Well, good morning again, everybody.
If you would, turn over to Jonah, chapter one. Looked at Nehemiah one in Sunday
school, let's look at Jonah one for the message. Jonah's a tiny
book, it's only got four chapters. If you find Ezekiel, and you
go to Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, then you get to Jonah.
One of the minor prophets. Jonah 1, when you get there,
just pick up in verse 1 and read the first three verses. Jonah 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. He went down to Joppa,
and he found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paired the fare
thereof and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from
the presence of the Lord. That's an interesting way to
start out a book, isn't it? The Lord goes to one of his prophets.
This man was a legitimate prophet. He says, go and say this. What
does the prophet do? He flees. He doesn't want to
do what the Lord told him to do. Now, Jonah's a very interesting
character in scripture. This man was a legitimate prophet.
I want you to understand that. This man knew God, and this man
was known of God. This man believed on the Lord
Jesus Christ. He loved Christ. Christ loved him. He had an intimate
relationship with the Lord, and the Lord raised up this man for
a time to speak through him. He was a legitimate prophet.
And that being said, this is a highly flawed Man, you know
who he's like? He's just like me, and he's just
like you. He was a sinner. He was a sinner the Lord saved,
and he raised him up for a period of time to speak through him
and put him back down. And he suffered with all the
infirmities you and I suffer with. And I don't want to be
too hard on the guy, but you probably wouldn't have wanted
to hang out with Jonah too much. And he probably had problems with
personal relationships. And to be quite honest, he was
probably a miserable man for most of his life. And somebody
says, why? Why is that? There's two things
when you read through these four chapters, what you find. And
the first one is this, he's a hothead. He's got a temper on him and
he's constantly mad with the Lord. He's constantly mad with
the Lord's prophets, whatever the Lord brings about. He always
finds fault with it. He's angry about it for some
reason. Then he prays these angry prayers. So he finds fault with
what the Lord does and what he brings in his prophets. This
is one of his prophets, by the way. And here's the other thing
he does. He seems to care much more about
what men think about him than what God thinks about him. And if you want a recipe for
misery, if you want to be miserable, that's probably the perfect recipe
for it. Be angry for the Lord, for his
good providence, instead of just trusting that everything he's
doing is for your eternal good. Be angry at him and care what
men think over what God thinks. That's probably the perfect recipe
Now, I've made some pretty bold statements against this man.
I'm not trying to beat up on him, but I want to show you from the scripture
that I'm telling the truth. Now, we already read in verse
three, or verses one through three, the Lord says, go down
to Nineveh and cry against them, prophesy against them, prophesy
their condemnation, is what he's saying. And he won't go. Jonah
goes, and he hops a ship, and he tries to go down to Tarshish,
and it says to flee from the presence of the Lord. Now, number
one, this is monumentally stupid. That's all we can call it, because
the Lord's omnipresent. I can't go anywhere that he's
not. David said, if I go down to the
belly of hell, I can't escape you there. You're there, too.
You're everywhere. Wherever I am, wherever a place
is, the Lord is, in fact, there. So this is silly for him to think
that he can flee from the presence of the Lord, but he doesn't want
to go. Why doesn't he want to go to Nineveh? And the short
answer is this, he hated those people. Nineveh was the capital
of Syria. It was a huge city, millions
of people inside there. Huge geographical area. He was
a Jew, Jonah was a Jew. And you know, this is the thing
with the Jews, they hated the Gentiles. These were their enemies. And
you would think, since the Lord was saying, go prophesy against
these people, that Jonah would be all about that. He hated these
folks, and the Lord wanted him to prophesy against it. You'd
have thought he'd been like, yeah, I'm gonna go down there
and tell them the Lord's gonna get them. You know, this is a good thing. But
he knows something about the Lord. He knows the Lord. He knows
the character of the Lord. He knows that he is merciful,
and he is gracious, and he knows this. He knows that the Lord
doesn't send a prophet to condemn. He sends a prophet if he intends
to show mercy. You see, men condemn themselves
just fine on their own. They don't need a prophet for
that. The Lord doesn't send a prophet to condemn, he sends a prophet
if he intends to show mercy. And that's what Jonah knows.
He's like, he's gonna send me down there to prophesy against
them, and he's gonna use that message to bring them to repentance.
And then he's gonna show them mercy, and I don't want those
people to be shown mercy. And somebody says, that's evil
and that's wicked. We share the same nature, folks. He's just
like me and you. But let me show you that from
the scriptures. Look over here in Jonah chapter three, look
at verse four. So Jonah finally does go down
to Nineveh to deliver the Lord's message, and this is the message.
Chapter three, verse four, and Jonah began to enter into the
city a day's journey. And he cried and said, yet 40
days in Nineveh shall be overthrown. Now notice that's not conditional.
Unless you all clean up your act, 40 days, Nineveh's gonna
be overthrown. Nothing like that, it simply
says this, it's a message of condemnation, yet 40 days in
Nineveh will be overthrown. And the Lord uses that message
to do this, to bring this entire city to repentance. The king
repents, he puts on saffcloth and ashes, he declares everybody,
everybody repent, everybody turn to the Lord, beg for mercy. The
whole city repents, and so what does the Lord do? Look down at
verse 10. And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil
way, and God repented of the evil that he had said that he
would do unto them, and he did it not. Exactly what Jonah thought,
he's gonna send me down there with this message of condemnation,
he's gonna use it and make it effectual to these people and
bring the repentance, and he's gonna show them mercy. And that's
exactly what the Lord did. Now how does that make Jonah
feel? Look at verse one of chapter four. but it displeased Jonah
exceedingly. And he was very angered. He's
very upset by this. And he prayed unto the Lord and
said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying when I was
yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto
Tarshish, for I knew that thou art a gracious God and merciful,
slow to anger and of great kindness and repentest thee of the evil. He praised the Lord and he says,
I knew you'd do this. I knew it the whole time. I know
your character, that you're merciful, and you're gracious, and you're
long-suffering, and you repented of the evil. I knew you'd send
me down there with this message of condemnation, and I knew you
showed these people mercy, and I don't like it. Now, so you
brought us all this here. What are we doing here? Here's
my point. Where Jonah found reason for anger, I find every reason
for hope. Jonah, this man, knew the Lord
and he knew this. You can count on him to do this.
You can count on him to be merciful and to be gracious. You can count
on it every single time. This is what the scripture says.
This is Micah 718. Who is a God like unto thee that
pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the transgression of the remnant
of his heritage, he retaineth not his anger forever because
he delighteth in mercy. You know what that means? That
means that's what he likes to do. This is a God, this is a
Christ who delights, who enjoys, who finds fulfillment in showing
mercy. How often have you and I forgotten
that? How often have we forgotten the promise? Come unto me, all
ye who labor and are heavy laden, and what? And I will, I will,
it's a promise, I will give you rest. Sinner, you come to me,
I will show you mercy. That's a promise, can God lie?
God cannot lie, that is a promise he makes to sinners. You come
to me, you will have mercy. He says this, Hebrews 4.16, let
us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we
may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Who
sits on that throne? The Lord Jesus Christ sits on
that throne, and he says to sinners, don't be squeamish about this.
Don't be standoffish about this. You come boldly to my throne.
Sinners are welcome at my throne. Now, a righteous man, a man who's
got his own righteousness, who can come up with his own righteousness,
he's not welcome here. But a sinner is always welcome
at my throne of grace. You come boldly, and you know
what you'll do? You'll obtain mercy. That is a promise from
God, and you will find help That help that is for the helpless,
that saving help that does everything that is necessary. You come to
my throne of grace and you will have mercy. Sinner, that is a
promise. A promise from God to you. We should never doubt that. Never
doubt the promise of God. And the whole thing can be summed
up with this. You guys are familiar with this verse. John 6, 37.
The Lord says this. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. Who knows the rest of it? and
him that cometh to me, I will in no wise, for no reason whatsoever,
cast out. If you want to know how the whole
thing works, take the back of the verse and work to the forward.
Start there. Him that cometh to me, I will
in no wise cast out. You a sinner? I can't come up
with the goods before God. I can't work out my own righteousness.
I can't keep the law. I can't stop sinning. I can't
make my peace with God. Is that you? come to Him, you
will in no wise or any reason be cast out. Christ will bring
you before the Father, holy and unblameable and unapprovable
in Him. He will do that. Now, who's gonna come? Who are
these folks? Who are these sinners that are
gonna come? All that the Father giveth me shall come to me. Everybody
the Father gave the Son in the covenant of grace, all the elect,
they're gonna be the only people who come. And every one of them
are going to come, and every one of them are going to find
mercy at that throne of grace. Say, am I one of these people?
Do you need mercy? Are you a sinner? Yes, that's me. You're one of
these people. Go to Christ and find grace to help and mercy
in time of need. We should never doubt our Lord's
propensity for mercy. Be delighted in mercy. Now, like I said before, this
man Jonah, he was a hothead, always angry at the Lord. And
he was highly concerned with what men thought about him. Look
down at Jonah 4 and look at verse 3. He says, therefore now, O Lord,
take I beseech thee my life from me, for it is better for me to
die than to live. Now why would he say that, right?
He went down with this message, this message of condemnation.
Forty days, and Nineveh will be overthrown. And the Lord used
it to save all these people. And the Lord showed mercy on
them. And you'd think this man would be happy about this, right?
You'd think this is great. Look at the Lord's mercy and
His grace. There's mercy for these people, there's probably
mercy for me. This is fantastic. He's not. He's upset. He says,
well, Lord, you might as well just kill me now. Why? Because
now, in his eyes, he's a false prophet. He prophesied in 40
days Nineveh is going to be overthrown. And guess what happened? It didn't
come to pass. And so now everybody's going
to think I'm a false prophet. I'm going to lose the reputation
I had. No one's going to listen to me anymore. People are going
to mock me when I walk in the streets. Woe is me. Woe is me.
Lord, you might as well kill me. Right? Who knew the truth? The Lord knew the truth. The
Lord sent him with a message. The Lord knew the truth. If everybody
in the world at that point hated him and mocked him and thought
that he was a false prophet and the Lord knew the truth, had
he lost a thing, he lost absolutely nothing. Now I want to be clear
about what I'm saying. The people I'm around, people
I work with, you folks, people I interact with, I want to have
a good reputation around those people. I want to have a sterling
reputation, as a matter of fact, because I don't want to bring
any shame upon my master, upon his message, on the church, any
of those things. I want to have a good reputation
around people. We should strive for that. But
folks, if the whole world turns their back on us, and calls us
whatever their calls, and mocks us for the rest of our days,
and we have peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ, and the
Father looks at us, and he sees someone that he is pleased with,
have we lost anything? We haven't lost a thing. We've
only gained. This man Jonah, he was a man
who was highly flawed. This is what James said of Elijah.
He said, Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are. That
goes for Jonah, that goes for every other prophet. But while
Jonah is a man who is highly flawed, he is a sinner, he represents
one who is absolutely flawless. He's a type of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And we know that from Matthew. Matthew tells us that.
Turn over to Matthew chapter 12. Matthew 12, and pick up verse
38 there. Matthew 12, 38. Then certain
of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we
would see a sign from thee. They're saying we'd like to have
some sort of sign that we would know that you're sent from God.
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. 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. Now I've read that most of my
life. An evil and adulterous generation
seeks after a sign. And when I read that, you know
what I think? Yeah, I do. I'm an evil and adulterous generation,
and I do, I seek after a sign. I want something personal. Lord,
show me. Show me that you love me. Show
me that you died for me. Show me that your hand's upon
me. Show me that you actually have numbered the very hairs
of my head. Show me that everything you're
doing is for your glory and for my good and you're leading me
by the hand. Show me that one day I'm gonna
put down this old man and be conformed to the image of Jesus
Christ. Show me a sign. That's me. Yeah, I want a sign,
too. The Lord says, you only get one.
You get one, one personal sign, and it's the sign of Jonah. Everybody
knows the story of Jonah. What happened? They throw him
into the sea. He goes into a whale's belly.
He's there for three days and three nights, and the Lord speaks
to the whale, and the whale vomits him out on dry land. Three days
in, and then out. Who does he represent? Lord Jesus
Christ. He went into the storm. He died
under the wrath of God, the sins of his people. He was put in
the tomb three days and three nights. And on that final day,
God raised him from the dead. Why did he do that? Why was Jesus
Christ resurrected from the dead? He was resurrected because he
did exactly what his father sent him to do. He single-handedly
accomplished the salvation of everybody his father sent him
to ransom. He put away all the sins of all of God's people.
It was only just, it was only right that the father would raise
him from the dead because there was no more sin to condemn him.
It was gone. This is your sign that God is
pleased with those people. That everybody in Christ truly
stands holy and unblameable and unreprovable. This is the one
sign you get. God raised him from the dead.
You say, what is personal about that? How can I take that home
to me? Is that all your salvation? Do you have anything else other
than that? Folks, that's everything I have. My only hope is this. Jesus Christ went to that cross
bearing my sins. that he died under the wrath
of God for me, that he put my sins away, and now I stand in
him holy and unblameable and unapprovable. And if that's not
the case, I'm gonna go to hell and it's just. That's all I have. It is my only hope. And folks,
if that is your only hope of acceptance with God, that sign's
for you. He was raised for you. That's
your sign. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the sign that
God is pleased with you. You lack absolutely nothing.
That's right, man. Now, I want to read the rest
of the story. Pick up in verse 4, and let's
just look for some parallels with the Lord Jesus Christ. Go back to Jonah 1, look at verse
4. Lord told Jonah, go down to Nineveh,
prophesy against it. He said no, he got into a ship
to go down to Tarshish with a whole bunch of other men. Let's see
what happens, look at verse four. But the Lord sent out a great
wind. Don't miss that. That great wind,
it came from one person, the Lord sent it out. But the Lord
sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest
in the sea, so the ship was like to be broken. Let's see if we
can visualize this. A whole bunch of men get on this
ship to go to Tarshish, right? Jonah's in there, but he's there
with a whole bunch of other fellas. And each one of these men had
a purpose for themselves. They're all going to Tarshish
for a reason. Maybe some man, he's got family over there. He's
going to go visit family. That's his purpose. That's what
he's purposed for himself. Another guy, maybe he's found
a job in Tarshish. He's going to switch careers. So he's got
that purpose for himself. All these men, they have plans,
and they have purposes that they've purposed for themselves, and
all of a sudden, the Lord sends a strong wind, and it stops them
dead in their tracks, and it makes them fear for their lives. And all of a sudden, all those
purposes they had for themselves, all those plans they had, they
all went out the window. Now they're in the midst of this
great storm that the Lord had sent, and they are fearing for
their lives. You know what that sounds like
to me? It sounds like when the Lord first starts dealing with
man. Now, we're born in this world, and we have preconceived
notions of God, and we're all doing about the same thing. We
grow up, we want to get married, we want to have kids, find a
job, get a house, go through the motions of life, baseball
practice, whatever we do, right? And man, every once in a while,
may take a slight interest in God. Maybe he'll read an article,
right? Or listen to men debate. on the Lord, and he'll say, well,
who could possibly know? You know, fleeting thoughts and
things like that. But if that man belongs to God,
at some point he reaches out with that arm of sovereignty,
and he fills him with terror. And it's the terror of this.
It's seeing something about who God is. That he is holy, and
he is sovereign, and he will accept nothing but absolute,
perfect righteousness. and you find out you're a sinner
in the hands of this holy and this sovereign God who must punish
sin. And it's terrifying. Absolutely
frightening. Had all these plans, all these
things I was going to do. I had all these thoughts, you know,
who is God? What does it really matter? You know, what does he
want with me? And things like that. But all of a sudden the
Lord sends this terror. I'm a sinner in the hands of
a sovereign God and he demands perfection. What am I going to
do now? Now, that is a terrifying place
to be, but you know, that's the best possible place you can be.
This is Proverbs 9, 10. It says, the fear of the Lord
is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the holy is
understanding. This is when you become teachable,
right here. When a sinner becomes teachable,
when the Lord puts this fear in you, I'm a sinner in the hands
of a holy God, and I need him to do something for me This is
when the sinner becomes teachable, right here. This is where the
Lord begins dealing with man. Now, look at verse five. Then the mariners were afraid,
and cried every man unto his God, and cast forth the wares
that were in the ship into the sea, the likened of them. But
Jonah was gone down to the sides of the ship, and he lay, and
was fast asleep. Now, I think this is, the scripture
is not without humor. There's humor inside here, and
there's a little bit of humor here. But here's what these men
do. The Lord sends this great wind,
and it puts them in this fear for their lives. And here's what
they immediately do. Immediately, all of them start
praying to their false gods, their idols, right? That's the
first thing they do. They all have their different
false gods, and they all start praying to them, seeking help.
Immediately after that, they go about trying to help their
idol out. They go throughout the ship and
they find the heaviest things and they start chucking them
overboard to lighten the ship, to make it more buoyant. What
do they do? They pray to their false god
and then they try to help him out. Now, here's two things that
are never separated, an idol and work. Now, throughout the
generations men have created tons of false impressions of
God. Countless numbers of idols. But
what all these idols, these non-existent gods, have in common is this.
They cannot save. Now you say, of course they can't
Aaron, they're not real. This is what I mean. The man assigns
the idol its attributes, right? And when the man assigns those
attributes to the idol, he always makes them in this manner, to
where he cannot say it, he can't do it on his own. He always has
to have the man do something to make salvation possible. Now
that exists with the false Jesus Christ, as taught in our generation.
that Jesus Christ of universal redemption. He loves everybody,
he died for everybody, he wants to save everybody, but he just
can't unless man does his part. You gotta receive him, you gotta
meet him halfway, all these other things. That is a false God,
that is a false Jesus Christ, not even close. Jesus Christ
is a successful savior of his elect, his people. He accomplished salvation for
his elect people. He is the successful savior.
He cannot fail, but this is the two things you cannot separate,
an idol and work. Every time you find a false god,
there's always something for man to do. That's what these
men are doing. They pray to their idol and they start unloading
the boat. Well, maybe between his help and what we're doing,
we'll meet him halfway, maybe we'll be saved, right? That's
salvation by works, folks, and there is no salvation found there
at all. Look at verse six. So the shipmaster came to him,
speaking of Jonah, and 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. The shipmaster, the captain of
the boat, he goes and he finds Jonah and he's asleep in the
boat. He wakes him up. He said, what are you doing?
There's a storm, all these men are calling on their gods, you
call on your god, maybe one of them can help us out, right?
And then he makes a very intelligent statement. If so be that God
may think upon us. And you know what I thought of?
That's an unintentional intelligent statement he made. But here's
what I thought of when he made that statement. The thief on
the cross, he said this, Lord, remember me, when thou comest
into thy kingdom. That man didn't know much. He
knew the Lord for a matter of hours, maybe a matter of minutes
before he died. He didn't know much, but he knew
this, if he just thinks upon me, if he just remembers me,
what does that mean when he said that? You remember me. All you
have to do is will my salvation. And I'm sure that thief on the
cross, he couldn't walk you through the ins and outs of imputation.
I don't think he would have understood things like union with Christ
and all those other things. Here's all he knew. This is it. If he
simply remembers me, if he thinks on me and he wills my salvation,
that's God. I'll be saved. I don't know what
manner it's going to take. I don't know what tools he's
going to use along the way, but I know this. He's God. And if he just remembers
me, if he just thinks on me and he wills my salvation, I will
be saved. He has that power. Now how does
the Lord think upon his people? What are his thoughts toward
his people? If you're a believer, this is
how the Lord thinks on you. Listen to this. This is Jeremiah 29
11. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the
Lord. These are his thoughts toward you if you're a believer.
Thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you an expected
end. Now, right now, all your hope
is in the Lord Jesus Christ alone. There's nothing else. All you
have is him. When God looks at you, these
are his thoughts towards you. Peace. God is at peace with you,
an eternal peace, because Christ has made your peace with God. Peace. And this is a peace that
never had a beginning and never had an end. He says, I give you
an expected end. Now, if you want to feel special,
Listen to this. He says, I give you an expected
end. If you're a believer, you've
been known of God in the eternities. He's always known your name.
You've always had personality before him. You've always been
in Christ, and he's always known you in Christ, but this is personal.
He has always known you, and it has always been his purpose
to give you an expected end. There's never a time that your
soul hung in the balance. There's never a time where anybody
wondered, will he be saved, will he not? No, Christ is the lamb
slain from the foundation of the world. You are always secure
in Christ. Therefore, it's always been the
purpose of the Father to bring you to an expected end. What
is that expected end? The perfect conformity to the
image of Jesus Christ. That's what you have to look
forward to. You're gonna die at some point. This old man is
going to die, he's going to fall away. You're gonna wake up in
the presence of your Savior and you're gonna be just like him.
Sinless, not even knowing what sin's like anymore. Not even
having knowledge of past sins because they've been put away.
Righteous, holy, immutable, eternal, never having an end. And we'll
sit with him there and enjoy his presence forever. That is
your end state. You need a pick-me-up for today.
There's the pick-me-up right there. That's where it all ends
for us, folks. Perfect conformity, the image
of Jesus Christ. Right now, if you're a believer,
his thoughts towards you, peace. Peace in Christ. Look at verse
seven. And they said everyone to his
fellow, come and let us cast lots. that we may know for whose
cause this evil is upon us. So they cast lots, and the lot
fell upon Jonah. A gentleman got together in the
boat. He said, somebody's done something. We're all in trouble. We're all in the midst of this
storm here. We're all gonna die. Somebody's done something. Who
is it who's done something? And they cast lots, and the lot
falls on Jonah. Because of the disobedience of
one man, many are in trouble. What's that talking about? That's
talking about our fallen Adam. That's exactly what that's talking
about. Let's turn over to Romans chapter five. I want to show
you what the scripture has to say about this. I'm not so sure that I can talk
highly intelligently about the concept of federal headship or
representation. I don't know that I know much
about those things other than what the scripture has to say,
but I want to show you what the scripture says about it, right? Look at
Romans 5 and look at verse 12. It says, wherefore as by one man
sin entered into the world and death by sin, so death passed
upon all men. What happened? We were all in
Adam. Adam, our first father, he is
our federal head. We were all stored up in the
loins of Adam. What did Adam do? He was created
upright, he was created innocent, and the Lord said, that tree,
that tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in the day that
you eat thereof, you shall surely die. Adam ate the fruit, Adam
disobeyed God, and he died. He died spiritually. He lost
that upright and innocent nature, and he took on a sinful, evil,
nature. And folks, all of us, all of
humanity was stored up in Adam. So much so that when Adam disobeyed
God, I disobeyed God. And I'm born with this sinful,
evil nature, and it's what I deserve. Now, let me show you this from
the scripture. Look at the last five words of that verse. It
says, for that all have sinned. It doesn't say that Adam sinned
and it was charged to my account. What it says is, for all, all
of humanity, we all sin. Adam reached out that hand to
get that fruit. There were millions of hands
inside that hand. But all of us reached out there
and we took that fruit. And Adam ate that fruit. And
in that mouth was millions of mouths. We all did this. Collectively,
all of us disobeyed God. We did this. All have sinned. Therefore, we are born with these
sinful, evil natures. We're no victim here. Somebody
says well, you know somebody else sinned against God and now
I'm born with a nature They can't please God that doesn't seem
fair. Oh, no. No, I got exactly what I deserve See all have sinned
against God. I sinned in Adam, but I did it
Adam was just a vehicle. I did it. I ate fruit. I disobeyed
God the nature I'm born with it's the one I deserve Now go
down to verse 18 Therefore, as by the offense
of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so
by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men
unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience
many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many
be made righteous. All of humanity shared a union
with Adam. We were all stored up in Adam, we all disobeyed
God in Adam, but the elect have another union. We have a union
with the Lord Jesus Christ. As much as I was condemned in
Adam because I sinned in Adam, I did righteousness in Christ.
My sins were put away in Christ. I'm holy and unblameable and
unreprovable in Christ. This is the good news. If I can
be condemned in a man, I can be saved in a man. And all the elect, we've always
been stored up in Christ so that everything he did, we did. And
he was the doer of all of it. Go back to your text, look at
verse eight. Jonah one verse eight, then said
they unto him, tell us, we pray thee for whose cause this evil
is upon us. For what is not an occupation
and whence comest thou? What is thy country and of what
people This is what I thought, you know, a man is fine walking
through this life and hearing different things about who God
is. You know, the Catholics believe this, the Baptists this, the
Hindus this, the Jews this, and he just kind of takes it all
in. He's like, well, you know, the truth's somewhere in the middle,
or maybe there is no God, or what does it really matter, right?
But all of a sudden, he finds himself in this sin trouble before
a holy God, and all of a sudden, he starts asking questions. It's
not, well, this is what I think about God, or this is what he
thinks, or things like that. I gotta find out who he is. Who
is the Lord? What's he like? What does he
expect from me? These are not questions that
the natural man asks, but a man who's in trouble. God put trouble. He starts asking these questions.
Who is the Lord? What's he like? What's his attributes? He's sovereign,
he's holy, he's righteous, he'll accept nothing but absolute perfect
righteousness. That's the Lord. What does he
expect from me? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, look at verse nine. And he said unto them, I am in
Hebrew, and I fear the Lord. Notice that's capital L-O-R-D,
that's Jehovah, the God of heaven, which has made the sea and the
dry land. You know what he's doing here?
He's appealing to what they already know. Everybody knows, every
man intuitively is born with this knowledge that there is
a God, and he sees that from the light of creation. You look
outside, you look at the trees, you look at the universe, you
look up at the stars, at the sky, everybody intuitively from
birth knows this, that there is a God, he created all this,
and nobody created him, and he's appealing to what they already
know. There's a God who created the sea and the dry land. Somebody
made all this. He said, this is his name, Jehovah,
the God of the Jews. There's only one God. You boys
have been worshiping these idols, these made up gods. There's only
one, Jehovah. That's him. Verse 10. Then were
the men exceedingly afraid and said unto him, why hast thou
done this? For the men knew that he had fled from the presence
of the Lord. Jehovah, because he had told
them. Notice now they refer, when they
refer to God, they refer to him as Jehovah. They got the message
and they believe, they believe there is only one God and his
name is Jehovah, the king of Jews. Look over to verse 11. Then said they unto him, what
shall we do unto thee that the sea may be calm unto us? for the sea wrought and was tepestuous. And he said unto them, take me
up and cast me forth into the sea. So shall the sea be come
unto you, for I know that for my sake this great tempest is
upon you. Now what an illustration of the
sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. The mariner said, how could we
possibly be saved? How could we be spared? And Jonah
said, this is the only way. You take me, and you throw me
into the water, and you will be spared. And why he's saying
that, the rain is coming down, folks. The ship is rocking back
and forth. The waves are beating against
the side. He's looking down at those waves. He knows there's
certain death down there. There's only one way. There's
only one way. You take me, you throw me into the abyss, and
you'll be spared. Now, a couple things I noticed
about this. Number one, this was Jonah's
plan. This was not the plan of the
shipmaster. The mariners didn't come up with this. This was Jonah's
plan. And folks, the cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ, this is the purpose of God from the eternities. Always
has been, always will be. This whole universe, this earth,
the dirt that is in this earth, this place exists for one reason.
that somebody could dig a hole into it and put a pole into that
hole and raise up our Lord nailed on that pole between heaven and
earth that he might achieve his great glory through the single-handed
salvation of his people. That's what all this is about.
The fall of man, you know what that's all about? It's about
the purpose of God that the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ might
come about. This is what everything is about. This entire reality
as we know it is for one purpose. the glorification of the Godhead
through the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. I don't understand
how God could get more glory than he already had, but this
is the case. through the death of our Lord
Jesus Christ, his suffering death and his salvation he accomplished
for his people. He achieved the pinnacle of glory
for the Godhead. There's a ceiling. You can't
go any further. This is the pinnacle of glory. There is no more. He achieved the greatest glory
for the Godhead through the salvation of his people, through his suffering
death. Right there. This was the plan
of God. And I noticed this too. Jonah
was a willing sacrifice. It's not that the mariners got
together and said, we're going to throw you overboard and see if this
works. The ship master didn't say, bind him up, throw him over.
And he went kicking and screaming. No, Jonas said, there's one way. There's one way. You boys take
me. You throw me overboard. This
season will be calm for you. Lord Jesus Christ is the willing
sacrifice of his people. He's a champion, folks. And I
want to be reverent when I say this. What a hero he is. He's
the one who stood up and said, I'll be sure to eat for them.
And he went into this thing with his eyes wide open. And I was
thinking about this. If you look at the greatest acts
of heroism throughout history, what you find, it's a mixture
of courage and probably just being, not thinking about it
in the moment, right? Had the person had time to think
about the consequences of their actions, they probably wouldn't
have done it, right? That's not the case in this.
The Lord Jesus Christ from eternity knew what it would cost him.
And this was the cause, a holy man. We can't enter into this
because we're sinners. A holy man being made sin. We don't know what that would
be like, but he does. This is the cause. He had his
father's smile. He had his father's favor at
all times. He had the praise of the angels
at all times. And when he went to that cross,
all that was taken away. He didn't have his father's smile
anymore. It was all put away. He simply had the wrath of God,
his father's frown. So much so, the sun was darkened
out. Gives us some understanding of
what was going on. The father turned his back on
him and poured his wrath upon him, and he died this crushing
death. And I said this in Sunday school,
but I'll say it again. What was that like? It was like an eternity
in hell times 10,000s and 10,000s and 1,000s and 1,000s. That's
what he endured on that cross. And he knew all that going into
it. Knew every bit of it. Send me, throw me into the abyss,
you boys will be saved. What love, what love Christ had
for his people, he was willing to do such things. Now, look at verse 13. Nevertheless, the men rode hard
to bring it to land, but they could not, for the sea rock and
was tempestuous against them. Wherefore they cried unto the
Lord and said, we beseech thee, O Lord, we beseech thee. Let
us not perish for this man's life and lay not upon us innocent
blood for thou, O Lord. Notice again, Jehovah. Who are
they praying to? Not their false idols anymore,
they're praying to the God of heaven, Jehovah. For thou, O
Lord, has done as it pleased thee. These men have been converted
about 10 minutes. And you know what they knew? They knew God's
sovereign. That's exactly what they knew.
And really, folks, this is the dividing point with men. The
man wants to find out whether he hates God or not. Here's where
he finds it. God is sovereign. That means
that we're all in his hands to be done with as he sees fit,
that he is the first cause behind all things. He has a will, it's
a holy will, and nothing can come about that is not his will. He has the power to ensure his
will comes about, and the natural man hates that. So that leaves
me without options. I don't have any say in this
thing. This is not a God I can manipulate. I can't cause him
to do anything. That's absolutely right. That's
exactly who you're dealing with, a sovereign God, and you are
a sinner in his hands. Natural man says, I hate that.
Every believer though, I love that. I absolutely love his sovereignty. I absolutely love the fact that
he is in sovereign control of all things. He has promised that
salvation is for sinners. He's promised that, that Jesus
Christ died for sinners. This is a faithful saying, and
worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into this world
to save sinners, of whom I am chief. Well, I'm a sinner, you
know what that means? That means he saved me. He's a sovereign
savior, and nobody can thwart that. Nobody can take that away. It cannot not come to pass, because
the promises of God must come to pass, because he's sovereign.
There's no chance they won't come to pass. We get to wake
up every morning and our feet hit the floor, knowing the very
hairs of our head are numbered. That that day, not a sparrow
is going to fall to the ground without our father's go-ahead.
Everything is going to be ordered and numbered and all for our
good. All for our good. Absolutely love the sovereignty
of God. And this is the dividing point.
Do you love that? I absolutely love that. Every
believer loves that he's in sovereign control at all times. Now, look at verse 15. So they took up Jonah and cast
him forth into the sea and the sea ceased from a raging. What's the effects of the death
of the Lord Jesus Christ? Romans 5.1 says this, it says,
therefore being justified by faith. By whose faith? Whose faith justifies? It's not
my faith, no. It is the faithfulness of Jesus
Christ. His faithfulness of knowing what he would have to endure
and going to that cross under his father's orders and dying
for his people and doing what his father told him to do. It's
his faithfulness. That's the faith that justifies.
Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ. That's the effect of his death.
We actually have peace with God. If this is all your hope, his
death, right now you have peace with God. This is the reality
of the situation. Verse 16. Then the men feared the Lord
exceedingly and offered to sacrifice some of the Lord and made vows.
Now, this is what happens when the blood is applied by the Holy
Spirit. He's given a new man. A new creature is created inside
that man. A new nature is given. You notice
these men offered sacrifices. Well, what is the sacrifice?
This is what David said in Psalm 51, 17. The sacrifices of God
are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God,
that wilt not despise. The Lord does a work of grace
in your heart. How are you going to live out the rest of your
days? With a broken heart and a broken and a contrite spirit. What's a broken heart like? It's
one that don't work. It's no good. You have to have
a new one. And you come back every single
day for grace. Lord, give me a new heart. Give me a new spirit. Have mercy upon me today. Be
gracious to me today. Bathe me in the blood of Christ
today. over and over and over again.
This is a continual coming. These men offered sacrifices.
What are the sacrifice you can offer the rest of your lives?
I'm broken. I'm a broken spirit. Lord, have
mercy on me today, just like you did yesterday. And also this, it says, and they
feared the Lord. They offered sacrifices and they
feared the Lord. What is the fear of the Lord?
What does that mean? I've heard a lot of people talk
about this. My pastor, has said something, he's been saying it
for years. I think it just sums it all up. The fear of the Lord
is this. It's being afraid to look anywhere but Christ alone.
That's the fear of the Lord. This is what happens when the
Lord saves a man who's experienced. He's of a broken heart and he's
of a broken spirit and he's afraid to look anywhere but Christ alone.
And you know what, it's easy. Don't say easy. You will only
look to Christ alone when you have nowhere else to look. And
if you're a broken man, A broken woman. You've got nowhere else
to go. Can't go to the wall. I can't
go to my experiences. I don't know if they're real.
I can't go to my feelings. Feelings come and feelings go.
All I've got, I'm afraid to look anywhere but Christ alone. That's
how you live out the rest of your days. Now look at verse
17. 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. And we find out over
in chapter two, it says this in verse 10, I'll read it to
you. And the Lord spake unto the fish and had vomited out
Jonah upon the dry land. Now I'm gonna reiterate something
I said earlier on. What does this signify? What
does it typify? This is the resurrection of our
Lord Jesus Christ. Three days in the tent and then
out. Christ died, he went to the tomb
three days. The Father raised him from the
dead because he accomplished salvation for everybody he died
for. Single-handedly, left nothing
undone. And folks, if that's all your
hope, if that's all you have, that is your sign. You get one,
the sign of Jonah. That's it, the resurrection of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And if his death and his resurrection
is everything in your salvation, you got nowhere else to look.
That sign is for you. It is the personal sign to you.
You have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. I'm gonna
leave you there. It's been a pleasure being with
you this morning.