Jonah tried to run away from God. Now, God gives him exactly what he wants, but Jonah is not very excited about it. Join Dave as he retells the very fishy story of Jonah chapter 2.

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G’day! Dave Whittingham here. Welcome to episode 7 of Stories of a Faithful God for Kids. If you’re liking the show so far then please give it a rating or review on whatever app you’re listening on, and don’t forget to share it with friends.

Last week I asked a few questions about whether you’d do certain silly things. There’s a survey about them on the website faithfulgod.net, that’s faithfulgod.net… I’ll leave it open for another week or two. You can go on and fill it in.

I thought I’d read out a few responses. We’ve got one from Harry. G’day Harry. Harry’s 8 years old. Timothy’s also 8. Hi Timothy. And then we also have Samuel, who’s 11.

The first question was, would you pull the whiskers of a hungry lion, Both Harry and Samuel said “of course, who wouldn’t.” Let me tell you guys, I wouldn’t. Timothy was a bit more cautious. He said maybe, if you pay me a million bucks.

The second question was, Would you walk up to your teacher, stick your tongue out and say you’re not doing any work for them ever again?

Samuel said, I did it yesterday, what’s the Big deal. Harry’s reply was, “If we were friends and they knew it was a joke.” As a former teacher though, I have to say my favourite answer was from Timothy: How dare you even suggest that! Teachers are the greatest workers on the planet!

And finally, would you jump on to a great white shark and pull its teeth out. Harry and Samuel were very much on the same page here. They both said that they wear a necklace of shark teeth from all the sharks they’ve done this to. Timothy, on the other hand said, I had a nightmare about that and you're hurting my soul by reminding me of it. Sorry about that.

Thanks for jumping on to faithfulgod.net and filling out the form guys.

Hey, have you ever really wanted to do something… and then you get to do it… and its terrible. You wonder why you ever thought it was a good idea.

Like, you see a roller coaster with a name like The Terrible Drop of Doom and you think, “that’s so cool!! And you beg to go on it and they finally let you have a go, and you go really slowly up this first bit and you’re still thinking this is so cool… and then it drops… and your eyeballs fly into the back of your head and your tongue sticks to the roof of your mouth and your stomach feels like it didn’t come with you when you dropped… and you get off at the end in tears and with a desperate need to change your pants.

Or you see some older kids jumping off a cliff into some water and you think… that’ll be so much fun. And you get to the top and look down… and your entire body freezes up… and you feel really wobbly even though you’re not moving… and you get down on your hands and knees and you start crawling away… and you’re not going to stop until you reach the flattest, lowest country on the planet.

There are ideas that we can think are really great… but they turn out to be really silly.

Jonah had an idea. He thought it was a good idea to get away from God. And in a strange kind of way… God gives him what he wants. But it’s terrible. Will there be any hope for Jonah? Let’s find out in the next episode, of Stories of a Faithful God for Kids.

MUSIC

In the last episode we heard God tell his prophet Jonah to go to Nineveh. Jonah decided instead to run away from God. We still don’t know why. That’s coming in chapter 4. We’re looking at chapter 2 today.

Jonah got on a boat, but God showed his huge power over the wind and the sea, He sent a huge wind storm and the boat almost sank. In the end the sailors had to throw Jonah overboard into the sea. And God calmed the sea immediately. You might remember that the sailors immediately started worshipping God.

Jonah though… his situation is getting worse and worse. Because we read about another example of God’s power at the end of last week. In Jonah, chapter 1 verse 17 we’re told:

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

Can you imagine? Being stuck out in the sea is bad enough. But then these huge fish lips come up all around him and swallow him. He’s all alone. Its dark… its squishy… and the fish is diving deeper and deeper into the waters.

Ooooagh!

What would you do in that situation? Well I don’t know how long it took him, but finally Jonah figured out exactly the right thing to do. He spoke to the only person who could hear him. The only person who could possibly help. Chapter 2 verse 1 says:

While Jonah was in the stomach of the fish, he prayed to the Lord his God.

Can you think of anything better than that? Sometimes you might feel worried or like nothing’s going to work. But you know someone who’s powerful enough to do anything. So pray.

Jonah prays… and then we’re told this big song he sings. It doesn’t seem to be the prayer inside the fish… I’m pretty sure it’s the song he sings when he comes out of the fish… but he’s describing what’s happened to him.

He starts off by praising God in a big way. Basically saying… God… you heard my prayer… you answered… you saved me. This is what he says from verse 2:

“I was in danger.

So I called to the Lord,

and he answered me.

I was about to die.

So I cried to you,

and you heard my voice.

Just stop and think about how amazing that is. Has anyone ever been so rude to you that you just don’t want to speak to them anymore? Or have you ever been so rude to someone that they don’t want to speak to you?

Well think about how rude Jonah’s been to God. Instead of treating him like the king of the universe… he’s treated him like dirt. When God spoke to Jonah, its almost like Jonah stuck his fingers in his ears and said “lalalalalalala I’m not listening to you.” That’s an awful way to treat the God who made us. When Jonah called to God from the fish, God would be perfectly fine to just… ignore him. He could do to Jonah exactly what Jonah had done to him.

And yet…

And yet… God answered him. How amazingly kind is God?

Jonah describes the way he was being punished by God. It sounds really terrifying. Listen to it in verse 3. Jonah says to God:

You threw me into the sea.

I went down, down into the deep sea.

The water was all around me.

Your powerful waves flowed over me.

Have you ever been in the surf and been dumped by a wave? You get churned and rolled around and you’re completely out of control. And when you come up for air its such a relief! But Jonah’s not coming up for air. He’s being taken down… down… down…

And then he says this line… and remember I asked at the start about how you can think something’s a really good idea… but then you realise it’s a horrible idea? That’s what Jonah’s talking about here. This is what he says in verse 4. He says:

‘I was driven out of your presence.

That doesn’t mean he was inside one of God’s giant Christmas presents and then he got in a car and drove out.

No… being in someone’s presence means you’re around them. You’re in the room with them. You’re with them.

And now Jonah’s been forced out of God’s presence. Forced away from God.

What do you think? Does he sound happy about that? Like that’s a really good thing? Not at all. He’s terrified.

But remember what he tried to do when God sent him on a mission? He tried to… leave God’s presence. He tried to run away from God.

Now of course that’s impossible… God’s everywhere.

Its also really really dumb. Because everything good comes from God. Happiness. Love. Kindness. Life.

God’s giving Jonah what he wanted… and now Jonah’s realised that what he wanted… was a really bad idea.

But again… Jonah has this really happy note in his song. He knows that things don’t end badly. Not because he’s really strong and powerful and good… but because God’s strong and powerful and good. So Jonah sings to God:

But I hope to see your Holy Temple again.’

The temple in the Old Testament was where you go to meet with God. He knows that God’s invited him to come back to him. How amazingly kind.

He goes back to describing his punishment. He says in verse 5:

5 The waters of the sea closed over me.

I was about to die.

The deep sea was all around me.

Seaweed wrapped around my head.

6 I went down to where the mountains of the sea start to rise.

I thought I was locked in this prison forever.

Forever is a long time. And you know what? If you say… I don’t want God, I don’t need God. Eventually God’ll give you what you ask for when Jesus comes. He’ll lock you away from him… forever. But it won’t be fun… or good. All goodness comes from God. It’ll be terrible.

You know what’s so great though? You know what’s totally awesome? God hates having to do that. He hates it. What he’d much rather do is save people. Just think. He didn’t have to wait for Jonah to pray for him. He could’ve had Jonah killed in a second. When he was running down to the sea… or when he was on the boat… or when he’s swallowed by the fish. But instead he does this weird thing where he keeps Jonah alive in the fish… and that gives Jonah time. Time to ask God to forgive him and take him back. And that’s what God loves to do.

And so Jonah sings about how God’s done this amazing thing. He sings in verse 6:

But you saved me from death,

Lord my God.

“When my life had almost gone,

I remembered the Lord.

Lord, I prayed to you.

And you heard my prayers in your Holy Temple.

God didn’t have to save him… but he loves saving people. God is soooooooo kind. And so Jonah sings this little bit about how silly it is to worship idola. An idol is a statue or carving that people treat like a god. But… a statue can’t do anything. The sailors in our story last week… they started praying to their idols… and nothing happened. But God is so powerful and good and strong and kind. So Jonah sings:

“People who worship useless idols

give up their loyalty to you.

9 Lord, I will praise and thank you

while I give sacrifices to you.

I will make promises to you.

And I will do what I promise.

Salvation comes from the Lord!”

Do you know… its easy to look at Jonah and think… he’s so silly. He deserved to be punished by God. Sure it was kind for God to save him but… he didn’t deserve it.

But you know what? The Bible tells us that… we’ve all sinned. We’ve all treated God like we don’t have to listen to him. We’ve all done things our own way instead of God’s way… just… like… Jonah. We all deserve to be punished by God… just… like… Jonah. Sent away from God… just… like… Jonah.

But God loves to save. And this is how much he loves to save people. He sent his own son into the world, who he loves more than anyone or anything. Jesus Christ. Jesus is the only one who’s never sinned. He didn’t deserve to be punished. But… Jesus… God the son… gave himself to take the punishment we deserve. At the first Easter, as he died on the cross… He wasn’t dying because he deserved it. He was dying because we deserve it… and he took it on himself. Like if you owed someone a hundred billion dollars and Jesus stepped in and said, don’t worry. I’ll pay it for you. Except what we owed was much bigger… and much worse than that.

Why would he do it? Because God loves to save. Because God is so kind. And if… just like Jonah… you pray and say to God… I don’t want to ignore you anymore… please forgive me for the way I treated you… please let me come back to you… that makes God happier than you can imagine. He always says yes. Because he loves to save. Don’t miss out on the goodness and kindness of God.

Meanwhile… Jonah… he’s got a job to do. Not inside the fish though. So verse 10 says:

Then the Lord spoke to the fish. And the fish spit Jonah out of its stomach onto the dry land.

So gross. But… it means Jonah’s saved. And if you get saved by God, you start trying to do what God wants. Which means… Jonah’s going to Nineveh. The biggest… baddest… meanest city of the time. But that’s a story… for next time.

See you then.