The Pulpit Commentary — Jonah — Section 54

no longer prophet of God, or servant, or companion. His punishment l'ises on him in the likeness of his sin. He has fled from God, and now he complains of the separation, "I am ca~t out of thy sight," i.e. banished from covenant territory, the l'lphere cf God's protection and care. So with Peter. He says, " I know not the Man," and no is virtually and formally a stranger from that moment. Only after throe times confess• ing the Lord whom he ha.d three times denied is he spiritually reinstated, restored to forfeited office, and authorized to feed the sheep. This is a terrible aspect of spiritual renegadism. God accepts it as an accomplished fact. You break away, and are let go. You forsake God, and he casts you off. It is a fearful power this you have of putting a whole infinity between yourself and God, between your sin and his righteousuess, between your waut and his gifts, between your desolate heart and his everlasting consolations. Yet it is a power proper to a moral being, a power it is of the in~ignia of your manhood to have, and yet an utter renunciation of it to use. \, How THE REMINISCENCE OF A FORMER FELLOWSHIP HELPS TO DRA w DACK TO Gon. Jonah could look back to a gracious state and consciousness. He ha.d walked in the light of God's countenance. He knew the joy of his presence and the life in his favour. As part of the thought," I am cast out from before thine eyes," these things would come up to mind. He must remember their quality in bewailing their loss. And they were a fragrant memory, the very cream and flower of the goodne:ss he had tasted. Would they not bulk large among the influences drawing the wanderer back? "As new-born babes desire the sincere milk of the Word, ... if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious." Yes! there is the secret. If a man has come and tasted, he will be moved to come back and feast. The final apostasy from God of a true believer would be against the nature of things. "His seed remaineth in him." The life that has ha.d God in it once can never be without him again. The void would be intolerable. .A.nd so, like the child that for a time has left its mother's knee, the backslider has survivals of precious memories that bring him back to God. VL How TBE TEMPLE IS THE CENTRE OF THE RETURNING PENITENT's REGARDS. (Ver. 4.) The temple was the national meeting-place with God, the spot which "he had chosen to place his Name there." "There was the mercy-seat, the ark of the covenant, and the Divine presence; there the tribes of Israel met to worship the Lord, and there the God of Israel came to meet and bless his people. No wonder Jonah's eyes should be fixed on this house, which was the glory of all lands, the sun in the ,, orld of mercy, and the centre of true worship" (Jones, in loc,). In the spiritual sphere worship underlies work. When Jonah ceased to labour, he had already ceased to pray. As in every case of suspended animation, it was failure of the heart's action that had paralyzed his hand. .A.nd now the converse process begins, and first of all pulsation is re-established. The heart resumes its normal action and beats for God. 'Io approach him in worship, and resume fellowship with him in his holy ordinances, is the .first sacred exercise to which his hope springs. It is so always. The stay-at- home Christian is never a worker for God. No heart for the sanctuary, no hand for the plough. The very breath of the religious life is to say, "My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear before God?" 1. Wherever you are, God ha6 placed you. Jonah says, "Thou hast cast me into the deep ... thy billows and thy waves passed over me." Privilege and calamity are both God's. He sends them, and bounds them, and is revealed in them. Judgments viewed as acci- dents have no disciplinary value and no moral aspect. The rod is reforming only when we see it in our Father's hand. 2. You cannot be in any plare where it is not jieti11g you should seek God. Jonah cried out of "the belly of hell." What pit, then, is so deep, what fall so low, what evil case so desperate, that in it and from it we may not call on God? "Is any afflicted, let him pray;" "Whoaoever shall call on the Name of the Lord shall be saved." 3. God ill again" my God" in the thought of the return- ing penitent. (Ver. 1.) With the c!Jild's reawakened love comes back the revived filial instinct. God is "my Father" to the prodigal from the moment he comes to himself. Blessed be his gracious Name, that such things can be I If you have renounced the life for self, you may call God your own this hour. The thought is a new backbone tc, failb. God "waits to be gracious," He is with you the moment you wish it, and for yuu the moment you sul.nnit, and yours in present possession the mome11t tbt _liOul's appropriating hand is stretched forth, au, n. 1-10.] THE BOOK OF JON.AH. 51