While his opinion that their ungodly acts deserve judgment is understandable, it's also understandable that the Lord would rather a person repent and be saved than that the person continue living in sin and have to face the judgment. We all have sinned and therefore we all deserve judgment but the Lord would far rather we accept the forgiveness and mercy He's offering to us.
But Jonah is on the run and he has boarded a ship going in the opposite direction from the Assyrian capital of Nineveh. The ship is headed westward, to Tarshish, whereas Nineveh lay to the east. But there is no hiding from God! Jonah could travel to the ends of the earth and the Lord would still have His eyes on him.
King David spoke on this very subject, saying to the Lord, "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) There were times when David regarded the Lord's constant ability to see him as a blessing; the Lord was with him wherever he went when he was on the run from the murderous King Saul. There were times when David was dismayed by the fact that nothing he did or said was hidden from the Lord, but even this was a blessing because being confronted with his sins caused him to repent of them. Jonah is about to be confronted with the fact that he cannot hide from God and that the best thing he can do is obey Him.
Right now, though, Jonah thinks he's made his escape. The boat has sailed away from the port. But a violent storm, sent by the Lord, arises. "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." (Jonah 1:4-5a) These men are experienced sailors, so we know the storm was indeed life threatening by their reaction to it. They pray to their various gods, for these men are not worshipers of the God of Israel, and when their gods don't answer they begin to jettison the cargo in hopes that lightening the load will help them to ride out the storm. They would never dream of parting with the cargo if it were not a life and death situation because if they do not deliver the cargo safely to port they will not get paid.
Where is Jonah while this is taking place? Is he crying out to his God too? No, he is sleeping in a lower chamber. "But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep." (Jonah 1:5b) I believe he probably went to sleep not long before getting on board and that he's in such a "deep sleep" that he's completely unaware of the storm. How is he able to sleep so deeply? It may be that he hasn't slept for days while he wrestled with his conscience and while he tried to decide what to do instead of going to Nineveh. Another reason he's sleeping may be to avoid feelings of guilt or depression; if he's asleep he doesn't have to think about the way he's disobeying the Lord and he doesn't have to be aware of the distance this is creating between him and the Lord. Or another reason might be that his sense of relief was so great when the ship set sail---when he thought he had gotten away with running from God---that exhaustion immediately set in.
The heathen men's gods have not answered their pleas to calm the storm. The captain realizes Jonah is not on deck and that whichever god Jonah serves has not been called upon yet. In desperation he rushes to his bunk and wakes the sleeping man and commands him to begin praying. "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 so that we will not perish.'" (Jonah 1:6)
Jonah goes up on deck with the rest of the men but the Bible doesn't say that he cries out to God. He is living in disobedience to the Lord and it may be that he feels he cannot, in good conscience, ask the Lord for help without also repenting and doing what the Lord has told him to do. I think he is standing on the tossing ship, holding onto something for support, while still harboring a rebellious attitude. The situation with the storm is looking more hopeless by the minute and the sailors begin to suspect that somebody's deity is unhappy with something somebody on board has done. Since no one is speaking up and confessing that he's offended his god, they decide to perform a ritual to reveal the person's identity.
"Then the sailors said to each other, 'Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity.' They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah." (Jonah 1:7) I presume that each of these men called upon his god to cause the lot to fall upon the person who has displeased the god. The God of Israel is the only one who answers. Jonah, of all the men present, is the only one not praying for this outcome. He knows he's the cause of this calamity and in tomorrow's passage we will find him confessing this and telling them that the only way to save themselves from the storm is to cast him out of the boat and into the sea. We will find the men reluctantly doing so, expecting his life to end in the sea. I think Jonah also believes this is the end for him. But the Lord will have mercy on him---and not only on him, but on the people of Nineveh as well.
While we are still living in this fallen world, storms are going to come into our lives. Some of those storms are going to be of our own making. Like Jonah, we mess up and disobey the Lord. We make a wrong choice and find ourselves facing the unpleasant consequences of that choice. But the Lord has been merciful to us too! He has forgiven us when we've repented. He has helped us to clean up many of the messes that we've made. Sometimes the consequences resolve swiftly because we learn the lesson quickly. Other times, for our own good, He has to allow the consequences to linger for a while to make certain the lesson has imprinted on us deeply enough for us to never want to make the same mistake again. And, unfortunately, there are some mistakes that can never be fully undone in this imperfect world because a person we have wronged may want nothing else to do with us or we may have messed up too badly at school to remedy our grades or we may have disobeyed our employer too severely to be allowed to keep our job. But even when these things happen and our fellow man doesn't forgive us, it's not an indication that God hasn't forgiven us and it doesn't mean He doesn't still have good plans for us or that He can't use us for His kingdom work.
Jonah has made a mistake but the Lord still has plans for him. The Lord still intends to use him to lead the soul of the king of Nineveh to salvation and the souls of countless citizens of that heathen city to salvation. If the Lord can still use the rebellious Jonah to accomplish great things for His kingdom, what might He be able to do through you and me?
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