Let us turn to God's Word once
again and I want to turn now to the first chapter in the book
of Jonah and to read the first four verses. Turning to Jonah
chapter 1, reading verses 1 to 4, Now the word of the Lord came
unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh,
that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness is come
up before me. But Jonah rose up to flee unto
Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa,
and he found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare
thereof, and went down into it to go with them unto Tarshish,
from the presence of the Lord but the Lord sent out a great
wind into the sea and there was a mighty tempest in the sea so
that the ship was like to be broken I read just now those
verses in Matthew 12 because of course there we very much
reminded of the significance of this man's ministry Jonah's
ministry is there spoken of as a sign And it's a sign of repentance
when we consider what the Lord is saying in that portion. I'll read again in Matthew 12,
39. When the scribes and Pharisees
ask a sign, the Lord says, An evil and adulterous generation
seeketh after a sign, and there shall no sign be given to it
but the sign of the prophet Jonas. For as Jonas was three days and
three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man be three
days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of
Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation and shall
condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonas. And
behold, a greater than Jonas is here. He's a sign I say and
he's very much a sign in his preaching of repentance and really
God willing on the Lord's Day I want us to look at Jonah in
that sort of way. But tonight I thought it would
be useful if I attempted to set his ministry in its context. And of course the context is
to be found here in what we read in the opening chapter. And how
he was very much a disobedient prophet, and yet the Lord God
pursues after him, brings him to some conviction, brings him
to the place of repentance, restores him, and recommissions him. And so tonight I want really
to center what I'm going to say around what we're told here in
chapter 1 at verse 4. The Lord is pursuing the prophets.
He pursues the prophet. The Lord sent out a great wind
into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the
ship was like to be broken. God had given his commandment
and that commandment was very plain as we see there in the
first two verses. It was God's word that came unto
him and he was commanded to go to the great city of Nineveh
and to preach, to cry against it. to preach against their wickedness
which had come up before the Lord God. That was the command
and yet how his disobedience is so blatant. As we see in verse
3, But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence
of the Lord and went down to Chopper, and he found a ship
going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare thereof and
went down into it to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence
of the Lord." He goes in the very opposite direction. He's
there in Israel, he's to go east to Nineveh, Instead of that,
he goes west to the very extremity of the Mediterranean Sea, the
land of Tarshish, reckoned to be where Spain is today. And what is he doing here? He
is really fleeing from the presence of God. He's fleeing from God. There are two manners of God's
presence, of course. There's that that we might say
is quite natural. and there is that that is spiritual
and in a sense he is seeking to flee from both of those presences
God's presence is natural in that he is omniscient there is
that sense in which God is in all places and wherever we go
it is really impossible to escape the presence of God because He's
everywhere. And we're reminded of that, remember,
in the words, the language of the 139th Psalm. David says there at verse 7,
Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from
thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou
art there. If I make my bed in hell, behold,
thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea. That's what That's
what Jonah was seeking to do, going to the uttermost parts
of the sea. But says David, even there shall
thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. There's no escaping then from
God's omniscience. Wherever we are, his eye is upon
us. But then there is also that spiritual
presence of God. how God is present with his people
in a special manner. When Moses prays to God in Exodus
chapter 33, you remember how he had pleaded for the children
of Israel after their great rebellion in the matter of the golden calf,
when God would disinherit them and cast them off, and he stood
in the bridge, being a mediator, pleaded with God, that he would
not cast them off and then he says in exodus 33 15 if thy presence
go not with me carry up not up hence or he wants to know that
God's presence that special presence that spiritual presence is with
them if that's a go up out of Sinai and into the possession
of the promised land. And here is a man who is fleeing
from that special presence as well as seeking to, in his futility,
to flee from God's natural presence. Now, telling are the words that
we have here in the third verse. Twice we read, and we went down. He went down to Joppa. Well,
that was, of course, really geographical. He went south. He went down to
Joppa. And then he finds a ship that's
going to Tarshish. And we're told he went down into
it. He goes down, in a physical sense,
into the bowels of the ship, I suppose. That's where his birth
was. But isn't there some spiritual
significance? He's going down. He's descending. because he is seeking to escape
the presence of God. This is the consequence of all
our disobedience. All the ready way is not always
the right way. It was so easy for him to do
this really. He doesn't seem to have had any
problem at all. When he goes to Chopra, he finds
a ship. and he's able to obtain a birth,
but it's all a downward course that he is taking. And then what
do we see subsequently? Well, when the ship is in the
midst of the sea, there's a great wind, as we see in the text in
verse 4, a mighty tempest, and the ship was on the point of
being broken up, and the mariners, these experienced sailors, were
afraid, and they're crying to their gods, they're casting all
the wares overboard, but Jonah was gone down into the sides
of the ship and he lay and was fast asleep. And the shipmaster
comes to him and says, What meanest thou, O sleeper? Arise, call
upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us that we perish
not." He is physically asleep, but surely more than that. Dr.
Gill says here that he is asleep in a spiritual sense, as well
as a natural sense. What a fearful condition this
man is in. It's all a downward course. He's
in the place of woe, woe to them that are at ease, those who are
sleeping in Zion. But what we see here also is
something of the goodness of God, the mercy of God, in the
way in which He deals with His rebellious prophets. And that's
the thing that I want to take up, how God, He pursues this
man. And so really, although centering
as it were on verse 4, I want to deal with the whole of the
chapter in some sense. First of all, to observe here
the sovereignty of God. It's a remarkable display of
the sovereignty of God. And also the sovereignty of God's
grace because God was determined to restore Jonah from his backslidden
condition. When men are left to themselves,
and they depart from the ways of God, and they disobeyed the
commandments of God, no one can then restore himself. No one
can restore himself. Look at the language that we
have there in Jeremiah 8.5. Why then is this people of Jerusalem
slidden back by a perpetual backsliding? asked the prophet. They hold
fast deceit, they refuse to return. That's the condition of God's
Israel at that time. That's what the Prophet is saying.
They hold fast their deceit, and they refuse to return. They
reject his work. And surely this was the case
with Jonah. And in the days of Jeremiah,
their backsliding was not open and obvious. Their backsliding was something
that was of the heart. They were still externally observing
the ordinances of God's house. That's what we are told there
in the opening part of Jeremiah chapter 7. Those words that we just referred
to in chapter 8 and verse 5, but the previous chapter, chapter
7, We read the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying,
Stand in the gate of the Lord's house, and proclaim there this
word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all ye of Judah,
that enter in at these gates to worship the Lord. Thus saith
the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your
doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. Trust
ye not in lying words, saying, the temple of the Lord, the temple
of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these. They have the
temple, they have all the externals, the favor, the privilege of being
God's people and the ordinances of God's house, but they're just
trusting in those external things. They're not living as they should
really have been living. This is what God is saying through
his servant. And God is that one who comes,
of course, and searches the hearts of his people. This is what God does, the heart
deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know
it. I, the Lord, know the heart.
I try the reins to give to every man according to his ways and
according to the fruit of his doing. That's the God that Jeremiah
is serving. God deals with these people,
He deals with the backsliders and He's dealing here with this
prophet Jonah. And how does God deal with him?
Well, three things. God pursues after him, God points
him out very specifically and yet ultimately God is pleased
to preserve him and then to restore him. First of all, see how God
is the one who pursues Jonah. And we have it in the text. He's
on the ship, he's paid his fare, the ship has set sail, and they're
on their way to Tarshish. And he's going, he imagines,
away from the presence of the Lord. But the Lord sent out a
great wind into the sea," it says. The Lord sent out a great
wind. The margin tells us that the
Hebrew is literally, the Lord cast forth a great wind. In fact, it's the same word that
is subsequently used. It's used in verse 5, and there
it's rendered, cast forth, are the mariners seeking to lighten
the load on board ship, cast forth, cast out the wares that
were in the ship. It's the same word as is sent
out in verse 4 and then also it's the same word that we have
later in the chapter when they cast Jonah overboard, verse 15,
they took up Jonah and cast him forth into the sea, we're told. It's a vigorous action then,
that is being spoken of here. Descending out, it's God acting
as it were, it's God taking a storm out of his vast treasuries and and casting it after his rebellious
prophet. Remember how the psalmist says
of God, "...he gathereth the waters of the sea together as
an heap, he layeth up the depths in storehouses." This is the
way God can act. His ways in the sea, His path
in the great waters, His footsteps are not known. There's a mystery
in the ways of God and we see something of it here. God is
not inactive. Maybe the Prophet feels very
secure as he's now on board the ship and he's gone into the bowels
of the ship and he's fast asleep, but God is active pursuing his
rebellious servant. And there is surely something
quite extraordinary in this storm. from the reaction of the sailors. We read in verse 5, they were
afraid and cried every man unto his God. And then again in verse
7, they said everyone to his fellow, come and let us cast
lots that we might know for whose cause his evil is upon us. It was such a storm as these
experienced sailors had probably never experienced before. There's
something quite extraordinary taking place, but it's God. It's
God at work. And what does God do with regards
to the way in which he pursues after Jonah? Well, he points
him out. They cast lots, we're told, at
the end of verse 7, and the lots fell upon Jonah. And that of course is very significant
because it's not a mere chance thing, even the casting of a
lance. As the hymn writer says, the fictitious powers of chance
and fortune I defy, my life's minutest circumstance is subject
to his eye. God sees it. And God orders it. Again, the wise man in Proverbs
16.33, the lance is cast into the lamp. but the whole disposing
thereof is of the Lord." All the lot falls upon this man,
and it's God. It's God who is pointing him
out. It's God who has begun, as it
were, to finger the man. He's going to deal with this
man. And what happens? Why? He seems to recognize it
himself. There seems to be something of
a realization in him. And he tells the men that they
had to take him up and to cast him into the sea. He tells them he's a Hebrew.
Verse 9, I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, which made the
sea and the dry land. Then were the men exceedingly
afraid. and said unto him, Why hast thou done this? For the
men knew that he had fled from the presence of the Lord, because
he had told them. And they asked him what they
had to do, that the sea might be stilled. And he says in verse
12, Take me up, 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 upon you. God had prepared a place for
him. Now, whether he was altogether
aware of that, it's not for us to know, but certainly it is
evident from what we're told at the end of the chapter. The
Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah
was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. the Lord had prepared this fish
and of course this is a real historical event that's recorded
here in the book of Jonah the liberal and the modernist coming
to the word of God and telling us it's full of fable dismisses
the story but that's a very perilous thing for anyone to do because
As we saw in that portion that we read in Matthew 12 verse 38
following, Christ himself testifies to the historicity of this record. He makes a comparison there between
the experience of Jonah being cast into the sea and swallowed
by the great fish, a comparison between that and the Lord's own
experience when he was laid in the tomb and rose again on the
third day. And what this man is experiencing
in the belly of the fish in a sense could be said to be a living
death. In chapter 2 where we have his
prayer out of the fish's belly, he cries in verse 2 by reason
of his affliction, and he says, Out of the belly of Hau cried
I, and thou heardest my voice. And the margin again gives us
an alternative, it says he cried out of the belly of the grey.
You see why the Lord makes the comparison there. Here is this
man who is three days and three nights in the fish's belly, And the Lord Himself, after His
crucifixion, after His death, is laid in the tomb and rises
again on the third day. And what He's got doing here,
He is restoring the Prophet. But He is restoring him in such
a fashion that He is dealing with His rebellion. All the psalmist
says though, was to God that forgave us them, though they
took us vengeance on their inventions. God is doing this here in the
way in which he's dealing with the prophet. God's sovereignty
is very much to the fore. It's God who's acting throughout
the chapter. And as God is taking vengeance
upon what this man has done, he's rebelling. He's not coming
off scot-free as they say. I want us in the second place
just to consider a little something of God's dealings and we might
say the severity of God's dealings. We know that God is angry with
the wicked every day. And there's a sense also that
God is angry with His people in their backslidings. Though He heals them, He will
heal His people of their backsliding, He will restore them. They can't
restore themselves. If God doesn't restore them,
there's no restoration. We have that word in Hosea 14.4,
I will heal their backslidings, I will love them freely, for
mine anger is turned away from Him. and how true that is with
regards to this man Jonah but see how God deals with him and
God's dealings how equitable how just and how right God's
dealings are in a sense we might say he deals
with his people in kind he deals with his people in kind Jonah
wanted to flee from the presence of the Lord And that's mentioned several
times. We have it twice here in verse
3. He rose up to flee unto Tarshish,
it says, from the presence of the Lord. There at Tarshish,
finding a ship, he pays the fare, went down into it to go with
them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. There's an emphasis
on that. He's wanting to be away. from
this God who has given to him such a commandment and then again
we have it in verse 10 the men knew that he fled from
the presence of the Lord because he had told them he was aware
of what he was about what he was doing he was very much seeking
to be away from God and so what happens He's brought to feel
what it is to be away from God. As he says there in his prayer
in chapter 2 and verse 4, I said, I am cast out of thy sight, yet
I will look again toward thy holy temple. Now the man is being
brought, as it were, to his senses in the belly of that great fish. Again, not surprisingly, we see
something of God's and His ways in that wisdom literature, the
language of Proverbs 14.14 says, The backslider in heart shall
be filled with his own ways. The backslider in heart is filled
with his own ways, and that was certainly the case with regards
to Jonah. He wants to be away from God's
presence, a special presence, And that's what happens. And
he feels it. He feels it. Solemn it is, you
see, to despise that special presence of the Lord. That's why we're not to forsake
the assembling of ourselves together. That's why we should cherish
all the means of grace. We despise them. What does the
Lord do? We not carefully take them away from us. That's why
we have to be examining ourselves even in these strange days we
wonder what will come next thank God at the moment we're still
free to assemble in this familiar fashion let us cherish these
things God keep us from any sort of backsliding again look at
the language that Paul uses when he writes there in the epistle
to the Galatians in Galatians chapter 6 There at verses 7 and 8. Be not deceived, he says, God
is not mocked. Whatsoever a man soweth, that
shall he also reap. He that soweth to his flesh shall
of the flesh reap corruption. But he that soweth to the Spirit
shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. God deals in kind. He's a God who is just and equitable
in all his ways. That's certainly the way in which
he deals with the wicked. We see that so evidently in the
experience of the Egyptians when you think of the history there
in the book of Exodus. Remember how that Pharaoh wants
to destroy all the male children that are born to the Hebrews?
They're all to be cast as it were into the river, they drown.
And the Nile becomes a bloody river. And then when God begins
to deal with Pharaoh by means of the plagues, the first of
those plagues, all the waters throughout Egypt turn to blood. He'd made the river a bloody
river by his murderous ways in destroying those male children,
those male babies. And so God literally turns all
the waters, think of all that land, the Nile Delta and everywhere,
blood. That's the first of the plagues.
And then the last of the plagues, of course, is when God sends
the destroying angel, and all the firstborn of the Egyptians
are killed. Oh, this is the way of God. We
know him that hath said, Vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith
the Lord. Well, that's God's dealings with
the ungodly, but God also deals with His people in their rebellions,
in their backslidings, in their disobedience, and He deals with
us in an equitable way. But He doesn't deal with His
people in a vindictive fashion. He doesn't do that because surely
He has dealt with the sins of His people in the person and
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. He has punished Christ in their
room and in their state. Christ himself has borne that
wrath of God. Now it's been visited upon the
soul of him who is the great substitute. But God, when he
deals with his people, does, as I've said, take vengeance
on their inventions. He deals with them always in
a fatherly way. He deals with them in the way
of chastening. Think of the language, the lovely
language that we have there in the 103rd Psalm, verse 10 following. David says, He hath not dealt
with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy
toward them that fear him, as far as the east is from the west,
so far as he removed our transgressions from us, like as a father pitieth
his children. So the Lord pitieth them that
fear him, for he knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we
are dust. He deals with His people in the
way of chastenings, but He knows all about our weaknesses, our
frailties. And in His dealings He is always
a gracious God. But how He humbles His people,
and how the Lord God here is really humbling Jonah the prophet. He had been sent by God, commanded
to go onto that great city of Nineveh, a heathen city, and
he was to cry against them because of the wickedness. And all that
wickedness of the Ninevites had come up before God. That was
God's command. He is to preach, and he's to
preach against the heathen. But what happens is that he himself
is rebuked by one of the heathen. the shipmaster. You see these
mariners are afraid, they're crying to their gods, to their
idols. They're casting forth the wares
of the ship and then we read of the shipmaster in verse 6.
He comes to Jonah and says, What meanest thou, O sleeper? Arise,
call upon thy God. If so be that God will think
upon us that we perish not. Oh, he is rebuked even by this
man. He should be awakened, he should
be calling upon his God. And isn't that something that
we are called to do, surely in such a time as this? One fears that those in high
places, those in authority over us, have very little fear of
God before their eyes. One wonders if ever they utter
a prayer for themselves, but we can pray for them. And we
should be praying. Praying that God will yet come
and intervene and appear and stay his hand there we see how
God deals with his prophet God restores his people that's the
great thing how God restores this man and well the Lord willing
as I said I want to look at the remainder of the book on the
Lord's day that I just close with the words of that lovely
hymn of of Charles Wesley one hundred and one thousand rather
one thousand and sixty in Gadsby's Wesley's lovely hymn on the back
slider weary of wandering from the Lord
and now made willing to return and verse three says this and
we'll close with this thou knowest the way to bring me back my fallen
spirit to restore, O for Thy truth and mercy's sake, forgive
and bid me sin no more, the ruins of my soul repair, and make my
heart a house of prayer. Let the Lord be pleased to bless
His word to us. Well, let us, before we pray,
turn to the hymn number six, The tune is Holly 348. God's ways are just. His counsels
wise. No darkness can prevent his eyes. No thought can fly. Nor thing
can move unknown to him that sits above. Wait then, my soul,
submissive wait, Prostrate before his awful seat, Amidst the terrors
of his rod, Trust in a wise and gracious God. We'll sing number
six.