Let's turn this evening to the
book of Jonah. Jonah chapter one. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ
according to Jonah. The very best thing that can
ever happen to a human being is to have the word of the Lord
God come to them. That's the very best thing, to
come to them. You see the first phrase of Jonah
1.1? Now the word of the Lord came
to Jonah. The very best thing that could
ever happen to a human being happened to Jonah. He's the son
of Amittai. You know, we think the best thing
would be to get a big raise at work or a promotion. That's not the best thing. A
bigger house may not be the best thing. It can be fine to get
married, but it may not be the best thing. or to have a little
baby, what a precious thing that is. What a joy that can be. These
are all fine things in most cases, but the best, the very, very
best, without comparison, the best thing that can ever happen
to a human being is to have the word of the Lord come to us. You say, wait a minute, you had
us turn to Jonah, right? Jonah, he's that guy who was
on a ship in this massive storm and he gets tossed overboard
and swallowed by a big fish and up chucked on the shore three
days later. You talking about that Jonah,
Bob? Yeah, that Jonah. It was still the best thing to
ever happen to Jonah was to be spoken to by the Lord. And that
happened to him. That Jonah, sometimes unlike
what modern so-called preachers teach us, a person's difficulties
and trials are not over if the Lord comes to them, the word
of the Lord comes to them, they're just beginning. And when the
Lord speaks to us, even if trials begin and troubles come, it's
still the very best thing that can ever happen to a human being.
So what did the Lord, what did the word of the Lord say to Jonah?
Said two things. Look at verse two. It said, first
of all, arise and go to Nineveh, that great city. Go to Nineveh. And it's called that great city
for several reasons. It had a wall around it that
was a hundred feet high. And the old riders looked these
things up and studied history. That wall was so wide, three
chariots could go abreast all the way around it. That's a three
lane highway, all the way, 60 miles around this place. You know, from Kingsport to Johnson
City to Bristol and back to Kingsport, you know how far that is? It's
about 60 miles. Folks, we're talking about a
great city here. This is a big city. And that's about how long
the wall around Nineveh was. It was a great city. And Jonah
was told, he said, Jonah, you go there. You go there. And the
second thing Jonah was told, cry against it. You go there
and preach the gospel to them. You tell them they're sinners.
Why? As great a city as this was in
terms of its size, it was like over 120,000 people lived there. I'll show
you that number later. Despite its size and its population
and its architecture and defenses, greater still was one thing,
its sin and wickedness. Jonah, you go tell them what
they are in God's sight. That's how the gospel begins,
is we gotta tell folks, we gotta hear what we are by nature. So
what did Jonah do? You see verse three, but Jonah,
bless his heart, but Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish. Now let
me explain that. Jonah's here in a place near
a seaport called Joppa. And that way is Nineveh. And
that way is Tarshish. And look what Jonah did. He rose
up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. And he
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. Poor Jonah, he went
the opposite direction. Why, why would he do that? Well,
has anyone else here ever done exactly the opposite of what
you were told to do? Do your children, do you ever
go, you sit right there and don't you move and go away and you
come back and here they are over here? You ever tell one of your
children, don't touch that. You can touch all this, don't
touch that. And you go a little while and
when you come back, what have they done? One time Luke stuck his
finger in a cake after being just told repeatedly, don't touch
the cake. Why'd he do that? Why do we do
that sort of thing? It's a simple answer. God told
Adam, Adam, here's this garden. There's hundreds, maybe thousands
of trees, and they're just full of beautiful, perfect fruit.
Eat all of it you want, as much as you want. But Adam, that one
tree right there in the center of the garden, don't eat it. What'd Adam do? He went over
there, plucked the fruit and ate it. Bless his heart. Ever since,
we're prone to do the opposite of what we're told, and so was
Jonah. But notice that he paid the fare.
You see that? He paid the fare. He paid to
go on this trip. There's always a price to pay
for disobedience and sin. You children realize that and
learn it. You can disobey. You can do it if you want to,
if you're determined to, but there's gonna be a price associated
with it. You know, whenever we disobey
or even ignore the word of God, there's a price to pay. And as
we'll see, Jonah paid a high price. And Jonah, it says fled
from the presence of the Lord. Now that's beyond the most foolish
thing anybody ever tried to do, isn't it? Uh, let's say we're
going to go on vacation to the beach, but we're going to leave
all our stuff, our luggage, our food, our car. Let's just leave
our heads here. So that's ridiculous. Well, Jonah
might as well have done that is to flee from the presence
of the Lord. Lord God not only sees everything
and hears everything and knows everything we do or even think,
you know why? He's everywhere. There's no place
to go where he is not. Jonah is not only a child of
God, he's a preacher of the gospel. I can't give you any other explanation
for Jonah's behavior, except that he also is a sinner saved
by grace. and except God prevent it, all
men will disobey. We all need to pray. We need
to ask God to be gracious to us. Even pastors and preachers,
they have a special and extraordinary calling, but they're still just
men. And so Jonah disobeys. Look at verse four, but the Lord,
but the Lord. sent out a great wind unto the
sea. And there was a mighty tempest
in the sea so that the ship was like to be broken. Then the mariners,
the sailors were afraid and cried every man unto his God." And
notice that their God is a little G. He's a false God. He's not
a real God. But they didn't know any better
at this point. And they cast forth the wares that were in
the ship. They threw everything overboard,
all the goods they had. They just, can you imagine coming
home and just dragging everything out of the house and throwing
it away? Cause you thought the house was going to sink into the ground.
And they just threw it overboard and go on and says to lighten
it up them, but Jonah. was gone down into the sides
of the ship and he lay and was fast asleep. Now there's, you
ever been in a thunderstorm? The lightning flashes and the
thunder crashes. And if you've been at sea, it's
all of a sudden the ship is going like this and that way. And that's
what's happening to Jonah. He's just sound asleep. Verse six, so the ship master
came to him and said to him, what meanest thou, O sleeper?
He said, arise, call upon thy God. Uh-oh, capital G here, isn't
it? This is the real God, the true
and living God. If so be that God will think
upon us that we perish not. And they said, every one to his
fellow, the sailors, come and let us cast lots that we may
know for whose cause this evil, this big storm has come upon
us. So they cast lots and the lot fell upon Jonah. We all do
realize, don't you? You know what dice are, play
games with them and stuff. Every time they roll, you know
what's coming up? What number's coming up? Whatever
number the Lord desires to have come up. There's no accidents
with God. There's no happenstance. There's
no luck. It's all the providence of God.
And so they cast dice, and I don't know how many sailors there were,
but Jonah's number came up. And they knew Jonah was the problem. Then said they unto him, verse
eight, tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is
upon us. What is your occupation? And
whence comest thou? What is thy country? And of what
people are you? These fellas are upset. They
think they're gonna die out here. In verse nine, and Jonah said
unto them, I'm a Hebrew and I fear the Lord. I fear the true and
living God. I fear Jehovah, the God of heaven,
which had made the sea and the dry land. You know, the problem
with sin is it puts us to sleep. Like Jonah, it numbs us. and makes us oblivious to sin
and the consequences, but the Lord, and he alone can wake us
from our slumber, our sleep of death. Look at verse 10. Then after Jonah tells him who
he is and who he's a representative of, the true and living God,
then were the men exceedingly afraid. And suddenly him, why
has thou done this? That's a good question, isn't
it? The one we just tried to answer a minute ago. Why would
Jonah do this? Why do we do what we do? The
answer's gotta be we're fallen in Adam and we act just like
him. Why have you done this? For the
men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord because
he told them so. He'd been talking to them and
telling them where he was going and why he was going. If you ever want to completely
waste your time When your children do something that even they know
they should not, ask them this question. Why'd you do that? Why'd you do that? Oh, you know
what the answer you mostly get? I don't know. I don't know. And you know, that's one reason
we take them downstairs every Sunday morning and start them
at that age to tell them what the problem is, why they do what
they do. The same reason we do. It's because
in Adam we fell, we learned disobedience, and it's what we are. Sin is not so much what we do
as it is what we are. Unless God's spirit wakes us
up We will sleep ourselves all the way to eternal death. Now
look at verse 11. Then said these sailors unto
him, what shall we do unto thee that the sea may be calm unto
us? For the sea wrought and was tempestuous. Now those words mean this. We've
gone from a huge thunderstorm with giant waves and big waves
and whatever. Now we're getting into typhoon
territory. Now we got a cyclone out here
and the waves now are starting to crash over the boat. Verse
12, and Jonah said to 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. These sailors are in real trouble
and they asked Jonah, what do we do? And Jonah says, throw
me overboard. Let me give you some advice, an old man's advice. If we're in trouble, look to
God's word for the answers. If it's not obvious in the word,
ask that man, bring it to your pastor. He spends all day long
in this word. Did any of the rest of us do
that? He may be able to ask and the Lord just show it to him
in the word. And then if he gives us an answer, if he doesn't give
us an answer, be still and wait. But if he gives us an answer,
then do what we're instructed by the word of God. Had these
men immediately thrown Jonah over as he told them to, their
trial would have been over. Is that what they did? Look at
verse 13. Nevertheless, how many times
do we nevertheless? Nevertheless, the men rode hard
to bring it to the land. And that's like, okay, we had
a big storm. Let's get all this stuff off
the boat and let's, you know, and we got, now we know the problem.
If we throw that guy out, it'll be fine. Nope, nope, let's just
keep right on rowing. Look what happened. Nevertheless,
the men rode hard to bring it to the land, but they could not,
for the sea wrought and was tempestuous against them. You know what we
got now? You can look it up, it's a hurricane. Now these men
are in a hurricane. They ignored Jonah and it got
worse, way worse. Look at verse 14. Therefore they
cried unto the Lord and said, We beseech Thee, O Lord. We beseech
Thee, you see that capital L, 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. So they
took up Jonah and cast him forth into the sea, and you know what
happened? The sea ceased from a raging.
The minute Jonah hit that water, and the ship calmed. Man by nature will try anything
and everything to save themselves except what God's word declares. Unless Christ frees us, we'll
never be free from sin. We'll never, we cannot save ourselves. Our Lord may have had many reasons
why he allowed Jonah to disobey and try to go to Tarshish rather
than Nineveh, but here's one reason for sure. God had some
people, some old salty sailors on the ship going from Joppa
to Tarshish, and he determined to save them. Our God is able
to accomplish all his purpose and he takes Jonah's rebellion,
Jonah's refusal to go directly to Nineveh and turns it to his
glory by saving some sailor sinners on a ship headed to Tarshish.
As the storm came, they each prayed to their own God, little
G. Now they pray to the God Jonah
told them about. Some years ago, God sent a preacher
to Kingsport, Tennessee. Let me ask you, why didn't he
send him to Knoxville or to Chattanooga or Memphis? Now those are greater
cities in men's eyes, aren't they? Perhaps God has much people
in this place. Look at verse 16. Then the men
feared the Lord exceedingly and offered a sacrifice unto the
Lord and made vows. These men before had feared the
ferocious and mighty waves. Now they feared the true and
living almighty God, the ruler of the waves, the ruler of the
seas. These men vowed to serve the
true and living God and now knew that a sacrifice was required
for the forgiveness of sin. And they were told by Jonah,
Christ is that sacrifice. And verse 17 begins, now, now. Having accomplished his purpose
in saving a group of his people, now the Lord gets back to Jonah. Read verse 17. 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. Almost 800
years before our Lord Jesus Christ was born, a clear picture and
type was given and recorded by Jonah of how God saved these
sailors. Indeed, the way God saves all
whom he saves from sin. As Jonah was beaten by the waves
and consumed by a giant fish and stayed in his belly three
days and three night, this pictures, that Christ was beaten and scourged
and nailed to a cross. He died, was buried and cast
into hell. Christ got what sinners deserve.
Christ got what Jonah deserved. What Jonah got pictured here.
Look at chapter two. Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord
his God out of the fish's belly and said, I cried by reason of
mine affliction unto the Lord. And he heard me out of the belly
of hell cried I. And thou heard hurts my voice
for that is cast me into the deep in the midst of the seas
and the floods compass me about all thy billows and thy waves
passed over me. Then I said, I'm cast out of
thy sight. Yep. I will look again toward
the Holy temple. The waters compass me about even
to the soul. The depths closed me round about
the weeds were wrapped about my folks. Jonah's dead in the
belly of that fish. He said, I went down to the bottom
of the mountains. The earth with her bars was about me forever.
The bones of that fish were closing around Jonah as it consumed him. Yet hast thou brought up my life
from corruption, O Lord my God. When my soul fainted within me,
I remembered the Lord and my prayer came in unto thee. into
thy holy temple. They that observe lying vanities
forsake their own mercy, but I will sacrifice unto thee with
the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord. You know what the conclusion
of the whole matter is? Salvation is of the Lord. There is no other. Deliverance, redemption, justification
are either of the Lord or we don't have any salvation. Christ
lived like we should have and died like we deserve to die.
Or we yet have a debt to pay God, which eternal punishment
cannot satisfy. Let me ask you this. Was that three days in the belly
of a fish? You ever seen anything come out
of the belly of a fish? Up at Lake Erie, a bunch of fellows
from Ashland, we used to go fishing up there and we'd catch a really
big bass. And when we clean him, we go,
see what's in his gullet. He'd open up that stomach. One
time, there was a tail about that wide and one claw about
that long. The rest of the crayfish was
gone. He'd been in that belly long enough to where that's all
that was left. It was three days and three nights
in a fish's belly. Was that good enough for God? In Jonah's case, look at verse
10. And the Lord spake unto the fish,
and it vomited out Jonah upon dry land. He made him whole all
over again. You say, how does somebody get
swallowed by a fish and all gobbled up and everything for three days
and three nights, there's nothing left, and yet it can spit him
out, a living thing? It's a picture, folks, it's a
picture. Do we realize that the Lord Jesus
Christ, three days and three nights after his crucifixion
and burial, he came forth from the tomb. Why? God was satisfied. God was satisfied to have Jonah
in that belly three days and three nights. He was satisfied
with Christ, what he went in there to accomplish. And if we're
in Christ, he's satisfied with us. Let's not miss this clear
picture. Jonah had to go through this
terrible ordeal on the ship and then the death and agony that
followed. Why? In order for those sailors
to be saved. What does that mean? What does
that picture? Jesus Christ had to go through 33 years of life
on this earth and the terrible trial before Pilate. the verbal
condemnation, the physical abuse, death, burial, and eternal condemnation. Why? In order for his people
to be saved. Now God says something to Jonah
for the second time. Look at chapter three, verse
one. The word of the Lord came to
Jonah the second time. What'd he say? Basically the
same thing he told him the first time. Arise, go to Nineveh, that
great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee. So what does Jonah do this time?
Verse three, so Jonah rose and went to Nineveh, according to
the word of the Lord. And now it says, Nineveh was
an exceeding great city, a three days journey. And Jonah began
to enter into the city a day's journey and he cried, and that
word is preached, and said, yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be
overthrown. Jonah begins to preach the gospel.
And what happens next is what can happen only when the truth
is told. By the way, did I tell you when
I said that Jonah was the son of Amittai? You know what Amittai
means? Truth. Jonah came as the son
of truth. When the truth is told about
God and His Christ, somebody's going to believe it. Now look
at verse 5 of chapter 3. So the people of Nineveh believed
God. and proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest
of them even to the least. For word came unto the king of
Nineveh and he arose from his throne and he laid his robe from
him and covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes and
he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh
by the decree of the king and his noble saying, let neither
man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything, let him not feed
nor drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth
and cry mightily unto God, capital G, known as God. Yea, let them turn everyone from
his evil way and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn
and repent and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish
not. And God saw their works, what
they did in response to his message. And they turned from their evil
way, and God repented of the evil that he had said that he
would do unto them, and he did it not. Now, turn over to Matthew
12. Matthew chapter 12. Does verse
10, let me tell you what does not mean. It does not mean that
God changed his mind. It means simply that God showed
them mercy. Not for Jonah's sake, Jonah's
only a picture, but he showed them mercy for Christ's sake. And here's the evidence of that
in Matthew 12, verse 38. Then certain of the scribes and
of the Pharisees answered This is the Lord Jesus Christ. They
said, master, we would see a sign from thee. But he answered and
said unto them, an evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign,
but there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet
Jonas. 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 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." You see, the whole
book of Jonah is about the Lord Jesus Christ. What he did, why
he came, what he accomplished. And Jonah's just a type. Now
let me close with this. Turn to chapter four, the last
verse, verse 11. God, the Lord now speaks to Jonah
for the last time. That's recorded. And he says
in verse 11, and should not I spare Nineveh? That great city wherein
are more than six score thousand persons, you know how many that
is? That's over 120,000 of whatever he's talking about. That's over 120,000. He said, Should not I spare none of that
great city wherein are more than six score thousand persons that
cannot discern between the right hand and the left hand and also
much cattle? What's that mean? I have to admit
to you, I first thought cannot discern between the right hand
and the left. I thought, well, when I heard the gospel, I didn't
know up or down about the Lord Jesus Christ. I didn't know left
or right until I heard more and more and more till I began to
read. and understand more. That's not
what this means. One of the old writers helped
me out here. You know, it's referring not to the number
of people in Nineveh, grownups. It's talking about the children.
The infants, that was over 120,000 who didn't know their left from
their right. We're talking about little Stella's. She's starting to walk. She doesn't
know her left from her right, does she? No. Talking about the
Henry's and the Sig's and the Kennedy's and Eva's. God saw fit to save over 120,000
children. and everybody else. Nobody seems
to know whether there was 600,000, 800,000 adults, grownups or older
than infants in this place. Our God is indeed the merciful
God. It's insulting when these people
in the east, far east, near east, I don't care where it is, when
they say, call somebody most merciful. This is the most merciful
God right here. And he saved them all. That's
the main point to see in this verse. But here's another to
be made concerning us right here tonight. If you take the population
of Kingsport, Bristol, and Johnson City, you know what it is, the
combined population? We already said it's about the
same size as Nineveh. It's about 127,000 people. Could
it be, could it be that our God might do for us in this day what
he did in Jonah's day for Nineveh? Only a willfully blind person
would deny that God's doing something here, isn't he? He's doing something
here, isn't he? Is it too great a thing for us
to ask that he do for this place what he did for Nineveh? Can
we even imagine what it must have been like to live in Nineveh
after Jonah came? Everybody you met, hi brother,
sister, how are you? What a joyful, wonderful, all
worshiping God of one mind, one heart, one God. Is it too bold to ask? Well,
in Genesis we're told, is anything too hard for our Lord? May the
Lord give our pastor and us the wisdom, the grace, the boldness,
courage and the ability and desire to proclaim Jesus Christ and
him crucified in this place. Perhaps this could be God's next
great city. Who knows? Who knows? All right,
Pastor.