a sacrifice. We’re not given any details as to what kind of sacrifice, but the important thing to note is that it was through sacrifices that Old Testament Jews worshipped, after which they made vows to Him.
It would appear from the text that they would not have learned all of this from Jonah. Firstly, there wouldn’t have been much, if any time for Jonah to teach them, and secondly, we already know that he didn’t want to teach them, for the same reason that he tried to avoid going to Nineveh, so how did they know how to approach God?
They were seasoned travellers, so they would have been exposed to all kinds of religions and traditions, which meant that they had probably already heard of this God the Jews worshipped, but until Jonah came onto the scene, the God of the Jews was just one of many gods they had heard about.
It was only when Jonah identified God as the one who is the true God of Heaven who made the sea and the dry land (as he said in verse 9), that it finally dawned on these men that the God the Jews worshipped was not just one of many gods. He was the only God, and He is worthy of our awe and worship.
God comes to us. We don’t have to go seeking Him. He comes to us in His general revelation as we see evidence of Him in His creation, and He comes to us in His special revelation, in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ.
For the sailors, God certainly came to them in the most dramatic fashion, but if you look at what they did after the storm passed, we see evidence of true conversion. They offered a sacrifice to the God who saved them, and they made solemn vows.
John Calvin wrote, “When, therefore, the sailors vowed a vow to God, they renounced their own idols. Now they made their vows to the only true God; for they knew that their lives were in His hand.”
This was no “fox hole” conversion. In other words, they didn’t offer up a panic prayer, promising to do whatever God wanted them to do. “Lord, please just make the storm go away, and I will do anything for you,” only for them to go right back to their previous pagan lifestyles.
All the evidence points to genuine repentance and a genuine faith in these men.
Jonah was running away from God because he couldn’t bear the thought of Him saving the pagans in Nineveh, but the irony in Jonah chapter 1 is that the first major event in the book of Jonah is God, in His sovereignty, reaching out and saving the pagan sailors, the very people that Jonah had chosen to take him as far away from God and Nineveh as he could possibly go.
Whom God chooses to save, He will save.
This is what Jesus was speaking about in John 10 when He said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” (John 10:27-29)
And the apostle Paul wrote in Romans 8:28-30, “We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom He predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified.”
And in Ephesians 1:3-14, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth. In Him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of His glory. In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the Gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of His glory.”
This is the Biblical doctrine of election or predestination, and God, who is sovereign, will save whom He chooses. He saved the sailors without Jonah’s co-operation, and He eventually saved the Ninevites with Jonah’s reluctant co-operation, but He did save them.
When Job confessed and repented after his long ordeal of suffering, he said, “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.” (Job 42:2)
The Reformation Study Bible notes say, “It is a plan of sovereign saving grace, entitling all who now believe to trace their faith and salvation back to an eternal decision by God to bring them to glory, and to look forward to that glory as a guaranteed certainty. The destiny appointed for believers (conformity to Christ and glorification with Him) flows from divine foreknowledge. God has of His own initiative chosen the objects of His active, saving love.”
In our recent series on the Gospel of John, we looked at the doctrine of election a few times, and I think it might help if we looked back on it briefly. Five times in John 17, which records Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer, Jesus speaks of believers as the people “whom you gave me.” God the Father gave the elect to Jesus before the creation of the world, in eternity past.
Many people, both Christians and non-believers struggle with this whole idea that God, in His sovereignty has chosen a people for Himself, but it is clearly taught throughout the Bible.
We read passages of Scripture like Romans 8 and Ephesians 1, and the first question we usually ask is, who are the elect?
Interestingly enough, the Bible doesn’t tell us to lose sleep wondering whether we are among the elect or not. Instead, we are assured that if we put our faith and trust in the saving work of Jesus on the cross, we are among the elect. 2 Peter 1:10 urges us to “be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election.” Peter doesn’t say we are to make ourselves elect but rather to give evidence of our election by a living faith.
You might remember when we began this series on Jonah, I mentioned that the main characters in this book are not the great fish. It’s not even Jonah. The central character in this ancient story is God, who works in His mysterious, yet glorious ways to accomplish His divine purposes.
The sailors on Jonah’s ship experienced an unforgettable, once-in-a-lifetime divine encounter. God sent the storm not only to wake up His rebellious prophet, but also to provide the pagans a dramatic display of His saving power.
So what can we learn from the sailors and their conversion?
Firstly, as we saw last week, we should not be intimidated or threatened by the world’s unbelief, by diluting the Gospel message to make it more appealing and less offensive. The doctrine of the cross and substitutionary atonement is by its very definition, offensive to the world.
The same God “who made the sea and the dry land” as Jonah said in verse 9 and converted the pagan sailors is able to save sinners through our witness to anyone. Also, as the Bible teaches and as history has proven, God will save whomever He wants, whether we are faithful and obedient witnesses of His grace or not.
Robert Kendall wrote, “The fact that the church is not what she ought to be at the present moment does not mean that God cannot use us. For God can use a crooked stick to draw a straight line and that is precisely what happened in the case of Jonah.”
Jonah missed out on so much though. He was willing to die, rather than submit to the will of God. Instead of plunging into the depths of the sea, he could have been on the deck of the ship, witnessing and participating in the worship and sacrifice of these new converts, even teaching them more about the grace of God, but in his stubborn determination, he saw none of this.
One of the great joys for individual Christians and the church as a whole is seeing the lost coming to saving faith and the Godly joy it brings. Are we going to be like Jonah though? Are we annoyed and offended that God would choose to save someone who we feel is unworthy of His grace?
How dare we, when we remember that He chose to save us - not because of who we are, but despite who we are!
The story of Jonah should serve as a warning to the church that we should respond in obedience to the Great Commission, and share in the joy of salvation when He saves those whom He chooses.
Jonah’s story also warns those who have yet to receive salvation through Jesus Christ. If God can show grace and mercy to the sailors and the Ninevites, He can do the same for you. Turn to Christ while you still have the opportunity, because you don’t know what tomorrow holds. Tomorrow may never come.
James Boice wrote, “You have not yet perished in your godless state because God, who made the sea around you and the dry land on which you walk, preserves you. Do not remain indifferent to Him. Turn to Him. Approach Him on the basis of the perfect sacrifice for sin made once by His own Son, Jesus Christ, and follow Him throughout your days.”
Homegroup Study Notes
Read Jonah 1:11-16
3 times in chapter 1 the sailors were afraid (see verses 5, 10 and 16).
Discuss how this progression of realising just who this God of the Hebrews was, brought these men to faith.
A detail we often miss is that the sailors didn’t want to toss Jonah overboard. Verse 13 tells us they tried to reach the shore instead.
How did their new found faith in God further expose and shame Jonah’s sin and rebellion?
What are we able to learn from this?
Compare the prayer of the sailors in verse 14 with the attitudes of those who were determined that Jesus should be crucified. How does the faith of the sailors compare with the sin of the Pharisees and religious leaders?
Your conversion to faith may not be as dramatic as the sailors or the apostle Paul, but it is no less miraculous. What is the greatest lesson you have learned as a Christian?