Good morning. If you will turn
with me back in your Bibles to Jonah chapter 1. Jonah chapter 1, this will be
our text. I suppose most of you are probably
somewhat familiar with the story of Jonah, specifically the fact
that he wound up in the belly of a whale for three days and
three nights. But this morning, I would like
us to consider this perhaps in a different light than maybe
we had before. I want to go through chapter
one, verse by verse, and I want us to see God's goodness to Jonah. Now, as we go through this, I
want us to try to put ourselves in Jonah's shoes. I pray we can
put ourselves in his place and not only see God's goodness to
him with what happened to him and what the Lord did to him
and for him, but I pray that we might be able to see God's
goodness to us, all right? Jonah chapter one, let's start
in verse one again. 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. We just read the word of God. The word of the Lord came to
Jonah. Jonah was a believer. He was
a child of God. And not only that, he was a prophet.
He was a prophet of God. God gave him his word and God
commanded him, Jonah. You're gonna go to Nineveh and
you're gonna preach the word that I've given you. You're gonna
go to that great city, it was a great metropolis city, the
capital of Assyria, and you're gonna go and you're gonna preach
to them. And what you're gonna do is you're
gonna cry out against them. And that's, we need to understand,
that's what this word declares, our wickedness. Cry out against
their wickedness. What do we read Jonah did when
the Lord commanded him to do this? What'd he do? But Jonah,
Jonah had other plans, didn't he? Jonah had something else
in mind, and it's a serious matter, okay?
Not only did he disobey the Lord, had no regard for his command.
Look what it says there. It says in verse three, he rose
up to flee, it says, from the presence of the Lord. Before I go any further, I just
want us to pause and put ourselves in his place right here. Disobeyed
God. God spoke to him, and he said,
nope. A few months ago, I brought a
message, no God, it's all of us, isn't it? It's all of us.
Jonah, he fled the presence of the Lord, or at least that's
what he intended to do. And I'll say this, for a child of God,
that's just not possible. Though we may think we're going
off He said, I'll never leave you. You can try to leave me
if you want to, but if we're his, we're his. There's no leaving
his presence. But nonetheless, Jonah set off
to go his own way. And I'll just say this, as far
as trying to make sense of this, why would a prophet of God not
go preach as God commands him to go? How can we understand
that? Well, kind of like looking at
Jacob, Jonah was a Jacob. Jonah was a Jacob, and what I
mean by that is Jonah was a sinner. God saved him by his grace, but
he was still a sinner nonetheless. And that's so for every child
of God, saved by grace, but we're still sinners in this flesh.
Still sinners, and you know what sinners do? Dumb things. Sinners do dumb things. God said,
Jonah, go east. Jonah said, I think I'll just
go west. And two, Nineveh was a much shorter
journey. I read that it was about 725
miles to the east. You know how far Tarshish was
to the west? 3,000 miles. We do dumb things,
don't we? Oh, my. Jonah, I can just see
him going down to Joppa. I don't know how far it was to
Joppa. It doesn't appear very far. He goes down to Joppa, and
he sees all these ships, and I can just see him running as
fast as he can, asking, where's the next ship to Tarshish? I
gotta get on that ship. And he found one. He got on a
ship heading to Tarshish. It says he paid the fare thereof,
and off he went. He went his way. Went his way. Well, look what verse four says.
It says, but the Lord. But the Lord. Well, I'm gonna
go do this. But the Lord. Who has their way? Did Jonah, did he really think
he was gonna get away with this? Oh, no. But the Lord. I kind
of skipped over it, but in verse three it says, when he found
that ship, he paid the fare thereof. Whenever we disobey God, there
is a price to pay. And I'm not saying that to be
scary. I will say it's a serious thing to disobey God at all.
And as the child of God and as his prophet to blatantly disregard
his command, surely Jonah did not think he's gonna get away
with this. Surely God is gonna fulfill his purpose, right? He's
God. What he's saying is, there's
gonna be something, Jonah's gonna have to answer for what he did,
all right? He's gonna have to give an account for the poor
decision that he was making. And we see it in verse four,
read it with me. It says, 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. Didn't take very long. I don't
know how long the boat had been out in the water. I suspect not
too long, because Jonah still had to go to Nineveh. And I'm
not gonna show you, but in the following chapters, Jonah goes
to Nineveh, all right? But something's gotta happen before then. And
what happened is God sent a storm. And we also looked at this a
while back in Nahum chapter one, where we saw God's goodness clearly
declared. Well, he said in Nahum one verse
three, the Lord hath his way. How often we think, well, wish
I could just have my way, or we go our own way, just like
Jonah did. But we need to understand, God
has his way. God has his way with everything,
and he has his way with us. And I love what it goes on to
say, he hath his way in the whirlwind. and in the storm. And that's
exactly what God sent here. He sent a whirlwind. He sent
a mighty, a strong, tempestuous wind and storm. And I'll tell
you this, if you've ever been out on a boat, wind is probably
not your friend. I've been on a boat and they
just turned the motor off for a second and I was scared to
death. Just being rocked back and forth by the gentle waves. These were no gentle waves. This
was a storm like they had never seen before. I'm going to focus a little bit
through this message on the people on the ship with Jonah. Jonah
wasn't the only one on this ship. It said he got on the ship with
them. Well, who are these people? Well,
look at verse five right here. It says, then the mariners or
the sailors were afraid and cried every man unto his God and cast
forth the wares that were in the ship to lighten it of them. Jonah wasn't the only one affected
by this storm. And I guess this would be a good
time to say this too. When we sin, it doesn't just
affect us. When we make poor choices, it
don't just affect us. Most of us here, we have loved
ones or we have friends, other people who we affect, right?
Jonah, he sinned and God sent this storm, but here are some
other men on this ship with him. Again, I don't know how many.
John Gill wrote, he supposed maybe about 70 men and that they
were all from a different country. which we'll see a good picture
of that here in a minute. But anyway, they're on this boat,
and this storm is bad, and they were fully expecting this ship
to break. Where it says the ship was like
to be broken, my margin says it was thought to be broken.
It became pretty obvious to them, this is no ordinary storm. This
is not gonna end well for us. This boat's gonna break, this
boat's gonna sink. And you notice what they did,
they start throwing stuff off the boat. I don't know what all
they had on the boat, but anything heavy, any heavy equipment that's
weighing it down, they start throwing it off. You know what that's a picture
of, don't we? Well, we see we're in trouble. We gotta start getting
rid of some things and gotta start shaping up. That's not the answer. Another story, when we were on
our cruise a few years ago, I'd never been on anything like that.
I'd never been out in the middle of the ocean, and just that thought
scared me beforehand. I just trusted the Lord that
it would all be okay. Well, one night, a storm came
to us on the ship, and I just started seeing everything, just
kind of going back and forth, and I was uneasy. I was very
uneasy. I remember we were laying in
the bed and I could just hear stuff rolling back and forth,
stuff falling around, and I was scared to death that boat might
sink. All right? That was nothing. That was nothing. We were fine. If I could have
just spoken to the captain, I guarantee you I would have felt so at peace.
All right? There was no peace to be had
here. They say this was like unto a hurricane, a terrible,
terrible storm. And what do we do when storms
come our way, when a hard trial hits you in life? What's the
first thing this natural flesh does? Gets religious, doesn't
it? Do you see what it said there
in verse five, what they did before they started chucking
everything? It says, every one of them, they, They started crying out unto
their gods. Each man had a different god.
And they start crying out to this god and that god, hoping
that one of their gods would be able to do something for them.
Let me ask you this. While all this is going on, where's
Jonah? What's Jonah doing? Is he crying out to his god?
Look at the end of verse five. It says, but Jonah was gone down
into the sides of the ship, and he lay and was fast asleep. I'm fully convinced Jonah didn't
have a clue in the world what was going on. I can just picture
him because I can see myself and what I would have done. As
soon as he got on that boat, he thought, whew, I don't have
to go to Nineveh. I escaped that one. I'm going
to Tarsus, this beautiful city, and I'm just going to have a
grand old time. I'm going to do my own thing. And he gets
on that boat, and he goes down and finds a place to lay his
head. I'm sure he'd been awake for a while. You know, we waste
a lot of time disobeying God, don't we? he find him a bed and
he lays down and off to sleep he goes and it says he was fast
asleep reading about this looking up he was in a deep sleep one
meaning even said unconscious he was totally unaware of the
things that were happening He was unaware that God had sent
a judgment because of him. And we're going to see that here
in a minute. But I thought about this when reading Jonah's ignorance,
Jonah's willful ignorance, and his great sin against God. His
physical sleep was a good picture of spiritual sleep. Jonah needed
to wake up. And I'm telling you, as we are
in this flesh, before God saves us, this whole world that doesn't
know God, I pray God would wake them up. And as a child of God,
as we often slumber in sleep, may God wake us up. I mean that, and I'm talking
to me first and foremost. May God wake us up. The psalmist
said in Psalm 13, verse three, O Lord my God, lighten mine eyes,
lest I sleep the sleep of death. I don't want to sleep the sleep
of death. I don't want to live my whole life sinning against
God with no care, no concern or regard for His holiness or
my sin or the judgment that is coming. May God wake us up. Jonah needed to wake up, and
God used the man to wake him up. Verse 6 says, So the shipmaster,
the captain, came to him and said unto him, What meanest thou,
O sleeper? Arise, call upon thy God, if
so be that God will think upon us that we perish not." To have the captain going through
searching the boat, you know it was bad, don't you? I'm sure
they would exhaust every other person on that boat to go take
care of things before taking the captain away from his steer.
And here this captain comes. A lost man, he comes to Jonah,
he finds him asleep and says, what in the world are you doing?
How are you sleeping right now? Do you not know what's going
on? We're all crying to our gods
and nothing's changed. Why don't you cry to your God?
Maybe he'll be able to do something for us. Maybe he'll be able to
save us from this terrible storm. Something changed right here
to Jonah. You put yourself in his shoes.
Imagine the shame and the guilt that man must have felt at this
moment, being rebuked by an unbeliever. Wake up. Don't you see the storm
that's going on? Now the captain and these men
on the boat, they didn't yet know that it was because of Jonah.
But there's one person who did know it was because of Jonah,
and that's Jonah. You better believe the moment he saw that
storm, he knew, he knew exactly what was going on. God woke him
up. And when he did, I guarantee
you, he started crying out to his God. He knew his God was
able to deliver. He knew his God and his God alone
was able to save from this terrible storm. Look at verse 7. These were some religious men
who did not know God, okay? We know that because they were
crying out to all sorts of little g-gods, and they were trying
to save themselves. But they knew this storm was
so bad, they were absolutely convinced this has to be an act
of divine judgment. It just has to be. These were
experienced sailors. These men lived their life on
the sea. Their trade, their work, that's
what they did. They knew the sea better than
anybody. I'm sure they'd navigated through tons of storms, but they'd
never seen a storm like this. They thought, though they didn't
know God, they knew this was, This was some supernatural storm.
Somebody has done something to cause this. Somebody has sinned
a great sin for this to happen. And let me point out, they didn't
think it was them. None of those men who were praying
under their own gods. They didn't feel any guilt of
their own. But they thought, we're gonna find out who's responsible
for this. We're gonna find out who's to
blame here. And at the end of verse seven it says, so they
cast lots and the lot fell upon Jonah. Now this matter of casting
lots, I've read about it and I don't really know how to explain
it. Some say they rolled some dice and, oh, what do you know,
it landed this way. Some say they drew names and,
whoop, it's Jonah. And you think, well, how can
you know? How can that be reliable? It sounds kind of superstitious.
It does. Well, we know this. Proverbs 16, verse 33 says, the
lots cast into the land. The whole disposing thereof is
of the Lord. God was gonna make sure these men knew Jonah had
sinned against him. And this storm was sent because
of Jonah. Now, put yourself in the shoes
of these sailors. At this moment, how would you
feel if you found out this stranger has joined himself to your ship?
Perhaps all of those people knew each other, but they didn't know
Jonah. And then you find out, It's because of Him. What would
you do? Well, let's see what they did.
Verse 8, Then said they unto him, Tell us, we pray thee, for
whose cause this evil is upon us? What is thine occupation,
and whence comest thou? What is thy country, and of what
people art thou? They started interrogating him,
asking him all these questions. Who are you? Why are you here? Why'd you get on our boat? Where
are you from? Where were you born? Who in the
world are you? What have you done? They suspected he must be some
notorious sinner. He must be a special kind of
bad sinner. And they were right. They were
right. See, Jonah needed to be asked
these questions, just like Jacob needed to be asked, what's your
name? Just like Adam needed to be asked, where are you? What'd
you do? We need to be asked these questions.
We need to be confronted with the truth of who we are, our
whole story, what we've done, what we deserve. Our sin must be exposed. And I don't mean you need to
expose my sin. I pray that our love will cover one another's
sin. But our sin must be exposed before God. God sees everything,
everything. We all have secret sins, don't
we? Things we just, oh, we just die if other people found out,
wouldn't we? God knows it. God knows everything. And here
Jonah, Jonah had been exposed. Jonah had been found out. And
we finally see Jonah speak here in verse nine. And he said unto
them, I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven,
which hath made the sea and the dry land." Jonah speaks. What does he say? You're right to be questioning
me. I am a notorious sinner, he said, but I'm a child of God.
I'm a Hebrew. I fear thee, Lord. You're all crying out to this
God and that God. I fear Thee, Lord, the God of heaven, the
one and only God. There's only one God, and I fear
Him. I worship Him. This sea that's
raging against us, He made it. And right now, He's having His
way in it, with me and with you. That dry land you're trying to
get to, He made it. The only way we're gonna get
to that dry land is, Lord, if you will, See, in confessing
to these men who He was, Jonah could not help but tell them
who God was. And here's where the story starts
turning for the better. The storm's still raging. Things are still
looking very bad for Jonah and for these men. But here's where
things truly start to change. Now look at verse 10. Then were the men exceedingly
afraid, they were with great fear, and they said unto him,
Why hast thou done this? For the men knew that he fled
from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them. Why,
why would you sin against such a holy God? Why would you blatantly
disobey His command? Why didn't you just go to Nineveh?
Why didn't you just do what He commanded you to do? You realize
you wouldn't be in this mess, right? Why'd you have to get
on our boat? There were so many boats. You
had to get on ours? You had to bring your trouble
to us? Why did you do that? Why? They were mad at Him, and
I would have been too. I would have been too. And though Jonah was guilty,
and he was guilty, no excusing it. Jonah was guilty. It was
all his fault. But I have no doubt, Jonah, he
probably got a little mad at these men too. And I have no
doubt he took this blessed opportunity to cry out against their wickedness. God had told him, you go to Nineveh.
You cry out against their wickedness. It's great. Well, here these
men are, these self-righteous Pharisees. Well, thanks a lot. This is all your fault. This
storm wouldn't have come if you weren't here. And Jonah, I'm
sure he told them, you know what? God, I know for a fact God sent
this storm because of me, but even if I'd never stepped foot
on this boat, he'd have been right to send it because of you.
That's what the gospel declares, isn't it? We deserve God's wrath. We deserve his judgment. We don't
deserve a calm. It's the last thing we deserve.
Well, how do these men like that? How'd they like hearing such
a thing? Verse 11. Then said they unto him, what
shall we do unto thee that the sea may be calm unto us? For
the sea wrought and was tempestuous. It means it grew more and more
tempestuous. This storm just kept getting
worse and worse. And they knew we've got to do
something. Something must be done or we're
all going to perish. And that was true. Something
had to be done. And here's what they thought.
Well, this man's the problem. If it wasn't for him, this wouldn't
have happened. So we probably just need to get
rid of him. But here's what they also thought. Well, he appears
to be a prophet of God, so I don't know that we can just throw him
out here to die. Then God will surely judge us.
They were torn. They didn't know what to do.
It was a loss either way, as far as they were concerned. And
so they asked Jonah, what do we do? And I ask you, What do
we do? We've sinned against, we've all
sinned against God Almighty, and there's a storm coming. The
time, the exact moment of our storm has been appointed. There's
storms of life, there's troubles, but then there's trouble. What shall we do? Is there any
hope for a sinner like me? Look at verse 12. Jonah said unto them, 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
upon you. Jonah wasn't sleeping anymore.
He was wide awake and he was in his right mind. God woke him
up. God gave him faith. In that moment,
to believe God, and he knew what had to be done. He knew what
he had to do. He said, you take me. You're
right, I am the guilty one here. You take me, you lift me up,
and you cast me forth into the sea, and there will be a calm
unto you. Imagine how scared he must have
been saying that. Like I said, God gave him faith
to believe, gave him faith to do what had to be done. Often,
our pastor will mention, what if this is the last time? What
if this is the very last time I get to stand and preach the
glorious gospel of God? Jonah, he probably thought, this
is the last time I'm getting to preach the gospel of God.
And he took advantage of that opportunity. Verse 12 here is
such a glorious picture of the gospel. He told them about the
Messiah who was to come. He told them about the one, the
beloved Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, who would come,
who must be lifted up. who must suffer, bear our sins
and our shame and our guilt and die, be cast into the sea of
God's wrath and God's judgment, be cast into the lowest hell
to save some worthless sinners like us. I love thinking about how, what
a message that must have been. literally knowing, I mean, I'm
about to die. I'm literally going to jump into
this water, be thrown off, and that's it. These men need to
hear the gospel. God gave him faith to preach
the gospel, and that blesses my heart just to think about
it. But look at their response in verse 13. Nevertheless, The men rode hard to bring it
to land, but they could not, for the sea wrought, it was getting
worse and worse. It was tempestuous against them. They heard Jonah preach the gospel
and they thought, no, there's gotta be another way. Surely
this man does not have to die to save us. Well, how'd that
work out for him? They tried, they rode, they dig
hard and hard, and it says, but they could not. Had no ability
to save themselves, they could not, they couldn't outpower God. That was God who was raging against
them. That was God's hand controlling that mighty storm that they could
not prevail against. Brethren, we're no match for
God. We know that, but it's a good reminder. We're no match for
God. God's gonna have His way every time, all right? These
men, They finally found themselves in a glorious place at the mercy
of God. Helpless, totally, utterly helpless,
hopeless. Lord, we're at your mercy. Now,
I'll show you that. Look at verse 14. Wherefore they
cried unto thee, Lord, moments ago they were crying
unto their gods, their false gods, their idols, who could
do nothing for them. Now they're crying out to Jehovah,
God Almighty. What changed? I'll tell you what
changed. God did not break their ship. He broke those in the ship. He
broke those men. Oh, he broke those men. They
worked and worked and worked and tried and tried and tried
and cried to these gods that could not save. Jonah preached
the gospel to them. They kept on trying. Then they
stopped. They had no choice but to believe
God, whom Jonah had declared unto them. stand still and see
the salvation of the Lord, which He'll show you today. These mighty
sailors were now helpless sinners. And I pray we can see ourselves
in these sailors, too. What a blessing. Verse 14 says,
Wherefore they cried unto the Lord, and said, We beseech thee,
O Lord, we beseech thee. Let us not perish for this man's
life, and lay not upon us innocent blood. For thou, O Lord, hast
done as it pleased thee. They knew, we've got to do what
Jonah said. We have no other option. And
here they are praying unto God for faith to do it. They were
reluctant to throw him out. Wouldn't you be? Would you want
to have the blood of a man, a man of God on your hands? They did
not take this lightly. They wanted to make sure that
this was the Lord's will for them. And they did. At this point,
I said a minute ago, they were furious with Jonah, rightfully
so. But at this point, I'm convinced
they love Jonah because he preached the gospel to them. Oh, a man
preaches the gospel to you, especially the man whom the Lord uses to
bring you to the knowledge of Christ, you love that man. How
must they have felt to know we're going to have to throw him out
and he's going to die to save us, worthless sinners? They were reluctant to do it,
but God gave them faith to act. Verse 15, so they took up Jonah
and cast him forth into the sea. What happened? And the sea ceased
from her raging. When Christ died in our place,
when His precious holy blood was shed to cover our sins, to
put them away as far as the east is from the west, what happened?
There was a calm. There is a calm unto us. All for whom Christ died. are
saved." He suffered the wrath of God, the storm that we had
coming. He did it voluntarily. Like Jonah,
he volunteered himself. He cast himself right into it
for us because of his love for us. Amazing love, how can it
be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me? Verse 16 says, then
the men feared the Lord exceedingly and offered a sacrifice unto
the Lord and made vows. How thankful they must have been.
Not only had God delivered them from the storm that they thought
was surely going to kill them, God saved their souls from everlasting
destruction. Says they offered a sacrifice.
What kind of sacrifice do you think? I read people think, oh,
well, they... It was, here's what it was, brethren. It was
a sacrifice of praise. sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.
Thank you, Lord, for saving my soul. Thank you, Lord, for making
me whole. Thank you, Lord, for giving to
me thy great salvation, so rich and free. Whereas moments ago
they had been so upset that Jonah ever stepped foot on their boat
and brought this disaster their way, Here they are praising God
for letting Jonah disobey Him and step on that ship. Because
had He not, they may have never been saved. Saved from their
sin. What goodness, what kindness
from a merciful covenant God. Says they made vows. I don't
know exactly what vows they vowed, but I know they vowed this. Lord,
from this day forward, we're gonna worship one God. And that's
you, the one true living God, the God of heaven and earth,
the triune Jehovah God. You see God's goodness here.
You say, well, I thought the message was God's goodness to
Jonah. It is. Well, what happened to Jonah?
Verse 17 says, now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow
up Jonah. So he didn't die in a storm,
he died in a fish, no. No, read chapter two. He prayed while
he was in the belly of that fish. I bet he prayed the whole three
days and three nights he was in the fish. God in mercy prepared
that fish for him. You read his prayer. I don't
know, I kind of suspect that Jonah started sinking. He thought,
I'm gonna die. I deserve to die. In my mind, I just picture Him
taking His last breath, and then here comes that fish. The Lord
prepared for Him. He ordained that fish. At this
exact second, this man's gonna get thrown off a boat, and then
at this exact second, you're gonna go right here, and you're
gonna swallow him up. You mean to tell me God would
do that? Absolutely He would. Absolutely He would. Even after he sinned against
God as his prophet? Yep. Does it surprise you God would
do such a thing? In one way, yes, but in another way, no.
He's a merciful God, isn't he? Gracious, kind, loving God. Jonah didn't deserve it. We don't
deserve it. But praise God, he freely gave.
Freely gave himself. He gave everything. Like I said,
there is no excuse for Jonah's sin. Even though we see the good
that came from it, it wasn't because of Jonah. The storm came
because of Jonah. Judgment came because of Jonah.
But praise God, as was the case with Joseph, God overrules our
evil for good to accomplish his purpose, salvation in the earth. Now look at verse 17 again. Now
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. We see ourselves in Jonah by
his sin and disobedience, don't we? I pray we do. That's us. But I pray we also see Christ
in Jonah. That's who Jonah in the belly
of that fish represented. Jonah pictured Christ as the
substitute for those sailors, all right? You know that whale
represents Christ as a substitute for Jonah? Three days and three
nights, and out you're gonna come. I'll show you this in closing. Turn to Matthew chapter 12. Matthew 12, verse 38. Then certain of the scribes and
of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from
thee. But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous
generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall no sign be given
to it but the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah 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 reason God put Jonah in the
belly of that whale, the reason God sent the storm, the reason
God let His servant disobey Him like He did, is so that we might
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ like those sailors did and be
saved. Not from the storms of this life,
but from the storm of eternal wrath and damnation. Oh, what
goodness! Praise God for His goodness to
Jonah. Praise God for His goodness to
those sailors and to Nineveh. And praise God for His goodness
to us. Amen.