Christ, one greater than Jonah. We're gonna be looking at Jonah
chapter two, but I'm actually gonna start in Jonah one verse
17. Now we've known from a child
up the story of what we call Jonah and the whale. A lot of
people argue and say, well, it wasn't a whale, it was a great
fish. The reason I think people, some people insist that it was
a whale is because when Christ referred to this over in the
book of Matthew, and it's in Matthew chapter 12, The Greek
word there that's used for the great fish, the King James translators
translated it whale. But as I said, the Lord obviously
did bring this up as a prophecy of himself as being that one
prophesied as the Messiah who is greater than Moses, greater
than all the prophets, the greatest one of all, prophet, priest,
and king. But let's think about this. You
know the story of Jonah, how God commanded this man, Jonah,
to go to a Gentile nation, a nation of idolaters, a nation that was
enemies to Israel, but especially a Gentile nation. And of course,
there were prejudices back then, you know, Gentiles he commanded
Jonah to go preach to this Gentile nation this city called Nineveh
and Jonah chapter 1 in verse 3 tells us that Jonah didn't
want to go and People can speculate on why he didn't want to go it
may have been because they were enemies It may have been because
he was just he didn't have a spine Which none of us do by nature
in the issues of grace and the south and God and get the gospel
Or it may have been because of their Jewish prejudices against
Gentiles. We don't know. But God told Jonah,
you go over there and you pronounce judgment against these people.
Nineveh. Jonah didn't want to go, so he
went the opposite way and got on a ship to Tarshish. And you
know what happened. God brought a great storm. And
Jonah, there's mythology revolving around that that we don't want
to get into. The Jonah syndrome and all of that. And he revealed
himself, he's the reason that this storm was coming. They were
all gonna perish, so they tossed Jonah over the side. And it says
in Jonah 1.17, look at this. Now the Lord had prepared a great
fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly with the
bowels of the fish three days and three nights. Isn't that
something? I love the way that's put. The Lord prepared a great
fish. This was no accident. This was
no, as they say, happenstance. This was not Jonah being lucky.
Of course, we wouldn't think about a whale swallowing us as
being lucky in any way. This is the providence, the power,
the predestination of Almighty God. And he prepared this great
fish for Jonah. And of course, you know the story.
Now here's Jonah in the belly of that whale. The Lord prepared
that fish, and I keep saying whale. I don't mind that. It doesn't matter to me. It's
a big fish, and when I see whales in the ocean, they're big fish,
aren't they? They could swallow a person whole. So that's the
key. But it was God's purpose and
intent that Jonah was going to Nineveh, and we find out later
in chapter three that through Jonah's preaching, the Lord God
brought the king of Nineveh and the people, the majority of the
people at least, to repentance. Now what a story. That was God's
purpose. You know, the Bible says that
God is not willing that any of his children, his people, his
elect perish, but that all should come to repentance. And people
argue about this thing about Nineveh. Did they really come
to gospel repentance or what? I don't know. I believe they
did. I'll tell you why, because when
we're gonna read here in chapter Matthew 12 where Christ talked
to them, he also told them the men of Nineveh will rise up in
judgment against the Pharisees who didn't believe. So I believe
it's very well documented that God had some elect people among
this Gentile nation, even the majority, called Nineveh. And
we see that when the king was brought to repentance, he made
a decree throughout the land that all idols should be wiped
out and all that. Now we find out later on that
Nineveh, later on after this king, after that generation passed,
that Nineveh went right back into idolatry. But this is an
amazing story of God's grace and how God brings his people
to hear the gospel. And how he brings them to faith
in Christ whom they all knew as the promised Messiah who was
to come, knew everything about him that we know except a few
providential details. They knew that Christ is going
to be God-man. God manifest in the flesh, Isaiah
prophesied of that. And it was, well that was set
forth in Genesis chapter three. They knew that he was going to
establish righteousness for his people by his death. They may
not have known that it was gonna be the death of a cross, but
they knew that he was going to be the death of a surety, a substitute,
and a one who would redeem them from their sins. And so God,
is going to bring his people under the sound of the gospel,
and even our disobedience and stubbornness and prejudices cannot
stop it. Jonah, the reluctant evangelist,
they call him, and he was. But aren't we all, in some ways,
reluctant evangelists? You think about it. We know that
the world hates our message, We know that our loved ones hate
our message by nature, because I hated it before God changed
my heart. And so we're reluctant to breach
the subject sometimes. But it's a comfort to know we
can't mess it up. We can't thwart God's purpose.
And Jonah learned that. God is not willing that any of
his people should perish. So it was his purpose that Jonah
go to Nineveh, and he put Jonah in Nineveh. Well, look over at,
well, it says, look at verse two, or verse one of chapter
two. Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord
his God out of the fish's belly. So there he is, he's praying
now. But look over at Matthew chapter 12. And let me show you
what the Lord himself said about this situation. Matthew 12 and
verse 38. He's talking here to the Pharisees. He exposed their false religion,
their self-righteousness. And he calls them in verse 34,
a generation of vipers, poisonous snakes. And he says in verse
38, he says, then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees
answered saying, master, we would see a sign from thee. Now he
had just healed a man. And so they weren't really willing
to accept the fact that he had the power to heal. They want
to see a sign from him. But look at verse 39, 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 Jonas. That's Jonas. For as Jonas
was three days and three nights in the whale's belly. Now, as
I said, that's the way the King James translators translated
that word, and that's okay. He 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. So what's
he telling us here? He's telling us that Jonah, in
all of God's dealings with him, was a picture of the death, burial,
and resurrection of Christ to save us from our sins, to establish
the righteousness of God. And he called that the sign of
the prophet Jonas. And then in verse 41 of Matthew
12, he says, the men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment against
this generation and shall condemn it. Now that tells me that the
men of Nineveh were brought to repentance of dead works, faith
in the promised Messiah. Now some people may argue against
that. And it says, because they repented at the preaching of
Jonas. Now we know that repentance was not natural to them, just
like it's not natural to us. Faith and repentance are not
natural to us. They're the gifts of God. And
that's what happened. And he said, and behold, a greater
than Jonas is here, talking about himself. Christ, one greater
than Jonah. But now think about it this way.
Not only is Jonah, a picture of Christ, Jonah in the belly
of the whale, three days and three nights. Not only is he
a picture of Christ in the glory of his person and work, Jonah's
also a picture of us in his rebellion, in his reluctance, in his sin. I'm not gonna go into all this
today, but even after the men of Nineveh repented, Jonah grew
resentful But God straightened him out. Aren't you glad that
God straightens us out when we need to be? That's the thing. And we need a lot of straightening
out, don't we, brother? We do. I'm telling you. Well, let's look back at Jonah
2 now. Let's go through this chapter,
just 10 verses. He says, then Jonah prayed unto
the Lord his God out of the fish's belly, said, I cried by reason
of mine affliction unto the Lord, And he heard me out of the belly
of hell, he cried. That word hell is like the grave,
the word for the grave. He cried and I heard, hell cried
I, and thou heardest my voice. For thou hast cast me into the
deep. See Jonah recognizes that this is God's word. in the midst
of the seas, and the floods compassed me about, and all thy billows
and thy waves passed over me." Now, how is that a picture of
Christ? Well, think of Christ going through his suffering unto
death. You remember when he was in the
Garden of Gethsemane crying out in his agony? He was agonizing. Sweating, the Bible says, great
drops of blood. Can you imagine agonizing to
the point that your sweat is blood? That's what that means. That must have been some agony.
And that's showing the pain and the agony and the sorrow of his
humanity. Sinless though it be, it still
hurt. It was grueling what he went
through. And then the suffering that he went through as he made
his way to the cross. The derision of sinful people
like us. The harm, the slapping, the whipping,
the spitting, the name calling, all of that. This is the Lord
of glory. The God who made them. Made us. And think about, they put the
crown of thorns on his head. And then they mocked him all
the way to the cross. And then even on the cross, the
two thieves began mocking him. If you be the son of God, come
down, stop this. And then all of a sudden, one
thief changed. You think it was of his own free
will? No, it was an act of a sovereign God. And he said, this man had
done nothing amiss. We deserve what we're getting.
But he's done nothing amiss. Well, that's all recorded. You
can read Psalms like I've got them recorded here in your lesson.
Psalm 22, the Psalm of the cross where Christ cried out, my God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me? That's Jonah. He's in the
belly of a whale. Could you imagine that? And all
these liberal scholars, they say, oh, wasn't really a whale
and all that, and all this was, no, he was there, brethren. And
he thought he was gonna die. But now Christ is greater than
Jonah. Christ all the time knew full
well what he had to suffer. in order to save us from our
sins and bring forth an everlasting righteousness of infinite value.
He told his disciples, he said, for this purpose came I into
the world. He said, I've got a baptism that
I've got to go through that you can't go through. And that was
the baptism of suffering unto death as the surety, the substitute. the redeemer of his people. In
Psalm 69, Christ is pictured there, the prophecy, as being
surrounded and covered with sin. And he was by imputation, but
he also suffered for that. I've had people who want to put
down the doctrine of imputation, say, well, Christ's death was
more than just imputation. Well, sure it was. Nobody's ever
said anything different. Christ, listen, the sins of God's
elect were imputed to Christ when he was made our surety in
the everlasting covenant of grace. But that's not all that was to
happen. He had to come and die. He had to be made of a woman.
He had to be made like unto his brethren in order to die. And the death of Christ was a
suffering that you and I cannot imagine what it was like. It
wasn't just imputation, but I'm gonna tell you this much. This
is how important imputation is. All that he went through was
based upon, grounded upon, our sin imputed to him. And on the
flip side of that coin, all the blessings and glory that we experience
in our salvation was based upon his righteousness imputed. You don't listen to these people
who wanna use verses like this to put down imputation. Just
remember. Jonah was in the belly of that
whale because of his own sins. Christ was suffering unto death
on that cross, not for his own sins, but for our sins charged
to him. Now, some people argue, say,
well, they became his own when they were imputed. Well, the
debt did. Our debt became his. But he was no sinner. He didn't
sin, and he wasn't corrupted by our sins. So here's where
we see one greater than Jonah. This just person suffering for
the unjust. Think about this now. This is
amazing to me, and I hope it is to you. Here's a just person,
Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, the perfect God man, suffering
for the unjust, us, God's elect sinners, but he does it in a
way that is just. And the only way that can happen
is by imputation. So he's one greater than Jonah.
So he cried out, Christ cried out. He said, my God, my God,
why have thou forsaken me? He said, into thy hands I commend
my spirit. This is out of his suffering.
Verse four, look here in Jonah chapter two. Verse four through
seven. Then I said, I am cast out of
thy sight. Now that would be equivalent
to Christ saying, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? That was a legal separation between the Father and the Son.
But he felt it in his humanity. He experienced it. Christ on
that cross, experienced the wrath of Almighty
God so that we would not have to. And he did it in our place. And he did it because he loved
us. And he did it for the glory of his father. So he said, I'm
cast out of thy sight, yet I will look again toward thy holy temple.
Here's Jonah. He's in the belly of a whale.
I'm cast out of thy sight. It's almost like he's saying,
God forgot me. But he said, I still look to your holy temple, because
what is the temple? That's a picture of God's salvation
by grace. And so here's Christ on the cross
saying, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? But then he
says later, into thy hands I commend my spirit. Making himself totally
dependent upon the Father for the salvation of wretches like
us. That's what he did. Verse five, the waters compassed
me, surrounded me about, even to the soul. The depth closed
me around about, the weeds were wrapped about my head. Christ
was consumed by the wrath of God. I went down to the bottoms
of the mountains, went down to the lowest of the low. The earth
with her bars was about me forever, yet hast thou brought up my life
from corruption, oh Lord my God. Brought my life up out of corruption.
It seems here Jonah is anticipating being delivered here. Christ
on the cross, he had no corruption in himself, but he did not experience
the corruption of the grave. You remember when David said
in, I believe it's quoted in the book of Acts, but I think
it's from Psalm 16, I've got it listed here. that Christ knew
no sin, he was the incorruptible. Christ remained incorruptible
even through his suffering. But he experienced the agony. and the suffering and the death
that comes from the corruption of sin. And he died and he was
laid in a tomb for three days and nights. It's like Jonah was
in the whale for three days and three nights. And then he was
raised from the dead because of the righteousness that he
established upon which God could justify sinners like us. And
in that way alone, Christ was brought up from corruption. He cried, In Psalm 16, and it's
quoted in Acts 2, where Peter is talking about David, he said,
thou will not leave my soul in hell. Thou will not suffer me
in corruption. And that's the grave. So Jonah's
a type of Christ, but Christ is greater than Jonah. And so
he says in verse 7, look here. He says, when my soul fainted
within me, I remembered the Lord and my prayer came unto thee
and to thy holy temple. You know, Jonah, we don't see,
it's not recorded everything that went through his mind, I
suppose, but he's probably just like us. We have times of great
faith and times of doubt and things like that. But Christ
is one greater than Jonah. Now Jonah's depending upon the
Lord here. He's expressing his faith in the Lord God of Israel,
the God of salvation. Christ on that cross did not
in himself, in his mind, through all his suffering, he didn't
have one moment of unbelief. Not one moment of doubt. Now
you know there are people who say he did? Read the seven sayings
of the cross. Every one of those sayings reflect
the perfect faith, faithfulness of Christ unto his Father. Every bit of it. The perfect
God-man. Now in verse eight he says, they
that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. What he's saying
there is Jonah's realizing that a person who continues in unbelief
and resists God, that whatever goodness God has sent, not the
mercy of salvation here, but whatever goodness providentially
God has shown them, they forsake it. Now, think about it this
way. Think about people who go through this life and prosper
physically, financially, with family and all that, and they
die in unbelief. The very mercy of God, not the
grace now. I hear people talking about common
grace, well that's common. No, grace is always connected
to salvation. Mercy most of the time is, but
sometimes mercy is just God holding back in his forbearance, not
snuffing them out immediately. And so whatever goodness, providentially,
that they were shown on this earth, it ends up being forsaken. Does them no good. And Jonah
realizes this. So he says in verse nine, but
I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving. I'm
gonna thank God. And isn't that what we're doing
today? Thank God for his grace. Thank God for the Lord Jesus
Christ. I will pay that I have vowed. I'll do what I promised
to do. That's what he's saying. And
here's the key, here's the words. Salvation is of the Lord. Amen to that. Salvation's of the Lord. Got
a little outline, I'll just read it to you. It's at the end of
your lesson. Salvation is of the Lord in its conception, person,
and planning. Salvation is of the Lord in its
purchase. He did it all. Salvation is of
the Lord in its execution, working it out. Salvation is of the Lord
in its application. Salvation of the Lord is in its
sustaining, preserving, preservation. Salvation is of the Lord in its
ultimate perfection. All conditioned on Christ. All
of God. And look what happens, verse
10. And the Lord spoke unto the fish, and it vomited at Jonah
upon dry land. God delivered Jonah, and Jonah
went to Nineveh, and he preached the glory of God in the promised
Messiah. And God brought those people
to repentance. And they, I believe they were
looking just like those who were saved in Israel, who repented
in Israel, to the promised Messiah, the one greater than Jonah. Okay.