talked about Jonas. The Lord Jesus Christ
himself said that Jonas is just a sign. He's a sign in two ways. He's a sign of me. A sign of
me, my death, my burial, my resurrection. And he's also going to be a sign
to you and this generation because Nineveh, when he went down there
and preached to that city, they repented. They all repented. They even put sackcloth on their
animals, on their cattle. And they repented, and Jonas
is preaching. And then men of Nineveh are going
to face you in the judgment, and you're going to have a greater
condemnation, because a greater than Jonas is right here preaching
to you, and you won't receive him, and you won't repent. You're
an evil and adulterous generation. Now, Jonah is mentioned so much
in the Scriptures. And I'll tell you, this is not
a prophecy. See, they're right off the bat.
This is not a prophecy. When you read Jonah, no prophecy. All you see is the gospel. All
you see is the grace of God. All you see is God's hand towards
His people and what He does to save His people and preserve
His people and see them saved all the way to glory. And this
is a type, and Jonas was a type of our Lord Jesus Christ. And
Jonah himself, he's just an insignificant man. Lived in an insignificant
place and son of a man that didn't amount to anything either as
far as we know. He dealt in a place called Gath-Hepper. And when
he came back, you know, and you find later that he preached,
and God blessed him to preach at another time, and the Lord
blessed his preaching in another instance. But Jonah, look here
at 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. Now Jonah was a prophet before
God ever sent him to Nineveh. He didn't become a prophet. God
said, you go over to Nineveh and you preach the preaching
that I tell you to do. He's already a prophet. He's already God's
man. But I tell you what, he didn't
want to go to Nineveh. He didn't want to go over there.
And I'll tell you, we'll find out the reason why. But I'll tell
you, he was a prophet. And the reason was, first of
all, he was prejudiced against the Ninevites. Nineveh and Babylon
was in the same places. Where that Nineveh was, that's
where Abraham came from. There are the Chaldees. There
on the Tigris River. That's where Babylon was, and
that's where Baghdad is today. One great kingdom of another
come out of there, and God destroyed every one of them. But here comes
Jonah, and he didn't want to go down there and preach because
he didn't believe God should have mercy upon them Ninevites.
They're a bunch of hard-hearted. They're a bunch of rebels. They're
a bunch of ungodly people. They're a bunch of infidels.
They've mistreated us, and you want me to go and preach to them? And so look what happened in
verse 3. Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarsus from the presence
of the Lord. That's the first mistake he done.
Because you can't get from the presence of the Lord, no matter
where you're at. Can't get out from the presence
of the Lord. Tarnished. Jonah rose up to flee
from the presence. Where are you going to get where
God ain't? Where are you going to get where God's not? He said,
David said this, if I rise to the heavens. He said, to take
a sun in the morning. He said, you're there. If I make
my bed in hell, you're there. If I lay in the dark, you're
there. Wherever I am, that's where you are. There's no place
I can go where you're not. And David found assurance in
that. But Jonah said, I'm going to get away from this business.
I'm not going to go over there and preach. So he said, he got
on a ship and he went down to Joppa. Now Joppa, you remember
Joppa, that's where Cornelius sat down and had Simon Peter
come up and preach to Cornelius. That's where Simon Peter was.
He was up on top of the housetop praying in Joppa. And Cornelius
sent some men down there to get him in Joppa, the same place.
And he found a ship going to Tarsus. And here's another thing
he did. That's what happens to us when
we try to figure out our own life and what we want to do and
where we want to go. And this is man unconverted.
This is man at his best at stake. He wants to get from the presence
of the Lord. We're to find him a place to go. And then when
he got on that ship, he had to pay the fare there. And we've
got in it. To go with them unto Tarsus from
the presence of the Lord. Twice, he says, from the presence.
And he had to pay the fare. And I'll tell you something,
beloved, whenever men don't want to bow to God, don't want to
do God's will, don't want to come into the Lord's presence,
don't want to get away from Him, the payment that you'll have
to pay eventually will be more than you can ever imagine. The
fare, you can't pay it. The fare, you can't come up with
it. So that's what Jonah did, but look what happens now. There's four things God prepared,
and there's five things God prepared, but here's one of them. But in
verse 4, the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, mighty tempest,
so that the ship was like to be broken. Oh my goodness, what
are we going to do? We've got a storm coming. Then
the mariners, You see, the Lord sent this. People say, oh, well,
storms come, storms go. Well, it says the Lord sent this.
And the mariners were afraid and cried, every man, listen
to this, under their God. I wonder how many different gods
they prayed to on that ship that night. He said, every man come
under his own God and cast forth, where is the wind ship to lighten
the load? Jonah was going down beside the ship and he lay and
was fast asleep. David said, Lord, don't let me
sleep the sleep of death. He was sound asleep. He was so
unconcerned. He was so unconcerned about what
was going on, he didn't care. The Master came to him and said
to him, What meanest thou? Sleep or rise? Call upon your
God. God will thank those that will not perish. And they began to cast lots in
verse 7. Who is this? Why has this evil
come upon us? They cast lots and the lot fell upon John. The
scripture says that they cast lots, but it's the Lord, it falls
to the Lord, it's the disposal of the lot. God Himself cast
the lot in the lap of the Lord and He decides. Look what it
says here now. And He said unto them, verse
9, I'm a Hebrew. I'm a Jew. And I fear the Lord. I fear God. Well, they didn't fear Him enough.
Not to want to get away from Him, not to get out of His presence,
not to keep from going to preach. And he says, I fear the Lord,
the God of heaven, which made the sea and the dry land. And
they said, why have you done this? For the men, he told them,
he told them everything that happened, for the men knew that
he fled from the presence of the Lord because he told them.
He said, I'm getting away from God. I'm getting away from His
calling. I'm getting away from my responsibility. I'm going
to be like Simon Peter. I'm going to go fishing again.
And they said, well, what shall we do that the sea may be calm?
For the sea just kept getting worse. And look what he says.
Take me up, take me up, and cast me forth into the sea, and the
sea will be calm unto you. This tempest come upon you for
my sake. Ain't that the way, ain't that the way, our Lord
Jesus, the tempest of God, the wrath of God, the storm of God?
The judgment of God was on us. Do you want to destroy us in
this life? And just, you know, we spend
our fare going on about our business. And then our Lord Jesus Christ,
He said, throw me overboard. The sea will be calm. Things
will be well. Just throw me overboard. Well,
you'll die. You'll drown. Throw me overboard.
Nevertheless, the men rode hard to bring it to the land, but
they could not. They didn't want to throw him overboard. They
still wanted to be saved on their own terms. And they cried unto
the Lord, and they said, Oh God, what are we going to do now? What are we going to do now? And boy, I tell you, He said,
Let us not perish for this man's life. Though lays blood upon
us, for the Lord you has done." Now listen, this is heathen sin.
You've done like you please. You're doing this. Now watch
what happens now. Then they took up Jonah, cast
him forth into sea, and the sea ceased their raging. And I'll
tell you, it stopped just like that. Just like our Lord walked
out on us. The helm of that ship that night said, Peace, be still.
And it just calmed just like that. Now look what happens now
in verse 17. Now the Lord, And not only sent
this great tempest, not only had Jonah thrown overboard, now
the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. They
throw him over, and this is quick under the water, and he went
under the water, and there's a great big fish out of his mouth
wide open, and Jonah went right down. You know, he wasn't floating
around there, and this fish come up and got him. I mean, it was
right there, his mouth wide open, and they throw him over, in that
mouth he went. And Jonah, was in the belly of
the fish three days and three nights. Oh, my. Oh, my. And Jonah crashed into
the sea. And I'll tell you what, and the
sea ceased to raging. When our Lord Jesus Christ was
put in our place, boy, our sin suffered God's tempest, God's
wrath. Then, beloved, The sea stopped
for me, the raging stopped for me when I saw Him taking my place.
Then right then and there I saw, beloved, that there is therefore
now no condemnation to them that are in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And oh, beloved, this thing raged and raged and raged and raged
and raged. And I tell you what, Jonah was
willing to suffer in their place to save them. The only way you're
going to be saved is throw me overboard. I'll suffer, I'll
die, you know, he didn't know that he wasn't going to die.
Didn't know that he had that great fish to prepare. But the
only way you can be saved is by me dying, me going to the
grave, me suffering. And he was willing to be full
of reward that these men could be saved. Our Lord Jesus Christ
willingly, willingly took our sins in his own body on the tree.
to save us from the wrath and justice of God. And I'll tell
you what, though the Lord Jesus Christ, though those men cast
Him overboard, our Lord Jesus Christ was delivered into men's
hands by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God. Now,
I want you to see this great fish. Oh, and here's what's amazing
to me. People say this is not so. It
just couldn't happen. I'll tell you what, if it said
Jonah had swallowed a fish, I'd have believed it. Because it's
in God's Word. And if you ever doubt one part
of it, you've got to doubt it all. And here's Jonah. God had this great fish. Down
Jonah went, and this fish swallowed him up. Swallowed him whole.
And it was big enough for Jonah to live inside that whale's belly
or that fish's belly. Lived in that fish's belly for
three days. Three nights. Huh? And he lived in that thing. And
look what he says about it. And he was down in that whale's
belly. And did Jonah pray unto the Lord? His got out of the
fish's belly. He began to pray now. Why didn't he pray before? Say, Lord, please, if it be your
will, I don't want to go over to Nineveh. Why do you try to
hide from God? Why do you want to pay some fare?
Now look what's happened. And all this is to show us the
gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I cried by reason of my affliction
unto the Lord. He heard me out of the belly
of hell, cried I, and thou heardest my voice. Our Lord Jesus Christ
said in Psalm 69, Save me, O God, for the waters are come into
my soul. I sink in the deep mire where there's no steady. I'm
come into the deep waters where the floods overflow me. I'm weary
of my crying. My throat is dry. My eyes fail
while I wait for my God. They that hate me, hate me without
a cause more than the hairs of my head. They that would destroy
me, being my enemies wrongfully, are mighty. Then I restored that
which I took away. None but Christ could pay that
vow. Look what happens now. You cast
me into the deep. He says, God, you've done this. How many people do you know today
that whatever happened in their life said the Lord did this?
Here's Jonah in the belly of a fish. He said, Lord, you cast
me in here. You put me here. In the midst
of the seas. And, oh my, all your billows
and ways, Pat. Then I said, I'm cast out of
your sight. But I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going
to look for your holy temple. I'm going to look to that place
where you dwell. I'm going to look to that place
where your name is. I'm going to look to that place
where your holiness is. And then look what he says. I
went down, verse 6, to the bottoms of the mountains. The earth with
her bars was about me. Yet fast brought up my life from
corruption, O Lord my God. And when my soul fainted within
me, I remembered the Lord. And my prayer came unto thee
and to thine holy temple. And then look what it said in
verse 9. But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving.
Now he's going to start thanking God while he's in this fellowship. I'll sacrifice unto thee with
the voice of thanksgiving. He's praying down there. He said, I'm in the bars around
me, mounds around me, waters around me. You put me into this
deep place. And I will pay that I have vowed.
Christ paid only what He could pay. And then look what He says. Salvation is of the Lord. Now
listen. Now look what it says there in
verse 10. And the Lord spake unto the fish. Creation does what God tells
it to do. He tells the sun to shine, it
shines. It's been shining since He put it in the heavens. And
the Lord spake unto that fish. Now you reckon that fish, how
could that fish understand language? God can speak to everybody. He made it. And what did He tell
that fish to do? Now take Jonah about 50 yards
from the land. And you know, and then spit it
out and let him walk the rest of the way. He needs to learn
to stand on his own two feet. He needs to learn how to swim.
So set him up and let him do the best he can to get the rest
of the way. You know, all that the Lord gives
me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will no way
cast. And it vomited him up on dry land. There was nothing that
Jonah could do to save himself. And God said, now you're not
going to have to swim, you're not going to have to wade, you're
not going to have to walk, you're not going to have to crawl, I'm
going to have you put on dry land. And listen, three days,
he come up there and he's on dry land. Now you hear the average
preacher today sitting down and he said, fish, the fish wants
to spit you out. Fish like to spit you out. Would you just, Lord, would you
please let this fish be, I don't care if I have to walk, I don't
care if I have to crawl, I don't care if I have to cry. No, no,
he's spitting out on dry land. Dry land. Oh, my. The salvation of the righteous
is of the Lord. And oh, when they spit it out,
and then look what happens. You're talking about getting
down to Nineveh. He got down there in a hurry. And the word of the Lord came
on Jonah a second time and said, Now get on down to Nineveh and
preach the preaching that I bid thee. So Jonah arose and went
on to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh
was an exceeding great city of three days journey. Now this
is the way I take that. They say it took him three days
to get there and it took him a day. The way I understand it,
from one side of that city to the other side, it was a three
day walk through that city. That's the way I understand it.
You walk through one gate, and you go out, come in the east
gate, and go out the west gate, takes you three days if all you
did was walk to get through that city. That's how big a city it
was. And there was enough people there. Let me show you. I believe
it's in the last verse of chapter four. And he says, Should I not
spare Nineveh, that great city wherein are more than six thousand
persons, that cannot discern between the right hand and the
left hand? I mean, that's babies. He's talking
about babies. If there were that many infants
there, that many infants there, and they couldn't tell their
right hand from their left hand. Six score of them. Sixty thousand of them. Six score.
Is that twenty? No, that's a hundred and twenty.
That score is twenty-eight. A hundred and twenty. That's
right. I get it. Oh, listen. He said,
go down there and preach. So Jonah went, and when he entered
that city, and he got into the city in a day's journey. He got
inside there about a day's journey. And he was in there about a day's
journey. He got right down pretty close to town there. He got in
there, and then he started crying, yet forty days! Then it shall
be overthrown. He didn't say, folks, I've got
something to tell you. I've got good news and bad news.
No, he just comes the first 30 minutes of God. 40 days! And
40 in the Scriptures always, always is a testing time. Always
is a trial time. And 40 days, you're all going
to be destroyed. He never smiled and said, oh,
boys, I hate to tell you all this, You know, I just, I'd hate
to say this to you, but oh my, what happened to them? What happened? Verse five. So the people of
Nineveh, listen now, believed God. Believed God. How'd they believe
God? What? Jonah said. They proclaimed
the past, put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of
them. For the word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose
from his throne, laid aside his robe, covered him with sackcloth,
and sat in ashes, and said, Tell everybody in all of Nineveh,
Don't let a man, a beast, a herd, or flock taste anything, or drink,
or feed, or water, or nothing, and cover them all with sackcloth."
Maybe God will turn. And repent, in verse 9, and turn
away his fierce anger that we purged not. And then he said
in verse 10, he repented him of the evil. Oh my. Boy, you'd
think that would thrill me to death. The way I am now, I don't
know that it would have. If I was Jonah, it wouldn't.
No. But to have somebody to say, Preacher, I believe God. I believe
God. I'm going to trust God. I believe
if I do what you tell me to look to Christ, to trust Christ, I
believe I'm going to do that, and perhaps God will just receive
me and accept me. And I'll tell you that He will.
And that's why the Lord Jesus Christ says, "...the men of Nineveh
shall rise up, and this generation shall condemn them, because they
are priests." Now watch what happens now. Verse 4, chapter
4. It displeased Jonah exceedingly,
and he got angry. Now why in the world would a
man get mad at God, get angry at God, for God having mercy
on a whole huge, well there's 120,000 babies in there that
don't know the right hand from the left. Do you know how many
adults are in there that's got 120,000 babies? There ain't 120,000 babies in
the whole state of Tennessee right now. Don't know the right
hand from the left. I know there's not. Maybe Kentucky and Tennessee
put together. I don't know. It takes a lot
of people to make 120,000 babies. And then he got mad because God
had mercy. He got angry. And he prayed unto
the Lord and said, I say, I pray, Lord, was this not my saying?
Did I not say this when I was yet in my country? That's why
I fled to Tarsus. And here's what he said, here's
what made him mad. For I know you're a gracious God, you're
a merciful God, you're slow to anger and of great kindness,
and you'd repent of this evil. So why in the world did you bother
me? If you don't save them, If you're
going to have mercy for them, if you're going to repent of
your evil to them, and you're going to be gracious to them,
so if you're kind, why in the world would you want me to go
down there and preach to them? In other words, he wanted God
to do just exactly what he wanted. He'd rather have God destroy
him as for God to save him. Oh, my. Well, the Lord came to
him and he says, Doest thou well to be angry?" You know, the last
time he asked a man that was Cain. Yeah. Two men he asked that. One of
them was a rep of eight, and this one here, oh, Jonah, is
it good for you to be angry? Jonah went out on the city side.
Look what God did for him now. So Jonah went out on the city,
sat down, Made him a shame place. They got him a bunch of limbs
cut down, built him a little booth, so he sat out under the
shadow, till he might see what would become of the city. I'm
going to wait and see if God's going to destroy this outfit.
And look what happens now. Here's one of them things that
God prepared. The Lord God prepared a gourd made to come up over
Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, so to deliver
him from his grief. And Jonah was exceedingly glad
of that gourd. Big ole war-cut bed, ole big
leaves on it, growed up overnight, and he's sittin' there, them
big ole leaves all over his head. Oh, Lord, thank You. Oh, Lord,
I bless You for this shade. Oh, God, thank You that sun ain't
beatin' down on me. Well, God don't know what done
happened, but look what else He prepared. But He prepared a worm. And He's in a worm. See, He's
got Gord, right at the bottom, and oh, he got up that morning,
and then this smoked the ground, the gourd till it withered away.
Oh, my. He's really upset now. And then
look what happened. God ain't through with this fella
yet. God ain't through with him. And bless his name. Whatever
he sends our way, God help us to kiss the hand of his providence.
And it came to pass. When the sun arose, that to God
prepared a vehement east wind, and the sun beat upon the head
of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished himself to die, and said,
It is better for me to die and live. God said to him again,
Jonah, is it well that you should be angry for the Lord? He said,
I do well to be angry even unto death. God gave him an object
lesson right here. Gave him an object lesson. Thou
hast had pity on the gourd for which you did labor, neither
made it to grow. Came up in a night and perished
in a night. You had nothing to do with that gourd. And then
you're upset because the gourd's gone. He said, should I not? If you would have rather had
that gourd, inspired that gourd to keep yourself shaded, and
you had nothing to do with it, Should I not spare Nineveh, that
great city, where more than 120,000 persons cannot discern between
the right hand and the left hand, and also much cattle?" Oh, God
taught Jonah by His mercy, and then taught him how he ought
to be merciful. And then I want you to look with me in Matthew
chapter 27. Matthew chapter 27. I want you
to see this. Jonah was angry. He grieved Jonah over a repentant city, grieved over a city that
repented, that had to be spared. Well, our Lord here, and, no, excuse me, Luke 19. I'm sorry. Luke 19. I am sorry. Luke 19,
verse 41. You know, Jonah shouldn't have questioned what
God had done. He must not. And God helped us never to do
it. Never be angry with God. No matter what comfort He sends
us or what else He sends us. Jonah was worried over this worthless
gourd. and was angry over a multitude of sinners God spared. I'm angry
over that. And Jonah grieved over a repentant
city that had to be spared while our Lord wept over a city that
had to be judged. And when he was come near, he
beheld the city and wept over it. That don't hardly sound like
Jonah, does it? He's mad, angry, because God
repented over that city, over all of them people. Saying, Lord,
he said to them, wept over that city, because judgment's going
to come. Saying, if thou hadst known,
even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong
unto thy peace, but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the day shall come upon thee
that thine enemy shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee
around on every side, and keep thee in on every side. And lay
you with the ground, your children within you." God spared them
children in Nineveh. They're not going to be spared
here. And they'll not leave one stone
upon another, because you knew not the time when God visited
you. Oh my. Let's never be a Jonah. God help us to never be a Jonah.
Especially in our attitude. Because we can't get out from
the presence of the Lord. We just can't. No matter where
we go. And if folks could understand that, if the people we preach
to and the people we witness to, if they could understand
that, that they are never, ever out of the presence of the Lord.
The eyes of the Lord run to and fro, beholding the good and the
evil. Hell and destruction are ever
before the eyes of the Lord. He told us that I knew your thoughts.
And if folks could ever, ever understand that, That there,
right in the very presence, you can never get away from that.
I believe it would change them. I know it would. I know it would. And say, Oh God, You see me. Thou God that seest me. That's
what Rahab said, Thou God that seest me. And let's weep over those that
hasn't repented before judgment comes on them. God help us to
do that.