Every time I read, think about
this book, I am blessed. Some words we use over and over,
and most people outside of the, quote, church, unquote, don't
use those words. But I am truly blessed from this
book, because as we're going to see tonight, we see things
in it that God has intended for our instruction and our comfort,
and so I want to get right into that tonight. The first chapter,
just to summarize the book, the word of the Lord came to Jonah,
told him to go to Nineveh, and to go there for the purpose to
preach against that city, because their wickedness came up to God.
That's in the first two verses. But then Jonah ran from the Lord's
call, he went the other way, he got in a ship that was bound
for Tarshish, and while he was in that ship with the sailors
that were there with him, the Lord sent a storm that overcame
the ship that he and the mariners were in, and Jonah told the mariners
they must throw him into the sea that they might not perish,
and that if they threw him in, the sea would be calm to them."
So here we see how, though Jonah was disobedient as a man, yet
God in his overriding control of his life and his grace in
Jonah's life, not only is going to bring Jonah to do what he
gave him to do, but to set him up as a beautiful picture of
our salvation by the Lord Jesus Christ. Jonah wasn't a willing
object lesson here. God made him one. And he was
the one who wrote afterwards to tell us what God had done
here. So in that way, he's prophesying looking back, but also he's prophesying
looking forward to the Lord Jesus Christ. His own experience is
looking back, but looking forward to Christ is what he's really
writing about. So Jonah, in telling the mariners
to throw him overboard, is talking about the substitutionary work
of the Lord Jesus Christ for sinners. The substitutionary
work of Christ, that's what the gospel is. That's what we need. That's what we have. Through
the gospel, God has told us what Christ has done, and we cling
to it, like drowning, perishing sailors on the sea of God's wrath,
clinging to what God has said he has done in Christ. That's
what Jonah and the mariners here are in the ship. So the mariners,
they were unpersuaded at first. They tried to resist throwing
Jonah into the sea, partly because they didn't want to be guilty
of killing this man. They didn't know what God was
going to do to them if they threw him into the sea. Would he hold
them responsible or not? And they didn't want to see him
drown, so they tried to row against the storm, but that didn't work.
Eventually, they yielded to Jonah's request, and they begged God
to not hold them accountable. for what they were about to do
to Jonah, and then they cast him into the sea. Immediately,
the sea was made calm to them, and so Jonah, though you couldn't
see him, sank. He sank in the ocean, in the
waters of the Mediterranean Sea, which is not a small place, it's
a huge sea, so it wouldn't be like Lake Tahoe, it would be
like the Pacific. big and raging and connected
to all the other oceans in the world through the channels that
God prepared. But as Jonah sank, God had already
prepared for him a great fish to swallow him. And so Jonah
was in that fish's belly for three days and three nights.
It says in verse 17 of Jonah, chapter one, 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. I want to think
just a minute about those three days and three nights. In fact,
we're going to read through chapter two, and we're going to begin
to think on his prayer here, and we're going to learn much
from that. But first I want you to think about these three days
and three nights. Jesus said that Jonah was a sign.
a sign of his own death, burial, and resurrection. His death when
he was cast into the sea, his burial in the fish's belly, his
resurrection when the fish spit him out again onto the dry land. Did Jonah die when he was cast
into the ocean? Was he dead inside the fish's
belly? Was he raised to life again?
Was he in his body and soul alive when he prayed these prayers?
Was he finally given life after he was spit out? Those questions
are difficult to answer and I'm not sure that we can answer them.
But one thing is clear, everything that happened to him was a picture
of the Lord Jesus who did die, who was buried. who before he died in agony of
soul prayed, who after he shed his blood and cried it is finished,
he in his spirit went and offered his blood into heaven itself,
in the holiest place. So it's difficult to separate
between Jonah's physical, metaphysical state as a man, in life and death,
and what actually happened to the Lord Jesus Christ. It's so
close to, if not being death itself, that it's meant to teach
us of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. And it
does so in a very powerful way. But these three days also align
to the three days that the Lord Jesus said he would be in the
grave. Three days and three nights, it says in verse 17 of Jonah
chapter 1. Look with me at some verses of
scripture. I want to see this with you. How long was Jesus
in the grave? This is something that people
have wrestled with over the years. And it's difficult because it's
clear that the Jews took Jesus on the Passover. They didn't
want him to be on the cross on the Passover, so it couldn't
have been on Saturday that he was hanging on the cross. It
had to be the day before, or the evening before, actually,
that he was on the cross. They took him down before that
evening of the day before the Passover, which we know was a
Saturday. And so he had to be on the cross on Friday. We know
they therefore took him as the soldiers came and took him on
Thursday evening at night when he was in Gethsemane. So if you
count those times, it means he was crucified on Friday. And
he died on Friday evening. They took him down before the
Passover began, which would have been Friday still. They laid
him in the tomb, which would have been all day Saturday. And
then Sunday, very early, when the women came to bring the spices
to the tomb, he had already risen. So Christ was in the grave a
full 24-hour period on Saturday. but only part of a day on Friday
and only part of a day on Sunday. And so I want to see how this
is confirmed by scripture in Esther, the book of Esther. It's
back in the Old Testament. It's after Nehemiah and Ezra.
But in Ezra chapter five, it says here, Esther, sorry, Esther,
Esther chapter four, in Esther chapter four in verse, Verse 12, Esther 4, verse 12,
they told Mordecai Esther's words, and Mordecai commanded to answer
Esther, think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the
king's house more than all the Jews. For if thou altogether
holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement
and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place. But
thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed, and who knoweth
whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?"
Then Esther bade them return Mordecai this answer, Go, gather
together all the Jews that are present in Shushan, and fast
ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night, or day. So they were not supposed to
eat or drink for three days and three nights. I also and my maidens
will fast likewise, and so will I go unto the king, which is
not according to the law, and if I perish, I perish." So Mordecai
went his way and did according to all that Esther had commanded
him. In chapter 5, verse 1, now it came to pass on the third
day, do you see that? on the third day that Esther
put on her royal apparel and stood in the inner court of the
king's house over against the king's house. And the king sat
upon his royal throne in the royal house over against the
gate of the house. So what day did Esther go in
to the king? It was the third day. But she
had told them that they needed to fast for three days and three
nights. So in counting here, we see that
even in this case, three days and three nights were completed
on the third day. Also, I want you to consider
another text of scripture. Look at Hosea, which is before
Jonah. Hosea chapter 6, it says this
in Hosea chapter 6, Verse one, come and let us return unto the
Lord, for he hath torn and he will heal us. He hath smitten
and he will bind us up. After two days will he revive
us. In the third day he will raise us up and we shall live
in his sight. Now this is a prophecy of the
Lord Jesus Christ. We are all those who were crucified
with Christ, buried with Him, and rose again with Him, as it
says in Romans chapter 6, for example. Reckoning yourselves
also to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive to God, you have reckoned
yourselves to be dead with Christ and alive to God. Let me get
that fan for you. So, Hosea chapter 6 verses 1
and 2 is prophesying of the resurrection of Christ and it says here, after
two days he will revive us, in the third day he will raise us
up. And so, you can read verse three,
too. Then shall we know, if we follow
on to know the Lord, his going forth is prepared as the morning,
and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former
rain unto the earth. Now, also go to the New Testament,
in Luke chapter 24, because remember what it says in 1 Corinthians
15, it says that Christ died for our sins according to the
scriptures, and he was buried and he rose again the third day
according to the scriptures. So it was on the third day according
to the scriptures in 1 Corinthians 15 and clearly Hosea 6 verses
1 and 2 is speaking about Christ rising again the third day. Luke
chapter 24 if you turn there, this is Jesus talking to his
disciples, two of which were on the road to Emmaus, and in
verse 21, those two who were walking with Jesus on the road
to Emmaus said this, in Luke 24, 21, but we trusted that it
had been he which should have redeemed Israel, and beside all
this, today is the third day since these things were done.
the third day Christ was already risen, obviously walking with
those two on the road to Emmaus. So just from these scriptures,
and we're going to look at a couple more, we can see that Christ
rose and was alive on the third day, and yet he was in the tomb
three days and three nights, so the two have to be equivalent.
Look at Acts chapter 10, This is consistent throughout
the New Testament. If you look at these things,
Acts chapter 10 and verse 40, it says, Peter talking to Cornelius
and those with Cornelius, God sent him to preach to them. He's
preaching the gospel. In verse 39 it says, we are witnesses
of all these things which he did both in the land of the Jews
and in Jerusalem whom they slew and hanged on a tree, him God
raised up the third day and showed him openly. All right, so that
should be enough. First Corinthians 15, as I said,
says, He rose again the third day according to the scriptures. So this is the scripture. Christ,
according to Jonah, according to Hosea, and other scriptures,
rose the third day. And the third day, the three
days and three nights was fulfilled, even though it was on the third
day that he rose from the dead. So I mention that so that you
can see that that the Lord Jesus, the word of God is accurate and
it's faithful to not only the facts but consistent with itself. I'm going to read from John chapter
2, the gospel of John chapter 2, the Jews answered Jesus and
said, what sign do you show us Seeing that thou do these things,
Jesus answered and said to them, destroy this temple, and in three
days I will raise it up. So in three days he's gonna raise
up that temple. And of course, the disciples
remembered that he had said that, and it was the third day they
remembered that, so then they knew that he was talking about
the temple of his body. He raised up from the dead on
the third day. All right, so I wanted to go
through that with you, first of all, and then I want to turn
your attention now to chapter two, where Jonah prayed to the
Lord out of the fish's belly. First of all, we see here that
in chapter one, verse 17, the Lord had prepared a great fish
to swallow Jonah. The word prepared here means
that he ordained a fish to swallow Jonah. It doesn't mean that he,
at that time, created this fish and that fish was some kind of
special fish that had never been created before, but he was created
for this purpose. No, it was just a fish, great
and big enough to swallow a man. Which is not, I mean that's a
large fish, but it's certainly entirely possible. I heard that
a sperm whale can swallow, or they found a 14 or 16 foot shark,
great white shark, in the belly of a sperm whale. So it's a pretty
big throat to be able to swallow a 14 to 16 foot great white shark. I don't think sperm whale eat. meat like that normally, but
it can happen. However they go up for their
food and swallow it down, it just all goes down there. Anyway,
it's pretty fantastic to think about that. And there's many
accounts that historians have tried to give to justify this,
but here's the one account that matters. If you search all the
history books and you find and convince yourself that, yeah,
Jonah could have been swallowed by a whale, Don't let your faith
rest on history. Don't let it rest on the historians.
Let it rest on the Word of God. God said he sent a whale. He
prepared the whale to swallow Jonah, and he did swallow Jonah,
and he was in that belly of that fish for three days and three
nights. The word whale in the New Testament, where Jesus said
as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale,
It's not necessarily a whale as we think of a whale. It just
means a great fish or a sea monster. So either one is fine. I don't
have a problem with whale. I don't have a problem with great
fish. I don't have a problem with sea monster. The point is not
about what the creature was. The point is that Jonah was swallowed
at the appointment of God. And he was in that fish's belly
for three days and three nights. So here's a question for you.
Why was Jonah cast into the sea? And why was he swallowed by this
great fish? What was God's purpose? Why did
God send a fish to swallow him down? Some people say, well,
that was to preserve his life. But I have a problem with that
too. If it was to preserve his life, he could have created a
bubble. He could have put a submarine down there. I mean, he could
have done any number of things to preserve his life. Besides
the fact that since being in the fish's belly is compared
to being in the belly of hell and many other ways, It's doubtful
that, as John Calvin claims, the fish was like a hospital.
Even though he was uncomfortable, he was safe. I don't think that's
what God's trying to convey here. John Calvin has a lot of good
things to say, and I don't want to speak disparagingly of him
without just cause. But I think it's just trying
to make the text say something that you want it to say in order
to avoid saying something else. Most people will claim that Jonah
never died, but the scripture never says he never died. The
scripture also doesn't say that he actually died, but it does
say, Jesus said, as Jonah was three days and three nights in
the belly of the whale, so shall the Son of Man be three days
and three nights in the heart of the earth. Clearly there's
a one-to-one correspondence between the burial of Christ and the
fish's belly of Jonah. Was Jonah alive there? He prayed
there. So we got problems either way.
If we say Jonah was alive three days and three nights in the
fish's belly, we have issues with that. How could it be a
correspondence with Christ being in the grave? We could say, well,
Jonah was only in the fish's belly. He wasn't actually dead.
He was still alive. And like John Calvin, he's like
in a hospital. I think that's just trying to
fit what God has said into our understanding. It's better just
to let scripture say what it says. Jonah was there. He could
have died. I don't have a problem with him
dying. I don't have a problem with him being raised from the
dead. It's most likely, I mean, if you just read this, when he
hit the water, he was under the water. It was a storm. The sailors
were worried about perishing at sea. And they said, look at
notice in chapter one, It says in verse 12, he said to them,
take me up and cast me forth into the sea, so shall the sea
be calm to you. For I know that for my sake this
great tempest is upon you. Verse 13, nevertheless, the men
rode hard to bring it to the land, but they could not, for
the sea wrought and was tempestuous against them. Wherefore, they
cried to the Lord and they said, we beseech thee, O Lord, we beseech
thee, let us not perish for this man's life. but lay not upon
us innocent blood." They understood that when Jonah went into the
water, he was a dead man. That's the important point here.
Going into the sea, equivalent to, if not the same as, death. Being in the fish's belly equivalent
to, if not actual, grave. And being vomited out by the
fish was equivalent to the resurrection. Whether there was a physical
death, burial, and resurrection through this is hard to say because
in chapter 2 Jonah is referring back to his prayer. And how can
a dead man pray? Well, I'm going to leave that
to the Lord. So I'm not going to say he didn't. I'm not going
to say that he did. I'm going to just take this as
teaching us the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. So
the point here is God prepared this great fish for a purpose.
And what was that purpose? To bring Jonah to Nineveh that
Jonah, having been raised from the dead, i.e., spit out by the
fish, would preach the message God gave to him to the Ninevites,
and when they heard the message of Jonah, him having been delivered
by God from the fish's belly, they must have known something
about that, because they were so impacted by Jonah preaching
to them that they believed his word. And then they turned, so
God caused them to hear. They believed God. They believed
it through hearing Jonah. They were turned, obviously,
by the grace of God, and God saved them. That was the purpose.
God prepared a fish through this process to bring Jonah to Nineveh
to preach the word so the Ninevites would be saved. But there's a
larger purpose, of course, and that's to teach us the great
sign. Jesus said there's only one sign going to be given. It's
the sign of the prophet Jonah. as Jonah, dot, dot, dot, so the
son of man would be three days and three nights in the heart
of the earth. We're supposed to understand that this is the
big message of scripture. This is our salvation, Christ
for us, not the mariners, but Jonah. Not us, but Christ entered
into the wrath of God. Not us, but Christ underwent
death. He was buried, and He rose, and
in His death, and in His burial, and in His resurrection, we are
saved from the wrath of God. We didn't perish in the sea,
and therefore the gospel comes to us through the one who went
through death, burial, and resurrection through the preaching of the
gospel. So let's consider this now. He brought Jonah to Nineveh
to fulfill the Lord's will, to preach to the people there what
the Lord would give him to preach. That's in chapter 3, verse 2.
It says, The word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time.
Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the preaching
that I did thee. And we know what God sent Paul
to preach, don't we? Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Here he is, a living demonstration of Christ and Him crucified.
And they heard and they believed and they turned. By Jonah's preaching,
the Ninevites heard and believed and turned to the Lord. And the
Lord determined to spare Nineveh from the wrath He had pronounced
against them, even the destruction He had spoken to them through
Jonah. Amazing. Now that makes Jonah
look bad, but it doesn't make God look bad. Thus God prepared
a fish to swallow Jonah and hold him three days and three nights
until the Lord spoke to the fish to spit him out on the dry land
and to preach to the people of Nineveh. The Lord, in doing this,
showed himself merciful by saving Nineveh through the preaching
of his word through Jonah. Jonah lived in a time where he
preached to the people of the nation of Israel. At that time,
Jeroboam was the king. And through Jonah's message,
they were told that Jeroboam would bring back some of these,
or I don't know if it was Jeroboam, but his son, I think, would bring
back victory. The Israelites, these wicked,
wicked people, God was gonna give them victory over their
enemies and deliver them. And so Jonah was a prophet to
them at those days. These people were the people
of God, the Israelites. God has sent his prophet to tell
them of the victory. And yet the same prophet who
spoke of the good news to a wicked people of Israel came to speak
this bad news to Nineveh, but through that bad news, God brought
good news to them. He saved them from their sins.
You can see the overlap here. It's pretty amazing. The elect
of God, the nation of Israel, which represented the elect of
God, had heard the word. Jonah had preached to them, and
yet they went on in their sins. But these people of Nineveh,
who were Gentiles, heard the word, and God saved them from
their sins. So you can see the distinguishing
grace of God. So the Lord showed himself merciful
by saving Nineveh, how? Through the preaching, through
the preaching of his word. We never should discount the
preaching of the gospel. If God hadn't sent a preacher,
we would never have heard the gospel. God sent an ass to Balaam,
and didn't save Balaam, but God sent a preacher to us, and that
foolishness of preaching, and that preaching of the gospel,
God has saved us. Naaman had to go dip seven times
in the river Jordan. He thought that was a foolish
thing to do. I would rather go to one of the rivers of Syria.
They're better than Jordan. But Elisha told Naaman, no, you
go seven times, go dip seven times in Jordan. It seemed foolish. His servant convinced him. Why
wouldn't you do this? Get down off your high horse
and get in the water, basically. That's what the foolishness of
preaching does. It makes men dependent on a foolish process
of preaching Christ and Him crucified. And in that, the Spirit of God
falls upon us or comes upon us and gives us faith to hear and
to believe. And there, He turns us from our
foolishness, our idolatry, and everything else to the Lord.
And so, notice in this whole account here that the Lord afflicted
Jonah. In verse 2, chapter 2, it says,
and Jonah said, I cried by reason of my affliction to the Lord,
and he heard me out of the belly of hell, cried I, and thou heardst
my voice. So he was afflicted. And he was
afflicted, why? Why did the Lord have to afflict
Jonah? Well, clearly because he was in rebellion. He went
one way, God had to turn him. But he also afflicted him to
teach us that Christ had to be afflicted. And so you see both
things in view. In Psalm 107, it says this, in
verse 17, fools, because of transgression and because of their iniquities,
are afflicted. Their soul abhorreth all manner
of meat. They draw near to the gates of
death. Then they cry to the Lord in their trouble, and he saves
them out of their distresses. Isn't that the way the Lord saved
us? He made the guilt of our sin and the condemnation we face
because of the guilt of our sin and our helplessness in that
sin. In our sins, He made us cry to the Lord in our trouble
because the Lord afflicted us. When God afflicts us, it accomplishes
His will. And so we read this in Psalm
119. He says, this is my comfort in
my affliction, for thy word hath quickened me, has made me alive.
In my affliction, what was the comfort of the psalmist? God's
word had quickened him. We are afflicted, troubles in
our life, troubles in our soul, in our conscience, the world
about us, troubles us, everything, what gives us life? God's word. So many lessons in this. First,
God gave us life through his word when we heard the gospel
of Christ and believed. Whoever hears and believes my
word, Jesus said, believes on him that sent me, has eternal
life, John 5, or yeah, 5 verse 24. And so the word of God, first
of all, quickens us. But in the experience of our
life, what gives you comfort? What quiets your soul and calms
your fears? What enlivens your step? What
causes you to move out toward God in prayer and love and peace
and joy? Isn't it the word of God? It
is. That's the only thing. God's
Word is our life, our food, it's the way we believe God. Faith
comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. So the Word
of God is the medicine, is the life-giving stream. Speaking
of Christ, and our afflictions make us thirsty for that. Ho,
everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters. And so, in
Psalm 119, verse 67, it says, Before I was afflicted, I went
astray, but now have I kept thy word. That's Jonah, isn't it?
Sounds just like a page from Jonah. And so, why did God afflict
Jonah? Because he was disobedient. because
he was rebellious, in order to convert him in his thinking to
see that he needed salvation and that the Lord alone was his
salvation. So the Lord Jesus Christ was
afflicted, but not for his own sins, but for ours. And suffering
under our sins, he also said, I was afflicted. I cried by reason
of my affliction to the Lord, and he heard me. God heard his
son. All right, so we learn many things about
Jonah in this. Mainly we learn the goodness
and the grace of God. Now let's look at this prayer
of Jonah a little bit more here. It says in verse one, as I said,
I cried by reason of my affliction to the Lord. He heard me out
of the belly of hell, cried I, and thou heardest my voice. You
know, as I just said, the Lord Jesus Christ himself was afflicted
for our transgressions, wasn't he? I want to read some verses
of scripture to you from throughout the Bible. Listen to these words
in Matthew 20 and verse 28. Jesus said this, these were his
words about himself. The son of man did not come to
be ministered unto, but to minister. He didn't come to be served,
he came to serve, and notice, to give his life a ransom for
many. Jonah gave his life for the sailors.
And then in 1 Peter 2, listen to these words in verse 22, 1
Peter 2, 22, who did no sin, the Lord Jesus did no sin, neither
was guile found in his mouth, who when he was reviled, reviled
not again, when he suffered, he threatened not, but committed
himself, he committed himself, he put himself into the hands
of him who judges righteously. Notice how in chapter two of
Jonah, I want you to look at this with me. In all that Jonah
said here, did he ever ask the Lord for something? Did he ever
say, Lord, deliver my soul? Let's read it together, let's
find out. It says in verse 1, Jonah prayed to the Lord his
God out of the fish's belly and said, I cried by reason of mine
affliction to the Lord and he heard me. Out of the belly of
hell cried I and thou heardest my voice. 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'm cast out of
thy sight. Yet will I look again toward
thy holy temple. The waters compassed me about,
even to the soul. The depth closed me round about. The weeds were wrapped about
my head. 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, O Lord my God. When my soul fainted within me,
I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came in unto him, into
thine holy temple. They that observe blind vanities
forsake their own mercies. But I will sacrifice to thee
with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that that I have vowed
salvation is of the Lord." There wasn't a request there, was there?
All Jonah seems to be doing is describing his affliction. And then notice when he describes
his deliverance, he views it as something that has already
happened. And that's very significant.
As believers, we live this life. And what are we doing most of
the time in our life? Lord, help me. Lord, I'm a wretched
man. I am vile. Deliver me, I pray
thee. Save me, for your mercy's sakes.
Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation. All these things are cries from
the believer's heart in our affliction, the affliction of our present
state, in the body of this death. We're always just saying, Lord,
this is the way things are with me, and it's horrible. and we're
asking him, Lord, deliver me. But that's the way we describe
our afflictions. What else do we do? We also,
on the warrant of God's word, like Jonah, we refer to our salvation
as an event already happened. It's already happened. Christ,
when he prayed in John 17, four, he says, I have finished the
work thou gavest me to do. And yet the work wasn't done.
He still had to go to the cross. He had to suffer. He had to go
through all the prayers that corresponded to those prophecies.
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He had to take that
bitter gall and the wormwood that they offered him and reject
it and his clothes had to be divided. All those things had
to happen still. So it wasn't done, actually,
but it was done because he so trusted in his God that he spoke
of his future salvation as a thing in the past. And so Jonah is
here doing that. He's talking about how the Lord
had already delivered him. He says, In verse 9, I will sacrifice
unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that I have vowed
salvation is of the Lord. And then the Lord spake to the
fish. He says in verse 6 of chapter
2, 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, O Lord my God. Very significant here. When we
see the work of Christ for us, we see our justification in the
justification of Christ, don't we? And in that, in seeing that,
we speak of it as a thing already happened, already finished, already
done. And God himself calls those things which be not as though
they were. He says in Isaiah 46, 10 and 11, he says, declaring
the end from the beginning. And if I've spoken it, I will
also bring it to pass. So what God says is already done. And this is a significant truth
in our lives. Sorrows, trouble, sin, and death. weakness, doubts, all these things
come in like a flood. And yet God directs us, he afflicts
us because of our foolishness, but he saves us and points us
to his word. I was, how did, what did I read
just a minute ago? He said in Psalm 119, that I
was afflicted, but your word has quickened me. Remember that?
I don't remember what I did with the paper. Let me find that verse again
because it's significant. It's in Psalm 119 and verse 50. This is my comfort. This is our
comfort, isn't it? In our affliction. We can use
our words. For thy word hath quickened me. God tells us what
he has done for us in Christ. When Christ, who is our life,
Colossians 3, verse 1. When He shall appear, then we
shall appear with Him. He is our life. Jesus said in
John 14, 19, Because I live, you shall live also. And this
is the way Abraham viewed God's justification of him in Christ.
He saw when he was about to plunge the knife into his son Isaac
that God was going to raise him from the dead because he saw
in Isaac God's own son who he was going to raise from the dead.
He believed he would be justified in the resurrection of Christ.
So we are too. So we see our salvation as an
accomplished thing in Christ. But this is the way the Lord
Jesus Himself spoke of what God would do. In other words, faith,
God-given faith, and in Christ perfectly, not in us, but in
Christ perfectly, lays hold on God as our Savior in the midst
of the greatest affliction because of our sin. You see the principle
here in Jonah chapter two? This is very, very comforting
and strengthening too. It gives us peace and joy. To
see in Jonah's prayer, he was under affliction because of his
sin, and yet he was fully convinced God was his savior. The one who
was his judge, who brought him into the dust of death, in this
case, the whale's belly, was the one he looked to. He said,
I will look again. Did you see that? I will look
again. Verse four. I said, in verse
four, I said, I am cast out of thy sight. Who cast him out? God did. Jonah was experiencing
the worst possible torture of soul. To think that you're separated
from God is huge, but to realize that God himself had done it,
that's overwhelming. God doesn't actually forsake
his people, but there are times where we feel that he has. And
yet, that's exactly what happened to the Lord Jesus Christ. And
he prayed, though he slay me, yet will I trust him. He rolled
upon Jehovah, he trusted him. Let me read this from Isaiah
chapter 50. Isaiah chapter 50, listen to the way the Lord Jesus
says this in his confidence in his God. He says in verse five,
Isaiah 50 verse five, the Lord God hath opened mine ear and
I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. I gave my back
to the smiters and my cheeks to them that plucked off the
hair. I hid not my face from shame and spitting. Clearly this
is talking about Christ. He says in verse 7, for the Lord
God will help me, therefore shall I not be confounded. I'm not
going to be confused or ashamed. I'm not going to be confused
in my trouble, the Lord brought it. I'm not going to be confused
by the flood of men who rise up and tell me there's no hope
for you in God. No, I'm not going to be ashamed
of my hope or my God. He said, therefore shall I not
be confounded, therefore have I set my face like a flint, and
I know that I shall not be ashamed. He is near that justifieth me,
who will contend with me. Let us stand together. Who is
mine adversary? Let him come near to me. Behold,
the Lord God will help me. Who is he that shall condemn
me? Doesn't that sound like Romans chapter eight? Those are the
words. That's where Paul got that from. Who, if God is for
us, who shall be against us? Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? That would be like going over,
be a very dumb thing to do. But here you are, you're on the
playground with all your buddies, you're like five years old, and
you go over there and you spit in the eye of the son of the
principal. And he's standing right there.
What's he gonna do to you? Who knows? Who is going to lay
anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God who justifies. And who is he that condemns?
Christ died. It is Christ that died. So you
see in this prayer of Jonah is the prayer of a man afflicted
for his sin and yet looking again to Christ who is the temple.
I look yet will I look again toward thy holy temple. Jesus
said destroy this temple and in three days I'll raise it up
again. They thought he was talking about the physical temple. He
said no I'm talking about the temple of my body. Well, he didn't
say it then, but his disciples understood it and told us. He
was talking about the temple of his body, Christ incarnate,
God incarnate. That was the temple. The Spirit
of God dwelt in him without measure, the Son of God in our nature,
the temple of the Lord. And so Jonah looks to what? Christ
incarnate, the one crucified for sinners, afflicted by his
sin. He knows God is going to deliver
him. That's the blessed benefit of
this chapter here. In Christ and in him crucified,
though our sins bring us under the judgment of God, yet the
Lord will save us. We look again to Christ. And
the Lord Jesus himself did this. He was under affliction because
of our sins. He looked again to his Father. He said, I know
He will deliver. I've set my face like a flint.
He is near that justifies me. I'm going to give my back to
the smiters, my face to them that pluck off the hair, to spitting,
it doesn't matter. The Lord is near. He's going
to justify me. And that's the prayer here of
Jonah. What a comfort it is to see these things in this little
chapter in the book of Jonah. So I want you to see that first
of all and foremost. I received a letter from an email
to Denise and I from Shelby, and she always writes so sweetly
in her correspondence. But I could tell that there was
a lot of trouble because of the memory of her husband and the
loss of him in her life. And I was thinking about these
things, and I thought, isn't it the case that in the believer's
life we suffer affliction, but we always look to what God has
done for us in Christ. We are given grace to hope. To hope, that means to expect
that God will fulfill his word. that even though all of my senses
deny that I'm going to receive a new body, that I have a new
spirit, that God has given me faith, everything seems to contradict
the truth of God, at least to my physical senses. And yet he
prays to the Lord. Let's read this chapter again.
Then Jonah prayed to the Lord, his God, out of the fish's belly,
out of the belly of hell, he says, and he said, I cried by
reason of mine affliction to the Lord, and he heard me. Out
of the belly of hell, cried I, and thou heardest my voice, 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, the lowest place a man could possibly be." thrown overboard
into the sea, into the belly of the fish, no sound, no sound
of any voices, and he cries to the Lord. The Lord heard him
out of the belly of the fish. Out of the belly, yet will I
look again toward thy holy temple. The Lord gave this prayer to
him. Do you see what he's doing here? He's praying the words
God gave to him as a prophet. Words spoken by the Lord Jesus
Christ, our substitute, our savior, our surety. The waters compassed
me about, verse five, even to the soul. as deep as they could
possibly go. The depth closed me round about. The weeds were wrapped about
my head." It's like a man with a hangman's noose about his neck
down in the belly of the depths of the sea inside the fish's
belly. The weeds were wrapped around
my head. I'm in the fish's belly at the bottom of the ocean. And
the earth with her bars, he says, notice, I went down to the bottoms
of the mountains. The earth with her bars was about
me forever." Think of the earth laying on your chest. You have
no hope. This is describing a helpless
and hopeless man, isn't it? He knew he could not get out
of this. And so what does he do? I went
down to the bottoms of the mountains, the earth where their bars was
about me forever, yet, yet hast thou brought up my life from
corruption. That's why I say, it sounds to
me like he was actually raised from the grave here. In fact,
the words from corruption, according to John Calvin, who also claimed
that he never died, he admitted it means the grave. The grave,
thou has brought up my life from corruption. Notice what Peter
said in Acts chapter two, when he was preaching there on the
day of Pentecost, he said this. Being a prophet, David said,
knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that the fruit
of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ
to sit on the throne, he, David, seeing this before, spake of
the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell,
neither did his flesh see corruption. So it's the same thing. Thou
hast brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God, when
my soul fainted within me. When your soul faints, You have
nothing. Your soul fainted. It's like
when you faint in your body, you're out of it, right? You're
in a sleep state. My soul fainted within me. I
remembered the Lord. When my soul fainted, I remembered
the Lord. That is the injection of life
right there. And my prayer came in unto thee
into thy holy temple. They that observe lying vanities,
which is our imagined way of being saved some other way, forsake
their own mercy. If you trust in another Savior
but Christ, you forsake your 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. There it is. Christ is the one
who vowed. He's the one who carried our
obligations. He's the one who suffered. He's
the one who cried. He's the one who was heard. And by his salvation,
we're saved. And Jonah is entering into that.
I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord. That's
the summation of all of scripture, especially of this book. Salvation
is of the Lord. And so the Lord immediately spake
to the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land. Bam.
Raised him up from the dead. Amazing grace. Let's pray. Thank
you, Lord, that we can trust you at all times and help us
to trust you. We realize that we can when we
read your word and today our eyes are enlightened. But we
know how it goes with us. Trouble comes. Sorrow comes. The weight of life comes upon
us and we feel overburdened. We lie awake at night. How are
we going to fix all these problems? And we can't fix them. So we
pray, Lord, that we would at all times look toward your holy
temple. And we would understand that salvation is of you and
you alone. You designed it from before the
foundation of the world to glorify yourself in our salvation. And
it was because of that design and because of the commitment
Christ made in pledge of himself by a solemn oath that he would
fulfill. the role of surety for us and
stand before justice in your name, speaking of your people
as his own and substituting himself for us, to bear all that we owe,
to let us go free back up to our Father. Lord, we thank you
for that. Thank you for this salvation. We pray, Lord, that
you would hold us up in this grace of faith to look to Christ
always and ever, and to praise your holy name for this wonderful
grace of salvation by him. that You saved him and saved
us with him. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.