Fourth Quarter 2003 Adult Sabbath School Lessons:
"Jonah"

Insights to Lesson 5
A Hebrew Prophet and Heathen Mariners
October 25-31, 2003

(Produced by the Editorial Board of the 1888 Message Study Committee)

Have you ever been in a situation in which you were pointed out as the cause of a big problem? How did you feel at that moment? Did you feel like saying “Pick me up and throw me into the sea. …”? (Jonah 1:12). Embarrassment can make us wish to be dead, and the sense of responsibility for the mess that we’ve caused others is a weighty burden indeed. This week we see Jonah in this very predicament! Could we, too, be in the same?

In this week’s passage from Jonah (1:4-13), we look in on the prophet of God aboard ship and bound for Tarshish. What will God do? Will He let the Ninevites perish without hearing a last message of mercy? Will He find another messenger and write Jonah off, leaving him as a casualty to the worldly influences in Tarshish? Absolutely not! So the Lord does the most merciful thing that could be done in the situation. He decides to get Jonah’s attention. “The Lord sent out a great wind on the sea” (1:4)—so great that the experienced, salty sailors on board Jonah’s little boat were shaken up enough to pray to their various gods. Not only this, but they were willing to part with worldly wealth in order to save their lives—they “threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten the load” (1:5).

Question: Where was Jonah during this impromptu prayer meeting? What was he doing while these stout men’s hearts were melting, while they were throwing away dollars as it were? Why he was asleep!! As the lesson quarterly points out, the Hebrew word used here means a death-like stupor. The same word is used for the complacent, exhausted sleep of Sisera in Judges 4:21. Jonah probably felt a bit like Sisera—a man on the run who had finally found what he thought was a safe place, out of the reach of God. That is, until he was rudely awakened by the captain of the ship! How ironic that the prophet who should have been leading the prayer meeting had to be exhorted to pray by a man who did not know the Lord.

From here, things go downhill even further, because when the lots are cast to determine who is responsible for all this, lo and behold—the lot falls upon Jonah. Jonah explains more about who he is. “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land” (1:9). Then the question: “Why have you done this?” (1:10). A fair question indeed! One for which he did not have a good answer. In the end, at his own request, Jonah is thrown into the angry waves by the reluctant seamen, who were so desirous of sparing the life of God’s prophet. What a shame that the prophet did not feel the same way about those to whom he had been called to preach! And yet, observe how God used this situation for good, in spite of Jonah. God got the message through to the mariners by putting Jonah in a situation where he had to give it. And apparently these heathen sailors accepted it and “feared the Lord,” “offered a sacrifice to the Lord, and took vows” (1:16).

What an encouragement to Seventh-day Adventists to see that God still uses messengers who are headed the wrong direction. How thankful I am that we are studying Jonah this quarter. As a pastor, it’s encouragement that I needed! After all, do we not find ourselves in a Jonah situation today? As others have pointed out this quarter, God gave to us a “most precious message” to give to the world. That work could have been finished in a few short years in the 1888 era had we gone straight to work with the light from heaven. Ellen White said in 1898, “If God’s people had the love of Christ in the heart; if every church member were thoroughly imbued with the spirit of self-denial; if all manifested thorough earnestness, there would be no lack of funds for home and foreign missions; our resources would be multiplied; a thousand doors of usefulness would be opened, and we would be invited to enter. Had the purpose of God been carried out by His people in giving the message of mercy to the world, Christ would have come to the earth, and the saints would ere this have received their welcome into the city of God.” (Selected Messages, book 1, p. 82; italics supplied).

So, what happened as a result of our resistance to the message given us from heaven at Minneapolis and in the years following? Could it be that the Lord has sent out another “great wind on the sea”? The twentieth century, which followed on the heels of our lost opportunity has been the bloodiest, most disastrous ever recorded, and the twenty-first has taken up right where the twentieth left off. Indeed, the storm is getting worse. And where is God’s church today? Are we not asleep? Aren’t we generally unconcerned that “men’s hearts [are] failing them from fear, and the expectation of those things which are coming upon the earth?” (Luke 21:26).

The time is coming when we will be rudely awakened, and the uncomfortable questions will be asked—“For whose cause is this trouble upon us?” “WHY HAVE YOU DONE THIS?” The ease that we thought to enjoy in the Tarshishes of this world will be taken away—indeed, we will loathe ourselves for what we have done and rather choose persecution and death. “The work which the church has failed to do in a time of peace and prosperity, she will have to do in a terrible crisis, under most discouraging, forbidding, circumstances.” (Testimonies for the Church, vol. 5, p. 463). Will God go looking for another movement to carry His message? Nope! Wouldn’t it be better for us to awaken now and embrace the message which God has given us!?

As you study Jonah this week, prayerfully consider our responsibility in the unnecessary lengthening of earth’s history, and let it bring you to your knees to ask Jesus for understanding of and submission to the light that he has sent to us in his mercy. May God bless your Sabbath School with a prayerful, thoughtful class this week!

Read the study notes for Lesson 6