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The Prophet and The Giant Fish

Jonah 1-4

Once upon the time, in Israel, there was a prophet of God. He went place to place, preached God's Words to everyone, or warned the sinners to ask them to repent. This prophet was named Jonah. Jonah had served God for a while, then one day God asked him to go to the great city of Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, and preach God's Words and told the people lived inside this city to know that they must repent their sins; otherwise, they would accept God's punishment.

Jonah had been a good man in serving God; he would go anywhere God wanted him to go. But this time, when God asked him to go the Nineveh to preach, he didn't want to go at all. The reason was Jonah was an Israelite and Assyrians were the enemies of Israelites. Many times, Assyria fought his country, killed his people. They deserved God's punishment because they were very wicked. But now God asked him to come to their city, to preach God's Words, and ask them to repent for their sins in order to have God's forgiveness. Jonah didn't want to help those wicked Assyrians. He didn't want the people in Nineveh to escape God's punishment. Therefore, he disobeyed God. When God commanded, Jonah said yes, but then he found way to hide in order to not execute God's command.

Can you guess what Jonah had done? Instead of going to Nineveh, he went to another place. He tried to go very fast, probably he walked and ran at the same time; he tried to go very far away to not see and obey God. When Jonah ran to the seashore as an end of his way, he couldn't run anymore. At that time, he saw a ship was about to depart and go to Tarshish. He was very happy, he paid the fare and went down the ship. He probably thought that God would not able to find him, and he would not preach at the place he didn't want to. However, Jonah forgot that God is everywhere and He knows everything. No one can run away from God or hide things from Him. Whoever thinks that there are things they do or there are places they come but God will not know, those are foolish. At that time, Jonah thought like that; he thought if he went down to the ship and ran far away then thing would be done, everything would be set. He didn't know that God was watching him. In fact, because of loving Jonah, God was following him to teach him a lesson about obeying.

After boarding, too tired so Jonah lied down and slept. A moment after the ship departed the port, suddenly there was a fierce wind and waves; one by one wave hit the ship as the ship threatened to break up into pieces. Everyone on the ship, from the ship owner to the sailors and the passengers, were panic-stricken. Each person cried out to his own gods to ask for a safety through the storm. Because the wind and waves became stronger, they started to throw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. At the mean time, the ship-owner examined everywhere on the ship. Going down the deck, seeing Jonah sleeping and not praying, he got angry and woke Jonah up and yelled: "You, the ship is sinking like that, but you are sleeping and not worry about anything? Wake up and call on your God, who knows, maybe He will take notice of us and accepts our prayers and we will not perish." Do you think Jonah dares to call on God at that time?

People on the ship prayed, noisily cried mercy, but the storm did not end; instead, it got stronger. Therefore, everyone talked to each other: "There must be someone on this ship who has done something that offended to gods and made gods angry to do the storm." Thought so, they cast lots to find out who was responsible, and the lot fell on Jonah.

Now, people called and asked Jonah. They said: "Tell us, what is the reason to cause a big storm for us?" Then they continued: "What do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?" Jonah knew that he couldn't lie nor hidden his background anymore, so he had to tell the truth. He answered, "I am a Hebrew. I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land." This terrified them and they asked, "What have you done to make God angry with you like that?" Jonah honestly confessed, he said: "This is my fault, I am the servant to the Lord, but God gave me a job to do that I don't want to do. I tried to hide. For that reason, God created the big storm." People on the ship believed what Jonah said, so they asked: "What should we do now to make the sea calm down?" Jonah sadly said: "Pick me up and throw me into the sea, and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you."

Those people couldn't throw Jonah into the sea. They did their best to row back to land. But they could not for the sea grew even wilder than before. Then they cried to the Lord, "O Lord, please do not let us die for taking this man's life. Do not hold us accountable because You wanted this to happen." Then they couldn't do anything differently, so they had to carry Jonah and threw him overboard. Right after throwing Jonah into the sea, the raging sea grew calm; it seemed like the rage was gone. At this time, the men greatly feared the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to worship Him.

About Jonah, after he was thrown out the ship, he fell into the water and the wave sunk him down. Perhaps, Jonah thought: "Oh, my life is ended now!" However, God loves him anyway. God provided a great fish to swallow Jonah. Lying inside the fish's stomach, Jonah worried even more, he was very hopeless. Can you imagine a person was swallowed alive by a fish, sitting in the dirty and dark fish's stomach, so he didn't know anyone to call for help? Jonah didn't expect that God had sent this giant fish come to save him; if he wasn't swallowed by the fish, he surely died in the high sea.

After awhile, Jonah was calm down. Thinking over what had happened, he himself knew that he sinned with God too much; therefore, he repented and asked God to forgive him. God saw Jonah truly repented his sin, so God accepted his request. God made the fish to throw Jonah out to the seashore; Jonah woke up after that and felt there wasn't any wound at all.

At that moment, Jonah just realized that God truly loved him. He sinned against God, didn't obey God's command, tried to find every way to hide God; but God didn't punish him; God only warned to remind him to repent and come back to serve Him. After God saved him, Jonah changed. One more times, God asked him to go to Nineveh to preach God's Words; this time he obeyed God and didn't try to hide anymore.

Have you ever sinned about disobedience? Sometimes we disobey God; sometimes we disobey our parents. Disobedience is a sin that's easy to do. Adults as well as children, mostly they don't obey God's teaching. If there was time you didn't obey your parents, say sorry to them. If you disobey God, often do what God says you shouldn't do, you then confess your sins to God and ask Him for His forgiveness. God is Love; He will forgive you, and give you other chances to obey Him.

QUESTIONS:

  1. Who was Jonah?
  2. What did God ask him to do?
  3. Did he obey God, why?
  4. What did God do to warn Jonah?
  5. If there was time we didn't obey God, what should we do?

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Written by Minh Nguyen
Translated by Ngo Ngoc Di



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