The Pulpit Commentary — Jonah — Section 70

he must eee put away. The forsworn task be enforces with the etrong arm he muet ~ee done. "God looks upon men when he h&S afflicted them and has delivered them out of their affiiction, to see whether they will mend of that fault particularly for ....-hich they were corrected; and therefore in that thing we are concerned to eee to it that we receh·e not the grace of God in vain" (Matthew Henry). III. THE DISCII'LINED SERVANT IS AN IMPROVED SERVANT. ('{er. 3.) The stem discipline has done its work at last. The rebellious tit is over, and the unruly eervant is pliant to his Master's will. What evils of terror and pain and agony be might have escaped if he had only done this at first! But God bends all things to his purpose, and Jonah's rebellious freak among the rest. His message to Nineveh ,is not only done, but _better done than it could _Possibly have been !'t first. 1. Jonah is better prepared for it than he was. He has smned and been forgiven, has suffered and been delivered has prayed and received an answer. And each experience is of the nature of a qualifi~ cation for the better doing of his work. "Rejoicing in the sweetness of a fresh and full reconciliation; lightened in spirit by tasting in God a mercy larger than he could formerly ha"l'e thought of; cleansed from the darkness that brooded over his soul, and the countless images of terror and of evil which rose up before him while be was fleeing from his God in rebellion, and his God was pursuing him in wrath" (Martin), he would approach bis Master's work as ne"l'er before. Reverence for a God so great and good, and gratitude to a God so merciful and kind, would spring together and work together the new mind and way. Affliction, moreover, bad left its mark on him. Be was subdued and chastened. He knew experimentally his impotence and God's omnipotence. He could speak by book of the terrors of the Lord, and the fatuity of hoping to defy him and escape. And his preaching would have a reality and vividness nbout it attainable only by way of his late experience. Then "he had called upon the Lord in circumstances almost fitted to shut out the possibility of hope." If there be a case on record pre-eminently fitted to confirm the declaration, "Men ought al ways to pmy, aud not to faint," it is his. Would he not resume his post with livelier loyalty and implicit sense of duty, when he could resume it with the blessed protestation, "I love the Lord, because he hath heard the voice of my supplication : because he hath inclined his ear unto me, I will call upon him as long as 1 live "? (Martin). 2. He does it implicitly. (Ver. 3.) "So Jonah ~ and went unto Nineveh." Submission is now as thorough as at first self-will was resolute. The change is excellent, and its occurrence a vindication of the treatment that has brought it about. An infinitely wise and holy will is God's. The ideal of a man's life is to believe in that will, and will it, and find his joy in doing it. From irreconcilable variance to absolute harmony with that ideal is Jonah's change, a change that means his spiritual readjustment. It will mean no less to us all. "The felicity of heaven greatly consists in perfect sub- mission in all things to the government of Jehovah the Saviour. The misery of this world is the want of that temper of mind; the very end and design of grace is to restore ns to it; e.r:d so far as we are under the influence of the grace of life, we are brought back to it; the more grace the more submission; and grace will not cease its operation in the saints till every thought is brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ" (Jones). A man following absolutely the lines of the infinitely perfect will; a man movina thereon with fullest faith and sympathy and zest; a man starting therein as a child st~ts for the haven of a mother's arms; a man incapable of other thought than following them to the highest good, and till his life's end ;-that is a man in the highest sense, and to the highest spiritual effect. 3. He goes doaely by his instruction,. (Ver. 3.) ".According to the word of the Lord." This terse record is instinct with suggestiveness. He went because he was told, and where he was told, and when be was told, and as he wa.s told, and to do the thing he was told, and in the way he was told. His conduct now was exemplary as before it was intolerable. And his case is typical. His instructions were the preacher's instructions for ell lands and times, "Preach the preaching that I bid thee." It "!l'as this Moses _pr~hed (Dent. xvi~. 18), and Jeremiah (Jer. L 7), and Paul (1 Cor. XL 23), and Christ himself (John vu. 16; xii. 50). It is this we must preach. What else is worth preaching, or can_ or ~re be preached ? .As to the substance of his messaae, the preacher h1111 no d1ecretionary power. He is not to preach science, nor philosophy, nor sentiment, nor his own 11otions, nor human knowledge. He is rlghtly to divide the Word of life. That is all. 1J11. m. 1-10.] TlIE IlOOK OF JONAII. 67