Jonah 1:3 Rebellion Erupts

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 on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the LORD.

The Word of the Lord came to Jonah, but Jonah...

Do you recognize yourself here? This is disobedience. It isn’t simply the sort of disobedience that springs from confused ignorance – it is the full-blown disobedience of knowing what is required by God and simply refusing to do it. It is sin done in the fullness of light. When we sin like this we are like the Pharisees, putting our hands over our ears and screwing our eyes shut; we are like the ostrich burying our head in the sand; like the child who hides behind a chair believing that if you can’t see them, then you don’t know where they are – or if they can’t see you then they are invisible to you.

When we sin, we will sometimes do anything to get out of the light. We will not come into the light so that our evil deeds can be seen. Light shines in the darkness and all the cockroaches in our sinful hearts want to scurry for the baseboards.

Jonah does this. He won’t abide in the light by obeying God, so he looks for a dark place to avoid God. It isn’t logical, but let he who is without sin among us cast the first stone, because sin itself is illogical – though we all still commit it. We often run from God when we sin instead of running to Him. Will we learn the lesson that, if we belong to Him, our running will cost us dear but He will never abandon us to our rebellion? He has set His seal upon all who are His. He says that if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive them. How so? Faithful we can see, but how is He just in doing so? And we find the answer that He is just on account of Christ having paid the price on our behalf. This is why God, instead of tossing Jonah onto the scrap heap of eternity for his willful disobedience, is willing to forbear and train and correct and rebuke him. He loves Jonah with an everlasting love from of old. He has set His seal on Jonah. Jonah is Christ’s and Christ is God’s.

But Jonah isn’t fully aware of all this. He is caught in the moment. His sinful thoughts and feelings are driving him. Is he afraid to preach to Nineveh? Is he repulsed by the idea of preaching to Gentiles? Does he want Niveveh to be overthrown so that the potential threat to his own nation will be removed? We aren’t specifically told here, though we are told later. What we do know is that he disobeys. And in his disobedience he runs to the far ends of the earth. Illogical again because...

If I ascend to heaven, thou art there! If I make my bed in Sheol, thou art there! (Psalm 139:8)

But, as stated before, we are not logical when we sin. We are driven by our flesh. So Jonah runs from the presence of God, though he surely knows it is not possible to do so. And he doesn’t run by halves. Tarshish, though sometimes used in scripture to apply figuratively to ocean going nation cities and peoples, is clearly meant here to refer to a place on the Iberian peninsula in what we now call Spain. This is a port at the far reaches of the then known world - the last stop before the great unknown. The edge of the world.

O can you see yourself here? I can. I can recall times when my twisted and blind and confused and willful and sinfull heart ran from His presence. I’m talking about times as a believer - not as a pagan. Times faced with God’s "Thou Shalt" or His "Thou shalt not" when I just wouldn’t or couldn’t. I didn’t know which, so confused was I by my own sin. As God’s children He deals with us each individually. What was good for me or for Jonah is not necessarily what Omnipotent love knows is good for you. But the principle remains. God will bring to completion in all of His children that good work that He started, unto the day of Jesus Christ {Philippians 1:6}. Watch as he demonstrates the process in Jonah.