Let's go back to Jonah chapter
2. Back in the last verse of Jonah
1. The beginning of that sentence,
that verse says, now the Lord had prepared a great fish to
swallow up Jonah. I want to look at a couple of things
there. I want to look at why did the Lord prepare a great
fish to swallow Jonah, and what was the aftermath? What was his
salvation after that? We go back to verse 1. We say that of chapter of chapter
one, we say that now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah,
the son of Amenhotep, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great
city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up
before me. The Lord's told Jonah to do something.
Jonah's his prophet. Jonah's name means called. He's
one of God's. But Jonah, in verse 3, said he
rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.
Went down to Joppa, and he found a ship going to Tarshish. So
he paid the fare thereof and went down unto it to go with
them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. This was a great
sin by Jonah, trying to flee the presence of the Lord. Fortunately
for Jonah, he's one of God's. He can't flee God's presence.
God will bring him back. Isaiah 53, 6 tells us that like
sheep, we've all gone astray. We'll do the same if the Lord
lets us wander, but he will bring us back. We'll see that here
in a little bit in there. But I noticed in this too, The Lord wrote this and said
it twice that he fleed the presence of the Lord in that same verse
Said it twice at the beginning and at the end of it Don't flee
the presence of the Lord They stay where the Lord is Seek the
Lord with all your heart And then We see his sin and his sin
is He comes a picture of Adam here
when he goes into that ship and that great wind the Lord sent To That would have broken that
ship if the Lord wouldn't have stopped that wind from It's it. These were mariners. These were
men that were used to the sea. They were scared but our Lord With Adam, it says that Adam,
by one man, sin entered into the world. And with Jonah getting
on this ship, because of his sin, he put all those men in
peril. Because of Adam, he put the whole
world in peril. We all have to face a judgment
from a holy God. And we either face it in Christ,
for the ones he chose and saved, or we face it on our own and
we can't stand before a holy God. There is no man that can
stand before a holy God. I want to look at Romans 5.20. I've heard this verse all my
life, but it really touched me whenever I thought about the
fact that Adam Adam was the first sinner. Jonah, because of his
sin, caused this problem in the ship. But here, the Apostle Paul
wrote to the Romans and tells us that, moreover,
the law entered that the offense might abound. But worse than
abounding, grace did much more abound. The grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ He's so merciful to us. The ones that he's chosen
people, he showed us who Christ is, revealed himself to us, and
he paid our debt on that cross. What mercy. And this, I listened
to a man preaching this message, and I listened to it several
times because he did a really good job. But the Lord gave him
a lot of wisdom in it. This is not Jonah being punished. This is Jonah. This was for the
mercy of Jonah. If this had been punishment,
there wouldn't have been a fish there for Jonah to be swallowed
by. He would have just died in that
ocean when they cast him out. But Jonah was Jonah, at this point, he was
fast asleep in the ship while that storm was just tearing that
ship apart. He was fast asleep. Didn't even
realize. He had tried to flee the presence
of the Lord and just ignore the Lord, and didn't even see the
destruction of the world around him. It's amazing that the Lord
would let his people get to that point. And speaking as someone
that the Lord has let get to that point, It's all mercy and
grace that he's brought me back. I'm just like Jonah. I'm a sinner.
And I mean, the shipmaster had to come wake him up. These men
were out there calling on their gods. They didn't know the true
God. They were just calling on any
god, any idol that they had to try and save them. But their
gods are They have no hands but their hands, no feet but their
feet. You know, Elijah, he went up against the prophets of Baal,
and he mocked them. He said, well, is your God sleeping?
I mean, maybe he's pursuing something, you know. He doesn't have time
for you. Holler louder, you know. He mocked
them because of that. But don't let us, you know, let
us know the true God. the God that can save us, that
can bring us out of despair. And then he goes on in verse 7 and says, And every one
to his fellow come, let us cast lots, that we may know for whose
cause this evil is upon us. So they cast lots, and the lot
fell upon Jonah. Men cast lots to be for chance
and for luck. There is no such thing as chance
or luck. Proverbs 16.33 tells us that the lot is cast into
the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord. The Lord
even controls how those dice fell. If he didn't, in this case,
it could have fell on another man on that ship that didn't.
Hadn't done what Jonah did, and it wouldn't have been for Jonah's
good. And then they asked Jonah, and this
brought to, you know, Jonah realized at this point that this was all
because of his sin. He knew that the reason the Lord
had sent this great wind was about to tear this ship apart
was because of him. And these men were in peril because
of it. And these men asked questions and brought up his sin from him,
put his sin before himself. They said, tell us, 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? The Lord asked Adam and said,
well, who told you you was naked? The Lord does ask those questions
to prove our sin before us, show us our sins. We need to be awakened
to them so that we will call on a merciful God that will save. And he said, I am a Hebrew. I fear the Lord, the God of heaven,
which hath made the sea and the dry land. Fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom. We're told that in Psalm 111, Proverbs 1, several
places that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. But
this God, he's the God of the heaven. He made the sea and the
dry land. They obey. They listen. There is only one God to call
upon. So then the men exceedingly afraid
said unto him, why hast thou done this? For the men knew he
had fled from the presence of the Lord, because he had told
them. Now these men didn't want to throw him out. They knew that
he was the reason for the wind, because that's what he had told
them. His fleeing in the presence of the Lord had put them all
in peril. So they asked him, what shall
we do? That the sea may be calm to us,
and the sea was before the sea was wrought and was tempestuous. He 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.
At this point, Jonah becomes a type of Christ for these. The
only way these men can be saved is for Christ to be cast out,
put up on a cross to die for our sins. As the brazen serpent
was raised up, the Lord had to be raised up. Our Christ had
to suffer. He had to pay our sins. He had
to have our burdens of sin put on him. says he was made sin,
but he was not corrupt and he was not a sinner. That's a fearful
thing to say that he was made sin, but it's with the understanding
that he was not a sinner. He bore our sins and he paid
our debt, but he wasn't the sinner. He was perfection. And that's
the only way God can be just and be justifier is for for God himself just to come
to this earth, take our sin upon himself, and pay that debt that we couldn't
pay. We couldn't pay it in a lifetime, in an eternity. We'll never be
able to pay that. But the men, nevertheless, they
decided to go their own way. They didn't want to They didn't want to do what it
took, so they tried. They tried to fight against the
sea that God was controlling. They tried to row against it.
And finally, they come up and said, we beseech thee, O Lord,
we beseech thee, let us not perish for this man's life. Lay not
upon us an innocent blood, for thou, O Lord, hast done as it
pleased thee. And they took Jonah up and cast
him forth. I thought of our Lord. He said, forgive them,
for they know not what they do. And then in the Pentecost, he
saved several thousand of them. What mercy, what grace. But here's
the mercy to Jonah was that God prepared a great fish to swallow
him. He didn't just let him die in
the sea when he tossed him in. He prepared a great fish. It
says Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three
nights. Let's look at Matthew 12. Verse 40 actually verse 39 Speaking of the Pharisees when
they asked him 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 be no sign given to it
But the sign of the prophet John this I For as the Jonas was three
days and three nights in the whale's belly, so the son of
man shall be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
The sign of Jonas. If for no other reason that the
Lord allowed Jonah to flee his presence, for him to put him
in the belly of a whale, and then for Jonah to pray the prayer
he did next, if for no other reason it was so he could tell
the Pharisees over there that, you know, this is your sign.
What Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of
the whale, that's what the son of God has to do. He has to spend
three days and three nights in the belly of the earth. And that's
our Christ. We preach Christ crucified and
for a reason because that's our salvation is the fact that if
he would have died on that cross and not risen, been crucified
and been risen. There's no salvation in that.
But because he's risen, he took all of our sin debt, paid it,
put it out of God's sight, said as far as it is from the east
to the west, he put it out of her, put it out of his sight.
He doesn't even call it up for remembrance. So then Jonah prayed
unto the Lord out of the fish's belly. This could be Christ's
prayer on the cross when he bore our sins. But he said, and I
cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me.
And out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my
voice. No matter what our despair, no
matter how deep in sin we feel. We need to cry unto our Lord.
He will hear us. Look at Jeremiah 29 with me. And this was for Israel. This was their constant theme
and story, which is a picture of Christ's people. They were
constantly going away from the Lord, and He was constantly bringing
them back, constantly. He brought them out of Egypt,
and they turned on Him immediately. He brought them back from that. They turned on Him again. It
was constant all the way through. And here in Jeremiah 29, He's
put them in captivity and had Jeremiah send a a letter to him. And in verse 10 it says, for
thus saith the Lord that after 70 years be accomplished at Babylon. He put him in captivity in Babylon.
He said, I will visit you and I will and perform my good word
towards you in causing you to return to this place. He said,
for I know the thoughts that I think towards you, saith the
Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil. to give you an expected
end. He's going to give us an expected
end. This world is not ours. We're
looking for another world, one where we see Christ finally,
and we praise Him all the day long. It says, then shall you
call upon me, and you shall go and pray unto me, and I will
hearken unto you, and you shall seek me and find me when you
search for me with all your heart. He done all of it. He does it
all. Because of sin, we wander. We're prone to wander. We're
led astray like sheep. But he brings us back. He turns
us. And he calls himself to remembrance
to us. And then we call on him because
he does. And verse three says, for thou
hast cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas, and the
floods compassed me about. All thy billows and thy waves
passed over me. This is getting pretty low right
here. He's completely covered. He doesn't see any way out. He's looking. He's not finding
any way out. He feels like he knows he's cast
out of God's sight. That's what he said in the next
verse. He said, then I said, I am cast out of thy sight. Yet
I will look again toward thy holy temple. Now, our Lord Jesus Christ could
say that. He could say that. And because
of him, we can say that boldly. Yet I will look again toward
thy holy temple. We may be cast out. We may be
cast down. That's because of our undoing.
The Lord will call our call to remembrance and bring us back
and will make us look towards his holy temple. And that's where
we need to look. We need to look towards a holy
God. He's a thrice holy God. He said, the waters compassed me
about, even to the soul. The depth closed me round about. The weeds were wrapped about
my head. She seems like this is getting
worse. It's tightening up around us, this sin. And then, said, I went down to
the bottoms of the mountain. The weight of the earth being
on me. I mean, the earth with her bars was about me forever.
I just feel trapped by this world sometimes and it's sin. That's
when we really We need to open the scripture. We need to look
for Christ. We need to look towards that
Holy Temple. When my soul fainted within me,
I remembered the Lord. Jonah actually fainted here,
he said. His soul fainted within him. Christ bore our burdens. Took him to the grave. And then
rose from him, but didn't keep him down. He didn't faint. Thank goodness he didn't faint. And when my soul fainted within
me, I remembered the Lord. And my prayer came in unto thee,
into thine holy temple. We need to pray. We need to pray
without ceasing. We need to look. To this scripture,
we need to pray to our God. We need to look for Christ in
everything. In everything. The next verse
says, they observed lying vanities, forsaken their own mercy. I didn't fully understand this
verse. I heard a few things on it. But to me and to what it's saying
here is, You know, a lot of us came from false religion. And
there was a lot of vanities, lying vanities in that, you know,
telling us that Christ loves everyone, but can't save anyone.
You know, and then people blindly following that. You know, what
mercy the Lord has shown us to bring inside of that and show
us his truth. And then he says, but I will
sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving. This voice
of thanksgiving. You know we, because the Lord
has brought us low, showed us our sin, showed us his salvation, He'll give us the desire to give
a voice of thanksgiving in everything. Praise his name for everything.
I noticed, I was looking through the Psalms. If you turn to Psalm
146, this was such a blessing to see how these Psalms started
off. I'm not sure who wrote them, it doesn't say. But the first
verse of Psalm 146, 147, 148, and 149, start, praise ye the
Lord. Once he shows us our sin, shows
us our need of a savior, and if that savior can save us from
our sins, we will praise the Lord. We will say with that,
We will say, praise the Lord in everything. And Jonah says, I will pay that
I have vowed. Now, as a sinner, we can say
that boldly in Christ. But we're going to turn back
to our sin at some point, and God's going to have to bring
us back again. We hope not. We don't want it
to be so. But we know that we're going
to sin again. And when we do, we have an advocate. That's what John 2 says. But because of all this that
the Lord had done for Jonah, Jonah said salvation is of the
Lord. And that salvation, to know that
salvation is of the Lord, Our God has paid it all. He started
the work. He finished the work. He's the
Alpha and the Omega. In a, where our brother Patrick
read this morning, Ephesians 1, 4, tells us that, according as he hath chosen us
in him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before him. That's salvation is of the
Lord right there. He's the lamb slain before the
foundation of the world. That's our salvation. Salvation
is of the Lord. We've had nothing to do with
it. We weren't there whenever God started the work. We'll be
there to praise him in the end, through eternity for his work,
but we didn't have anything to do with it through the middle
of it. or at the end of it, other than standing there praising
Him and giving Him the glory all the day long. Can't wait. And then look at Colossians 3,
11. This sums it all up as far as
salvation is of the Lord. It says, where there is neither
Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian,
bond nor free. Christ is all and in all. That is salvation is of the Lord.
Christ is all. There's nothing else. There's
no one else. There's no other way whereby
we must be saved than by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 10 tells us, it says, And
the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah on the
dry land. This dry land, you know, the
Israelites had sinned before God. He opened, He took a wind
and opened a sea. They walked through on dry ground.
That's, that's all of His people. We will all walk through on dry
ground to be with him one day. And after this, though, after
Jonah saw the salvation of the Lord, verses, I love this in
chapter 3. The first four verses, it says, and
the word came unto Jonah the second time. He said, arise,
go to Nineveh, that great city, preach unto it. the preaching
that I bid thee. The second time he's told him
this, he says, so Jonah arose and went unto Nineveh according
to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding
great city of three days journey. Jonah began to enter the city
in a day's journey. Yeah, before he wanted to run
the opposite direction. But now that the Lord has shown
him the salvation and brought him back, made him return, He's
running. I mean, he's made a three-day
journey in one day. He's moving. And he come into
that city declaring that word. And our Lord put him on that
ship to save some men. I'm sure it says, many are called,
few are chosen. But in verse 16 when he said,
the men feared the Lord exceedingly and offered a sacrifice unto
the Lord. Well, Jonah had told them about who the Lord was that
he worshipped. They had to sacrifice to him.
They made vows. Now, can't say that he saved
them all, but he bound to have saved at least one of those men
on that ship. Bound to have saved at least one. He saved them from
being destroyed that day, that's for sure. But at the end of chapter
4, He sent Jonah to Nineveh. You know, the Lord didn't send a prophet
to Sodom and Gomorrah. He just went in and took one
of his own out, a lot, and then he destroyed it. But here he
sent a man for the salvation of Nineveh, and he tells him
there, he says, And should I not spare Nineveh, that great city,
wherein there are more than 6,000, 6,000 or 4,000 persons that cannot
discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also
much cattle. The Lord chose to save Nineveh,
even though their sins had come before Him, but He didn't choose
to save Sodom and Gomorrah. That's His world. I've grown up most of my life
in this church, and I know I've seen people here, and I've seen
people not here. I've seen people that have been
affected by the gospel, and people have not. That's the mercy and
salvation of the Lord. He chooses who He will, and He
saves whom He will. He said He will have mercy on
whom He will have mercy, and He will. The ones that He has
mercy on, Everything works to their good. It tells us that,
for we know that everything works to the good of them that are
called according to His purpose. It's all in His purpose. Okay. May the Lord have mercy
on that.