# 17 – The Prayer for Mercy
Jonah 1:14 – “Therefore
they cried out to the Lord and said, “We pray, O Lord,
please do not let us perish for this man’s life, and do not charge us with
innocent blood; for You, O Lord, have done as it pleased You.”
“Therefore they cried out to the Lord…”
In our last devotion we
saw how despite Jonah suggesting to the sailors that they throw him into the
sea so that the sea would become calm for them, they struggled to row to shore
and were unable to, as the sea became more tempestuous. We must admire their
concern for Jonah in wanting to save his life and continuing to risk all their
lives in the process.
Now it seems like they
have no other option but to take Jonah’s advice to throw him into the sea. But
before they do that they do something that seems quite strange to us who read
the story, and must have been to Jonah as well. They decided to pray to the God
of Jonah. We must remember that these men were not Jews and so did not worship
the God of the Jews, they had their own so-called gods that they worshipped.
But here they are clearly praying to the Lord, which is the God of the Jews.
When we ponder this fact
of them praying to the Lord, it’s evident that they had come to believe in the
Lord and there are two obvious reasons for this happening. The first being that they seemed to know that the tempest was caused by God and was no ordinary
tempest. The second factor that pointed them to the Lord was when they
discovered that Jonah was fleeing from the Lord and so the Lord had sent the
tempest on the sea. This must have been a terrifying revelation to them about
who God is. If God could do something so terrible to get at one man, He must be
an awesome and yet personal God.
Unconsciously, Jonah had
been instrumental in leading a few men to the knowledge of God, and that
without doing any preaching. Strangely, he was supposed to be fleeing from
exactly this – preaching, and here, without preaching, he is seeing people come
to know the Lord. Is that not amazing to see how the Lord can reveal Himself to
people if He chooses to?
When we look at the ways
the Lord is working in the world today, it’s amazing to see how many people
from non-Christian backgrounds are testifying to how the Lord is revealing Himself
to them in visions and dreams, without anyone ever talking to them about Jesus.
It’s clear that if we The Church fail to do what we were called and chosen to
do – to make disciples of all nations, the Lord can do it on His own, but the
sobering reality is that we will be held accountable for not fulfilling our
purpose for living.
“…and said, “We pray, O Lord, please do not let us perish
for this man’s life…”
When they prayed, they asked two things of the Lord - let’s look at the
first thing they asked of the Lord. They asked the Lord to not let them perish
on account of Jonah’s life. They thought (as would any of us have), that Jonah
would die if he were thrown into the raging waters because even the best of swimmers
could never survive such raging waters. So they asked the Lord to not let them
perish when they threw Jonah into the sea. Despite the fact that they believed
what Jonah told them - that if they threw him into the sea, the sea would
become calm for them, they were now gripped with another fear – would God
avenge the life of Jonah by taking their lives? Suddenly their lives seem more
important to them than Jonah’s life.
It seems obvious that they possess a strong sense of justice. They know
that if they take a life, they would have to pay with life, and hence that
prayer to the Lord for mercy. From their plea to God for mercy and spare their
lives, it’s also evident that they seem to have an understanding that the Lord
is merciful. How they arrived at that understanding of the Lord we do not know
but that seems to be evident from their prayer.
The world hears us talk a lot about the love of God, but do they hear us
talk about God’s justice and mercy? We need to be careful that we are giving
the world the right understanding of God. And the best possible way we can
communicate the attributes of God is if we demonstrate them in our own lives.
Do we demonstrate justice in our everyday lives? Do we have a strong sense of
right and wrong or are we vague about demarcating between the two, so as to be
accommodative? Do we demonstrate divine love in all of our relationships or is
our love no different from that of the world – conditional, biased, with
strings attached? Do we show mercy to those who wrong us or do we wait for the
first possible chance to get back at them and take revenge? Many times, we are
the greatest message we give the world about God.
“and do not charge us with innocent blood…”
The second thing they ask of the Lord is that He doesn’t charge them
with killing an innocent man. They realise that there’s no reason why they
should take Jonah’s life, except the reason that Jonah himself gave them – that
the sea would become calm for them if they did this. As unreasonable and
heartless as it sounds, they’ve decided to do just that and are pleading to God
for mercy on them before going ahead with it.
Here again, we see their strong sense of justice – a man should not die
for no reason. They recognise Jonah as an innocent man. In fact, in their eyes,
there’s nothing that Jonah is guilty of. The only thing he seems to be guilty
of is something that he himself confesses to them – fleeing from God. How one
man’s disobedience to God can cause a storm on the sea is something that they
would never have heard of in their lives before. But apart from this confession
by Jonah, he was an innocent man and was certainly not deserving of death.
This reminds me of another person who was absolutely innocent and not
deserving of death except that He claimed to be who He really was – the Son of
God. Jesus was not guilty of any sin and Pilate and Herod knew that too; in
fact, that’s the reason Pilate washed his hands and said, “I am innocent of the blood of this just person.” (Matthew 27:24). Pilate recognised
Jesus as a just person and not deserving of death but he could not prevail
against the crowd and so washed his hands claiming that he was innocent of
taking Jesus’ life.
“…for You, O Lord, have done as it
pleased You.”
After making these two requests to the Lord, they then acknowledge the
fact that God was behind what they were about to do. God’s messenger had given
them this idea to throw him into the sea, and they were merely carrying it
out. Isn’t that an amazing interpretation of the situation? They realise that
God is behind this whole situation they are in and they are merely instruments
in the hands of God to accomplish what He intended for Jonah. As far as they
are concerned they think that it would be the end of Jonah’s life for being
rebellious against God.
As we ponder this portion of the story of Jonah and as we make
comparisons with The Church-at-large, we need to ask ourselves a serious
question. If God has sent this global pandemic on the world on account of us
The Church, because we have failed to fulfill our purpose for existence as His
messengers – to take the Gospel to the world and make disciples of all nations,
is it possible that we will be plunged into great tribulation? Will God permit
the world to persecute us, and will the Lord use this to get our attention and
to get us back on track? If God could do that to Jonah, there’s no reason why
He can’t do the same to us The Church as well. After all, there’s a whole world
of people whose eternity is at stake, and we The Church to a large extent are
taking it rather easy and are busy going about our own lives and businesses,
and neglecting the purposes for which we were saved in the first place.
Jesus said in Matthew 24:9-10
- “Then they will deliver you up to
tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s
sake. And then many will be offended,
will betray one another, and will hate one another.” It’s clear from
Jesus’s words that He’s referring to The Church going through a time of
tribulation. Notice the word, ‘you,’
is used three times in those verses and the words, ‘one another,’ is used twice. Both ‘you’ and ‘one another’
refer to believers. Jesus says that believers will be killed, will be hated
by all nations for His name’s sake, many will be offended, many will be
betrayed by fellow believers, many believers will be hated by other believers. Let’s
do all we can while we can before the time comes when we can’t do as much as
we’re doing now to make the Gospel known to the world around.
Let’s take stock of our lives, seek the Lord,
repent and get back to God and get about being and doing all that we were
called to, before it’s too late, because if we let these moments of God’s
patience pass us by, chances are we will live to see the days Jesus talked
about.
May God
bless you. Have a good day or night.
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