Now, we're going to go back to
Jonah chapter 2. I want you to turn back to Jonah
chapter 2. And this is the third message that I've preached entitled,
Salvation is of the Lord. This is part 3. And I want you
to know, I don't normally, as you know, I don't normally preach
three messages out of the same passage in a row like that. I'm
not trying to... This certainly is not beating
a dead horse because this is the Word of Life, the Word of
God. But, I wanted us to take this passage, which concludes
basically in verse 9 with the phrase, as Jonah puts it, salvation
is of the Lord, and view it in three ways. First of all, salvation
is of the Lord, it's not of man, it's not of the church, it's
not of the ordinances, it's not of the free will of man, but
it's of God. Our salvation is not by the works
of man, it's by what the Bible calls and what the gospel reveals
as the righteousness of God, Romans 1 chapter 1 verses 16
through 17. And that's the obedience unto
death of Christ, the merits of his obedience unto death. The
message of Jonah is one of hope and one of salvation for the
lost. for this very reason, that salvation
is of the Lord. If it were of men in any way,
to any degree, at any stage, then there would be no salvation.
That's why I read in the opening verses there, Titus chapter 3,
this salvation, which God has freely and sovereignly provided
through his Son, is not by works of righteousness, which we have
done, are doing, trying to do, or will do. but it's given freely
by the work of Christ and in Him whom to know is life eternal
as He is God and man in one person. And so therefore we can view
Jonah's experience in the belly of this great fish and his deliverance
from that predicament in three ways. First of all, as I preached
in the first message on this entitled, Salvation is of the
Lord, we looked at Jonah simply as it lays on the page here as
an example of a sinner saved and preserved by the grace of
God. And we who know Christ, we who
have been saved by His grace, who are objects of His sovereign
mercy, we can identify with Jonah in that sense. We know that Jonah
was put in a... Jonah, an unwilling servant,
a disobedient servant who ran from God, who went down, down,
down, ruined by the fall. That's a good illustration of
that. was in the belly of this great
fish, he couldn't get himself out, he couldn't save himself,
he couldn't deliver himself, he was totally helpless, and
that's what we are by nature and by practice. We are totally
subject and in need of the grace and mercy of God. We're all in
need of a righteousness we cannot produce. And Jonah was an example
of that. So that's the first way we looked
at Jonah. Secondly, and the most important, and I believe the
main reason this passage is recorded in the Bible, based upon several
passages in the New Testament that our Lord quoted in Matthew
chapter 12, and in Matthew chapter 16, and in Luke chapter 11, is
that we looked at Jonah as a picture of Christ's work of saving his
people, saving his sheep. The success and surety of which
was proven by his resurrection from the dead. And I want you
to understand in the context of what we're going to look at
tonight in the third way to view Jonah's episode here, is that
Christ's work being typified here, typifies the ground of
salvation. What Christ went through on the
cross as the substitute of His people, of God's elect, the church,
as He was made sin and suffered and bled and died in order to
finish the transgression, make an end of sin and bring in an
everlasting righteousness which enables God to be just and justifier,
that is the ground of salvation. That's the cause of salvation.
Nothing that God, nothing that we do or nothing that God does
in us is the ground of salvation. Christ's righteousness alone,
His righteousness imputed alone is the only ground of salvation
and entitlement to heaven. And then that leads to the third
way of looking this and that's what we're going to do tonight.
We're going to look at Jonah as an illustration of every believer's
experience of grace in the new birth. Christ said in John chapter
3, you must be born again. And that is, so to speak, our
spiritual resurrection from the dead. Now that's the fruit of
salvation. Christ's righteousness, Christ's
blood is the ground of salvation. And our regeneration, our conversion,
our new birth, that's the fruit of salvation. Both are necessary
for salvation, but not for the same reason. The work of Christ
on the cross is the ground. That's the reason that God is
unable to justify the ungodly, what Christ did on the cross.
Christ paid the debt in full. You see, we need to understand
and I fear that part of the, one of the greatest deceptions
of anti-Christ and false Christianity today is the confusion of these
two things. You see, God does not make me
righteous by what the Holy Spirit does in me. God made me righteous
by what Christ did for me. And one of the main, if not the
main work of the Holy Spirit in me is to show me that. And
I want to show you that in a couple of verses before I go right into
Jonah. Incidentally, I do want you to
know how blessed you are about this thing because I told you
I don't normally preach three messages out of one chapter and
I was doing some groundwork and research for chapter three. And
a lot of times I'll just look at different messages and I look
at their titles. And one fellow I saw, he had
a message on chapter three. I can't remember the title of
it, but I remember this. That after the title, it said
number 55. So I want you to thank the Lord
that at least I'm not preaching 55 messages out of chapter two
tonight. Maybe I should, but 55 messages. I thought, my goodness, wow.
If you preach 55 messages out of every chapter of the Bible,
what would it be? Let me give you some scriptures
that kind of put it in perspective for you. The first one I want
you to look at here now, and then we'll read through Jonah
chapter 2 and see him as an illustration of the new birth. And I hope
we can all identify with that. how God gives a sinner life and
brings that sinner to faith in Christ, submitting to Christ
and His righteousness alone, His blood alone, and repentance
of dead works and idolatry. But turn to Psalm 143. Let's
start there, Psalm 143. And I'm just going to read one
verse out of this psalm. You can read the whole psalm
yourself. It's very profitable in the whole realm of what I'm
talking about here. But in Psalm 143, there's a verse,
it's verse 11. Psalm 143, verse 11. And it starts
out, this is a prayer. Now David, as a sinner saved
by grace, had already been regenerated and converted, but look at this
Psalm in the realm of regeneration. He says, quicken me, O Lord. Now that quickening, you know
the Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 1 says, and you hath he quickened. who were dead in trespasses and
sin. We're born dead in trespasses and sin. That's the fruit of
our fallen Adam, ruined in Adam. We talk about ruined by the fall,
redeemed by the blood, regenerated by the Spirit. Well, he says,
quicken me, O Lord. I need spiritual life. I don't
have spiritual life by nature. I need a quickening. I need a
regenerating, you might say. I need to be made alive. I need to be born again. You
must be born again, Nicodemus, or you cannot see or enter the
kingdom of God. But look at this. He says, quicken
me, O Lord. Now notice the title Lord there
is in all capitals, if you've got a King James Version. That's
Jehovah. So now who's he appealing to
here? He's appealing to the God of
all grace. The God of the covenant. The
God of promise. The God who saves sinners by
the promise that he made to send Christ, at this time of his future,
Christ into the world to satisfy law and justice and establish
righteousness. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob. The God who justifies the ungodly
based solely upon the righteousness of Christ. And he says, quicken
me, O Lord, for thy name's sake. That's for God's glory. In other
words, the only one who's going to make a name for himself out
of this quickening is the Lord. He didn't quicken you or me so
that we could make a name for ourselves. You see? Not for our
glory. It's not for our recognition.
Salvation is of the Lord. That's what Jonah said. Now,
I know people can say that and not know what they mean and not
mean anything really by it. You know, biblical phrases. You
know, people can use biblical phrases till we're blue in the
face and they don't have any idea what they're talking about.
But when Jonah was vomited up out of that well, when he was
in that well, he said salvation is of the Lord and then he was
vomited up on dry land. He knew whereof he spoke. Now
every regenerated, quickened sinner knows that his salvation
from eternity past all the way to glory is of the Lord and founded
totally and solely upon what Christ accomplished in his obedience
and death. So this is, he says, quicken
me, O Lord, for thy name's sake. Now listen to the rest of it.
For thy righteousness' sake, bring my soul out of trouble.
Jonah was in trouble. What brought him out? God's justice. Now, where's God's justice? Because
we know that Jonah was a disobedient servant. Isn't that right? Jonah, God said go to Nineveh. Jonah didn't go to Nineveh. He
fled to Tarshish. And God's working his sovereign
will against Jonah's will. So where's Jonah going to find
justice? Well, if God gave me or you what I justly or what
you justly deserved, what would it be? It wouldn't be getting
out of trouble, it would be in eternal trouble, wouldn't it? Oh Lord, if thou, Lord, shouldest
mark iniquities, who would stand? So where am I going to find justice?
There's only one place to find justice if I appeal to the Lord
of promise, the Lord of glory, and that's in the person and
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. mercy and justice coming together. God is both a righteous judge
and a merciful father. Let me show you another verse.
Turn to Romans chapter 5. We see Jonah's predicament and
Jonah's deliverance. As an illustration of our own
predicament and our own deliverance, look at verse 20 of Romans chapter
5. He says, moreover, the law entered
that the offense might abound. And you know you've heard this
preached before, how the picture is like a person who's drowning
in a sea overflowed with sin. That's us. We can't even keep
our head above water. Think about Jonah in the belly
of that whale or that fish. And he says, the law entered
that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, where
sin overflowed me like a flood, grace did much more abound. Grace greater than our sin. We sing that hymn. Well, look
at verse 21. Well, what's the issue now of
all this? I mean, here's a sinner who deserves
God's wrath. who by his sin has gotten himself
in his predicament he cannot get out of, but then there's
grace abounding. Now, what is the issue here?
Well, look at verse 21. That is, sin hath reigned unto
death. That's the dominion of sin. Reigning
means dominion. The dominion of sin reigns unto
death. You see, sin demands death. The
wages of sin is death. Where sin is imputed, death is
the result. That's why when Christ had our
sins imputed to Him, He was made sin. That's why He died. He had
to die. Because our sins, the sins of
his sheep, were imputed, charged to him. And so he had to die.
So that as sin hath reigned unto death, look here, even so might
grace reign, there's the dominion of grace, through what? Well,
God just feels sorry for us and looks over our sin, or just passes
it by, or just says, forget it, fellas, you all, you all just,
you know, you can't help yourself. No, grace reigns through righteousness. Grace reigns through righteousness. God's satisfying His law and
His justice perfectly. How? Look at it. Unto eternal
life. Now that eternal life is everlasting
life. It's spiritual life. And this
quickening, this regenerating, this new birth is part of that.
It's righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. How do we get righteousness?
How do we get eternal? Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
And then one more, turn the page to Romans chapter 8. And what
these verses do, they state the theme of this illustration that
we're going to look into when we read Jonah. Look at Romans
chapter 8 and verse 10. He says, and if Christ be in
you. Now how is Christ in his people? Well, the scripture tells us
He's in us by His Spirit. The Holy Spirit indwells us.
He's in us by His Word. His Word abides in us. And by
that life that comes from Him. And if Christ be in you, the
body is dead because of sin. Talking about this physical body
that's dying every day. It's going to die because of
sin. But look on. But the Spirit... I believe that's
talking about the Holy Spirit there. is life, gives life because
of righteousness. Whose righteousness? The righteousness
of God revealed in the gospel. Now with that in mind, look over
at Jonah chapter 2. And go back to verse 17, chapter
1 first of all. And let's look at Jonah as an
illustration of our experience in new birth. Now remember he
said there in verse 17 of chapter 1, Now the Lord had prepared,
appointed, ordained, a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And
Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Our new birth, our quickening, our regeneration was a matter
of God's preparation in eternity past. That's right. You know how I know that? Because
the Bible tells us in Revelation 13 and verse 8 that Christ was
appointed to be our surety before the foundation of the world.
He's the surety of the covenant. He is the lamb slain from the
foundation of the world. We were given to Christ by God's
electing grace before the world began. John chapter 6, 37, the
Lord said, all that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and
him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. When were
we given to him? before the foundation of the
world. In fact, 2 Timothy 1 and verse 9 says this, talks about
God who has saved us and called us with an holy calling, and
he says this, not according to our works, as Paul wrote to Titus,
not according to works of righteousness which we have done, but according
to his own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ
Jesus. before the foundation of the
world. This is no afterthought. This is no plan B. This is no contingency. But it was given to us in Christ,
in the person of Christ, before the foundation of the world.
Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 10 says this, for we are His
workmanship, that is, a sinner saved by grace. created in Christ
Jesus unto good works, not because of, but unto good works, which
God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. I'm sorry. Okay, that we should
walk in them. Now, when we were in the grip
of sin, Fallen in Adam. I want to tell you something,
and I know people, when they look at this, they get all confused
and everything, but the scripture teaches this and makes it so.
When we were in the grip of sin by God's design, and you see
conviction is not just being in sin, but it's being in the
grip of sin. How could this happen to Jonah?
What he was going through here? How could this happen? Well,
God prepared it so. God prepared this great fish
to swallow up Jonah, it says in verse 17. And so it's not
by our reason or our ingenuity, but it's by God's sovereign preparation
and planning. Now look at the first three verses
of chapter two. Now this describes conviction
of sin. Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord
his God out of the fish's belly. When God brings us down, into
the affliction of sin when he convicts us of sin and shows
us our sin and our depravity and the fact that there is absolutely
no power, no goodness, or no will in ourselves to come to
God to save ourselves what do we do? Verse 2 He said, here's
what Jonas said, here's what he cried I cried by reason of
mine affliction or out of mine affliction unto the Lord I cried,
and again, there's the Lord, there's that term, Jehovah, the
God of all grace. It's like that old publican who
says, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. This is conviction
of sin where we're brought down to the end of ourselves. No hope
in ourselves. No righteousness in ourselves. Only God can bring about this
kind of conviction. This is conviction of sin that
John wrote of in John chapter 16 verses 8 and 9 where he convicts
us of sin because we believe not on Christ. In other words,
he shows us that without the grace of God in Christ, we're
nothing but sin. Even our righteousnesses are
as filthy rags without him. Sin has alienated us from God.
Jonas said in verse four, he said, I'm cast out of thy side,
I'm cut off, I'm undone, like Isaiah said in Isaiah chapter
six when he was convicted. He said, woe unto me, for I'm
undone. I'm a man of unclean lips, and
I dwell amidst a people of unclean lips. Sin has cut us off from
God. And prayer here describes a sinner
actually turning to the Lord, turning to the God of mercy and
grace. He said in verse 2, he said,
Out of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me. You see,
God hears, listens a broken and contrite heart, broken and contrite
over sin. in the sorrow and depths of sin. Out of the belly of hell or the
grave, cried I, and thou heardest my voice, for thou hast cast
me into the deep. You know why we're in the affliction
of sin in our regeneration and conversion? Because God puts
us there. He said in the midst of the seas.
You know, back then, they didn't look at the sea and the ocean
as something that you go to have a vacation on or have fun on.
They looked at it as something evil. something wicked, a bad
place. He says, and the floods compassed
me about, all thy billows and thy waves passed over me. And
this is the conviction of sin. Look at verse four, here's the
nature of true God-wrought conviction. He said, then I said, I'm cast
out of thy sight, yet I will look again toward thy holy temple. Now remember, we looked at that,
the holy temple, That was the place where God said, I will
meet with thee and commune with thee from above the mercy seat.
That's what Jonah's appealing to. And that's what God, when
God brings about this new birth, this birth from above, when he
brings a sinner into conviction, it's not just to leave that sinner
down in the dumps in conviction. of sin and depravity, but it's
to cause that sinner and bring that sinner to look toward the
God of all grace, that holy temple where God dwells in His Shekinah
glory as the God who justifies the ungodly, as a just God and
a Savior. Look unto me and be ye saved,
all the ends of the earth, for I'm God, there's none else. There's
none else. You see, this goes right back
to the age-old question of the gospel message. And that is this,
how can a man be justified with God? That's the issue in religion. That's the issue between the
true gospel and all the false gospels that abound today in
so-called Christianity. How can a sinner come to God
and be accepted? How can one who is nothing but
unrighteousness stand before a holy God and be accepted, be
saved, be righteous? How can God be just and justify
the ungodly? Well, there's only one place
you can look to to find that out. That's toward His holy temple.
Now, you know that temple and the tabernacle before it, it
was built for one purpose, and that was to house the Ark of
the Covenant in the mercy seat. that holy of holies, where the
priest went in, the high priest went in one time a year, not
without blood, and that was the only way to approach God, and
all of that was a picture of the glorious person and finished
work of Christ. Look over at Hebrews chapter
10 with me. Hebrews chapter 10. And you remember, Christ is the
fulfillment of that. This is what happens in conviction.
This is what happens in the new birth. A sinner, out of his affliction
and sin and depravity, is brought to trust and rest in and have
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Lord, his righteousness,
the Lord, his only righteousness. That's what it means to look
toward his holy temple. It's not looking at a building.
You remember when the disciples asked him on the Mount of Olives,
when they talked about one of those disciples, he said, look
at all these beautiful buildings, look at this temple. Christ said,
well, there's not gonna be one stone that's not torn down. That physical temple's gonna
be destroyed. But my friend, the true temple, the true tabernacle,
which is Christ the Lord, will never be destroyed. Well, look
here in verse 18. He said, well, verse 17, the
whole chapter here of Hebrews 10 is talking about the death
of Christ, the one death of Christ on the cross for all the sins
of all his people, whereby he sanctified all his people, set
them apart, perfected them, and it says in verse 17, and their
sins and iniquities will I remember no more. That's God speaking
in a way of grace. He will, and it means that he
will not hold their sins against them. He will not impute their
sins to them. Now how's that possible? God
is just. Well, he imputed them to Christ. And Christ paid the
debt. And he says in verse 18, now
listen, he says, now where remission of these is, there is no more
offering for sin. Now remember in that temple,
Jonah said, I look toward your holy temple. In that temple,
that priest went every year one time with the blood. But he also
says that the blood of bulls and goats cannot bring about
this remission. So he says in verse 18 here of
Hebrews 10, now where remission of these is, where there is remission,
where justice is satisfied, where sins are truly forgiven and put
away, where righteousness is really established forever, there
is no more offering for sin. There's no need for any more
offerings. There's no offerings that can be granted. What would
you give? Listen, you know, people talk about the death of Christ
on the cross as if he was a failure, unless you do your part. Now,
you've heard that. I grew up hearing that. That
his death was really a failure unless you do your part. Well,
listen, if his offering of his body and his shed blood on the
cross of Calvary didn't put away my sins totally and completely
and eternally. If his death didn't work out
to a righteousness, an everlasting righteousness of infinite value
whereby God could be just and justify the ungodly, what more
could I give or offer or do? to appease God. What could you
do? Well, there is no more offering for sin. That's what he's saying.
Listen, if Christ didn't get the job done, then there is no
hope for any of us. Jonah recognized that. That's
why he had to look toward the holy temple. And so he says in
verse 19 of Hebrews 10, look, having therefore brethren boldness,
confidence, liberty, to enter into the holiest, The holy temple,
that holiest of all, how? By the blood of Jesus. That's
how. That's just another way, by his
death, by his cross, by his righteousness. By a new and living way which
he hath consecrated. You didn't consecrate it, you
didn't make it, you didn't work it out. I didn't, he did it. For us, he did it as a substitute. Through the veil, that is to
say his flesh, he bore our sins in his own body on the tree.
And having a high priest over the house of God, let us draw
near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our
hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience." That's a guilty,
legal conscience. And our bodies washed with pure
water. Go back to Jonah 2 now. That's what this is all about.
That's what he talks about. Look at verse 5. He said, the
waters compassed me about, even to the soul. This is not just
an outward thing. Now, sin's not just an outward
matter, it's an inward matter. Isaiah described it in Isaiah
chapter one, from the top of our heads to the sole of our
feet, putrefying sores, inward, outward. The depth closed round
about me. The weeds were wrapped about
my head, even my thinking. He says, and you know, just think
about Jonah. A lot of people speculate about
what was going on on the inside of that great fish. I don't know,
but I know this. Here's what he said. He said,
the weeds were wrapped about my head. He was all tangled up
and twisted, and he couldn't get out. He was tied up, he was
trapped. And that's the way sin is. He
says in verse six, I went down to the bottoms of the mountains.
The earth with her bars was about me forever. That is, he was trapped
in that cell of sin. He said, yet hast thou brought
up my life from corruption, from the pit. Oh Lord, my God, you
brought me out. Think about it. He says in verse
seven, when my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord. You
see, God remembers his people. That's our salvation. Us remembering
the Lord, that's our new birth, that's our regeneration, that's
faith in Christ. And my prayer came in unto thee,
into thine holy temple, the place of sacrifice, the place of mercy
and justice, the place where God is just to justify the ungodly. This is what he shows us. Verse
8, he says that they that observe lying vanities forsake their
own mercy. That's a great picture there,
or illustration there, rather. repentance of dead works and
idolatry what Jonah is saying here is I know I don't have any
any hope of salvation in lying vanities there's no mercy anywhere
else Paul said it this way he said we're the circumcision we
worship God in the spirit and We trust in resting glory and
rejoicing Christ and have no confidence in the flesh. That's
what Jonah's saying in verse 8. I don't have any confidence
in the flesh. Paul wrote in Galatians 6 and verse 14, he said, God
forbid that I should glory save in the cross, in the death, in
the blood, in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, by
whom the world is crucified unto me. There's no hope in the world,
it's all cursed. And I unto the world, that's
the way the world looks unto me. For in Christ Jesus neither
circumcision nor uncircumcision availeth anything but a new creation.
That's what it is. Now those who observe lying vanities,
those who seek salvation by any other way, in any other means,
but Christ and Him crucified and risen again, His blood and
righteousness alone, you know what they do? He says they forsake
their own mercy. There's no mercy for them, that's
what he's saying. There's no mercy in anyone else or in anything
else. But look at verse nine. Now this
is how true conviction of sin in the new birth always ends
up. Look here. But I will sacrifice
unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving, not trying to earn my salvation,
not trying to be worthy of it, because I'm not, not trying to
establish a righteousness of my own, but I'm just thanking
the Lord. There's the motive. There's the
motive of grace and love and gratitude. I will pay that that
I have vowed. When Christ paid what he vowed,
you know what he did? He said, I come to do thy will,
oh Lord. That which is written of me in
the volume. He promised to save his people from their sins by
doing what was required in the giving of himself under the justice
of God to establish that righteousness. When we pay our vows to God,
it's simply the vow of obedience and service of a willing, loving
bond slave thanking the Lord who saved us when we didn't deserve
it and didn't earn it, and still don't. Still don't. You know why? Salvation is of
the Lord. That's where it ends up. Salvation
is of the Lord. I know that if salvation were
of me, or by me or conditioned on me at any stage, to any degree,
in any way, there would be no salvation for me. It's of the
Lord. It's of the Lord. Look at verse
10, and I'll close. He says, and the Lord spake unto
the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry lamb. This is an illustration of our
own resurrection from the dead spiritually. That's what the
new birth is. It's a resurrection from the
dead, isn't it? That's why Christ told Nicodemus, you must be born
again. By nature, we don't have ears
to hear and eyes to see, hearts and minds to know and love and
understand the things of God. The natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God. And so we, like Jonah, who was
resurrected from the belly of this great fish, resurrected
from death, We're spiritually raised from the dead in the new
birth. And you know where we end up?
Up on the dry. What is that dry land significant
of? That's the realization that in
Christ, all my sins have been put away. All that which I was
drowning in before, all that which was consuming me, the sea
where sin abounded, It's all dry now. It's all gone. I'm on
dry land. I'm on solid ground. I'm on a
rock. The rock Christ Jesus. I'm a
sinner still and will be until I die or until Christ comes again
to gather me unto himself in glory. But my sins are not charged
to me. He was made sin, Christ who knew
no sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God.
I stand before God in Christ complete, whole, perfect, justified. I'm on dry land, that's what
I am. And I know that because of what
Christ accomplished on Calvary. So salvation is of the Lord. It's of the Lord in its conception,
its purpose, its planning. It's of the Lord in its purchase.
Christ paid it all. He didn't leave it for me to
do or part of it. It's of the Lord in its execution.
It's of the Lord in its application. It's of the Lord in its sustaining
and preserving power. And I'll tell you what, it's
of the Lord in its ultimate perfection and completion in all things. All right.