Jonah 2:8 - Self, Idols and Demons

8 "...Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their true loyalty.

Jonah never bowed to a vain idol – except that of his own will – except that of despising the Ninevites – except that of his own thoughts. I don’t think of Jonah referring here to the sailors, and them praying each to his own god aboard the foundering ship. Didn’t these men hear of the One True God and fear Him? Didn’t they make vows to Him? Is it supposed that, when the peril had passed, the sailors went right back to their old ways? We aren’t told. We only have the examples of human nature so vividly portrayed to us in the history of the Israelite nation. And we know that within 40 years of this book Assyria itself overthrew Israel, whose God had saved a prior generation of their people.

We have the universal testimony of the Word of Truth that the true loyalty of every person belongs to God because all things are from Him and through Him and to Him. As creator He has written upon our hearts His immutable and holy Law, to which our consciences bear testimony..."Thou shalt... and thou shalt not..." only confirm to us what we already know inside. But we all give our attention to empty idols, behind all of which are the demons of hell, ruled over by the prince of this world, Satan.

The pure truth is that the true loyalty of all men everywhere belongs to God. And the pure truth is also that there is none that seeks after Him, none that does good and that all are together gone astray. As Christians, whenever we do our will in place of God’s we are paying regard to an empty idol, and forsaking our true loyalty. The lost do it. The saved do it. The difference between them is only the grace of God displayed in the perseverance of saving faith at work in the sons of obedience. The story of Jonah is proof of this.