“So the shipmaster came to him, and said unto him, What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not,” Jonah 1:6.

Jonah has been the subject of God’s intervention following his disobedience and running away.First it was the wind which God sent out against the ship that he sailed on and the storm that the wind caused.Now he is being challenged by the shipmaster or captain.In this verse we have first of all the prophet censured for sleeping by the captain and then we have the prophet commanded to prayer.

I. THE PROPHET CENSURED FOR SLEEPING

1. Backsliding makes the believer less wise than the heathen. Here is the one sent to rebuke wicked Nineveh rebuked by a heathen man for his behaviour.

2. Backsliding will cause a believer to act in a most unnatural manner. “What meanest thou . . .” 

3. Backsliding will blind the mind to the help of God. Captain was amazed that Jonah was not praying. God and prayer are removed from the processes of the mind’s deliberation when backsliding begins.

II. THE PROPHET COMMANDED TO PRAY

1. Natural man has religious instincts. He believed that:— 

(A) There is a God. 

(B) He could be reached by prayer. 

(C) That men are subject to perishing. (It is what happens to any under God’s judgment, Exodus 10:7). 

(D) Mercy may be had from God.

2. However, such instincts are in need of guidance and enlightenment. Knowing that a God exists is not enough. We need to know His character. That is unknown to natural man. Paintings tell us there was an artist but not what the artist was like. Likewise, a building testifies of an architect but not his character. In the Bible we may find a revelation of God. 

3. It is only by the Bible that we learn how we may approach God. Instinct teaches man something of his sinfulness and his unworthiness but not how he may be just in God’s eyes. “I know it is so of a truth: but how should man be just with God?” Job 9:2. How may a man feel himself clean and acceptable in God’s eyes? Prayer for this heathen was a hit or miss affair. “  . . . if  so be that God will think upon us” because he felt himself unacceptable to God. “Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh,” Hebrews 10:19-20. The cross is the means of justification. The Bible removes the “if” in praying. 

4. In Christ, God thinks upon the sinner. It was to be included in such thoughts that the thief prayed on the cross. He was asking that the Lord would keep him in His thoughts. “Remember me, O LORD, with the favour that thou bearest unto thy people: O visit me with thy salvation,” Psalms 106:4.

What the captain was seeking was for God to make His face clear and bright toward them.