The book of Jonah is not only an historical account of a reluctant prophet, his eventual delivering of God’s message to the wicked city of Ninevah, and their repentance, but it also serves as an object lesson for us. There are lessons beyond the obvious historical events of a people living wickedly and receiving a message of impending doom, an end of their city, and how they repented being applied to God’s end-time call to the wicked world to repent because the end of our sinful earth is coming.

Jesus applied the object lesson of Jonah being in the belly of the fish for three days to Himself being in the grave for three days; He observed that while the Ninevites repented at Jonah’s witness, the Jews did not repent when He, one greater than Jonah, testified to them (Matthew 12:39–41).

But let’s consider other potential object lessons from Jonah.

The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.” But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the LORD (Jonah 1:1–3 NIV84).

• The name “Jonah” means dove and is considered a term of endearment. God called Jonah (the dove who is dear to Him) to be His witness to Nineveh.
  • Today, God calls His people, who are dear to Him and are filled with the Holy Spirit, symbolized by a dove, to be His end-time witnesses, to take the gospel message to the world, calling the world to repent because the end, the destruction of our world, is coming.
• Jonah was reluctant to fulfill this calling and, therefore, fled.
  • Has the church been reluctant to stand up and call out the wickedness and abuses of power by the godless? Throughout history, has the church been reluctant to take the true gospel message and gone in a different direction instead? Could Jonah’s fleeing fit the church? Consider the next point.

• Jonah headed toward Tarshish by way of Joppa, the city from which the cedars used for Solomon’s temple were obtained. The wood that went into the temple was cut from its roots in the earth, shaped for the building, covered in gold, and stood upright in the temple.
  • This symbolizes the people of God, humans who are made out of the dirt of the earth, being cut away from our earthly sources of sustenance and the ties to the powers of this world so they no longer bring forth the natural fruits of sinfulness but have their characters shaped by the Holy Spirit, who circumcises their hearts and fills them with the Spirit/life of Christ, symbolized by the cutting and shaping of the cedar and covering it in gold—the righteousness of Christ, which enables them to stand upright and live upright lives.
• But when Jonah goes to Joppa, he doesn’t mobilize the people of God to help in giving this message of repentance; instead, he flees toward Tarshish, which was a city in Spain known for its wealth through its strong trade relationship with Tyre, and the Bible uses the king of Tyre to represent Lucifer (my commentary in red):

• The word of the LORD came to me: “Son of man, take up a lament concerning the king of Tyre and say to him: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: ‘You were the model of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you. … Your settings and mountings were made of gold; on the day you were created they were prepared. [Lucifer is symbolized by the king of Tyre; he was sinless, perfect, and he was created with his mind and character founded in gold, built in the righteousness and perfection of Christ’s character and methods of truth, love, and liberty.] You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you. Through your widespread trade you were filled with violence, and you So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God, and I expelled you, O guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones. Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. [Through beauty, wealth, and pride, he lied to himself, valuing the wealth, the position, the power, the adoration, more than the source, the Creator of all. And Lucifer trades in lies, deception, manipulation, selfishness, and the exploitation of others.] So I threw you to the earth; I made a spectacle of you before kings. By your many sins and dishonest trade you have desecrated your sanctuaries. [That is, the sanctuary of his mind and heart—his mind was corrupted with lies and his heart was corrupted with pride and selfishness, which further corrupted him with resentment, envy, bitterness, and hate.] So I made a fire come out from you, and it consumed you, and I reduced you to ashes on the ground in the sight of all who were watching. All the nations who knew you are appalled at you; you have come to a horrible end and will be no more’” [This part of the prophecy is yet future to be fulfilled at the end of the 1000 years] (Ezekiel 28:11–19 NIV84, emphasis mine).

• The king of Tyre is symbolic of Satan, and Jonah, instead of initially leading the people of God to support God’s message, fled toward an affluent and powerful city that gained its wealth by trading with Tyre. Symbolically, the people entrusted with the message of God, the gospel, instead of initially taking the true gospel to the world, aligned with and gained power from partnering with Rome, the seat of Satan’s power and Christianity Romanized, and the church entered the Dark Ages; through that alliance, the spirit temple, the sanctuary of God, became corrupted with the imperial dictator view of God.
• And just as Jonah was in darkness for three days, the church was in darkness for 1,260 years. And the people who were so deceived became like Satan, proud of themselves and think they are rich, like the people of Tyre and like Lucifer, proud of their wealth, power, and beauty. But Jesus has a message for these people in Revelation 3 and 17:

• “To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:14–20 NIV84, emphasis mine).

• “One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, ‘Come, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute, who sits on many waters. With her the kings of the earth committed adultery and the inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries’” (Revelation 17:1, 2 NIV84, emphasis mine).

• The church ran from the mission given by God and committed spiritual adultery with the kings of the earth, becoming infected with imperialism and legalism, and it has come to believe they are rich and have acquired wealth, when in reality it is wretched (broken, exhausted, worn out, and without spiritual power), pitiful, poor (of spiritual virtue, truth, love, and Christlikeness), blind (without the Holy Spirit and ability to discern truth from error, reality from fantasy), and naked (exposed as sin-sick, necrotic, and terminal).

Continuing with Jonah:

• “Then the LORD sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. The captain went to him and said, ‘How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us, and we will not perish’” (Jonah 1:4–6 NIV84, emphasis mine).

• The seas represent the populations, the peoples of the earth (Revelation 17:15).
• The ship represents the church, boarded in Joppa, the place where the cedars for the temple, which represent the people of God, were obtained.
• The winds represent the influences blowing upon the people, and thus the church. These influences include the Holy Spirit, who stirs things up when the church is sailing in a direction contrary to the Lord’s leading. This is also represented by the fires of tribulation that burn out the dross or impurities in our characters.
  
  This is a form of loving discipline to cause dissatisfaction with the way things are, the direction we are going, to motivate the sailors (the people in the church) to reevaluate what they are doing and where they are going, and to begin prioritizing rightly.
  
  The sailors do so and throw their cargo into the sea, which represents people cutting out of their lives the things of this world that we have valued and cherished, the treasures of this world that we have been carrying in our hearts that interfere with God’s calling, purposes, and mission, for us individually (interfere with our own salvation and maturing in Christ) and interfere with the overall gospel commission for the church.
  
  The storm caused them to devalue those treasures and throw them overboard, which represents the trials that the Lord either brings or allows, causing us to get the worthless treasures of this world out of our lives, the cutting from our hearts affections for the things of this world, which is also symbolized by circumcision of the heart by the Holy Spirit (Jeremiah 4:4; Romans 2:29).

• The sailors were terrified, which represents the distress of church members when trials and tribulations come. They are terrified because they have been filling their lives with the treasures of this world, and as tribulations come, people must make a choice: jettison the treasures of this world, or cling to them and go down with the ship.
  • Consider Abraham, who was called to leave his home and go to a strange land—we are called to do the same.
  • Consider Lot’s wife, who couldn’t let go of the treasures of this world and, therefore, died with her treasures.
  • Consider the rich young ruler, who couldn’t let go of earthly treasure in order to follow Jesus.
• The captain of the ship represents Jesus.

• “For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings” (Hebrews 2:10 NKJV).

  • The captain of the ship goes to Jonah, who is asleep during the storm, with a message: “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god!” (Jonah 1:6).
    
    Jonah represents the people of God, His end-time servants—the spokespersons, the ones with the end-time message for the world (Revelation 7). And the captain, Jesus, has the same message for us that Jonah heard: “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your God!”
    
    This is Jesus’ message to the church today, which He taught in the parable of the ten virgins, five wise and five foolish, who also represent the church; all ten were asleep until the call that the bridegroom was coming woke them up (Matthew 25).
    
    Some might argue that Jesus would not captain a ship that was leading Jonah away from Nineveh, but if we are intent on running away from Jesus’ call, what will Jesus do? Jesus will seek to lead us into the exact experiences we need, the very trials and tribulations that we would not have experienced had we followed His call, but which will be most therapeutic to get us to stop running and surrender self to Him, to get us back on track, just like He did with Jonah.

And this is where we are today. Right now, Jesus is calling for His people to wake up! The chaotic winds of this sinful world are blowing, ever-increasing turmoil, waves of dysfunction, disorder, and fear, and each one of us must decide: What is our treasure? What are we clinging to? Are we going to jettison everything in our lives that interferes with God’s calling, purpose, and plan for our lives—and attach our hearts and minds fully to our heavenly Captain and follow Him? As Paul wrote,

Love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. And do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light (Romans 13:8–12 NIV84).

Wake up, my friends! It is time for the final message of mercy to go to the world, to cut away from our hearts anything in this world that interferes with God’s calling and purposes and take the true message of God’s kingdom of love and His eternal design laws of truth, love, and liberty to the world.