May God bless us together this
morning as we consider his word. Let us turn to the book of Jonah
and the second chapter and we'll read really the last clause in
the ninth verse. Jonah chapter two, the last clause
in verse nine. Salvation is of the Lord. Of course, salvation means the
saving of our souls. That's really what salvation
means. And therefore, how clear it is
that our salvation is of the Lord. It's not something that
you and I can produce ourself. Now, it's wonderful to think
that God has granted us this account of Jonah really to prove
this point to us. And we have some detail, don't
we, of the account of Jonah's situation, how God called him
to go to Nineveh to preach the gospel. And Jonah didn't like
the idea. He knew that Nineveh was a pretty
bad place. And therefore he thought he would
avoid going to preach the gospel there, because he considered
no doubt there would be much opposition. And so he decided
to go somewhere else. And he went down to a place called
Tarshish, having gone to Joppa first, or at least intending
to go to Tarshish, but went down to Joppa and he found a ship,
had the money in his pocket to pay the fare, Everything seemed
very nice and convenient. And so there he went to escape. Well, the truth is that all of
us can never escape from God. God is in every place. God is
here today. God is with us in our homes.
God's with us when we walk down the street. God's with us wherever
we may be found. Perhaps we may go to places where
we shouldn't go. God's there as well. God is in
every place. And therefore, we cannot escape,
therefore, from Almighty God. Well, Jonah got on a boat and
everything seemed to be going well. He went down into the side
of the ship and went to sleep. But of course, God knew what
he was going to do. And God wasn't going to just
let Jonah escape from that which he had instructed him to do.
And so God had a very great and a very wonderful plan. And we
should recognize that we worship today the same great God. And
what a wonderful thing it is to think that God has a plan
for every one of us, a plan which he will work out. And even if
we should be found trying to avoid that plan, trying to do
something different, be assured that God will bring his plan
to pass. And what do we see in this plan? We see God's great love towards
Jonah. We see God's great condescension
towards Jonah. We see God's great mercy towards
Jonah. And as we may say, well, that's
very true. Again, the glorious truth of
it is that those same blessings are still granted today to all
of his people. And to think today, this is true
of you and me, if we are those who are truly God's people, that
He does love us and He's dealing with us in love to our souls. Even if, like Jonah, we're running
away. Even if, like Jonah, we're trying
to escape. Yet, you see, to think that God's love is still upon
us and His compassion. He is compassionate toward us.
Jonah had a hard task. We may have hard tasks before
us. We may not want to do those hard
tasks. And therefore, we're thinking
of how we can avoid such a situation. Well, be quite sure of this.
If God has given you a task to do, you may try and avoid it. You won't be able to. because
God is an all-powerful God. And God will order our lives
just like he ordered Jonah's life. And we have, therefore,
the account here of Jonah to encourage us and to direct us
and to show us that it is no good fighting against God. It's no good trying to avoid
God's plan, because God will gain the victory, and God will
come, and God will work his great work in our lives, so that we
come to the situation just like Jonah did, that we submit ourselves
to the plan of Almighty God. Well, it was really a very drastic
situation, wasn't it, that occurred to Jonah to bring him to that
submission to the will of God. And sometimes, you know, you
and I need drastic treatment to be made willing to God's plan. But it's a great mercy if it
doesn't come down to that. It's a great mercy if God shows
us through the Bible, through his word, through an account
like this of Jonah, that we are on the edge of some drastic treatment
from Almighty God. And therefore what a blessing
it is if the Lord gives us that willing spirit to hear his voice,
and to do that which is right in accordance with his will for
his blessing, for our blessing, and for the honour and glory
of Almighty God. So we observe in this account
that Jonah wasn't able to keep everything to himself. God's
plan was to reveal very clearly that he had to tell the people
of the situation, that he was the cause of this great storm. Clearly, God had come and shot
into his heart so that he wasn't in any way disillusioned as to
why this storm had come. It was because he was being disobedient
to the will and purpose of Almighty God. And so he had to confess
that he was a Hebrew. He had to confess that he was
one that feared the Lord. And also by the words we read,
it was clear that he told them that he'd fled from the presence
of the Lord. And therefore they realized,
well, no doubt this man Jonah is the cause of this problem. Well, we know then that eventually,
although the sailors tried to avoid casting him overboard,
and to take his advice, Jonah said, cast me overboard. Again,
that was a very dramatic statement, wasn't it, to think that Jonah
realised that he was the problem and was willing to be cast overboard,
not knowing what the future held, whether he would be drowned or
not. Well, God in his great purpose to teach us today of the great
importance of not avoiding the will of God on our behalf and
prepared this great fish. We're told in the New Testament
it was indeed a whale. We know how big a whale is, don't
we? They can be very, very large. I'm sure you children know how
big a whale is. Well, God had prepared a special
whale that was able to swallow Jonah. And therefore Jonah was
cast into the sea and this great fish came and swallowed up Jonah. And there was Jonah inside this
big fish. Now then, we're told he was there
for three days. and three nights. He was there
three days and three nights. Remember or think that there
he was in this whale's stomach and it would have been completely
dark, wouldn't it? He wouldn't have seen any daylight,
no sun, no moon, no stars, nothing at all, completely dark. Just
you think of being there three hours, three days and three nights,
a long time wasn't it? Some 70 hours or so. And there
he was in this place. And it would seem from this account
that throughout this time he was really still not willing
to acknowledge God's plan for him. He may have thought it was
perhaps impossible We may sometimes think that God's plan for us
is impossible. But we should recognize that
God is a great God and God works out his plans for us. He works
them out in his way. And God had a plan for Jonah
that Jonah was going to have to go and preach at Nineveh and
didn't matter what Jonah tried to do, he was going to have to
go and preach at Nineveh. So we see the position, we see
what happened, and we see that now Jonah is in this whale's
belly for three days and three nights, and then what happens?
He prays to God. You might think, well surely
Jonah, wouldn't that have been the first thing that you would
have done? Pray to God? It doesn't seem so. It seems
that he was there for three days and three nights, still hard-hearted,
still rebellious, still perhaps saying in his heart, well, I'm
not going to go and preach to Nineveh, whatever happens. But
you see, God was with Jonah, and God had a plan for Jonah.
And so we read, then Jonah prayed unto the Lord, his God, out of
the fish's belly. Wonderful to think, isn't it?
There he was in the sea, deep down in the sea, no doubt. Whales
go down very deep in the sea. And there he was in the whale's
stomach, and then he prayed unto God. And we're told why he prayed. He prayed by reason of the affliction. He prayed because he wanted to
get out of that position. He didn't want to be left there.
He knew how bad it was, how difficult it was. And so he cried to God
that he might get out of that situation. He prayed, he really
prayed to God. Now it may be sometimes God brings
you into situations where we really have to pray to God. It's
not just then a mere form of words, not just something which
is almost irrelevant, just some form of prayer, just some traditional
phrases. But we come to that situation
where we have to really earnestly pray to God. And here was Jonah
now, really earnestly praying to God. He cried, by reason of
mine affliction, unto the Lord, Now God, as I said, is in every
place. And God was with Jonah even in
that whale's stomach. Just you think of that. Because
we're told the Lord heard him. And he heard me. So how encouraging
that is for us today. To think that wherever we are,
whatever situation we're in, if we cry unto God, if we pray
unto God, he will hear. prayer he will hear our cry and
Jonah describes it he gives us a description of what it was
like he said out of the belly of hell cried I and now heard
is my voice now sometimes we may feel like that it's a really
desperate situation a terrible place that we're in and what
else can we do We can't do anything else than cry unto God. And so Jonah cried unto God,
and God heard his voice. And then Jonah speaks and says,
For thou hast cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas,
and the floods compassed me about, all thy billows and thy waves
passed over me. Then I said, I am cast out of
thy sight, He thought God couldn't see him. So we may perhaps think
God cannot see us, but God could see him. And he tells us then
this great truth, yet I will look again toward thy holy temple. There was of course in the days
of Jonah the holy temple where the Hebrews gathered together
to worship, and especially on the Great Day of Atonement, and
they came to worship God there. And that was the ordained place
where God met with his people. But here Jonah says, I will look
again toward thy holy temple. And what's the instruction for
us today? What does it mean for us today?
We don't have a physical holy temple like that today. So what
do we have? We have a great saviour. We have
a merciful saviour. We have a loving saviour. And just to think that when we
have turned our back upon God, that's what Jonah had done here,
he turned his back upon God. You and I may have turned our
back upon God, And yet, if we then are brought to a situation
where we have to pray to God and we realise what we must do,
we must look again to the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, what instruction
there is. What instruction there is to
us, perhaps today, to realise that we may have gone back, we
may have turned our back upon God. What we're really saying
is this. I will not have God to reign
over me. I'm going to please myself. I'm
not going to follow the words of God. I'm not going to pass
that way. It's just going to be just too
difficult, too hard for me. I really don't want it." And
yet, you see, here was that work of the Spirit in his heart. And
he came to this condition, he came to this situation, he said,
Yet I will look again toward thy holy temple. What a blessing
when the Lord comes, when he's compassionate towards us and
produces in our heart this true desire to once again look to
the Lord Jesus Christ. But he will look upon us and
he will come to us where we are. He came to Jonah where he was,
didn't he? Right down in the sea, the depths of the sea, in
the fish's belly, the Lord came to Jonah. My friends, God can
come to you and me wherever we are today. What a blessing it
is. And even though we may perhaps
be far off and not want to look to God, God dealt with Jonah
in such a way that he had to cry to God. God heard his cry
and God enabled him to look up and look to the Lord Jesus Christ.
He couldn't see him physically. He was given that faith to look
toward the temple. And what a blessing it is when
you and I are given faith to look to the Lord Jesus Christ. He tells us something of the
extreme difficulty of the situation. He says, the waters compass me
about. even to the soul. The depth closed
me round about. The weeds were wrapped about
my head." You see, there was no doubt some water in the fish's
stomach as well. We know, of course, that whales
do, of course, draw in air, oxygen, and therefore Jonah would be
able to have lived, but it was probably, it appeared to him
touch and go whether he would ever live. He may have felt sometimes
like drowning. Because of the situation of the
waters and the weeds going round about his head, it was a very
uncomfortable situation. And sometimes God brings us into
uncomfortable situations. Yes, that we're fearful perhaps
of dying, fearful because we've offended God, that he will take
away our breath. And so we're told, I went down
to the bottoms of the mountains. We know there are mountains,
aren't there, in the sea? We see mountains, don't we? Above
the sea, but there are mountains in the sea, in the Great Valleys.
And that's where whales go down into. And that's just how Jonah
describes his situation. I went down to the bottoms of
the mountains. The earth with her bars was about
me forever. Yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption. Lord my God he is describing
the mercy of God which he experienced Jonah didn't deserve it did he
In our lives my friends no doubt many times. We don't deserve
the mercy of God And yet to think that God watched over Jonah God
brought him into the situation so that he would show him his
mercy and Show him his mercy in such an amazing way. Yet hast thou brought up my soul
from corruption, O Lord, my God." He had to acknowledge that this
is the God, his God, my God, O Lord, my God. And then he gives
us some, a bit more detail, he says, when my soul fainted within
me. That means when he was just about
to give up totally, just about to give up. Well, I wonder if
anyone here this morning is like that. Just about to give up. When my soul fainted within me,
what had occurred? He remembered the Lord. We would
think he would obviously have remembered the Lord. But sometimes
the Lord, as it were, hides his face from us, so we forget God,
we forget the situation. We're so taken up with our own
scene, what we want to do and how we want to avoid doing those
things which we're commanded to do. And so we may indeed just
be like this, when we're almost fainting, then we suddenly Remember
the Lord. Perhaps we're ashamed that we've
forgotten God. The Bible tells us, my people
have forgotten me days without number. Terrible, isn't it? To
think that we should forget God. But yet to think also, because
His compassion toward us is so great, there comes then a time
when we Remember the Lord. But again, are we like that? The Lord has suddenly come to
us and we've suddenly remembered the Lord. Remembered that we
should have prayed. Remembered the Lord is there
still. Remembered I'm still not cut
off. I'm still on praying ground.
The Lord has come. He came to Jonah. He tells us
he remembered the Lord. And more than that, he tells
us what happened. And my prayer, his prayer, his
cry, had come in to the Lord, into his holy temple. There he was, remember, deep
down in the ocean, far off from God. And yet he cried to God. God had heard his prayer. What
does that tell us? There's no place on the earth
too far off that God does not know about. There's no place
where we can be that he will not hear our prayer. No place too far off. And so he says, So faint it within
me, I remember the Lord, and my prayer came in unto thee,
into thine holy temple." Well, what does it mean today? It means
this, that when you and I pray, in whatever situation, wherever
we are, if we pray in faith to Almighty God, what happens? Our prayer, our prayer, think
of it, goes right up to God, into heaven. And there in heaven,
the Lord Jesus Christ takes our prayer and presents it to his
Father. It's a tremendous thought, isn't
it? There are feeble words, words which perhaps seem disjointed,
don't seem to be very good, and we seem almost hopeless, we're
fainting as it were, and yet that feeble cry, that feeble
prayer, enters in! to heaven. That's what Jonah
tells us. My prayer came in unto thee and
to thine holy temple. Our God today is Jonah's God. Our God today is the same almighty
God who worked so gloriously in the life of Jonah and so gloriously
in the lives of all his people. We think this is the most amazing
account. So it is. But you know, when
God comes to every one of us, it's an amazing account, isn't
it? It's an amazing favour. And so he tells us this. They
that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. What is he really
saying? He's saying this. They that listen
to the devil will forsake the mercy of Almighty God. They'll
turn their back on it. But what a blessing it is when
the power of the Holy Spirit comes into our hearts and moves
us to this position and to this extent. And so we come then down
to this position. Now Jonah, he's a very different
person. He's a very different person.
Why? because he's recognised that
God has heard his prayer. He's now a man willing to do
God's bidding. So he comes and tells us this
great truth. But, having said all that, but,
I will sacrifice unto thee with a voice of thanksgiving, I will
pay that which I have vowed, salvation is of the Lord. Surely we have here a picture
of a penitent person, someone who is truly repenting of the
way, the sinful situation by which they have been in. and
desiring to truly repent of their sin and turn to the Lord. Well, the Apostle Paul in the
New Testament gives us some simple direction and truth, which really
confirms this testimony of Jonah. The second of Paul's epistles
to the Corinthians in the seventh chapter, the tenth verse, we
read this, for godly sorrow. Now I believe Jonah here had
godly sorrow. He was really sorry for the way
he'd operated, for his rebellion against God. And so the Apostle
Paul, who also, of course, as we well know, rebelled against
God and went about persecuting the Church of God. So he's able
to write these truths from his own experience. For godly sorrow
worketh repentance to salvation. The same here really, is it not?
I will pay that that I have vowed, salvation is of the Lord. For
godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation." Now, it's a great
blessing if you and I are blessed with godly sorrow. That means
true repentance for our hardness of heart, for our rebellions
against God, for walking contrary to the word of God, to the will
of God. that God comes and blesses us with this godly sorrow for
sin. For godly sorrow worketh repentance
to salvation, not to be repented of. But the sorrow of the world
worketh death. There's such a great difference,
isn't there, between godly sorrow and just a mere sorry scene of
the world. And they're sorry because of
the situation they found themselves in. They're not sorry to God. They're not sorry because they've
turned their back upon God. They're not sorry because they've
avoided the directions of God. But here we have this great statement
for godly sorrow. What does it do? What does it
do? It gives us true repentance. And as Paul writes, the Romans,
it's a repentance, a true repentance, that we don't repent of. We're
never sorry for a true repentance. We're grateful that God has given
us a repentant heart. And a repentant heart is one
that goes in the opposite direction to that which we've been going
in. We've been going opposite to God. Well, you know this morning
whether you've been going opposite to God. God's given you directions. God's spoken to you. God's directed
you. And your actions, the result
has been to run away, to try and escape from God. Well, if
God has had mercy, if God has been gracious, if God has directed
you to His favour towards you, So that you've been brought to
true sorrow for your sin. What does it mean? It means that
God's given you that great gift of repentance. For godly sorrow
worketh repentance to salvation. For the saving of your soul. And therefore, Jonah goes on,
he says, I will sacrifice unto thee. A sacrifice means that
we have to present, we have to give something to God which costs
us. A sacrifice is clearly set before
us in the Old Testament. When the sacrifices were brought
to be offered up as a sacrifice, as animals, what did it mean?
It meant that the person who was offering the sacrifice, had
to take their own possession of an animal, a sheep, or a goat,
or an ox, or whatever, and to give it. It was slain, and it
was offered up to God. They had to give something which
was theirs. It was at a cost, wasn't it? They couldn't give a neighbor's
cow or anything. They had to give their own, and
therefore it was a sacrifice. Well, what does Jonah say here? Remember, it's interesting, this
of course was still the Old Testament, but he's telling us this, he
says, I will sacrifice unto thee, unto God, not to anybody else,
unto thee, with the voice of thanksgiving. What was he going
to do? He was going to thank God for the great deliverance
that he was going to receive, because It would appear from
here that he had received that faith to believe that God would
come and deliver him from this difficult situation. Here he
was in the belly of the whale in the midst of the sea and yet
you see God had given him faith to come and to be able to say
yes, he would sacrifice unto God with a voice of thanksgiving.
He was going to thank God for his mercy. He was going to thank
God for his love. He was going to thank God for
his compassion when he was delivered. And therefore he says, I will
pay that I have vowed. He was going to pay. He was going
to pay. My friends, oh, there must be
willing payers. If God has blessed us, if God
has come to us, If God has blessed our souls with repentance, blessed
our souls with godly sorrow, let us remember to come and pay
with the voice of thanksgiving. It would seem very clearly here
that there was no desire to walk backwards now, God had dealt
with him in a very strong and a very positive way. So here
was Jonah now in this situation saying, I will pay that I have
vowed. Then he comes and makes this
glorious statement, salvation is of the Lord. And I believe
that's the great outcome of the blessed work of God in our souls,
to prove to us that Our salvation, that means the saving of our
soul, is not something that we could produce ourselves. It's
what God does. Salvation is of the Lord. And
I believe this account here shows that very clearly, doesn't it?
Jonah could not have saved himself, could he? He was in this whale's
stomach. How could he get out? Impossible. He was there and he could not
escape. How would he escape? It was when
God brought that deliverance. And that is just the same today
in the experience of our souls. It's God who comes and delivers
us. It's God who brings to us His
salvation, the saving of our soul. And so we come to that
position where the Spirit of God describes to us our condition,
how we've rebelled against God, From the time we were born we
rebelled against God until the time when God comes to us and
shows us our condition, shows us our sinfulness, shows us our
rebellion against God, shows us how perhaps we might feel
to be in the belly of hell like Jonah was, far off from God,
in a terrible condition. I think that God then comes and
shows us where we are and then shows us the way of salvation,
the way of salvation looking up to the Lord Jesus Christ. There, today, my friends, is
the only way of salvation through the shed blood of the precious
Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ. When the sacrifices were offered
in Jonah's day, what occurred? The blood was shed. The animal
was slain. Sacrifices offered up to God
as a sweet smelling savour. What is it still today? There's
that sacrifice. The sacrifice is none less than
the great saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who offered himself once
to redeem our soul. He shed His most precious blood
to take away all our sin. Oh, what a great sacrifice it
was, wasn't it? Of the Saviour. Salvation. This salvation is brought to
us through the Lord Jesus Christ. Salvation is of the Lord. No one else. Jonah was taught
this great and blessed and glorious lesson. My friends, today, can
you and I look into our hearts and recognise that the great
God, none less, has come down and taught us individually. Jonah was taught, wasn't he?
He was by himself, totally isolated. God dealt with him. And it's
just like that today with us, my friends. God, as it were,
takes us in hand as an individual. and He deals with us, and He
speaks to us, and He shows us His great salvation, so that
we're able to come and explain and exclaim, yes, salvation is
of the Lord. It's all of His grace. It's all
of His love. It's all of His mercy towards
such an unworthy sinner as I am. Oh, bless God that we have such
a Saviour. A Saviour who is still the same
yesterday and today and forever. You know, Hosea, in his prophecy,
gives us a good example of what we should do. And he tells us
this, O Israel, Return unto the Lord, thy God, for thou hast
fallen by thine iniquity, just like Jonah. Take with you words
and turn to the Lord, true repentance, and say unto him, take away all
iniquity, all my sins, and receive us graciously, receive me graciously,
so will we render the calves of our lips, that means so will
we render the words of our mouth, we will recognize and explain
and exclaim what God has done for our souls in that wonderful
way of salvation. Salvation is of the Lord and
also in the New Testament the Apostle Paul when he wrote to
the Hebrews, he wrote again very similar words to this, and in
the last chapter we read, for by him therefore Let us offer
the sacrifice of praise to God continually. Surely we have reason,
don't we, to praise God continually for that wonderful salvation,
for the great sacrifice of our Saviour, for the blood that He
shed to take away all our sins. And remember here, what was the
sin that Jonah really committed? Rebellion against God. Disobedience. We think sometimes we can get
away with it. But a mercy when God deals with
our souls and shows us we can't and brings us to this condition
to say yes, let us, let me therefore offer the sacrifice of praise
to God continually. That is the fruit of our lips
giving thanks to his name. It's a mercy to be able to do
that. The Apostle goes on to say, but to do good and to communicate,
forget not. We need to be reminded not to
forget. the goodness of God, and not forget to communicate
those things which is done for our eternal soul, for with such
sacrifices God is well pleased. And let's remember, it is a sacrifice. What that means, it will cost
us something. It's not easy. Now we'll have
to fight against the devil who will say, don't say anything.
My friend, therefore, it's a sacrifice when God gives us that grace
to come and acknowledge salvation is of the Lord. Well, it's a
wonderful little account, isn't it? Thankful we are for it in
the Word of God that describes in detail really the condition
that God's people do come into, not going down into the whale's
belly like Jonah, but in a similar situation when God meets with
our soul and deals with us in love, in compassion, in mercy,
and brings us to be able to say, with Jonah, from our heart, but
I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving. I
will pay that. I have vowed. Salvation is of
the Lord. Amen.