In the last message of this series, Children of God Do Not Sleep 3, I was discussing about the trouble of Jonah for running away from God.  Instead of going to Nineveh to declare the Word of God to them, he boarded the ship at Joppa with the aim of going to hide himself in Tarshish.  Remember that the Lord sent a boisterous wind to the sea and a great tempest almost broke the ship into pieces.  While other people in the ship were in great pandemonium, Jonah was fast asleep at the lower deck of the ship. That must be very strange; for someone to be sleeping at such a time of great upheaval would not be ordinary!  At that time of turbulence, people were throwing questions at him.  He was asked seven important questions but let us examine one of them here.

The First Question

“Tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us” Jonah 1:8 (KJV)

Some questions are usually asked, not because answers are really needed, but they are just asked out of curiosity.  This particular question was not one of such.  They really demanded an emphatic answer from Jonah.  They were looking for a way to get out of the trouble before getting out of hands.  If he was the bane of the moment and he knew the solution, he should act immediately.

The question is likewise appropriate to you as a servant of God, not just to supply the answer as a theological or philosophical exercise, but to examine how much it is relevant to your own life and the people around you.  Jonah answered the question that he was the cause of the evil that befell the people.  He confessed, and truly, he was!  The problem on the sea happened because he was running away from God.  It happened because he failed to deliver God’s message to the people of Nineveh.  It happened because he was spiritually asleep!

Servant of God, ask your own self, “Am I not the cause of the problems in the nation today because I did not warn the people?  Am I not the cause of the confusion in the church due to my failure to preach the wholesome sound Word of God?  Have I not contributed to the present pollution in the home, in the church and in the nation at large by compromising the standard of God with the world in its system and ideology?”  Many servants of God have slept!  They have deserted God.  They have lost the vision.  They have left the Word of God behind them for the service of tables.  They have converted the church to a business center, a political hall, or a literary and debate society.  Would God His servants are visited!

Get this; we have the true Word to spread, we have the true life to live, and we have the true Savior to present.  Failing in one is failing in all.