Divine Wakeup Call

“Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” 3 But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord” (Jonah 1:1-3).

Have you ever fallen asleep behind the wheel? Years ago, while driving home on the Stevenson expressway and after working a double shift, I fell asleep behind the wheel. When I woke up, I was on the shoulder of the road passing up cars to my right at a high rate of speed. By the grace of God, I didn’t hit anything, and the shock and fear over what could have happened woke me up and kept me awake the rest of the way home. It’s dangerous to be physically asleep behind the wheel. As soon as your eyelids close, you are on course to a crash that can result in serious injury to yourself or others.

Now the danger of being asleep behind the wheel is not only true on a physical highway, but in our spiritual journey through this life. In Jonah chapter one, God called Jonah to go to Ninevah to deliver a warning about the judgment that was coming due to the wickedness in the city. But Jonah ran from the presence of God and the call upon his life. He boarded a ship to Tarshish, which at the time, was the farthest place that he could run to in the known world. But while he was on that ship to Tarshish, God sent a storm. While that storm was raging and the mariners of the ship were fighting to keep it afloat, Jonah was “down” below in the inner part of the ship fast asleep (Jonah 1:6). This wasn’t just a matter of Jonah being tired. He was in a spiritual stupor.

Jonah fell asleep behind the wheel and was headed in the wrong direction the moment he turned from the voice of God and fled from the presence of God. How can one flee from the presence of God? You really can’t in the sense that you can never hide from God. God is omnipresent, which means He’s everywhere all the time. But although this is true, not everyone is aware of God’s presence or enjoys fellowship with God. Jonah, who was both spiritually and physically asleep, was not enjoying the fellowship and presence of God because he hardened his heart to the voice of God. Speaking to the church, the Apostle Paul, wrote, “For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober” (1 Thess. 5:5-6). 

Remember, to be asleep spiritually means that you are not walking in the light of God's word and in the joy of His presence (1 John 1:7-9). Consequently, you are off course and in spiritual decline. Jonah’s willful disobedience led to spiritual slumber and decline. In other words, his willful disobedience led to a woeful indifference (Jonah 1:4-5).

While all chaos was breaking loose, Jonah was sleeping like a baby. How can this be? Remember, Jonah was in spiritual decline. And he was in spiritual decline because when God called Jonah to join Him in His work, he decided that he was going on a cruise in the Mediterranean. Charles Spurgeon noted, “Jonah was asleep amid all that confusion and noise; and, O Christian man, for you to be indifferent to all that is going on in such a world as this, for you to be negligent of God’s work in such a time as this is just as strange. The devil alone is making noise enough to wake all the Jonahs, if they only want to awake . . . All around us there is tumult and storm, yet some professing Christians are able, like Jonah, to go to sleep in the sides of the ship.” Amidst all the chaos, confusion and craziness in our world, like Jonah, many Christians today are asleep. If we sit week after week under the word of God and we don't act upon it, we don't witness to our neighbors, we don't look to serve God in sacrificial ways, we don't seek to make things right with a brother or sister, our hearts will grow increasingly indifferent and even cold to the things of God. 

The pagans on board the ship with Jonah had enough sense to pray in a time of danger (Jonah 1:6). But Jonah, although he was the only one who knew the true God, wasn't crying out to God in the storm. Something is wrong with this picture. And something is wrong when in light of all the evil in our world, in light of the moral decadence in our nation, and in light of the souls that are perishing and in need of Christ, Christians struggle to pray with fervency and frequency. While all chaos is breaking loose around us, are we moved to prayer and loving action or are we asleep? Are we fired up about opportunities to serve God, or are we running from a God? To wake up from the spiritual slumber that is plaguing the church today we must recognize that we are in such a state and seek the Lord to awaken us (Revelation 3:2).

While the mariners were fighting the storm that was pounding the ship, and praying to their gods, Jonah was down in the bottom of the ship out like a light. Where did that storm come from? God sent that storm to get hold of Jonah, who had hardened his heart to God's voice. The storm wasn't designed to harm Jonah, but to wake Him up from his spiritual slumber. How wonderful is our God, who even in our rebellion and hardness of heart, will interfere and intervene in our lives? Although Jonah was indifferent to God's intervention, God didn't give up on him. 

Many of us are familiar with the rest of the story. But the rest of Jonah's story didn't have to be; Jonah didn't have to end up in the belly of a great fish. The fish, which swallowed up Jonah, was God's mercy running interference in Jonah's life. It was in the darkness, coldness, and dreadfulness of the belly of that great fish that Jonah cried out to his God and was heard. The great fish became God's vehicle to get Jonah back on course to fulfilling God's redemptive purposes for his life. Jonah in the hellish belly of that great fish is also a picture of the substitutionary death that Jesus suffered for our sins to bring us to God (Matthew 12:40; 1 Peter 3:18). 

Although there was still work to do in Jonah's heart, by the grace of God, he was back on mission, and best of all, he was back in communion with His merciful Father. Jonah’s conscience had become indifferent by his disobedience. Therefore, he was asleep when he should have been awake and alarmed. Could this be the case in our lives? Have we hardened our hearts to the voice of God and become indifferent to the ways and work of God? Are we harboring sin, or resentfulness? Willful disobedience will give birth to woeful indifference. I appeal to you by the mercies of God, by all that Christ has done in running interference, "saving you by his grace, and in making you his servant, give not up your soul to slumber, but awake, awake, put on strength, and arouse yourself, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to prayer and to the service of your God." (Spurgeon) May our woeful indifference give way to God’s wonderful and merciful interference and set us back on course to fulfilling His purpose for our lives to the glory of Christ. 

Blessings,
Pastor Marco