In response, God told Elijah: “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.” (1 Kings 19:11). So Elijah went to stand on Mount Horeb. This mountain (usually identified as Mount Sinai) was a tremendously significant place for the remaining events of 1 Kings 19 to unfold. It was the place where Moses and the people of Israel received the Ten Commandments. These were given in a dramatic revelation accompanied by “thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast … Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the LORD descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, the whole mountain trembled violently, and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder.” (Exodus 19:16 and 19:18-19).
The revelation from God in the time of Moses included earthquake (“the whole mountain trembled violently”), wind (“the smoke billowed”) and fire (“the LORD descended … in fire”), which no doubt coloured Elijah’s expectations about what he would experience as he stood on the mountain. Indeed Elijah did experience each of these things, but God was not in any of them. Only later, presumably after Elijah had returned to his cave, did he experience his own mighty revelation. It came in “a gentle whisper” (1 Kings 19:12) or, as other translations put it, “a still, small voice” (KJV) or “a sound of sheer silence” (NRSV). Perhaps the last of those translations most accurately conveys what happened, because at all events it does not seem as though anything distinctly audible or completely intelligible was said.
It is worth reflecting on where Elijah was at this point. He prayed to God to die and got the exact opposite. He cried out to God in despair and fear but was given no direct reply. Instead he was told to stand on a mountain to see the Lord pass by, yet experienced nothing but emptiness. He did as God said but heard only the sound of sheer silence. This mighty prophet, whose prayers God had so often answered in dramatic fashion, must have felt abandoned and literally godforsaken, as though he were praying into a void. Nevertheless, Elijah remained a man of steadfast faith. When he felt the first faint footfalls of God’s presence “he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.” (1 Kings 19:13). That is just what we need to do at difficult points in our lives: to stand at the mouth of the cave, listening and waiting on God. We need calm and we need quiet to appreciate fully who God is, how is he is working and what he wants to say to us. Especially when surrounded by all the frenetic activity of modern life, we must create space to: “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).
God spoke. The interchange between him and Elijah was poignant and almost comic, because God gave him another chance to get the right answer and for the second time Elijah misunderstood. Again God asked: “What are you doing here, Elijah” (1 Kings 19:13) but Elijah had no greater insight than before and merely repeated his previous response (1 Kings 19:14). What Elijah wanted and expected was a God of vengeance, justice and retribution, a God of undisguised power, a God to smite the evildoer and scatter his foes. Instead he got a God of gentleness, love and compassion, the God of the still, small voice. This is the one who says: “Not by strength nor by power but by my Spirit” (Zechariah 4:6), who encourages us to “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matthew 11:29). Quite simply, Elijah misunderstood how the Almighty was moving at this point. In his own mind he had emphasised one aspect of God at the expense of another. There is a time for earthquake, wind and fire – indeed, they were present at other points in Elijah’s ministry[135] – but this was not it.
Prayer and action.
When God next spoke, he said: “Go back the way you came” (1 Kings 19:15). These words are just as important for us to hear. When we have taken a wrong track, the only thing to do is to turn round and get back to where we were last going the right way. Or, to put it another way: when we are in a hole, we should stop digging. So often we blunder on, making things worse and worse. To his credit, Elijah did as he was told. His ministry was not yet over. The Lord’s work continued. God used the prophet to ensure the succession to a new generation of religious and political leaders. Hence Elijah was told to “anoint Hazael king over Aram. Also, anoint Jehu ... king over Israel and anoint Elisha ... to succeed you as prophet.” (1 Kings 19:15-16). Furthermore, Elijah recovered his courage to declare God’s righteousness again by confronting Ahab over his theft of Naboth’s vineyard and murder of Naboth and his sons: 1 Kings 21.
In response to prayer, Elijah took action: strong, determined, vigorous and courageous action. The kinds of prayers he prayed were important, too, because the prophet was never afraid to pray for inconvenient things. He prayed for three years of drought, with the result that his own source of water dried up and he did not know how he would eat.[136] He prayed for fire from heaven, knowing that it would make him a marked man in the eyes of Ahab and Jezebel.[137] He was always ready to put himself in the line of attack and to be an instrument for God to use. We need to do the same. This does not have to mean that we undertake life-threatening or impossible missions, but we should be prepared to become the answers to our own prayers. So, instead of praying “God, comfort that heartbroken family”, we might pray “God, use me to bring comfort to that family”. Instead of praying “Lord, bring my neighbour to faith”, we might pray “Lord, use me to help lead my neighbour to you.”
Conclusion.
The lessons from Elijah’s experience boil down to this: we need to stick it out in times of discouragement and despair; we should not be surprised if sometimes we seem to get the opposite of what we ask for; when we are at breaking point, God will be there if we seek him; we have to accept that God does not act according to our expectations; we must go back to basics and reflect on whether we are in the place where God wants us to be, and whether we are acting at his prompting or following the devices and desires of our own hearts; we need to create space to “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10); when we are in a hole, we should stop digging; and we should challenge each other to pray inconvenient prayers, offering ourselves to be the means of our prayers’ fulfilment.
Nobody claims this is easy. Elijah did not find it easy at one crisis point in his life, but it can be done. If we are serious about making a difference in the life of our country and in the world, it must be done. We need to “[pull our] cloak over [our] face and [go] out and [stand] at the mouth of the cave.” (1 Kings 19:13). Above all, as a nation we must “go back the way [we] came” (1 Kings 19:15), leave off going down the wrong road and hasten back to where we were last on track. Then will we be able to pick up the threads again and do as the Lord wishes.
61. Turning aside
Jonah 1.
Key word: flight.
In the early 1960s Mary Whitehouse founded the National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association to lobby against what she saw as the increasingly dubious moral content of radio and television programmes. In 1965 she said this: “The enemies of the West saw that Britain was the kingpin of western civilisation: she had proved herself unbeatable on the field of battle because of her faith and her character. If Britain was to be destroyed, those things must be undercut.”
For her courage in speaking out, Mary Whitehouse was constantly derided, mocked and belittled. The media treated her as a national laughing stock and whipping boy. Yet she was right. She was right about the role played by this country in western civilisation. She was right about the sustained attack on the values that had made the country amongst the greatest of all nations. She was right about the moral and social corruption that lay around the corner.
Many times Britain has been instrumental in saving Europe from dictatorship and oppression: Louis XIV, Napoleon Bonaparte, Kaiser Wilhelm II and Adolf Hitler might all have achieved greater and more durable dominion but for this nation’s opposition. It was of the utmost importance, not only to these islands but to the world, that our forefathers stood firm during these trials and did not
flee from the task in hand.
Summons.
The prophet Jonah was also required to stand firm in the face of difficulty. He ministered during the period 800-750 BC and was called by God to a task of international importance. Although he was an Israelite, God told him: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.” (Jonah 1:2). Nineveh was one of the largest cities in the world at this time. It was capital of Assyria, the nation which a mere thirty years or so later (in 722-721 BC) was responsible for the destruction of the northern Israelite kingdom of Israel. This conquest brought in its wake killing, enslavement and mass deportation.
The summons that the Lord issued to Jonah was unexpected, unwelcome and extraordinary in every degree. It required a prophet of Israel to preach to a Gentile nation, with the prospect that the nation concerned might hear the word of God, repent and be saved. Nor did the people to whom Jonah was told to preach seem in any way worthy of divine favour: Assyria was a byword for wickedness and cruelty, where captives were routinely skinned alive and had hands or feet cut off. Moreover, even in Jonah’s day the Assyrian Empire was a direct threat to the Israelite kingdoms of Israel and Judah.
It is thus scarce surprising that Jonah did not relish the job and ducked the responsibility: “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 1:3). The location of Tarshish is not completely certain, but it may have been the Phoenician trading post at Tartessus in south-west Spain – at the opposite end of the Mediterranean from Israel and Judah. At all events, the picture is of a man going as far as he can physically travel within the then known world.
Although he was called to be a prophet, at this point Jonah clearly had an uncertain grasp of exactly who God is and how he works. The Lord is constrained neither by time nor space, as the earlier writings of King David clearly recognised: “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,’ even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.” (Psalm 139:7-12).
Jonah thought he was doing one thing (fleeing God), but the Lord was doing another (teaching Jonah and preparing him for his eventual journey to Nineveh). God’s control over events and his ability to turn even the most unpromising of circumstances to good account are clearly demonstrated. This echoes Joseph’s experience at the hands of his brothers: “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” (Genesis 50:20). In just the same way, Jonah saved many lives by preaching repentance to the people of Nineveh.
Disobedience.
Ironically, this life-saving mission began with lives being threatened: “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.” (Jonah 1:4-5). For the second time in the story, Jonah is spiritually inactive (asleep this time instead of running away) when he should be alert to what is going on.
Whilst the prophet slept, even a pagan could see what needed to be done: “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 1:6). In our own nation, presently sleepwalking to disaster, these words should ring out like a clarion call. We, too, need to awake, to “get up and call on [the LORD]” (Jonah 1:6).
When identified by the casting of lots as author of the misfortune, Jonah replied to the sailors’ questions about who he was and where he came from by saying: “I am a Hebrew and I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land.” (Jonah 1:9). The statement is orthodox, but that very orthodoxy shows how far Jonah had yet to travel in spiritual terms. For, although he mouthed the correct formula, he denied its truth through his failure to obey God. The same indictment can be laid against us.
That said, Jonah recognised that his disobedience had consequences, just as ours does: “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.” (Jonah 1:12). The sailors at first tried to save themselves by their own efforts, but when this was unavailing “they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm. At this the men greatly feared the LORD, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows to him.” (Jonah 1:15). Even the pagan seamen gained a glimmer of spiritual insight through what happened to the recalcitrant prophet.
Reliability.
When Jonah should by rights have been a dead man, God stepped in: “But the LORD provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights.” (Jonah 1:17). Some consider this improbable and hence treat the story, or at least this part of it, as allegory. However, Jesus clearly took a different view, using Jonah’s experiences as an analogy for his own death and resurrection: see Matthew 12:39-41. As so often with challenging parts of Scripture, difficulty begins to recede and new possibilities emerge on investigation and reflection. Extraordinary as it may at first seem, this story is about a real person and real events:
• Jonah is not a character invented just for this tale. He appears elsewhere in Scripture. The military success of King Jeroboam II of Israel against Aramea was foretold “in accordance with the word of the LORD, the God of Israel, spoken through his servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath Hepher.” (2 Kings 14:25).
• The most likely candidate for the “great fish” described in Jonah 1:17 is either a sperm whale or a Great White shark. Both are found in the Mediterranean. At the time of the events recorded in the book of Jonah there was even a Phoenician whaling industry based on Joppa (Jaffa).
• There are several recorded instances of men being swallowed by sperm whales and Great White sharks. In 1863 an American called Peleg Nye fell from a boat whilst trying to harpoon a whale and was taken into the creature’s mouth as it dived. He survived. Within two hours the animal that had swallowed him died, its body floated to the surface and his crewmates recovered it. Inside the carcass was the man who was known until his death at the age of 79 as “the Jonah of Cape Cod.”[138]
• In the third century BC Berosus, a Babylonian priest and historian with access to earlier Babylonian sources, wrote of a mythical creature called Oannes which emerged from the sea to bring divine wisdom to men. Since Berosus lived during the Hellenistic period, he wrote in Greek. Oannes is one of two ways used in the Old Testament to render the name Jonah in Greek.
• In Phoenicia the fish-god (Dagon) was a favourite object of worship. The centre of worship for this god was Nineveh. Indeed, in Assyrian mythology Semiramis, daughter of a fish-goddess and the god of wisdom, was said to have been the wife of Ninus, the founder of Nineveh.[139]
• Nineveh herself was eventually destroyed by the Babylonians under Nabipolassar in 612 BC. The city was obliterated so completely that some denied its very existence until the remains were excavated by Austen Henry Layard from 1845-47. The ruins lay under two mounds (or tells) called Kuyunjik and Nabi Yunus. The latter means ‘the prophet Jonah’ in Arabic.
These facts are not conclusive. They are, however, highly suggestive that Jonah really lived and that his memory was preserved in association with both the sea and with Nineveh. They show that it is perfectly possible for a man to be swallowed by a whale or other large sea creature and survive. The subsequently disproved assertion that there was no such city
as Nineveh (or at any rate that a conurbation as large as that described in the Bible[140] could not have existed at the time in question) should chasten the sceptic.
What we see in truth is the remarkable sureness and foresight of God’s provision. He contrived for his prophet to be “vomited ... onto dry land” (Jonah 2:10)[141] by a large sea creature in an area where fish-gods were especially venerated. We may infer that the impact of this extraordinary apparition was increased by Jonah’s own appearance, since his hair and skin would presumably have been bleached white by the gastric juices of the great fish. Not surprisingly, when he eventually went to Nineveh and preached “they [the inhabitants of the city] turned from their evil ways” (Jonah 3:10).
God is reliable and his Word is reliable. Like Jonah, we are by rights dead men. We should pray that the Lord will nevertheless step into our lives and the life of our nation.
Conclusion.
The creation of a multi-racial, multi-faith Britain has led to colossal confusion on the part of officialdom, and hence on the part of people as a whole. We have rightly shown no tolerance towards discrimination on racial or ethnic grounds: to treat someone as being of lesser worth by reason of their race or country of origin is odious in the extreme, and is directly contrary to biblical teaching. The Bible affirms that we are all descendants of Adam and Eve, and that there is no distinction between “Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.” (Colossians 3:11).
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