to turn back in your Bibles to
the book of Jonah, chapter 1. Jonah, chapter 1, as we will,
by the Lord's mercy, be viewing all four chapters over the next
couple of weeks. Jonah, chapter 1. Let me say
as we enter into this message, please resist the temptation
to view this account as merely a fish story. a tale or a myth
or a mere allegory, which is what people do when they don't
understand narrative theology, ladies, redemptive drama, the
way God works, His thoughts not being our thoughts and His ways
not being our ways. When He acts, He demands that
we slow down and ask the question, who did this and why? And how
does it relate to me? That's what God means to do with
these types of events. What Jonah and Noah and Lot's
wife and Adam and Eve have in common that Joshua, Judah, Sarah,
Hagar, Rebecca, and others do not have to their account is
the firsthand testimony of the Lord Jesus himself. See the lord jesus himself spoke
about jonah and there's no greater authority for the existence of
An historical person as we have in the scriptures than god himself
the very testimony of jesus christ Concerning jonah validates his
life and his ministry We know he lived We also know based upon
the highest authority in the universe That jonah really was
swallowed up by a whale we also know based upon the highest authority
in the universe, that Jonah really survived for three days and was
spit up on the shores of Nineveh. We also know that Jonah literally
went to a city called Nineveh, preached the gospel to them,
and the whole nation came to Christ. We know that. We also
know that Jonah went and sat on the top of the hill and hoped
that God wouldn't do it. Because our Lord told us this
in Matthew chapter 12. Jonah was in the whales belly
three days and three nights. So shall the Son of man be in
the heart of the earth That is the highest authority with which
one can be commended And as Jonah preached to the Ninevites, so
this group of Ninevites shall rise up in the judgment against
you That's high authority. Ladies and gentlemen, we don't
have to question whether this was a suspicious tale of Hebrew
people who were just Trying to fill up space as it were the
Book of Jonah It's a very, very, very important book. And why?
Because the whole of Jonah, chapters one through four, is an account
about the redemptive work of God in Christ for sinners, of
whom Jonah serves as a great and unique type in multiple ways,
of which I hope to persuade those of you who are new to our friend
Jonah over the next several weeks. Remember again, all the prophets
of God in the Old Testament pointed to the one great prophet, which
is whom? Jesus Christ. They all pointed
to Christ. They all preached of Christ.
And they had two fundamental objectives in their preaching.
And that was to reveal the sufferings of Christ. We call that in biblical
theology, what the humility doctrine. the glory of Christ that is the
exaltation doctrine either they spoke by verbal expression in
terms of Messiah's person and work or they did it by analogy
or they did it within the context of their own life all of the
prophets pointed to Jesus Christ and this is where we get to exercise
us our senses in the book of Jonah this next couple two or
three weeks So I want to call your attention to the first point
with regards to this man Jonah Let's get introduced to him.
If you don't know Jonah is a mystery prophet a mystery prophet like
several of the mysteries in the scripture where people are mentioned
and there's not a whole lot of detail given concerning them.
And we have to really work through various portions of scripture
to comprehend their existence, to understand their purpose and
their design. Now, when I say a mystery prophet,
I'm not saying that he cannot be known. I'm saying that Jonah's
life was designed very much like Melchizedek. Remember Melchizedek?
Melchizedek's life was designed to be a great, great type of
our High Priest Jesus Christ. And unless you understand that
tandem objective, you won't know who Melchizedek is. Jonah, as
well, stands for us as a great, great, great mystery prophet.
And I want to just introduce him to you. In verse 1, it says,
Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah, And we have described
in verse one, not only the man Jonah, to whom the word came,
which means he was a prophet among all of God's prophet, but
he was the son of one Amittai. Do you see that? So now we have
something more concerning the portfolio and personages of Jonah,
and that is his father. Now, if you were to discover
by study, you would find that this term, Jonah, the son of
Amittai is used twice in the scripture, Back in 2 Kings chapter
14, I believe verse 25, we discover that in the 8th century Jonah
lived, he did his ministry to the 10 northern tribes, and this
was the time of Jeroboam II, Israel was once again in all
sorts of trouble, but God had in his mercy a period of time
in which he was blessing Israel, blessing them. But it was also
in conjunction with the ministry of the prophet. Jonah was one
of the prophets preaching to his own people. And so we have
Jonah, who was the son of Amittai. And in your outline, his father's
name means faithful. or faithful covenant God, meaning
Jonah is the son of the faithful covenant keeping God. Jonah also by interpretation
means dove or pigeon. That's what his name means, dove
or pigeon. And we have learned long ago
that God in his mercy provided in the sacrificial system for
very, very poor people. If they couldn't afford a lamb
or a bullock or gold And we know something about that. They were
expensive in those days, relatively speaking. And a person might
not be able to bring a bull or a goat or bullock to the sacrifice. You know what God did? He condescended
enough to make sure that everybody could worship. He says, if you
can't bring a bullock or an ox or an ass or goat or sheep, bring
a couple of turtle doves. Now, you know, turtle doves don't
cost much. I mean, even today with inflation
rising as it is, you can get a couple of turtle doves for
a few bucks. Turtle doves or pigeons were used in the sacrifices
of the Old Testament for the trespass offering and the sin
offerings as well. And by the way, if a person was
too poor to even purchase turtle doves, you know what God would
say? Just bring me a little meal. little flower from your flower
base. You know what God is teaching? No one is too poor to come to
Christ. Now the term poor, the term dove,
which describes Jonah name, also points to the ministry of Jesus
Christ in the life of Jonah, as we are going to see. The Bible
tells us that though he were rich, he became poor, that through
our poverty, we might become rich in him. Christ humbled himself
and took on the poor man's plight, that he might deliver us from
our transgressions and from our sin. And let me call your attention
to one more thing in point number one. In John chapter 7 verse
45 through 53, you don't have to go there, but there was a
great controversy and argument taking place by the rulers of
Israel against the soldiers that were seeking to take Jesus and
bring him into judgment because they wanted to condemn him for
being, as it were, the son of man. preaching and teaching against
the things they held to and during that event the people were saying
no one spoke like this man before no one has did the miracles that
this man has done is this not the Christ and the rulers said
now listen to this search and see if any prophet comes out
of Galilee They're very confident in themselves that you could
go to the scriptures. And if you looked for a notable
prophet in the regions of Galilee, Zebulon, Nazareth, you wouldn't
find one in the Old Testament. Well, we have searched and looked,
haven't we? And you know what we discovered?
That Jonah was from Galilee. Gath he first determines in Joshua
chapter 19, when Joshua divides the lot unto the people, Jonah
is part of the Galilean group. He is the one prophet from Galilee
that points to the true prophet from Galilee. Who is Jonah then? Jonah is a great type of our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The typology of scripture is
designed for you and I to make sure that we understand that
this book, the Bible, is pointing to God's son. and that God's
Son is the access to God. He's the access and the doorway
to God. He's the grounds of our blessing.
He's our hope, so long as we are looking to Him. So Jonah
here in chapter 1 serves for us as a great signal and type
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we read now over in verse
2, God said to Jonah, arise and go to Nineveh, that great city,
and cry against it, for their wickedness is come up before
me. Now Jonah got a mission, doesn't
he? He got a real serious mission. And ladies, haven't we learned
when God removed Adam and Eve out of the garden, he said, go
east, young man. Remember that? Go east. Because
Babylon, the great archetypal kingdom that would stand over
against God's kingdom, is that city that is great and it's powerful
and it's hostile towards God. Now that's interesting because
Jonah is called to go to Nineveh, which Nineveh was of Babylon.
And God says it's a great city, but God also says its wickedness
has risen up before me. You know what that means? God
notices all nations. is not a nation on this earth
who is not morally and ethically responsible to God. God still
calls nations to account. And he's calling his servant
Jonah to go to Nineveh to preach to them the word of God and let
them know where they stand with God. Oh, that we have preachers
today that could stand up and tell the truth concerning the
state of nations. So Jonah was called to go to
this great nation. And what do we have with this
assignment on the part of Jonah? Point number two in your outline,
Jonah's mission reveals to us the ultimate aim of the gospel. Right off the bat, the assignment
that Jonah is given is to leave his own country and to go to
a pagan country. to go to Gentile territory. In
fact, go to people, ladies and gentlemen, that basically hate
Jonah and his own people. Go to the heathen. Tell the heathen
that they have to reckon with the truth and the living God.
What an assignment. What a mission. But isn't that what God has called
us to do in the gospel? The Bible tells us in Ephesians
chapter 2 verse 14, there would be a time coming, and it is now,
when those of us who were afar off were brought nigh to God
through the blood of Jesus Christ. That middle wall of partition
that separated Jew and Gentile has been abolished by the death
of Jesus Christ. So that now the twain become
one in Christ and we both have access to the father by him Your
God is doing in the gospel age destroying every national and
ethnic distinction between him and his elect and The message
of the gospel is universal and the message of the gospel is
non-discriminatory but the message of the gospel was hard for Jonah
to preach as it was hard for the apostles to preach because
do you know how difficult it is first and foremost to preach
to people who hate you? But it becomes even more difficult
for you to preach to people you hate. So stay with me for a moment
because we're getting ready to learn some things about this.
It's very difficult to preach the gospel to people that you
hate because the gospel demands that you and I take on the same
disposition of the God who's bringing the gospel. See, so
Jonah's struggling. He's struggling with the universal
nature of God's love offered in the person of Christ to sinners
across the board. But didn't Peter also struggle?
Sitting on a housetop, hungry, fell asleep. God gave him a vision
because he was hungry. This tells you that sometimes
your dreams are a consequence of your physical and psychological
disposition. So the boy's hungry, he wants
to eat, but he's on the rooftop, he's asleep, and God gives him
a vision dropping down all kinds of food in the sheet. And he
says, Peter, rise up, Peter, slay and eat. And just like a
good Hebrew boy would say, no, no, Lord, I have never touched
anything clean or uncommon. And the Lord says, don't call
that which I have called clean, unclean. Don't call that which
I have called common, uncommon. Don't you designate whether or
not this thing is right for you or not. Peter, rise up and eat.
What was God doing to Peter? He was breaking down that prejudice,
that barrier. And he used Peter, as he had
told Peter, to be the key to break into Gentile country. And so in Acts chapter 10, he
goes to Cornelius' house. The first thing he says when
he steps into Cornelius' house is this, hey, you know I'm struggling
here, because Jews, we don't even have any dealings with you
Gentiles, let alone coming into your house. For us to come into
your house is unkosher for us. And what am I getting at? In
Jonah's account, God is calling Jonah, to operate in a counterintuitive
fashion because God has an agenda that's greater than Jonah. You
and I can't tell God who we're going to preach to and who we
want saved and who we want to come to the kingdom and who God's
elect are. You and I can't do that. And
I'll tell you something else, ladies and gentlemen, if God
has to, he will swallow you up and change your identity. and
persuade you that his mission is more important than your feelings.
See, we're going to learn this next week. By the time Jonah
was spit up on the shores of Nineveh, he didn't look like
a Jew or a Gentile. He looked like a dead man. Now,
hear me now. To preach the gospel faithfully
to men and women, you have to preach as a dead man preaching
to dead men about the living God. That's the only way you
can preach to sinners as a dead man who is not stuck on his own
lineage, his own preferment, his own identity. He's dead to
the world, dead to himself, alive to God and speaking to other
men and women who are dead and need the same living God. Jonah
will get there. But our account is teaching us something about
the magnificent mission of God to Gentiles of which you and
I are beneficiaries. You know, the reason you and
I believe the gospel today is because somebody brought the
gospel to us. I'm thankful for it, aren't you? Very thankful
that I can hear the gospel and rest in Christ today and to know
that I am secure in him. But listen, Jonah didn't take
this mission easily. The text tells us in verse three,
he rose up to flee unto Tarshish. Do you see that? He actually
went in the opposite direction of which he was supposed to go
He was supposed to go northeast and he went southwest He went
in the opposite direction He went in the opposite direction
and the text tells us in order to flee from the presence of
the lord Now for a moment jonah went insane You have to know
that because he's a true prophet of God, and as a true prophet
of God, he knows that the true and the living God is omnipresent. He's the God of the land and
the sea, of heaven and earth, and of the universe. And as David
said in the Psalms, there's nowhere that we can go from your presence.
If I were to go to hell, you would be there. If I were to
ascend to the heights of heaven, lo, thou art already there. So
how can one of God's servants take on the framework and mentality
that you can run from God? Stop. You and I do it. Can I
tell the truth today? We do it. And all you have to
do to, as it were, run from God is to fail to remember who God
is in your scheme of things. This brother jumps in a boat
hands down the opposite direction against God, which brings us
to our third point. It takes the sovereign power
of God to overcome our prejudices. That's a good proposition. You
know, one of the things I've learned over the years as a human
being, and I'm sensitive to it, but it's a burdensome thing,
is that when we pull back the layers of our humanness and we
examine where we really are in our values and our views of things. A lot of us are still very prejudiced
people. We still have this thing about
us being a little bit better than somebody else. Do you know
what it takes to actually overcome that? The sovereignty of God,
the power of God, the authority of God, the dominion of God. to enter into your life and so
shake your life up to cause you to see how silly it is for us
to think that we're any different than any other human being. We're
all the same. The sermon says God has fashioned
all our hearts alike. All of our hearts by nature outside
of Christ are one kind of heart, sinful. We might all have different
colors, but we're all sinful in our core. That means we're
all the same. But we're not always persuaded
of that. For some reason, psychologically and some reason, emotionally,
we just think somehow we're just better than some other folks.
Well, God's going to deal with that in Jonah's life. And notice
what it says. Because Jonah sought to depart
from the Lord, from his presence, God himself sent a great wind
into the sea. Look at verse four. But the Lord
sent a great wind into the sea And there was a mighty tempest
in the sea so that the ship was like to break. Do you see that?
Now, do you believe that God runs the universe? Do you believe
that he providentially controls all of the affairs of life, even
ecology, even the winds, even the water, even the, that he
providentially controls these things. And some people think
that God is kind of like this autocratic entity that started
things up and kind of backed away and let them run on their
own set of laws. But the Bible tells us that God
commands the stormy wind, that God controls heaven and earth.
Turn in your Bible with me to Psalm 107. I want you to see
the foundation for this. Psalm 107 is a perfect example
of what we mean by that. And in Psalm 107, we're going
to be looking at verse 28 and 30 through 30 in Psalm 107. This
will help you get a sort of a picture of what we mean by God controlling
The stormy winds. Here's what it says. Psalm 107. Listen to what it says. I'm going
to start back at verse 25, 23. They that go down to the sea
and ships that do business in great waters. These see the works
of the Lord and his wonders in the deep. This is the merchant
ships that go out to do bidding from nation to nation, picking
up wares and goods. These are the great vessels that
go out to fish, as it were, large and massive fish to bring them
in to sail to different people groups. But God says in verse
25, He commandeth and raises the stormy wind. How does the
wind rise up in the midst of the sea? God commands it. Watch
this which lifted up the waves thereof They mount up to the
heavens they go down again to the depths Their soul is melted
because of trouble who the people They reel to and fro and stagger
like a drunken man and are at their wits end Watch this then
they cry unto the lord in their trouble and he brings them out
of their distresses. Do you see that? And you know
what God is describing go with me back to our text. I'll come
back here later You know what God is describing here in psalm
107 even though he's using a natural event in a natural process of
things by way of Merchant semen he's actually describing our
life It's a metaphor for the life of humanity after the fall
Let me help you a little bit with that prior to the fall Humanity
lived by and large on land mass earth rock concrete But after
the fall, God devastated the earth because of the sin of humanity
and broke it up in a flood in Noah's day. And now we have massive
bodies of water all around the world, don't we? We have actually
more water that we are dealing with than the land that's underneath
it. And so the whole idea or metaphor of stormy seas, topsy-turvy
seas is something we can reckon with. Have you ever been on a
boat out in the water? If you haven't and you don't
like the idea, don't go out there. Because the one thing that the
seas will do is it will destabilize you if you're not used to being
out of control. It will destabilize you. And
often the men out to sea learn things about God's great power
in the masses of the ocean that you and I can't appreciate on
solid ground. But here's what we do know. Our
life is just like the stormy sea. Isn't it amazing how that
we will go a while with everything being okay, like five minutes. And then the seas toss up again.
It just seems like every time we turn around, we're thrown
into another sea battle, another wave of trouble, another wave
of conflict, another wave of trials. Is that true for you?
It's true for me. It's true for me. You know what
that teaches me? My journey is like the way ferryman, like the
sea merchant, that until I actually leave this world, I'm going to
be tossed often in my journey towards glory. until I leave
this world. And so somehow I have to come
to grip with the rhythm and pattern of God allowing trouble from
time to time. That's what the text gave us,
a rhythm and pattern that they were dealing with. You know,
you have really come to trust God when you can live on the
sea, when you can live in the storm, when you can work with
the storm. And that's what believers have
to come to do. We got to come to learn how to work with the
storm because they just come, don't they? They just come and
there's a lot of reasons why they do. But sometimes we have
no answer as to why they come, but they come. 2013 has been
a rocky year, a stormy year for a lot of us. I told a lot of
you be very careful about this year. We need to hunker down.
We need to be thankful. We need to count our blessings.
We need to stay humble. We need to stay focused. We need
to stay content. because things will shake you
up and shift you out of your place if you don't keep yourself
in a proper perspective when it comes to the true and the
living God. Difficult times. Inflation is increasing. People
are losing their jobs. It's really hard to pay your
bills today. And I told us this a while back. It was coming and
it is coming and it's going to increase. The people of God,
therefore, must know how to hunker down and be content with such
things as we have. Find a place in your soul and
in your relationship with God where you don't grasp after too
much, out of fear and anxiety. You gotta wait this thing out.
These are cycles in human experience that we go through every two
or three decades. I remember going through something
like this in the 80s, and some of you also remember during that
time. Things got really difficult here in America in the 80s. I
am asserting that it's going to be even more difficult this
time around. We talked about this going all
the way back to 9-11, 2001. Here we are now, several years
afterwards, and we are in the matrix of difficult times, aren't
we? And sometimes it can shake you
up and unnerve you. And all I would say to you is
keep your eyes on Christ. Keep yourself grounded in him
and let him ride this thing out with you since he is the master
of the storm, the captain of the sea, the ruler of the universe. That's what we're going to have
to do. That's what we're going to have to do. And we can't complain.
We just have to ride it out. God's sovereign power to overcome
our prejudice often requires him bringing storms, which is
what he did in the life of Jonah. But Jonah wasn't gonna get away
with his mission, I'm sorry. Do you know when we talk about
the sovereignty of God, what we mean by God's sovereignty
is this, all God's purposes are going to be fulfilled. That there's
no such thing as a human creature being able to frustrate God's
will. that even when you and I oppose God, we are in the will
of God. That he uses our rebellion to
further his purpose. Does that not blow you away?
As we're getting ready to see. I thank God for his goodness
and I thank him for his mercy. I thank him for his kindness.
I also thank him for his sovereignty. I thank him that I don't have
control. I thank him that he's wiser than me. I thank him that
he sees the end from the beginning. I thank him that he directs my
course. I thank him for that. I thank
him for that. Because I can't see around the
corner and I don't think that you can either. The text tells
us in point number four, the storms are necessary to drive
men to God. You know what I know? I have
yet, ladies and gentlemen, to meet a man or a woman, a couple
or a group who have come to Jesus Christ in earnest as a consequence
of prosperity or good times. I have yet to meet people who
say, oh, I want Jesus so bad. How come? Because he's just been
so good in my life. I don't meet people who come
to Christ on the foundation of God's mere blessings. I meet
people who come to Christ in the midst of crisis, in trouble. As the psalmist says, when they
are at their wit's end, they cry unto the Lord. Now that's
the general tenor of things and God has to do that to get you
and I to understand Several questions that are that that emerge out
of the trouble in our in our text. They are asking who did
this? They're asking why did it occur
and they're asking how can we solve this now watch this now? That's exactly what God has to
do to awake you to your sin while as yet Everything is going well
in your life and you are still unconverted You may fancy yourself
being alright with God but as soon as a power greater than
you starts to interrupt your life and Take control and toss
you off your equilibrium. Now, all of a sudden you're raising
the question who's doing this and The next question that emerges
and why did this come about in my life? Why am I going through
all this trouble? I? And if you're humble enough
to pursue the inquiry, here's the next question you raise.
How can I get this thing to stop? See, that's the power of God
starting to draw a sinner to himself, stripping him of the
false notion that he has the freedom of will or the freedom
of power or the freedom of choice or the freedom of ability. You
and I are not free to do anything but sin against God, and we're
still not free to do that. He still controls that. Are you
hearing what I'm saying? God controls that. And the thing
that unnerves humans, human beings like you and I is once we are
out of control, we are in trouble. We don't like being out of control.
These boys are out of control on this boat. They're out of
control. Now, this boat represents humanity. It represents the whole
world. And the whole world is being
tossed to and fro by God's sovereignty and power when he is targeting
that world to come to grip with who he is. So the wayfaring the
the mariners are struggling with this battle and we read over
in verse 5 Then the mariners were afraid and they cried every
man to his God. See that you know how Atheists
and agnostics and secularists won't talk about God until they
get in trouble. Now. They all cried out to their gods
They got religion real quick When you get in trouble you go
to church I When you get in trouble, you
go to church because you want to hear a word from the Lord. Ain't nothing
wrong with that. But what you're going to have
to come to grips with is your own pursuit of God is going to
be destroyed because naturally man never comes to the true and
the living God. We always go to idols. We always
pursue idols. We will construct our own Jesus.
We will construct our own Christianity. We will construct our own Holy
Ghost in order to accomplish our own purposes until God shows
us that our God is dead and has no power over the storm and he
can't stop the troubles in your life. And until you come to a
place of crying out to the true God in just utter naked honesty,
you haven't begun to come to the true God. What we're struggling
through here in verse five And the text tells us, listen to
it now, they cried out to their gods, they cast forth their wares. See, they thought if they could
just do a little adjustment in their life, get rid of their
girly magazines and throw out the wine and get rid of all of
the paraphernalia, maybe God will be gracious to us. Are you
hearing what I'm saying? Lighten up the ship a little
bit, go exercise, lose some weight, put on a new persona. You know,
just I'm going to do a little something in order for God to
bless me. Now, maybe, you know, maybe I've
been spending too much time over here or there or the third place. And that's what they're doing.
They're lightening the wares. But all of this is in vain. All of
this is in vain because God's not calling you to change what
you do to get right with God. He's calling you to change who
you are. And you can't do that yourself. You can't do that yourself. Now
he's gonna bring you to a place where you have to ask somebody. That's what I love about God.
He'll bring you, sinner, to a place where you're gonna have to ask
somebody who God is. Did he bring this in my life?
Do you know the answer to my problem, sir? Now we have a predicament
because on this big old boat, everybody's running to and fro
in a panic over what's happening. but one cat. He's down in the back of the
hall, sawing wood. Sleep. Sleep. He's the most obvious candidate
on the boat. Sleep. Jonas Submills. Something else. Listen to what
the text says. But Jonah was going down into the sides of
the ship. He found him in a compartment
in the side of the ship, jumped in here, closed the door and
was dead sleep. Do you see that? Dead sleep. Now, I thought about this and
I've thought about it for years. I don't know about you, but when
my soul is troubled, I don't sleep well. I just don't sleep
well. And as we get older, you guys
know that we don't sleep well anyway. As it's true, we get
two or three hours, that's it. And then we're going in and out
and we're saying, why can't I get some good REM sleep? This is
how it is. And then there's so many things
on our minds, so many issues we're trying to work through.
And we come to live with three or four hours sleep and that's
it. Remember when you were a young adult, you needed 12 hours of
healthy, dead sleep to get the job done because you burn so
much energy. As you get older, it's just less sleep. And this
is why we tell our young people, the little kids, when we tell
them to take a nap, you better be thankful we're laying you
down to take a nap because there's a day coming when naps are gone.
No more naps. You know how they fight against
the nap? You better get your nap in, child, because you get
old as we are, ain't no nap to be found. Jonah's taking a deep,
deep, deep, deep, deep nap. A deep nap. Now, why is he taking
this nap? For a couple of reasons I want
to lay out. One of them is that Jonah is in denial. He's in denial. Denial is that rim and walk that
we engage in. where we actually are not facing
the truth of our situation. And we kind of just hope that
it mulls over and goes away. And we kind of just sleepwalking
through the process, just hoping that it disappears. And some
people, I suppose, that they could, in such a deep state of
denial of the reality of things, actually sleep, actually rest,
actually, I mean, you know, maybe a sociopath can go out and rob
somebody, beat them down, kill them. Go right around the corner
and go to sleep But they're in denial too, aren't they? Certainly
Jonah is in denial because Jonah is sleeping over against the
will of God Jonah is sleeping having rebelled against the purpose
of God Jonah is sleep Going in the opposite direction of the
agenda of God now the other reason why Jonah is sleep in the hole
is is because, as I shared with you in the opening of our message,
this is not about Jonah. This is about whom? That's right. So our next point teaches us
that in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 4, we have described for us a
very similar event where Christ is on the boat with his disciples.
Do you guys remember that? And this is why Jesus said, lo,
I come and the volume of the book is written of me to do thy
will. Many of the Old Testament prophets and many of the Old
Testament characters engaged in events that once they were
choreographed by the sovereignty of God, stood as a model of things
to come. Now, the disciples are on a boat
with the Lord Jesus Christ and the waves are kicking up again. And guess who's in the back of
the boat? Slee, the Lord Jesus. Is he not? And what we are told
is that Christ was sleeping soundly, just like Jonah was sleeping
soundly. But let me help you understand something. Jonah is
not Jesus. Jonah is a type of Jesus. And
what that means is he serves as a type of the anti-type. And
when you see types in the scripture, they always are flawed because
they are not the reality. So they're going to be elements
in their typology that stand in contrast to the reality. In this case, Jonah is in rebellion
against God. In Christ's case, he's under
the absolute favor and will of God. His sleep is sweet because
he's actually going in the direction of God's obedience. Jonah's going
in the opposite direction of God's obedience. Christ is in
the will of God. Jonah is against the will of
God. Christ is very clear on his purpose with regards to the
will of God. Jonah is running from the presence
of God. Christ is headed to his destination. His sleep is sweet
because he's in the will of God. Now, ladies and gentlemen, don't
we know the sweetness of the sleep when we're right with God? The sweetness of the sleep when
we're right with God. So let me make one more point
with that before we go on to our next point. How is it then
that Jonah can be sleep? in the midst of absolute rage
and conflict and turmoil, of which as we're getting ready
to learn, he knew this was about him. How do you sleep in the
midst of a storm you created, fundamentally speaking? This
is an insight I'll share with you, child of God. In God's mercy,
did you hear what I just said? In God's mercy, he will give
his beloved sleep. even when they are in rebellion
against him. Not because of them, but because
of their mediate toward Jesus Christ. who had already solved
all their problems before the world began when he took on their
office and their obligations and their sin and their rebellion
and their wickedness so that God sometimes does not immediately
accrue to you what you deserve in the midst of your rebellion
against God because you have a mediator who took the hit for
you. Isn't that good? How can God's redeemed people
who act up like we do still go to sleep? Because of Christ.
That's the reason why Jonah's sleeping. We can refine that
out here in a moment. He's sleeping because he had
a mediator. He's got a high priest. He's got a go-between. He's got
a substitute. He's got a surety. He's got a
redeemer. I thank God for it, don't you? Let me say one more
thing as we get ready to move on with this. Haven't you ever
been surprised at how God will take your rebellion and disobedience
and use it to still bring about good, advance his glory, accomplish
his purpose, redeem sinners, even in your rebellion. Doesn't
that blow you away? I meant it for evil, God used
it for good, even with his elect? Yes. I'm not telling you to go
out in sin that grace may abound. I am telling you, though, that
whenever we sin, grace must abound because even our sin will never
stop God's agenda, His charter, His purpose, His goal in our
life. Everything we do, remember, will always advance God's purpose. Can I tell you the end of the
story before we get there? Listen, Jonah is going to end
up in Nineveh. Do you hear me? You can take
the short route or the long route. You can take the safe route or
the hard route. You can go on top of the boat
or you can take a submarine. But you're going to Nineveh.
And just because I'm God and I love to save sinners, on the
way to Nineveh, I'm going to use you to save some sinners
anyway. That's the God we serve. See,
God loves saving people. It's true. He saves people and
he'll use you. He'll use you even in your weakness
and your flaw. He'll still use you. Cause see,
you still have that incorruptible seed in you. You still have that
hidden treasure in you. Your vessel is earthen, it's
broken, it's marred, it's tore up, but you got something inside
of you that when it comes out, it still does the job. Look at
Jonah. Look at Jonah. Back in the hall
and the text tells us in verse six, so the ship master came
to him and said unto him, Man, what in the world are you doing
sleep? Why don't you arise and call
on your God, if so be that God will think upon us that we perish
not. Do you see that? How come you
aren't praying along with us? I'll tell you what Jonah said,
even though he didn't say it, because it wouldn't do me any
good. It wouldn't do me any good. I
can tell you now for me to pray to the true and the living God
who knows all my ways in whose hand is every breath of mine
in whom I live and move and have my being who knows every thought
inside and out afar off I can't open my mouth in hypocrisy to
God and expect him to hear me God won't hear me. I might as
well keep my mouth shut. I So, see, Jonah knows. See, Jonah ain't that crazy.
He knows that he can't go into denial mode and then start praying
to the God he's denying. And there's a little turn here
that's beautiful. There's a little turn going here that's beautiful.
Because, see, God's getting to Jonah while at the same time
he's getting to the people on the boat. He's getting to Jonah.
See, because the spotlight's on Jonah now, isn't it? You know,
it's cool when you are in rebellion against your God and the lights
are not on you That's the way we love it because we're walking
in darkness. We don't want the lights on but once the lights
are on us now we are exposed we have to move in a certain
direction and so Jonah now is compelled to tell true Verse
7 says and they said to every man his fellow come and let us
cast lots that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon
us so they cast lots and and the lot fell on Jonah. Couple
two or three points in that, we'll move on. I know some of you gamble. It's
not because I'm omniscient. It's because we all live on a
grade of sanctification. Some of us are a little further
along than others and we have come to understand that you can't
play games with God's money and expect to be blessed. But some
of y'all still gamble because you're so desperate to get out
of poverty that you just buy that one ticket. Scratch it. Watch this. Watch this. Lord,
bless it. I'll give $50,000 to the church
if you just bless me with $100,000. Bless it, Lord, so I can give
to the church. I want to be able to help people out. Casting lots was a common practice
in the Middle Eastern culture as it is today, but it was nothing
but chance. And if you believe God is sovereign,
you cannot at the same time believe in chance. This is illogical. If you believe God's in control,
and He governs everything to the minutest detail, and that
every aspect of your life is organized by God's divine counsel
to bring you where He wants you to be, and that God is immutable
and unchangeable, and therefore you can't cause Him to adjust
His agenda by gambling, then why gamble? Am I making some
sense? So some of us have yielded to
a revelation of who God is and no longer gamble. We simply pray,
help me pay my bills. But when you don't know God,
you cast lots. The proverb tells us the lot
is casted to the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of
the Lord. What do you mean by that, pastor?
God controls it anyway. He makes it fall out according
to his will, because there's no knowledge, nor understanding,
nor wisdom against the Lord. Your methods of gambling, your
high-tech methods of gambling, which goes on at the highest
echelons of the banking industry, and governments, and the world,
to try to outmaneuver God and His sovereignty, will still always
amount to accomplishing God's will. Are you hearing what I'm
saying? And so God's people don't have
to succumb to that pagan, archaic method to get the will of God
done in your life. All you got to do is call on
God. God, He gives unto us liberally, upbraided not if we come to Him
the right way. I thought I'd throw that in as
a practical application to you. But the lot fell on Jonah because
it was meant to fall on Jonah. verse 8 says then they said unto
him tell us we pray for whose cause this evil is upon us what's
your occupation and where do you come from and what is your
country and of what people are you now verse 8 makes absolutely
no sense to me why do I need to know your whole full resume
in relationship to the storm that I'm going through why do
I need to know what tribe you from what date you were born,
what background you have, what's the point? Other than the fact
that once again, listen to me, ladies and gentlemen, racism
and prejudice and discrimination is so deep into the fabric of
who we are, we actually think that certain people groups are
cursed and others are not. Just telling you. So these Gentiles
are trying to find out if you have an indigenous curse that's
rooted in your ethnicity, it's God's wrath against you, because
if it is, then we got our answer. You know, when you're in the
storm, you want answers, don't you? And yet we now have to consider
something else very, very important here, because Jonah tells them
in verses nine and following, I am a Hebrew and I fear the
Lord, the God of heaven, watch this, which made this sea you
are troubled in and the dry land. Then when the men were exceedingly
afraid and said unto him, why have you done this? For the men
knew that he had fled from the presence of the Lord because
he had told them. Now, do you see how that they have concluded
based upon Jonah's information that this storm has risen up
in danger of destroying their lives because of Jonah? Jonah
revealed that to them. See, Jonah now is being moved
by God's providence and sovereignty to tell the whole truth. Whether
you know it or not, even in Jonah's rebellion, he is, as it were,
glorifying God in his attributes and his characteristics to show
all these pagans that the true and living God runs the sea and
He runs the land and He governs me and He governs you. So everyone
now has abandoned idolatrous thinking and they're shut up
to the true God. See, this is evangelism. They're
shut up to the true God. They're shut up to the true God.
And they are now inquiring, what do we do? It's a good conversation,
isn't it? Here it is. We read over in verse
11 as we'll move to our sixth point. Then said they unto him,
what shall we do unto you that the sea may be calm unto us? For the sea continued to rot
or become absolutely massive and was tempestuous. They are
scared out of their wits. Scared out of their wits. And
brings us to point number six. The gospel offensive to the carnal
mind. Is that in your outline? The
gospel offensive to the carnal mind. Now, I want you to hear
what Jonah is about to say. And I want you to recognize the
response of the people to Jonah. And it will help you comprehend
what I mean by how come the gospel is offensive to the carnal mind. People come to you in their trouble. and in their difficulty. And
really what they want for you to do is solve their trouble
and their difficulty, but not deal with who they are and what
they really need. They're not coming to you about
their eternal soul's real need. They just want you to do an incantation
or work a miracle and solve their domestic or social or temporal
problem. But when you are a gospeler,
a person of the gospel. You are ready to let men and
women know what the core problem is. Am I making some sense? Now this is where the offense
comes in at. Now watch this. Jonah said in verse 12, take
me up and cast me forth into the sea. So shall the sea be
calm unto you. For I know that for my sake,
this great tempest is come upon you. Do you see that? Now, the
first thing I want you to understand, ladies and gentlemen, is that
Jonah told the truth. Jonah told the truth. He let
them know if you separate me from this situation, this situation
will separate from you because I'm really the target of the
situation. But Jonah's solution is a problem for these Mariners
because they couldn't reconcile, watch this now, killing a man
to be saved. But can I tell you something
about what the gospel teaches? Except we take Christ up and
cast him overboard, we can't be saved. Except we acknowledge
the necessity of the death of the God-man, Jesus Christ, we
cannot be saved. Except we put our hands to the
responsibility of taking the only man in the universe Who
knew no sin and did no sin and in him was no sin at all and
hang him on a cross We can't be saved the gospel offends us
because the gospel demands that we acknowledge our sinnerhood
status It demands that we recognize how absolutely Depraved we are
see and folks who are in trouble are not willing to admit that
we are listen so depraved that it requires the death of another
in order to extricate me and liberate me from my problem.
I know I'm bad, but I'm not that bad. I'm not so bad that God
has to offer up a substitute different than me in my stead
in order for me to live. Lots of people respond that way.
I know I do some bad things, but I'm not as bad as those folks
over there I don't think God is going to throw me in the hill
because I don't succumb to this Proposition of needing Christ
as my substitute am I making some sense in other words who
is Jonah type of Christ? the sinner substitute and what
he's saying to these mariners is this I except you and I have
a substitute for our sins, we will perish under the wrath of
God. Except you acknowledge that your sin is so horrifically bad
and yield to the message of the gospel and recognize that God
has offered up his only begotten son as a substitute for sinners,
you perish under the wrath of God. This proposition is impossible
to you and me. so long as we think we can get
right with God by our own words. Watch it. The proposition came,
and the text tells us in verse 13, watch this, nevertheless,
the men rode hard to bring it to land. You see what they did? When the answer came, Abandon
yourself to God's only way of deliverance. They said no and
they went back to working, working, working, toiling, laboring, praying,
doing all sorts of religious works to get right with God.
But you and I know that it's not by works of righteousness
which we have done, but by his mercy. You and I know that a
man is not justified by the works of the law. You and I know that
all of our works are like what? Filthy rags before God. You and
I know that the carnal mind is empty against God. You and I
know that we are adverse to yielding to the indictment, that we are
such desperate sinners that the only way of escape is to acknowledge
God's solution to the problem. See, and until God breaks you
down to the point where you come to recognize the crown rights
of Christ and what he accomplished on Calvary's tree, you won't
acknowledge that you are that desperate a sinner. This is a
sinner's gospel. Are you hearing me? I'm almost
done. This is a sinner's gospel. The gospel only works for sinners.
The moment you fail to be a sinner, you can find no pleasure in the
gospel anymore. Am I making some sense? The moment
you fail to recognize how desperately you need Christ, the gospel is
of no pleasure to you anymore. It doesn't satisfy you as the
answer. It doesn't resonate in your soul as the means of your
escape. But some of us have had a revelation
of our sin. Some of us have come to know
how desperately wicked we are by nature. Some of us have come
to know that our works have never availed at any time to get us
to God. We've tried to roll. We tried
to work, we tried to labor, and the more we did it, the storm
got greater and more tumultuous against us. Am I making some
sense? I listen to it as we close this
out. We read over in verse 14, as they tried to row, the sea
wrought and was more tempestuous against them. Wherefore, now
watch this now, they cried unto the Lord, good place to go. They
cried unto the Lord in the midst of their labors, in the midst
of their works, because they were realizing how futile they
were. We beseech thee, O Lord! We beseech thee! This is the
first time they prayed to the true and the living God. You
see how God is drawing them by His Spirit? How He's breaking
them down? How He has caused them to cast
aside all their idols, and they're shut up to the true and the living
God alone right now? They're praying to the true God! Now,
do you know what they're praying? All right, Lord, you have convinced
me I'm a sinner. I'm just about to do it. I'm
just about to bail out of any hope of saving myself or doing
anything by which I can merit favor with you. I am just about
to buy into the proposition that I need someone to die in my stead
in order for me to live. God's planting faith in their
heart. But faith comes in the midst of the crisis where God
has to crush your pride and your arrogance and assumption that
you can do it on your own strength. Can you see it? They're calling
on God now. Do you know? Watch this. Do you
know why? Because self-preservation is
the first law of nature. At a certain point as they're
rowing and the waves are getting higher, they're looking over
at Jonah and saying, he ain't worth this. Are you hearing me? He ain't worth this. Maybe there's
something to this. So before we kill this man, we're
gonna call on the true and the living God See this here is the
mystery of the gospel in the Old Testament laid out before
us Hard to comprehend unless we allow it to unfold in our
understanding. They cried out listen Let us
not perish for this man's life Lay not upon us innocent blood
For thou, O Lord, I want you to hear how they acknowledge
the sovereignty of God. Have done as you pleased. Do you see it? When the gospel comes in power.
What it does is strips you of every human argument. Even though
rationally, you don't understand how Christ could put away your
sin. You submit to the fact that God
has done as he pleased. And you're not arguing with God
and you're not getting God to tailor his message and modify
his work. You are submitting to the sovereignty
of God. Are you hearing me, ladies and
gentlemen? God, when you offered your son up as a sacrifice for
my sin, you did as you pleased. I didn't force you. I didn't
twist your arm. I didn't manipulate you. You did it according to
your own will of your own will Did you begin us again that we
might be a first kind of first fruits unto God God's doing his
will See, that's what faith does faith capitulates faith yields
faith settles with God's testimony concerning his work Are we there
watch this my last point in our outline. It's called the obedience
of faith I don't know if you have it in yours. I have it in
mine. It's called the obedience of faith now the obedience of
faith is is merely, ladies and gentlemen, believing God for
what He said concerning His Son, Jesus Christ. This is that saving
faith that resolves the conflict between you and God. Here it
is, verse 15. So they took up Jonah, do you
see, and cast him forth into the sea. You gone, boy. They did it in faith. They did
it acknowledging God. They did it in humility. They
did it submitting to the sovereignty of God. They weren't sure what
the outcome was going to be. This could have been another
vain act as a consequence of men being desperate to try to
save themselves. And the storm could have just
continued raging. But can I tell you something? God's not a liar. And God can't fail. And God doesn't
change. What God says is true. And his
prophet was telling the truth even in the midst of his rebellion.
Have you ever done that? Have you ever preached the gospel
while you were in rebellion against your God? I know, isn't that
funny? Jonah going the other way. And
God gave him a revelation. I'm a type of Jesus Christ. God's
been pleased that while I'm going in the opposite direction, Save
a whole bunch of people on a boat who didn't know that my rebellion
was going to be a part of their election and regeneration and
call to salvation. The whole of those folks on the
boat came to know the true and the living God by the rebellion
of Jonah. And they would come now to understand
the doctrine of substitution. For to throw Jonah overboard
is to teach us the doctrine of substitution. while we were yet
in our sins Christ died for us. God commended his love towards
us that while yet sinners Christ died in the stead in the behalf
as a substitute for us. Peter said in first Peter chapter
3 verse 18 the just For the unjust that he might lead us to God
Paul said in 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 verses 19 through 20
that God was in Christ Reconciling the world unto himself not imputing
their trespasses to them crying be reconciled unto God for he
who knew no sin Became sin for us that we might become the righteousness
of God In him that's called substitution That's the one word that makes
our situation and God's work worthy of relationship. Without
substitution, what God did for us means nothing. The fact that
He did it is relevant in itself, but it has no application to
us until we realize that Christ died for our sins. Now what happens when a man or
a woman comes to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? Yield to the
sovereignty of God receive the propositions of the gospel concerning
the person and work of Jesus Christ. What happens is The soul
which was in trouble Experiencing the storms of life Is now brought
to a place of absolute peace through the gospel Therefore
being justified by faith. We have peace with God Look at
the text look at they threw that brother overboard the text tells
us over in verse 15 They cast him forth into the sea and the
sea ceased from her raging Immediately it entered into a calm You remember
when our lord stood up the disciple said lord. Do you care that we
perish? And he spoke to the wind That's god, isn't it? And it
muzzled immediately And there was a dead calm on the sea. You
know what the disciple said? What kind of man is this? Speaking
to the sea. You know what kind of man he
is? He's the God man, Jesus Christ. He's the savior of sinners. He's
the hope of the world. He's the God of glory. He's the
captain of our salvation. He's the master of the sea. He's
the Lord of Heaven. He's our great and glorious Savior
Jesus Christ. And we thank God for Him, don't
we?