The prophets of God in the Old Testament were heroes, right? So what would you think if one of them tried to run away from God? Join Dave as he retells the very strange story of the worst prophet in the whole Bible. This is part 1 of 4.

You can fill in the survey that I talk about in the episode here.

To ask a question, make a comment, give encouragement or invite Dave to speak, you can make contact here.

To ask a question, make a comment, give encouragement or invite Dave to speak, you can make contact here.

If you're a teen or adult, be sure to check out Dave's other podcast, Stories of a Faithful God, to take a deeper dive into these same passages.

The Holy Bible, International Children’s Bible® Copyright© 1986, 1988, 1999, 2015 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission.

G’day! And welcome back to Stories of a Faithful God for Kids. Dave Whittingham here. I hope you enjoyed the first series about what God did with Elijah. Don’t forget to rate the show so other people can know its worth listening to.

Hey… what’s the silliest thing you’ve ever done? Or what’s the silliest thing you’ve ever seen someone else do. Have a think about it, or… if there’s someone near you… tell them right now. I’ll give you some thinking and talking music.

I’ve done some pretty silly things before. But imagine all the silly things you could do. Like… would you do this? Would you walk up to your teacher, stick your tongue out and say you’re not doing any work for them ever again?

Ok ok. What about this? Would you walk up to a hungry lion and pull on its whiskers?

Well would you jump on to a great white shark and try to pull its teeth out?

I tell you what. If you have a look at the show notes in your app, you’ll see a link to where you can tell me your answers. I’d love to hear what you say! I might even say your answers in the next episode.

But what about this one? If you were told to do something by the most powerful… strong… important king in the universe… the one who made everything… owns everything… controls everything… would you just say “Naaaah”, and then try and run away from him?

That’d be really silly right? But that’s exactly what the person in today’s story, Jonah, does. And as we hear it we’ll probably laugh at him… think he’s really silly… think, “Oh, I’d never do that”…

But be careful… because the more you laugh at Jonah… the more you might start to think… “hang on a second. I’m not that different after all.”

Get ready for our next episode of Stories of a Faithful God for Kids.

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Picture it! Ancient Israel. It’s a time of kings and battles, droughts and rain. A time when God chose prophets to take his word to the world. Mighty prophets like Elijah… who obeyed God’s word and challenged the 450 prophets of Baal. Prophets like Moses, who spoke God’s word to the king of Egypt and defied the gods of Egypt. And now… God’s chosen a new prophet to take his word. Jonah chapter 1 verse 1 says:

The Lord spoke his word to Jonah son of Amittai: 2 “Get up, go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it. I see the evil things they do.”

So Jonah got up, and ran away from God as fast as he coul… (Scratching record sound)

Wait, what?

Hang on a second. That’s not how its meant to go, is it? When God sends a prophet, they go.

But not this time. This time, the prophet runs.

Now, I just want to clear something up. A lot of people say Jonah runs away because he’s scared. And you can kind of understand that. God’s sending Jonah to a city called Nineveh. It isn’t in Israel. Its in a huge empire called Assyria. And the Assyrians loved being really nasty to people. In fact, they boasted about it. They wanted everyone to know that… if you fought against them… they were gonna do nasty things to you… like cut bits off. Not the bits that you want cut off… like your nose hairs. No… they’d cut off the whole nose.

And as Assyria grew more and more powerful… they got closer and closer to Israel. Scary stuff.

But Jonah’s not running away because he’s scared. If that was what he was doing, the Bible would tell us that he was running away from Nineveh. But he isn’t. He’s running away from God. If you want to know why… you’ll have to wait for chapter 4.

But for now, let’s see how he goes at trying to run away from God.

Jonah runs down to a city on the coast. He buys a ticket for a ship going to a place called Tarshish. That was so far away that the Israelites thought, “no-one there’s even heard about God.” That’s exactly what Jonah wants. And so he goes down into the ship… trying… to get away from the LORD God.

As if that were possible.

The ship sets sail… and as they get out into the open water… God throws something at Jonah. It isn’t a ball. It isn’t a sponge. No… God throws something that you and I can’t throw. He throws a huge wind. Remember… this isn’t a big modern boat with engines and things. Its an ancient wooden boat with oars and maybe a sail. And the wind gets stronger and stronger and the waves get bigger and bigger and the ship is in danger of tearing apart!

And the sailors are terrified! They’re freaking out thinking, “We’re all gonna die!”

They know they need help. And so they pray. Not to the LORD though. They aren’t Israelites… they don’t know the one true God. They all have different gods. Just like we saw in the last series where there were people who worshipped Baal and Asherah. And just like those people, they don’t realise that their gods aren’t real. All they’re trying to do, though, is save the ship and save their lives.

So verse 5 tells us:

The sailors were afraid. Each man cried to his own god. The men began throwing the cargo (that’s like the bags and stuff) into the sea. This would make the ship lighter so it would not sink.

They’re all working so hard to help save the ship.

There’s one man on board though who does know the true and living God. The prophet Jonah. Is he running around lending a hand, throwing things overboard? Is he praying to his God, knowing that he’s the only God who can help?

Ahhhhh… no. Actually… (this is a little embarrassing) he’s gone down to the bottom of the ship… not to get more things to throw overboard… but to have a little sleep. He must’ve been really tired from all the running he’s done.

Just imagine… everyone else is madly running around trying to help save everyone… and Jonah’s doing this – “snoring sounds”. Its actually… pretty selfish. Like all he cares about is himself. Especially when you think that they’re only in this mess because of him AND he’s the only one who can get them out of it.

Well… when the captain finds him, just imagine how angry he is. You can kind of imagine his face going red and steam coming out his ears. In verse 6 he says:

“Why are you sleeping? Get up! Pray to your god! Maybe your god will pay attention to us. Maybe he will save us!”

Well we don’t know what Jonah does… but the sailors… they’re still working hard. They figure… this has to be someone’s fault. And they do this thing called casting lots… it s bit like throwing dice, and whoever gets the 6 wins. Well… whoever the lot falls on, they figure that a god’s telling them who’s to blame.

And… because God’s in charge of everything… the lot falls on Jonah.

Imagine them all turning their eyes to look at him. This selfish guy who was sleeping instead of helping.

And then they fire questions at him… a bit like your parents or teacher might if you’re in trouble. You know when you put flour all over your bedroom and an adult comes in and yells… “What’s this? What’ve you done? How did this happen? Who’s gonna clean it up.”

What’s that? You haven’t put flour all over your room? Ummm…. Me either.

Anyway, the sailors fire questions at Jonah.

“Tell us what you have done. Why has this terrible thing happened to us? What is your job? Where do you come from? What is your country? Who are your people?”

Now… Jonah responds with an answer that’s ALMOST… almost completely true. There’s one bit of it that isn’t true. See if you can work it out.

In verse 9 Jonah says:

“I am a Hebrew. I fear the Lord, the God of heaven. He is the God who made the sea and the land.”

Hmmm. Let’s think about that. He says he’s a Hebrew… that’s like another word for Israelite, so that’s true.

He says his God’s the God of heaven… they would’ve understood that that means he’s in charge of everything, even their gods. So that’s true.

He says he’s the God who made the sea and the land, that’s true. Basically… he made everything.

So which bit isn’t true?

What about when he says… “I fear the LORD, the God of Heaven.”

Really Jonah? Do you really fear God? If you really feared God you wouldn’t try and run away from him. He might do something like… oh, I don’t know… throw a storm at you?!

Jonah should fear God… but he doesn’t. Instead he’s treating God like someone he can just ignore.

You know who doesn’t do that, though. The sailors. They’re like, “Are you insane! You say this God made everything everywhere… and you’re trying to run away from him?!? That’s ridiculous. Where on earth can you go that he didn’t make?” They fear God… in the right way. They know how silly it is to try and run away from God.

So they want to fix up this problem with God. And they ask Jonah in verse 11:

“What should we do to you to make the sea calm down?”

And Jonah says to them:

“Pick me up, and throw me into the sea. Then it will calm down. I know it is my fault that this great storm has come on you.”

Now… that might sound really brave. But remember… God gave Jonah a job to do. He was meant to be going to Nineveh. Jonah should’ve said, “take me back to land so I can go to Nineveh.” But instead… he’s basically telling them to kill him. That way he won’t have to do what God says. He still doesn’t fear God.

Again… the sailors… who may have never even heard of God before today… do better at this than Jonah. They know God’s going to be really angry if they kill someone who’s innocent. They respect him properly. So instead, they try to row back to land. But God makes the wind blow harder and harder. So eventually they figure… ok… this really is what God wants. And so… for the first time in their life… they pray to the one true God. They say:

“Lord, please don’t let us die because of taking this man’s life. Please don’t think we are guilty of killing an innocent man. Lord, you have caused all this to happen. You wanted it this way.”

And they pick Jonah up… they toss him into the sea… and immediately… immediately… the sea becomes calm.

Far out. Imagine the look on the sailors faces. One minute they’re battling for their lives… the next… calmness… Stillness. Everything’s as quiet… as quiet can be. And they know that they really are dealing with the true and living God.

Verse 16 says:

Then they began to fear the Lord very much. They offered a sacrifice to the Lord. They also made promises to him.

They know that he’s the God who needs to be served.

Now, I said at the beginning that it would be easy to laugh at Jonah. But just stop and think for a bit. Jonah knew heaps about God. He knew heaps more than the sailors, who had no idea about him. But did Jonah use what he knew well?

Not at all. In fact the sailors… who started our passage by praying to pretend gods… by the end they understood things and treated God far better than Jonah.

Do you think you know a lot about God? Maybe you’ve been to church lots… or read the Bible lots… or been taught lots by people around you. And knowing stuff about God is so important. That’s why I started this podcast. But all that stuff you know… isn’t worth anything… if you don’t treat God properly.

If you go to church and answer all the questions correctly… and then walk outside and speak rudely to your sister or mum.

Or if you pray to God every night before bed… but then lie about whether you’ve brushed your teeth.

Or you read the Bible every morning… and then go to school and tease someone just because they’re a bit different.

You can’t just know stuff like Jonah… you’ve got to use what you know. God’s in charge of the whole universe. He made you, he loves everyone. So respect him and treat him and other people like he wants you to.

Of course… that’s really hard. We need to ask God for help, so make sure you pray about it after listening to this episode. But also, there are going to be plenty of times where we mess it up like Jonah did. And we’ll need… exactly what Jonah needs.

Jonah’s in a bad way at this part of the story. He’s sinking into the water, and just like God’s in charge of the wind, he’s also in charge of fish. Verse 17 says:

And the Lord caused a very big fish to swallow Jonah. Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights.

What’s going to happen to him. What does he need? What do we need? Well that’s a story… for next time.

Don’t forget to click on the link in the show notes to do the survey. You might even get a mention in the next episode!

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