This book reads more like a historical narrative, even as an autobiography, than a prophesy. It is the story of God's purpose to send forth His Word to the Ninevites through the lips of Jonah. It is ever God's method of grace to choose a man, teach him the gospel of redemption and commission him to preach that message to sinners upon whom the Lord has purposed to show mercy.
Jonah's story begins with the prophet rebelling against the Lord's command to "Arise, go to Nineveh...and cry against it" (1:2). Like many of us when called upon by the Lord to do His revealed will, Jonah disobeyed the word of the Lord and "went down to Joppa" (1:3). He had no interest in preaching to the Ninevites and would have been happy for the Lord to have destroyed them (3:10; 4:1-2). Be sure you understand that all who rebel against the Lord will do as Jonah, "pay the fare thereof" (1:3). Many of the hardships Jonah had to endure, he brought upon himself. They were the result of his defiance against God. Who among us has not been rebellious against the Lord and have paid a fare for our disobedience? Though we weep over our sinfulness, here is a reason to rejoice: God will not allow His people to forsake Him. Jonah ran from the Lord, but the Lord would not let him go. "If we believe not, yet He abideth faithful" (2 Timothy 2:13). The book centers around five things the Lord providentially prepared for Jonah. [1] A great wind in the sea (1:4). Jonah was a believer (1:9), but his disobedience, as it generally does, brought him into troubled waters. [2] A great fish (1:17). The Lord Jesus said that Jonah in the whale's belly pictured His own death, burial and resurrection (Matthew 12:40). God used the disobedience of His servant to set forth the gospel of redeeming grace. By the substitutionary death of Christ, chosen sinners were reconciled unto God. Jonah's predicament can also be likened unto a sinner' s inability to save himself, and so we read, "Salvation is of the LORD" (2:10). Upon being delivered, Jonah went into Nineveh, declared the word of Jehovah and the people humbled themselves before the Lord (3:5-9), whereupon they were spared (3:10). [3] A gourd (4:6). Jonah was prejudiced against the Ninevites and was not pleased that God spared them. When he sat down to see what would become of Nineveh, the Lord graciously prepared a gourd to shelter him from the heat. God in His mercy sends to His sinful people wonderful comforts every day to strengthen us and remind us of His tender care. [4] A worm to devour the gourd (4:7) and [5] a strong east wind (4:8) to afflict His troubled prophet. He who sends gourds to shelter also sends worms and winds to afflict. No child of God is without sorrow and trouble in this world.
Jonah was a child of God, but he still had a problem with self (who doesn't?). How sad that he was more concerned with his own comfort, in God' s destruction of the gourd, than he was in the salvation of thousands of Ninevites (4:9-11).