Alright, Jonah chapter 1. I know everyone here knows the
story of Jonah very well. If you look at Matthew chapter
12, this seems like what many people do not know. This story
is given to us to be a picture of salvation in Christ. This
is what our Lord tells us when He speaks of Jonah in Matthew
chapter 12, beginning in verse 38. Then certain of the scribes and
of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from
thee. But he answered and said unto them, an evil and adulterous
generation seeketh after a sign. There shall no sign be given
to it but the sign of the prophet Jonah. For 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
what our Lord has taught us here is that the sign, Jesus of Nazareth
is the Messiah, He is the Savior sent from God, is that the Father
will raise Him from the grave after He's been there for three
days. He'll raise Him from the dead because the sin that's been
charged to Him is gone. It's been blotted out under the
blood of His sacrifice. And that's what the story of
Jonah and the whale is all about. It's about salvation in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Jonah said that's what he learned.
Salvations of the Lord. You know, Jonah learned that
truth in person. Salvations of the Lord. He learned
it in the belly of a whale in the ocean. That story really
happened. This is not a made up allegory
or something. This story really happened. He
learned in person. Salvations of the Lord. I pray
the Holy Spirit will teach us that this morning. Teach us in
person. As we look at this picture, Salvations
of the Lord. Now, we read these chapters in
our scripture reading. We won't go back over all of
them, but you remember how the story began, the story of Jonah.
It began with Jonah being disobedient, didn't it? The Lord told him
to go preach. He hated those Gentiles. He wouldn't
go. He tried to flee from the presence of the Lord. He wanted
to go anywhere and do anything except go to Nineveh and preach.
And isn't that a picture of man falling in at them? You know,
Adam's sin was a sin of disobedience. Just like Jonah's sin here is
disobedience against God. Adam ate that fruit in willful
disobedience after God told him not to eat it. And what did God
say would happen to Adam in the day he ate that fruit? He said,
Adam, in the day ye eat thereof, you shall surely die. And he
did, he died, didn't he? Sin to man's death. Well, then
Adam, after he was disobedient, he tried to do the same thing
Jonah did. He tried to hide from God. He tried to hide from God's
presence. And it didn't work. God sees everything. He knows
everything. And every sin must be punished. No sin can be hidden from God.
No person can be hidden from God. And sin is a killer. What a killer. It kills our nature. Our sin nature is a nature that's
dead. That sin nature that we're born
with makes us unaware that God is. Doesn't even know God. And since we don't know God,
we won't come to Him because our nature's dead. Our sin makes
us unaware of God's wrath against our sin. And that's why we won't
cry for mercy. That happened to Jonah in the
midst of this awful storm that God sent. You know, all the professional
sailors, I mean, their life is on that ocean. They'd seen storms
before, but this one scared them to death. They thought this thing's
going down. Ships can be broken in two. Well, they were so scared. You know, they're throwing the
cargo over and they're crying to all their idols. What was
Jonah doing? Look at verse five of chapter one. Then the mariners
were afraid. They cried every man unto his
God. They cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the
sea to lighten it of them. But Jonah was gone down into
the sides of the ship, and there he lay fast asleep. So the shipmaster came to him,
he had to wake him up and said, What meanest thou, O sleeper?
Arise and call upon thy God. If so, be that God will think
upon us that we perish not. How could Jonah be so fast asleep,
unaware he was in any danger? That ship is just going every
which way. That's a picture of what sin
does to us. It just makes us unaware. of the danger that we're
in, unaware of God's wrath. And as a result of his sin, as
a result of his disobedience, Jonah's got to die. Just like
every sinner, he's got to die. You remember they cast lots and
the sailors discovered all this trouble had come upon them for
Jonah. Jonah told them the story. They said, what did you do that
for? Sailors who just had an idol,
they said, well, you can't hide from God. I mean, they knew that,
what'd you do that for? So he has to die. That's in verse
11, what he said unto them. Then said they unto him, what
shall we do unto thee? That the sea may be calm unto
us, for the sea wrought you as tempestures. And he said unto
them, you take me up and cast me forth into the sea. So shall
the sea be calm unto you, for I know that for my sake, this
great tempest is come upon you. See, Jonah's got to die for his
disobedience. He's got to be cast out into
the ocean. And every sinner's in the same boat. We've got to
be cast out. Because of our sin and our disobedience,
we've got to be cast out. God said, the soul that sinneth,
it shall die. We've got to die for our sin.
Well, now, Jonah stops being a picture of the sinner and he
starts to be a picture of the Savior. Now you might wonder,
how's that? Jonah's still guilty, how's he
a picture of the Savior? Because Christ our Savior became
guilty. The Father made him to be guilty
of the sin of his people. The sin of God's elect was charged
to Christ, was laid upon him, and he became guilty of that
sin. Now the substitutes gotta die. The substitute must die
as a sacrifice for sin. That's the only way God can show
mercy to his people is if their sin is punished in strict justice
in the person of their substitute. And that's what's pictured in
verse 14. 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, has done
as it pleased thee. So they took up Jonah and cast
him forth into the sea and the sea ceased from her raging. Now, you know, the cross where
our Lord suffered and died as a sacrifice is an act of God. I know men did what their wicked
hearts wanted to do, but when they did every evil thing they
could think of to do, you know what they done? They had accomplished
God's eternal purpose, save his people through the sacrifice
of his son. Christ didn't die because it
pleased the Jews or it pleased Rome. Christ died because it
pleased the Lord to bruise Him. It pleased the Father. It pleased
His justice. It pleased His holiness to bruise
His Son. To crush and to kill His Son
because Christ had been made guilty of the sin of His people.
And that sacrifice, it's an act of God. They said here at the
end of verse 14, For thou, O Lord, hast done as it pleased thee.
It pleased the Lord to bruise him. And the sacrifice of Christ
satisfied God's justice forever. Now I want us to see two things
here in verse 15. The first one is this. Jonah
was cast into the sea voluntarily. He told him, you throw me in. They rode hard. They tried to
bring the ship to land. They couldn't do it. And Jonah
was willingly thrown into the sea. He willingly died. That's
a picture of Christ, our Savior. He died willingly. He gave his
life. Nobody took it from him. He had
to lay it down or they never could have took it. Voluntarily,
he laid down his life for his seed. And the second thing I
want us to see is this. The moment Jonah was thrown into
that sea, the sea became like glass. The sailors were afraid
of that. They knew only God can do that.
Only God can make the sea just be calm like this. That's why
they vowed their vows and made a sacrifice unto the Lord. That
sea became calm to give us a picture of what happened when Christ
suffered and died. His sacrifice satisfied God's
holy wrath. That sea became calm. Why? Because God was satisfied. The
sinner was cast into the sea. You try to imagine what happened
as Christ suffered on Calvary's tree. God turned His Son on. In darkness, how He suffered. The battle was raging. The fury of God's wrath against
sin was raging. upon His Son. And all that wrath,
all that raging against sin, suddenly became a perfect calm. Because the sacrifice of Christ,
His blood satisfied the Father. God's justice is satisfied because
the blood of Christ took away the sin that made God angry.
When sin's gone, God's wrath is gone. There's no fury left
in him. And there is a great calm. There's peace between God
and his people. You see, if God's justice is
gonna be satisfied, the substitute must die. Christ had to die. Really, he had to die. And that's
a miracle, isn't it? That's a miracle, first of all,
that God's Son would agree to die for sinners. What a miracle
of God's grace that the Son would agree to be made sin and to suffer
and die for sinners. And then it's a miracle this
way. The Son of God, life itself, died. Now explain that. That's why I said in the lesson
this morning, lots of things I don't understand. I don't understand
how God's Son could die, but I believe it. Because God said
it. I don't have to understand it.
That's just a miracle of God's grace. And that's what we see
pictured here in verse 17. Christ died. 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. Like I told
you earlier, this story really happened. This is not a fantasy. This really happened. I know
a lot of people say, This is just something made up. It's
an old wives' tale. No human being could survive
the gastric juices and all the digestive things, you know, that
go on in a whale's belly. But you know, those people that
say that forget. God can do anything. Is anything too hard for God?
The scripture said the Lord prepared this great fish. He prepared
this great fish in such a way that Jonah could survive in its
belly for three days. I mean, that's easy to understand.
I like what Donnie Bell says about this. He said, I'd believe
Jonah swallowed the whale if God's word said it, because I
believe God's word. This is not difficult to understand.
But the important lesson here, remember this now, the important
lesson here is a picture of life for sinners through the death
of Christ, our sacrifice, Christ, our substitute. He really died. Just like Jonah really went into
the belly of that fish, our Savior really died. Chapter 2, verse
1. Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord
his God out of the fish's belly and said, I cried by reason of
mine affliction unto the Lord. And he heard me out of the belly
of hell, out of the belly of the grave, cried I, and thou
heardest my voice. Can you imagine Jonah in the
belly of that whale? crying to the Lord. Such an insignificant peep compared
to the crying of our Savior as He suffered for the sin of His
people. He cried unto His God. The whale is diving around and
swimming. He's getting thrown every which way. The water or
whatever is in that whale is washing over him, constantly
throwing him every which way, just rolling over him. A picture of our Savior. The
waves of sorrow and suffering, the waves of God's wrath rolled
over our Savior as he suffered the penalty for sin. Verse 4,
then I said, cast out of thy sight." I reckon he thought,
this is it, I'm gone, I'm cast out of thy sight, I don't have
any hope. Yet, I will look again toward
thy holy temple. Jonah thought he was cast out,
wasn't he? But he wasn't. But at Calvary, God's Son, our
Lord Jesus Christ was cast out. He was cast out of the presence
of his Father. turned his back upon his son
so that he cried, my God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? Why would the father forsake
his son? Because he was made sin. This is an act of God. Verse
five, the waters compassed me about even to the soul. The depth
closed me round about. The weeds were wrapped about
my head. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains. The earth with
her bars was about me forever, yet hast thou brought up my life
from corruption, O Lord my God." Now can you imagine what it was
like for Jonah? Three days, three days and three
nights in the belly of this great fish. Water surrounded him. There was, I'm sure, water in
the belly of that fish somehow, and every time that fish would
move around that water all over Jonah, some of that water, it
sucked in, brought seaweed into it, and that seaweed, you know,
Jonah would just get rolled around in the belly of that fish, and
seaweed just wraps around his head so thick and so matted and
tangled, he can't get it off. He's just matted in seaweed. And the water of the sea was
all around him. He's in that whale, and that whale just dives
down to the depths of the ocean. Even if that fish vomited Jonah
out then, he'd have died, wouldn't he? He's surrounded by the water.
That's a picture of Christ our Savior. When he died, he was
buried under the earth, out of sight. That whale dove down to
the bottoms of the sea, down to the bottoms of the mountains,
Now I remember when I was in school, I remember hearing, I
don't know if this is true or not, it makes a good story, that
there are mountains in the ocean that are taller than Everest. That's where that whale took
Jonah, to the bottoms of those great mountains. He did that
as a picture of our Savior. You and I cannot imagine. We don't even know the vileness
of sin. So we can't imagine, we really
do not understand what it takes to pay for sin, to pay for the
sin of his people. Our Savior went to the depths
of suffering, how he suffered, to the depths of suffering, to
the depths of the grave to save his people. And he had to go
that low. He had to. because that's what
sin deserves. And when our Savior accomplished
all that, he suffered and he died to put away the sin of his
people. He's buried. Great transactions done. He did
everything that was required of him. He did everything that
it took to put sin away. Then the Father raised him from
the grave. That's what he says here at the end of verse six. Yet, Even though I've suffered
and died, yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption. Oh
Lord, my God, the Father raised Christ from the dead because
sin's gone. And Jonah's beginning to learn this. Here, look at
verse seven. When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord. And my prayer came in unto thee,
into thine holy temple. They that observe lying vanities
forsake their own mercy. but I will sacrifice unto thee
with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that I have vowed.
Salvation's of the Lord. Now Jonah says, I'll pay that
that I have vowed. How many times do you reckon,
he said, Lord, if you'll just get me out of the belly of this
fish, I'll go preach. You know, I'll be a good preacher.
I'll be a faithful. Lord, if you just get me out
of this belly of this fish, I'll pray, I'll be such a good Christian.
Isn't that what people do? You know, they get in trouble.
Lord, if you'll just get me out of this, I won't do that no more. But we don't, do we? People mean,
I know while we're in trouble, I think I'll do that. But when
the trouble's gone, we don't do it. So Jonah can only be speaking
here as a type of our Lord Jesus Christ. He paid the vow he vowed. In eternity, the father and the
son entered into a covenant. And the son vowed a vow to the
father. He said, I vow. become a man. I vow to humble
myself to be born of a woman made under the law. And I vow
to keep that law perfectly. And I'll do it not for myself,
but to give a perfect obedience, a perfect righteousness to my
people, to make them righteous in what I've done for them. And
in the fullness of time, he paid the vow. He did exactly what
he vowed. He came as a man and he kept
the law perfectly. And brethren, that's not just
doctrine. I mean, that's good doctrine, but that's not only
doctrine. This is our rejoicing. Dale,
that's my obedience. That's your obedience. That's
the only obedience we'll ever have. Oh, aren't you glad he
paid the vow he vowed? He established righteousness
and made his people righteous in him. And then the son vowed
a vow to his father. He vowed. My people, you chose
them. You gave them to me. I love them. They're sinful, they're vile,
but I love them. And because I love them, because I love you
and I'll honor you, I'll pay the debt they owe. The Father
said, it'll take your life. It'll take your blood. He vowed
to pay it. In the fullness of time, His
hour came and He paid the value He vowed. He gave Himself. to suffer and die, to put away
the sin of his people. And it's gone. If you believe
Christ, your sin's gone. He paid the vow. He put it away.
And after he died, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus came
and begged the body from Pilate. And they took a dead body of
a man down from that middle cross. They took it over to a tomb.
Joseph of Arimathea had it prepared for himself. No man ever laid
in it before. And they put him in that tomb.
And there he lay three days and three nights. God raised him
from the dead. God rolled away the stone and
raised him in glory. Look at verse 10. That's what
that picture is. And the Lord spake unto the fish and it vomited
out Jonah upon the dry land. I like what Brother Henry says,
that whale vomited out Jonah because even a whale can't stomach
a Calvinist. Salvation is of the Lord and
he vomited him out. But isn't that what the grave
did to our Lord? It thrust him out. The grave couldn't hold
him. Sin's gone. He thrust out. The grave couldn't
hold him because justice is satisfied. He's saved. He rose again for
our justification. His people are saved. Now you
see that? That's what this pictures. The
story of Jonah and the whale pictures salvation through the
death, the burial, and the resurrection of Christ. And that's why God
gave us this story in his word. And that's what Jonah learned
during his time in that belly. Salvation is of the Lord. The
cry of the cross, the cry of the gospel of Christ is salvation
is of the Lord. The helpless, hopeless, disobedient
sinner is saved by Christ alone. Now you do what Jonah did and
look to him. Look. Look to Christ. Salvation is
of the Lord. Come to Him. Now I want to give
you just a few points about this statement, salvation is of the
Lord. Number one, salvation is of the Lord in its purpose. In
eternity, before the world was ever created, God purposed to
save a people. The Father elected a Savior to
do the saving, and He elected a people to save. They're sinful
people, but God purposed to save them. And if God had not purposed
to save those people, nobody would be saved. Because only
God could purpose this. No one but God is wise enough
to find a way to save a sinner like you and me. Injustice. Only God can find a way to be
both just and justified. Angels couldn't do it. They had
no concept of what God was doing. They couldn't understand. Man
can't do it. You just look at all the foolish
religions that man has created over the history of this world.
We, in Mexico, saw those ruins. And Cody was, they had all these
different castes, you know, sections of people in the priestly classes.
And the way they manipulated and abused those people in the
name of religion, this is what man comes up with. They can't
save anybody. I guess they can build themselves
big buildings, but they can't save anybody. Only God and His
wisdom could purpose such a wise, and loving and wonderful salvation. Salvation is of the Lord in its
purpose. This is God's purpose. Second,
salvation is of the Lord in its execution. God purposed to save
His people. And you want me to tell you what?
He did exactly what He purposed to do. Not one hair less. God
sent His Son to get the job done. He sent somebody who could do
the job. The Father sent His Son made of a woman, made under
the law to redeem them that were under the law. And when His hour
was come, it wasn't men that put the Savior to death. It was
the Father. Acts 2 and Acts 4 both tell us
that. We read them often. We'll need
to read them again. Men did what they wanted to do. When they
did, they accomplished God's eternal purpose. They put Him
to death, yes, but the Father raised Him from the dead because
that's His purpose. The cross, when you see the story
of the cross, what that is, is God executing his eternal purpose
to save his people from their sins. Third, salvation is of
the Lord in its application. Now Christ died, and he died
only for his elect. He didn't die to make salvation
possible for anybody. He died for his elect. And the
sin of those people is put away under his blood. But you know,
when they come into this world, they don't know it. We don't
know that. We're just like Jonah and Adam. We're disobedient.
So somebody's got to come and apply the blood of Christ to
their hearts. They must believe on Christ. They must come to
Christ if they'll be saved. But the problem is they won't
come on their own. Their nature is rebellious and
stubborn and will not come unto Christ that you might have life.
So God, the Holy Spirit goes where they are. He does what
they won't do. He comes to them and he applies
the blood of Christ to their heart. He does that in the new
birth. He gives them a new nature, a
new man born has never existed before. And he does it through
this seed. to the preaching of the word
of God. They may have heard the word many times, but when the
spirit comes, he gives them faith to believe it. And then they
come running to Christ. You can't keep them out. They
come running to him because he's their only hope. Well, why the
change? The spirits made them willing
in the day of his power. He made them willing when He
came in power and gave them a new nature, a new want to. And every
one of them knows this. Salvation is not of my decision.
Salvation is not because I did anything. Salvation is not because
I read my Bible or I came to church or I walked an aisle or
I was baptized. Salvation is of the Lord. I'm
saved because the Spirit came and He applied the salvation
that the Father purposed and the Son executed. Fourthly, salvation is of the
Lord in its sustaining power. Some of y'all have been around
a pretty good while, been hearing the gospel a long time. And here you come again this
morning, here come Wednesday. Why is that? Well, You're a pretty
good fella. You're a pretty good woman. No. What keeps a believer faithful?
What keeps a believer from falling away? What keeps us from running
after all many different kinds of error of this world? The same
person that saved you in the first place, Christ our Savior. We're kept by his power. We're
kept by his grace. Peter said we're kept by the
power of God through faith unto salvation. ready to be revealed
at the last time. We're kept by faith, but it's
faith God gave, isn't it? Salvation is of the Lord in its
sustaining power. And fifthly, salvation is of
the Lord in its final, ultimate glorification. Look at Romans
chapter eight. God purposed salvation for his
people in eternity. Christ came and executed, He
carried it out. The Spirit comes and gives life
in the new birth. Will it last? What is the end
of this thing? Romans 8 verse 28. And we know
that all things work together for good to them that love God.
To them who are the called according is what? Is purpose. See there's
salvation is of the Lord and it's purpose. For whom He did
foreknow, He also did predestinate, to be conformed to the image
of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Moreover, here He is executing His purpose. Whom He did predestinate,
then He also called. Whom He called, then He also
justified. And whom He justified, then He
also glorified." That's the end. every believer. That's the end
of everyone for whom Christ died. They will be glorified forever
with Christ. When God and his power does for
us what he did for his son, when he raises us from the dead, when
he calls us from the grave and raises us in bodies that are
incorruptible, perfect bodies, we'll be made just like Christ
for this reason so we can spend eternity with him. Ultimate glorification. Now that's the truth. That's
the gospel. Now what does that have to do
with us here today? Do we just wait and see if the
Lord elected me or not? Do we think, well, I see that. You know, that's what the Bible
says. God elected a people. Christ died for his elect, only
his elect. They'll be saved. No, no possibility
that there won't be. But there's no use in me coming
to Christ unless I'm one of the elect. Is that your attitude? Is that
what you think? If so, let me tell you, I'm gonna give you
a warning. This is what you're doing. You're blaming God for your rebellion.
That's blaming God for your disobedience. God says, come, you come to me. I'll tell you where this leaves
us, this truth of the gospel. Let me tell you where it leaves
us. It leaves us begging God, doesn't it? It leaves us begging
God for mercy. It leaves us like Jonah, I've
got no choice, I'm gonna call unto the Lord. I'm gonna look
to Christ for salvation. That's what Jonah did when he
looked, when he cried to God and he looked to Christ, he was
delivered. When Jonah looked, he said, I
look to the temple. He didn't look to that building
we call the temple, because he couldn't see it. Seaweed was
around his head. He's in the belly of a whale
down at the bottom of the ocean. He didn't even know where the
temple was. He didn't know what direction it was. What he did
was in his heart. He looked to the person that
temple represents. He looked to the Lord Jesus Christ. And when Jonah looked to Christ,
you know what he saw? Salvations of the Lord. When
I look to Christ, you know what I see? He's my only hope. So I call on Him for mercy. And
I don't care. I could be like that Syrophoenician
woman. I don't care how long he ignores
me. I don't care how long. Often he tells me, it's not right
for me to give the children's meat to the dogs. I don't have
any other hope. So I'm going to keep begging
him for mercy. I'm going to stay at his feet, begging him for
mercy. Now you look to Christ just that
way. You look to him. Salvation is
in a look. Salvation is looking to Christ
and believing this, that all it takes to save a miserable
wretch like me is Christ. And I'll look to him. And if
God gives you the faith to see him, you want me to tell you
what you'll do? You're gonna confess him. You'll
confess Christ in a way that pictures Jonah's experience.
Believer's baptism. If you believe Christ, you know
what you'll do? You'll confess Christ your Savior. You have
to publicly confess, Christ is my Savior, and you'll do it by
the way God commands us to do it. You'll confess him in believer's
baptism. You'll fill that pool up with
water. And you'll say, my salvation, totally found in the Lord Jesus
Christ. I'm in Him. I was saved by His
death, His burial, and His resurrection. And we'll give a picture of that.
I'll dunk you under the water. When Christ died, you died. You died to sin when He died
for you. And when He was buried, you were
buried. You're buried in Him. He's your
representative. and we're not going to leave you under there.
We'll bring you up out. Because Christ was raised from
the dead. He was raised again for my justification. I was in
Him. If you've ever seen Christ, that's
what you do. I don't have to beg anybody to
walk an aisle or do anything. Salvation is of the Lord and
it's application, right? Then I don't have to beg you
to do anything. What's God given us to do? Preach the gospel. Salvation is of the Lord in its
application. He'll call his sheep, and we'll
just pray that God will enable us to stay faithful to do what
he's called us to do, preach the gospel, and pray that the
Lord will apply it to our hearts. Let's bow in prayer. Our Father, how we thank you
for this great gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, the only gospel
that saves a sinner The only gospel that gives hope to a miserable,
wretched, dead sinner. That by your mercy and grace,
by the power of the precious blood of your Son, you cleanse
your people from all their sin. You send your Spirit an irresistible
power to give life, to reveal Christ to our hearts and to call
us to look to our Savior. Father, we're thankful. And we
pray that you'd apply your word to the hearts of your people.
Salvation's of the Lord in its application. Father, we pray
that you'd apply your word to the hearts of your people. To
call out those who, as of yet, have not yet believed on you.
And apply your word to the hearts of your people. To comfort us
and assure us of this salvation. Perfect, sure salvation. in our perfect Savior. To Him
be the glory and the praise and the honor forever and ever.