Slimy Seaweed
One Year Bible: Dec. 14
Jonah 1:1-4:11
Slimy Seaweed
Have you ever wondered where God is in times of discipline, judgment, and trials?
Has there been a time in your life when you felt so invisible, small, and insignificant that you wondered if God cared or knew your name?
There are many people who consider the book of Jonah “an allegory” or “parable.” That is convenient for their mindset because they can’t grasp that “a great fish” could really swallow a living person and house him in its acidic stomach for “three days and three nights” and then vomit him up on land. (Jonah 1:17)
What color was his skin when he was “expelled” from “fish school”? Did the acids turn him yellow, or was he green from all that seaweed? Enquiring minds want to “SEA”...
Well, then again, maybe we should also toss out some of the other great miracles like Daniel in the Lion’s Den and Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace. To take this a little bit further, how did Peter walk on water exactly?
Sounds a little “fishy,” doesn’t it?
Miracles require faith, don’t they? Isn’t it interesting that people facing life and death pray, “God help me!” They are asking the sovereign God to intervene in their life and death situations while in the next breath doubting God’s very sovereignty! We can’t have it both ways. But then again, neither could Jonah, and he found that out pretty quickly.
So much for human minds! What does the Bible say about this story and God’s judgment?
We find that in 2 Kings 14:25, Jonah is identified as a “real person.” He was a Jewish prophet from Gath Hepher in Zebulun who ministered in the northern kingdom of Israel during the reign of Jeroboam !! (793-753 BC)
We might also take note that Jonah is mentioned by Jesus as a historic person and pointed to as a type of foreshadowing of his Messiahship (representing his death, burial, and resurrection) in Matthew 12: 41 and Luke 11:32. Follow the Three Days and Three Nights…
“Then some of the teachers of the Law and the proud religious law-keepers said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, we would like to have you do something special for us to see.’ He said to them, ‘The sinful people of this day look for something special to see. There will be nothing special to see but the powerful works of the early preacher Jonah. Jonah was three days and three nights in the stomach of a big fish. The Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the grave also. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now something greater than Jonah is here.”
(Mt. 12: 38-41)
So much for this being a “Whopper of a Tale”!! If you think this is “Quite A Ride,” just wait for God’s next act…
Jesus linked the factual truth of his own resurrection directly with Jonah’s three days of being buried deep down in the darkest sea! God raised Jonah from the depths, and He will be raising us from the depths of the sea also by the death, burial, and resurrection of His son, Jesus Christ.
Three Days and Nights. Inside the great fish. Buried in the deepest sea.
THEN. JONAH. PRAYED.
Those are three powerful words… for Jonah and for us as well.
“I cried out to the LORD, and HE answered me. I called to YOU from the land of the DEAD, and the LORD, You HEARD ME!” (Jonah 2:2)
Do you ever feel that your circumstances are insurmountable and that your words are insufficient?
Check this out, “I sank beneath the waves, and the waters closed over me. Seaweed wrapped itself around my head.” (Jonah 2:5)
I don’t think it can get much worse than that. This man is stuck at the bottom of the deepest sea due to his own disobedience and his “running from the Lord.”
What is he wearing? Seaweed. Talk about a visual picture of being “Entangled in sin.”
Jonah simply didn’t want to go and minister to a pagan people that he literally detested and hated. His actions brought peril to an entire ship of people who were not “God-fearing” … until that day when the Gentiles prayed louder than him!
As we continue the next few days to look at the prophet's warnings and teachings about God’s judgment against disobedient people, we can learn a LOT from Jonah.
He was a Hebrew, a prophet, and one who “worshipped the Lord” (Jonah 1:9)
God showed him mercy and rescue. At the very same time, God showed grace to a pagan nation by sending Jonah to proclaim the truth to them, even though Jonah literally refused to go and ran in the opposite direction.
Yes, in the coming days, we will learn much about the true character of a righteous, just, and merciful God. I am so thankful that God gave his judgment a face that we can glimpse upon… that face is the face of Jonah.
Traitor. Runner. Slimy Seaweed. Rescued.
Even in times of discipline and judgment, Jonah reminds us of who God really is…
“I cried out to the LORD, and He answered me. I called to YOU from the land of the dead, and Lord, You heard me!” (Jonah 2:2)
This, my friends, is no “fish tale”... On this truth, you can rest your Slimy Seaweed!
