Good morning. Turn with me in
your Bibles to Jonah chapter 1. Jonah chapter 1. I was just sitting there thinking,
it's sad how, I don't know if this speaks for you, but it speaks
for me, how I come here and I feel tired and in my flesh I just
don't feel like doing this. I'm glad to be in the house of
the Lord, but I just feel exhausted and over it, you know, the week
and everything that's happened. And I'm glad we sang that song
we just did, Oh, How Merciful. I couldn't help but think when
we sing that in Kingsport, Gabe sings it like this, Oh, how merciful. You know, we take the I's, merciful.
I love the way he's merciful. And that got me excited to preach.
I'm still tired, but that's OK. You might be too. But I pray
that we might see just how merciful our God is today. So look here
with me in Jonah chapter 1. Verse 1, Now the word of the Lord came
unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh,
that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness is come
up before me. But Jonah rose up to flee unto
Tarshish, from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa,
and he found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare
thereof, and went down into it to go with them unto Tarshish
from the presence of the Lord." Here in Jonah chapter 1, we read
about this man Jonah. He was a child of God. He was
a prophet of God. The word of the Lord, you see,
came to him. The word of the Lord doesn't
just come to people, it comes to someone when God sends it
to someone. And he sent his word to Jonah, and specifically here,
he sent a command to his prophet to take the glorious gospel that
God had given him, committed to his trust, and he commanded
him to go preach that gospel to the men and women of Nineveh.
He called it a great city, a wicked city. Their wickedness was come
up before him. That was God's command to Jonah.
And we see, and we probably already know, Jonah had other plans.
Jonah had other ideas, didn't he? And I didn't feel like I
had time to prepare this, but I really wanted to preach from
Proverbs chapter 3, verse 7. I want to show you, if you'll
turn with me just a second back a few books, Proverbs chapter
3, There are two verses in that chapter that most of us probably
know well about trusting the Lord with all your heart, lean
not to your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge
Him, He'll direct your paths. But look at verse 7, the verse
right after that. Proverbs 3 verse 7. This verse has been on my
heart and I thought it tied in well
here with Jonah. Proverbs 3 verse 7. It says, be not wise in thine
own eyes. Fear the Lord and depart from
evil. God's word, God's command came
to his child. Remember, Jonah's a believer.
He was a prophet of God. God's word came to him and said,
you go preach the gospel to Nineveh. Jonah, what he did, he was wise
in his own eyes, and he thought, well, no, I should go to Tarshish. It would be better for me to
not do what God said. I'm going to be wise here. I'm
going to go to Tarshish. And so off he went. We read that
he went down to Joppa. He bought a ticket, paid a price,
and he joined himself to this ship going the opposite way that
God commanded him to go. And what makes me tremble is
that it says that he was trying to flee the presence of the Lord.
And I really want to stress, I believe with all my heart,
Jonah was a believer. He was a child of God. And you think,
well, how foolish, Jonah. Well, the verse we just read
in Proverbs, don't we understand that's for believers? All the
time I find myself being wise in my own eyes, in my own conceits. You ever heard of the term self-conceited? Can we ever acknowledge that's
what we are? More often than not, honestly. So I don't want
to look at this judging our brother Jonah harshly. I want us to learn
from him. God put this in his word for
us, for our good, for our benefit. But I want us to see what happened
here. I want us to take it seriously, and I pray God would teach us
something here, okay? So Jonah flees. Now look here in verse
four. But the Lord I love that. But the Lord sent out a great
wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea,
so that the ship was like to be broken. Now, do you think
when Jonah did what he did, when he made that bold, arrogant choice
that he made, do you think he really thought, and I think the
problem is he didn't really think about it at all, he just did
it, which is what we do, but do you think Jonah reckoned he'd
get away with that? Obviously, we know he's not going
to. Again, last time I was here,
I think we looked at the fool has said in his heart, no God,
and we saw we're all the fool, right? That's the point. In this
flesh, even as believers, we're still so foolish. Anytime we're
not looking to the Lord, trusting in the Lord with all our heart,
anytime we trust in ourselves just a little bit, this is the
result. All right, Jonah does what he
does, and then, but the Lord sent out a storm, a mighty wind
into the sea. He sent that right to where Jonah
was, right to where Jonah was. And there's a verse in Nahum,
I think we looked at this before, but it says, the Lord hath his
way. And I love that. It says, the
Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm. and the clouds
are the dust of His feet. You see, every storm, including
this one that we're reading about, is God's storm. He sends it.
He's controlling it. They scare us often, don't they?
Remember, it's his storm. It's his storm. And just like
Jonah, we need the storms that come our way. We need every single
one of them. I ain't talking about the rain
and thunder and the light. I'm talking about the storms of life,
the trials that come our way. Now you can already see Jonah
got himself into this mess. And he's gonna be brought to
the point of acknowledging, I brought this upon myself. And I pray
God will bring us all to that point. But God sent this storm. for his prophet's correction,
but I rejoice to tell you he had a greater purpose in it than
that. I don't want to ruin it, but we'll see it here in a minute.
Now, this storm, we've only read about Jonah so far, and Nineveh,
which he didn't go there just yet, but anyway, there's some
other men on this boat. Jonah joined himself to a boat,
okay? There were some other men on
this boat, and this storm isn't just affecting Jonah. And these
people are gonna play a large role in our message this morning. Look here with me at verse five.
It says, then the mariners or sailors were afraid. And they cried every man unto
his God and cast forth the wares or the equipment, the items that
were in the ship into the sea to lighten it of them. These
sailors, you think about it, I have very little experience
on a boat. You may as well just say no experience on a boat.
Some of you all do, and that's good. But these sailors, you
think about how many storms and turbulent waves a sailor has
experienced. This storm. This storm, these
sailors had never seen the likes of it. They had never seen anything
like it. They were scared out of their
mind. They were terrified. Terrified. You would think an experienced
sailor, they'd be pretty calm. They would know what they're
doing. They'd keep a level head. Well,
they're not with these sailors. No, it they expected that ship
to break when it says it was it was like to be broken They
thought it was going down any moment. All right Terrible storm
that they were experiencing. So what do they do? Well, look
at it In verse 5 it tells us they began to cry every man every
single one of them began crying out unto his God and notice it
Little G, they all started crying out to their gods. We read in Isaiah 45 that some
men, and this is all men and women by nature, pray unto a
little G god that can not save. And here's the proof that their
god couldn't save. What'd they do right after they start crying
unto their gods? It says they start tossing everything off
the boat. Well, we're gonna have to help our god out. Yeah, you
are, because your god can't do nothing. There's some good spiritual
pictures in this little book of Jonah. And right here in chapter
1, here we see the first one. We got to help our gods out.
They all had a different God. Is that not obvious to see the
error there? They weren't worshiping and praying unto the true God
of heaven and earth. They were crying to this God
and that God and every God they could find, and yet none of them
could do anything to help them. None of them could do one. They
had no hands but theirs. Well, no wonder they couldn't
help. Couldn't do a thing. Their hope was in their false
gods and in themselves. We just mentioned it, trust in
the Lord with all your heart. All our trust, all our hope must
be in Him, in Him alone. Now, while these sailors are
out here losing their minds, having a, I guess a panic attack,
if you will, where's Jonah? Y'all know where Jonah was at?
Y'all know what Jonah was doing? Look at the end of verse five.
But Jonah, The believer, the child of God, he was gone down
into the sides of the ship, and he lay and was fast asleep. Now
you can say, oh well, that's a picture of the Lord. Storm's
raging, Jonah's sleeping in the boat. Remember the disciples,
they were scared when the storm came. The Lord was asleep, and
then out of unbelief, they went and woke him up, and he, oh yeah,
little thing. That may be a picture here, but
what I see here does not put Jonah in a good light. What I
see here is a careless child of God who has disobeyed his
master and gone off and done something terrible. And here
he is, he doesn't even know what's going on. Ignorant, careless
of what he'd done, sleeping, just laying there in his sin
and his shame. You just think real quick, what
if God left him there? Here this storm is raging. This
boat is about to sink. These men with any sense are
terrified. And remember, they weren't even
believers. And they're scared to death.
They're praying. At least they're praying. Jonah's just down here
sleeping. Jonah needed to wake up. Let
me rephrase that. Jonah needed to be woken up. We don't wake ourselves up. We're
living our life, we're sinning against God, and we just don't
care. Even as believers, how often
is that true? We're just going to do what we
want to do. We just don't care. We're so cold, we're so fickle,
we're so frail, so sinful. Paul said, O wretched man that
I am, not that I used to be, not when I was Saul of Tarsus.
Right now, I need to be delivered. Jonah needed to be woken up.
Psalm 13 verse 3 says, Oh Lord my God, lighten mine eyes, means
wake me up, lest I sleep the sleep of death. I pray God don't
leave us to ourselves. Because if he does, and that's
what we deserve, is to be left alone. We want what we want,
don't we? We don't want God. We want God to give us what we
want by nature. And if he does, we're going to sleep the sleep
of death. Every single one of us. Including Jonah. Now look here at verse 6. Here
we see God's goodness to Jonah. So the shipmaster came to him
and said unto him, this is the captain of this ship. He came
to Jonah and he said unto him, what meanest thou, O sleeper?
Arise, call upon thy God. If so be that God will think
upon us that we perish not. God used the captain of this
ship. And we have no reason to believe
this captain was any different than any of those other sailors
on that boat, crying to their gods, doing whatever they could
to try to save themselves. And yet God used him to come
wake his prophet up, to come speak to his prophet. I love
that. He comes to Jonah, and he said,
what in the world? Get up. You call out to your God. We're
all crying out to our gods, and they ain't done a thing. You
cry out to your God. Maybe your God can do something
about this. Maybe your God can help us. Now,
what do you think Jonah, what do you think he felt in that
moment, honestly? Now, I know we looked at Jonah
3 and Jonah 4 previously, if you remember or if you're familiar
with it. And Jonah goes on, and he just
does it again. He's just sinning again. Faithless
again. But right here, what do you imagine
his reaction was when that captain comes and wakes him up? You imagine
he felt a little bit convicted? You imagine he saw what was going
on and he thought, what in the world have I done? I can't imagine a different reaction
that he could have had. Can't imagine. God woke him. He used that man
to do it, but God woke him up. Jonah knew without a doubt, this
is my fault. I brought this upon me and upon
all these sailors. I did it. God in his goodness
woke him up. And I also have no doubt that
in this moment, Jonah found himself praying unto his God. And you
know what? Not only that, Jonah knew his
God is able to do something about this. The Lord my God is able
to do exceedingly abundantly above all I could ever ask or
think. Jonah knew that. He was a believer, a child of
God, prophet of God. Now look here at verse 7. And
they said, every one to his fellow, come and let us cast lots, that
we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us. We already see
these sailors, they were religious men. Now you think a sailor,
right? I mean, we all know that, you
know, you curse like a sailor, right? You don't think of them
as being the religious men. I'm telling you, God's Word makes
it clear. All of us, when it comes down to it, when a moment
of fear really hits us, we all cling to something in here. We
don't cling to God. We cling to ourselves. We cling
to the gods of our own imagination. We cling to ourselves. We don't
cling to Him. But these men had some religion, and they were
convinced that this storm, it's so terrible, it's so mighty,
this has to be some sort of act of divine judgment. And we need
to get to the bottom of this. We need to find out who the problem
is so we can get rid of it. That's what they thought. Now,
let me point this out. We don't read of them feeling
any guilt of their own. You think these men were sinners
too? We see Jonah. Jonah's the whole reason for
this mess. But were they sinners too? You better believe they
were. Now, look at the end of verse
7. Here they are, they cast lots,
and the lot fell upon Jonah. Now I've read about this, and
I'll be honest with you, I really don't understand it a whole lot.
But there's a verse in Proverbs, I think I rubbed it down, Proverbs
16, 33, it says, the lot is cast into the lap. You know, you roll
some dice. But the whole disposing thereof,
well, what's it going to be? The whole disposing thereof is
of the Lord. Wasn't no accident. Wasn't by chance that the lot
fell on Jonah. God meant for them to know this
is because of Jonah. Now, we're getting to the good
part here, OK? I'll go ahead and spoil it for
you. You may already know. Jonah disobeyed God. Okay, we
see it clearly. There's some men on this boat.
They weren't just random men, okay? God's gonna use Jonah to
declare the truth to these men. Now, think about this. What if
God were to use this whole situation and ended up using his peevish
prophet, as they say, to save these sailors. Wouldn't that
be something? Wouldn't that be amazing? Wouldn't that just show
the goodness and mercy of our God? Think about that. Now, look
here at verse eight. Then said they unto him, tell
us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us. What is
thine occupation? And whence comest thou? What
is thy country? And of what people art thou? They had some questions for Jonah.
When it became clear to them that he was the problem, wouldn't
you have had some questions for him too? What on earth did you
do? And I'm telling you, we can't
even begin to imagine just how awful that storm was. I know
there's been some horrible hurricanes and tornadoes and natural disasters,
as we say, and they're all of God, remember that. This world ain't seen nothing
like it. Here they are. They got some questions for Jonah.
They start interrogating. Who are you? Where are you from?
What's your job? What are you doing here? How'd you get on our boat? That's a good question. I'll tell you this. They were
convinced. Whoever you are, you are something
bad. You have got to be a notorious
sinner. And you know what? They were
right. Whatever they thought about him,
they were right. Oh, they were right. Now remember,
we don't read that they knew anything about their own sin.
If they did, they'd have known God would have been just to send
that storm because of any one of them and collectively as a
whole. But now Jonah's been found out,
and he's going to admit who and what he is and what he's done. And brethren, I mention it and
they go, if you and I are going to be saved, this storm is a
picture of God's judgment, God's wrath against sin. It awaits
us. We've sinned against God. It
awaits us. When we die, it's the point a man wants to die
and after this the judgment. We're going to all appear before the judgment
seat of Christ. I pray that in this life, at
some point in this life, before we go stand before God in that
day, and we're going to. Our sister Jo, one by one, it
just keeps coming. One of my co-workers, her dad
died a couple of days ago. We're confronted with death constantly.
We need to acknowledge it. I pray that before that time
comes, that God will convict us of what we are. We see Jonah
here, I hope we're not looking down at him. We can look at him
and think, boy Jonah, man you, phew. But then I pray we look
at ourselves and take a good hard look. and say, I'm no better. I'd have done the same thing,
or worse. Yeah, worse. We need to acknowledge what we
are, not only before each other. In fact, I mean, it does us some,
you know, humility amongst one another is good. It'll benefit
us, I promise. But we need to acknowledge what
we are before God. Who did Jonah sin against? Well,
Jonah brought this trouble upon these men. Yeah, he did. That's
not the problem, though. Jonah sinned against God. That's
the problem. Do we understand we've sinned against God? And
we can't atone for our sin again. We can't do anything to save
ourselves. Can't do it. All right, look here in verse
nine, we see Jonah's answer. And he said unto them, I'm a
Hebrew and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, which hath made
the sea and the dry land. Then were the men exceedingly
afraid and said unto him, why hast thou done this? For the
men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord, because
he had told them." Jonah told them who he was. He told them,
I'm a... I could honestly just see them
laughing if this is how... I don't know how he... I don't know the
order in which he said it, because then it goes on to tell us he
told them what he did. But you imagine if the first
words out of his mouth was, well, I'm a child of God. I'm a prophet
of God. You imagine the laughter they
must have given him. But I suspect Jonah answered them in humility.
I suspect Jonah told them, listen, this is my fault. I sinned against
God. I know you're not going to believe
this, but I'm a prophet of God. And I did something I shouldn't
have done. I disobeyed my Lord. He said, go to Nineveh, and I
came here, and I brought this trouble upon myself and all of
you, and I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done it, but
by God's grace, I fear the Lord. Let me tell you about the Lord.
Jonah used this occasion. I say Jonah, God used this occasion
to tell these men who God was. He said, the Lord of heaven,
which hath made the sea and the dry land that you're trying to
get to, He said, let me tell you about Him. Do you reckon
that was the case? We're going to see that was the
case. I don't like to say I'm going to prove it to you, but
God's going to prove it to us. He's going to show us what happened
here. Jonah told these men who he was. God acknowledged who
we are, and it's not a good thing. We're not proud of it. But we
also turn right around and say, let me tell you who God is. Let
me tell you how holy He is. Let me tell you how just and
right He is. Rightly, those men turned around
and in verse 10, you can imagine how exceedingly afraid they must
have been. And again, the only question they would have upon
hearing that would be, why hast thou done this? Why in the world
did you do that? If you fear the Lord, if you know how holy
He is, why would you disobey Him? Let's ask ourselves that. Why do we do what we do? Anybody
have an answer for that? Don't answer. Man, that's a question, ain't
it? Why am I the way that I am? It's like, was it Rebecca? Why
am I thus? If we're a believer, that's a
question we feel, whether we think about it or not, we feel
it all the time, don't we? I pray we do. Why would we sin
against such a God? Why did I not just go to Nineveh?
It would have saved us all a lot of trouble, wouldn't it? At this point, these men, I believe
these men were mad at Jonah. Wouldn't you be? Why'd you have
to bring your trouble to us? Why'd you have to get on our
ship? There's a bunch of ships down there in Joppa. Why'd you
have to get on this one? Now, I'm also convinced, if he hadn't
yet, that at this point Jonah turns to them and he says, listen,
you guys are some filthy sailors. You're no better than me. He didn't just tell them who
He was and who God is, no doubt He told them who they were. And
what does a prophet, what does a preacher of God do? He declares
man to be what he is before God, nothing but sin. We wouldn't
be right not to declare what man is before God. I'm telling
you, God's gonna use Jonah here as His prophet to declare the
gospel to them, and He's gonna bless it according to His will,
however He's pleased to bless it, alright? Now, these men we
just read, they were crying out to their false gods. They were
trying to save themselves. Look right here in verse 11.
They said unto him, what shall we do unto thee that the sea
may be calm unto us? For the sea wrought and was tempestuous. Now, at this point, I still don't
know. I don't know their hearts. We
don't know. But we're about to read what happened. I don't know
how they felt. I know there's been some anger.
It only makes sense. But this storm's getting worse
and worse. Something has to be done. Something's going to have
to happen or we're all going to perish. It's obvious. It was
obvious to everybody on that boat. Now, like I said, Jonah
told them the reason for this storm is sin. The reason God
is going to judge us is because of sin. God hates sin. He's too holy. He's too pure
to behold sin. That's the reason for the storm.
That's the reason for judgment. That's the reason for hell and
damnation. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. God must do right. He must punish wrong. He must
judge sin. Alright? Now look here in verse
12. And he said unto them, Take me
up, and cast me forth into the sea. So shall the sea be calm
unto you. Now look what he said here. For
I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you. Jonah knew they were all sinners,
but he knew specifically God sent this storm because of me.
It's because of me. Now, right here, God gave Jonah
the faith to know what had to be done. And here's the point
of the message. Here's the title of the message.
Jonah, a picture of Christ. Take me up, cast me forth into
the sea, and so shall the sea be calm to you. That's the gospel.
That's Christ. Now, when Jonah said this, again,
Jonah, he was a man just like you and me. You imagine how scared
he must have been to say that to them? Just because he was
a child of God and a prophet of God didn't mean he was free
of fear, free of earthly fear and things that we feel. I can
just picture him trembling, I mean, literally shaking as he says
this. You throw me out of that storm? Are you kidding me? What
faith God gave him in that moment? Amazing. And on saying that,
remember, faith is the gift of God. Well, Jonah, he buckled
down. He became faithful only by God's
grace. My brother prayed for the Lord
to allow me to boldly declare, I can't, but He can. I'm not
able to, but He is. Faith is of God from start to
finish. We don't muster faith. Faith
is of God, and God gave it to Jonah. And right then and there,
Jonah tells them about the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall
come on His own, on purpose, be lifted up on purpose, on a
cross, be cast forth into the sea of hell to save sinners like
you and me. Isn't that what it is to declare
the gospel? Who Christ? He's God. He's coming on purpose
to save His people whom He chose to save them from their sin.
And He's gonna save them by Himself. He's gonna do it all. And not
a single one for whom He's doing this deserves it. I don't deserve
it. You don't deserve it. But let
me tell you about what He's gonna come and do. Praise the Lord. Now look here at verse 13. Nevertheless,
Now remember, the men had just heard the gospel preached, okay?
Nevertheless, the men rode hard to bring it to the land, but
they could not. For the sea wrought and was tempestuous
against them. They heard the gospel message
and they thought, surely there's got to be another way. Surely,
you don't have to do this. Surely, no one has to die here. Surely, we can appease the wrath
of God without the shedding of blood. It's just not so. A sacrifice or sin must be made. Without the shedding of blood,
there's not going to be any remission of sin. We have to have a Savior
put away sin. We have to have a substitute
to die and satisfy God's holy justice, to satisfy God's holy
law. I love how it tells us here,
they heard the gospel message and they just kept trying. Isn't
that what we do? We hear the gospel message and
we, oh well, I'm going to try to do this on my own. But I'm
so thankful it tells us plainly, but they could not. With men, this is impossible. The best of men are men at best.
Man at his best state is altogether vanity, less than vanity, nothing. We cannot save ourselves. I wish I wish everybody in this
world could hear that and have faith to believe that. We can't
save ourselves. I can't do anything to appease
God. Nothing. They could not. They were totally helpless. Utterly
helpless. Without strength. Well, without
strength. In due time, Christ died for
the ungodly. Those who had no strength. He
died for sinners. These men, they found themselves
right here at the mercy of God. And that's a wonderful place
to be. When we come to the place, when we fall on our face, Lord,
save me or I perish. That's where we must find ourselves.
I pray God would put us there. And look here, verse 14. Wherefore,
they cried unto thee, Lord. Isn't that something? You remember
who they was crying to just a minute ago, don't you? This God and
that God and that God. I don't know why I pointed up. They cried to all these little
gods. They heard the gospel preached. How shall they believe on whom
they have not heard? How shall we hear without a preacher?
Jonah was God's prophet. He came with God's message. He
came declaring God's gospel. And now they're crying unto the
Lord. You see a difference there? I
hope everybody in this room, myself included, sees a difference
here. Something happened. How did they
just find themselves calling upon the Lord, the same Lord,
Jehovah? Because it pleased God through
the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. He begat them with the word of
truth. Amazing, amazing. You see, Jonah
disobeyed God. God said, you go to Nineveh.
You go preach the gospel to Nineveh. And in chapter three, you know
what? Jonah goes to Nineveh, and God saves Nineveh. And then
Jonah gets mad, and then the Lord reminds him, Jonah, shouldn't
I have mercy on them? I have mercy on you. God overruled
his prophet's evil. For good? Oh, can you see the
good in this? Oh, blesses my heart. Those sailors,
you know, moments ago they were mad at this man for joining himself
to their ship. Why did you have to get on our
ship? Now they love him. You ever... I don't know what
your experience was. I grew up learning the gospel
and I'll just be honest with you. I hated it. I didn't like what I heard. Now
sure I liked hearing God's in control and God's will comes
to pass, but I didn't like hearing that I'm not good. I didn't like
hearing I'm a fool and God's right to send me to hell. Who
likes hearing that? I tell you, who likes hearing that? The sinner
whom God has chosen to rejoice at hearing that. Saul of Tarsus,
he didn't rejoice in hearing that. But when the Lord saved
him, when he knocked him down in the dirt, blinded him, and
said he's a chosen vessel unto me, I'm going to show him what
great things he must suffer for my sake. I'm going to show him
what great things I've done for him. This is Jesus whom thou
persecutest. I chose you. Lord, what would you have me
to do? God saved these men. He overruled Jonah's evil. He
overruled their evil, their sin, their wickedness, and saved them
freely by His grace. And here in verse 14, well read
it with me. Wherefore they cried unto the
Lord and said, We beseech thee, O Lord, we beseech thee, we're
begging you, Lord, let us not perish for this man's life. Lay
not upon us innocent blood. Now look at this. For thou, O
Lord, hast done as it pleased thee. Now, they probably wanted
to throw Jonah off the boat at first before they heard him declare
the gospel to them and God gave them faith to believe it. And
then Jonah faithfully says, well, this is the only way. I do indeed
need to be thrown off this boat. But at this point, God has saved
them. They don't want to throw him
off the boat. Like I said, God used him to preach the gospel
to them. They love him. You love the man who preaches
the gospel to you, don't you? You may have hated him before, but
you love him now. You may not get along with him all the time,
but you love him. You reconcile your differences because you
share the truth. You share Christ. You see their reluctancy here? They thought, okay, if we throw
him off the boat like he's saying, Lord, don't let us perish too.
You know, if we do this, we're doing this by faith because we're
believing that this is of you. But they, at the same time, they
say, Well, can we really throw him? This is your child. This
is our brother. This is your prophet. Can we
really throw him off the boat? If we do, it is by faith. Please don't lay upon us innocent
blood. Don't send us to hell for doing
this to him. They wanted to make sure this
was of God. And I love that. They didn't
just flippantly throw him off the boat, though they probably
wanted to at first. They were seeking the Lord in
this. I emphasize the end of verse 14. They said, Thou, O
Lord, hast done as it pleased Thee. An unbeliever don't say
that. God does. He's in the heavens.
He hath done whatsoever He hath been pleased to do. In the arms of heaven and among
the inhabitants of the earth. He does what He will all the
time. And that's their prayer. Now
look at verse 15. They sought the Lord in this.
They trust this is His will. Verse 15, so they took up Jonah
and cast him forth into the sea. Like I said, it wasn't an act
of anger. This was an act of faith. They took up Jonah, cast
him forth into the sea, and the sea ceased from her raging. I can just picture the moment
Jonah hits that water. Perfect peace and rest. The storm ceased when Christ
died for our sin. You remember, he told that thief
on, I believe, his right side, he told that thief, today you're
going to be with me in paradise. The moment Christ bowed his head
and gave up the ghost, God's wrath against sin was fulfilled. The price had been paid in full
by one man's offering. He perfected forever all His
people, all them that are sanctified, set apart, chosen, made holy
in Him. And verse 16 says, Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly
and offered a sacrifice unto the Lord and made vows. They were astonished. Wouldn't
you be? Everybody's amazed at the fact
that Jonah was swallowed by a fish, right? I'm telling you, there's
so much to be amazed at in this passage. By faith they throw
this man, this prophet of God, into the sea and the sea stops
from its raging. God was appeased. You imagine
the fear that overcame the reverence, the worship, that overcame them. It says they offered a sacrifice.
They made vows. They thanked the Lord. Thank
you, Lord, for not just saving me from the storm. Thank you
for saving my soul. Thank you for saving me from the hell against
sin that I deserve. They knew they didn't deserve
that goodness. They knew they didn't deserve
it. Do we know we don't deserve God's goodness? God, who is full
of mercy, do we know we don't deserve it? We don't deserve
it. Right now, I do not deserve God's
mercy. I don't deserve his goodness,
not at all. I do not. But by God's grace, like these
men, I can vow, Lord, I am resolved to worship you and you alone.
I'm resolved to praise you and you alone as long as I shall
live. Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. Look at verse
17. Now the Lord had prepared a great
fish to swallow up Jonah. Jonah didn't die in that storm.
He's a picture of Christ. Christ died. Jonah is a picture
of Christ. God was merciful to the sailors
and he was merciful to Jonah. Aren't you glad? Jonah sinned
against God. God sends a storm to correct
his prophet, and yet God used all of that to save these sailors,
these men, from their sin. And then God also is merciful
to Jonah in the process. Now, like I said, Jonah didn't
deserve it. The sailors didn't deserve it.
We don't deserve it. Aren't you thankful to know God
overrules evil for good? But not only that, aren't you
thankful that God overrules our evil for our good. I'm so glad he does. So thankful
he does. In verse 17 again, now the Lord
had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was
in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. I hope,
I truly hope that we've seen ourselves in Jonah, not as the
wonderful child of God, prophet of God, no, as the sinner. as
the rebellious, wicked, hell-deserving sinner. I pray we see ourselves
in Him. But infinitely more than that, I pray we see Jonah as
a picture, as a type of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who
was lifted up on purpose and cast forth into the lowest hell
to save a wretch like me. I want to show you this in closing.
Turn to Matthew chapter 12. I love when The New Testament
confirms the pictures that we see in the Old Testament. It doesn't confirm all of them,
but it confirms a lot of them. Well, here in Matthew chapter
12, look at verse 38 with me. Matthew 12, 38 says, Then certain
of the scribes and Pharisees, these are the religious, They
answered and said, Master, we would see a sign from thee, talking
to our Lord. But he answered and said unto
them, an evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign,
and there shall no sign be given to it but the sign of the prophet
Jonah. What was the sign of the prophet
Jonah? Look at the next verse, verse 40. 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 whole reason. Jonah did what
he did not to picture Christ. He didn't have any idea what
God was going to do. Jonah just disobeyed God. And yet God brought
that about. He allowed Jonah to have his
way in the moment. that the Lord may have his way
and overrule what Jonah did to save his people from their sins.
The whole purpose of the book of Jonah. That chapter we just
read, it wasn't about Jonah. It wasn't about Nineveh. It wasn't
about those mariners. It's all about the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's all about him. It's all
about Christ. This whole book is all about
Christ. I pray Pray we see ourselves
in Jonah as a sinner. I pray we see, I pray we see
Christ in Jonah. I pray we see Christ to be our
Savior. All right, Lord bless you.