Jonah the first chapter. We looked
at the first three verses this morning. And I want us to begin
there in verse 4 this afternoon, but I want to read it again. It's good to read the Word of
God. Jonah chapter 1. Let's begin reading verse 1.
The Word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Mattiah, saying,
Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for
their wickedness is come up before me. Jonah rose up to flee unto
Tarsus from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa,
and found a ship going to Tarsus. So he paid the fare thereof,
and went down unto it, to go with them unto Tarsus from the
presence of the Lord. But the Lord sent out a great
wind unto the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea.
so that the ship was like to be broken. Then the mariners
were afraid, and cried every man unto his God, and cast forth
the words that were in the ship unto the sea, to lighten it of
them. But Jonah was gone down unto
the sides of the ship, and he lay, and was fast asleep. So the shipmaster came to him,
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. They said every one to his fellow,
Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this
evil is upon us. So they cast lots, and the lot
fell upon Jonah. Then said they unto him, Tell
us, we pray thee, for what cause this evil is come upon us. What
is thy occupation? Whence comest thou? What is thy
country, and of what people art thou? And he said unto them,
I am an Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, which
hath made the sea and the dry land. Then were the men exceeding
afraid, and said unto him, Why hast thou done this? For the
men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord, because
he told them. 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 tempestuous. And he said unto them, Take me
up, and cast me into the sea, so shall the sea be calm unto
you. For I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you.
Nevertheless the men rode hard to bring it to the land, but
they could not, for the sea wrought 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
lie. and lay not upon us innocent blood. For thou, Lord, hast done
as it please thee." So they took up Jonah and cast him forth into
the sea, and the sea ceased from her raging. Then the men feared
the Lord exceedingly and offered sacrifice unto the Lord and made
vows. 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. We looked this morning there
in verses 1 through verse 3 about Jonah fleeing from the presence
of the Lord. And we looked at why that he
fled. He didn't want the Lord to have
mercy upon these Ninevites. And he gets in a ship here in
verse 2 and verse 3. And he goes down into the bottom
of that ship and heads off to Tarshish. And without verse 4,
But the Lord sent out a mighty wind. Without verse 4, then the
story ends there, doesn't it? It ends there. We don't know
what happened to Jonah. The story ends, and that's the
end of that. But thank God for verse 4. But
the Lord sent out a mighty wind. Thank God that He intervened. Thank God that he's telling history's
story. Brother David said the other
night, he's painted it. This whole picture of history,
God is painting Himself. And every little mark is His
marking. And when He's finished with history's
story, He's going to look at it, and it's going to be the
same picture, Brother David said, as He painted back yonder in
eternity. Remember David saying that? He's
a God of purpose, isn't He? And that's what we find here
in verse 4. But the Lord sent out a mighty
wind. And this little word, but the
Lord, is the only hope of you and I being redeemed. But God. Remember that? It's the only hope of being redeemed.
If it was left up to man, We were fallen. We were dead in
trespasses and sins. And if you leave it there, then
we die. Die. You've told our history. When the Lord Jesus died upon
the cross and they buried him, they thought, boy, we have won
this victory. We have got the victory over
Jesus of Nazareth. And Paul was preaching in Acts
chapter 13, and he said, When you fellows, when those Jews
had fulfilled everything that was written concerning Him on
the cross, they took Him down and put Him in a sepulcher. And aren't you glad that it didn't
stop there? Aren't you glad that God intervened? When man had
did everything he could to kill God, Wanted to be finished with
him. And they put him in a sepulcher.
And they wiped their hands of the whole situation. Paul said
they laid him in that sepulcher. And the very next verse says,
But God raised him from the dead. You see this little phrase here,
but the Lord and but God? That's the only hope you and
I have of being redeemed. that God in His sovereign will
and mercy is able and does intervene in the history to save men. And Paul was writing to the Ephesian
church and he said, You remember what you were. You remember the
condition that you were in. You were dead in trespasses and
sins. And you walked according to the
course of this world, according to the prince of the power of
the hour, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience.
And he said, We all had our conversation there, fulfilling the desires
of the flesh. And somebody said, I've just
never done that. Well, what about the mind? We fulfilled them both,
didn't we? And we're by nature the children
of wrath, even as others. And if Paul had to stop there,
and if God had to stop there, you and I would have no hope,
would we? But the very next verse says, But God, who is rich in
mercy, For His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were
dead in sins, hath quickened us together." This is the only
hope of any man being regenerated and experiencing a new birth
but God. But the Lord who is sovereign
intervenes in the affairs of man and in history. And He saves. And He saves. If you and I had
come to verse 3, And Jonah got in this ship and took off to
Tarshish. And if it had ended there, you know something? There
is 750,000 men and women in Nineveh that will never hear and be saved
if the story ends there. Aren't you glad for verse 4?
But the Lord sent out a wind into the sea. If these men of
Nineveh knew this, if they knew that Jonah had to come and preach
to them, and now they see him and the ship going in the opposite
direction, they would have despaired, wouldn't they? They'd say, we
have no hope. We have no hope. But they didn't
know it, did they? They didn't know what had to
transpire before they could be saved. They didn't even know
it. How many things did the Lord
have to bring to pass to bring you to Christ the Savior? And
you didn't even know it, did you? There you lay dead in your
trespasses and sins. He had to get a preacher to you.
He had to get you under the sound of the gospel. What all did He
have to do? What obstacles did He have to
overcome to bring you to Himself? And there you laid in trespasses
and sins. And you didn't even know it,
did you? Just like these men of Nineveh. They were lost. And
Jonah had to get to them. And he was going in the opposite
direction. And the Lord had to intervene and bring them to themselves. Many things had to happen in
our life. Many things had to come together
and be overcome and removed to bring us to the Lord Jesus Christ. I think of the thief on the cross
sometime and how God used the occasion of that man's sins to
bring him to Christ. Now this is amazing. This is
amazing to me. You have this young man and he
won't listen to his dear mother. He starts stealing things and
she weeps over him. His dad tries to correct him.
He won't listen. He gets deeper and deeper and
deeper into crime, and the authorities are searching for him, and his
dad says, we can't do anything to him, he's broke our heart,
he's a thief. And the authorities says, we'll do something with
him. We'll capture him, we'll try
him, and we'll hang him on a cross. And that's what they did. And
God used the occasion of that man's wicked lifestyle to bring
him into contact. with the Savior. Now isn't that
a mystery? God is free to use anything He's
pleased to bring sinners to Himself. Everything is available to Him.
If He's going to save Nineveh and Jonah must preach to Him,
then He'll send a storm, a raging storm, and He'll prepare a whale. And He'll send that preacher
to them eventually. Another amazing story is that
woman of Samaria. She had five husbands. And some
tell us the reason that she came to the well at noon in the hot
part of the day, because that's the time that harlots and adulteresses
came. Others came in the cool of the
day, decent people, and they'd stand and talk. But if you had
a shameful life, you had to come at noon. But who met this harlot,
this adulteress, there at noon, said it on that way. Ain't that
a mystery? It's just a mystery. Everything
that has to work together to bring people under the gospel. And the Lord uses whatever He's
pleased to that end. The Lord can take this disobedient
prophet and out of his utter disobedience can paint us a beautiful
picture of Jesus Christ's death and burial and resurrection. God hates sin. And if you're
here tonight and He saved you, you hate sin. But God uses the
occasion of men's sins and turns it even to their salvation. Isn't
that amazing? Brother Wayne touched on this
just the other day in one of his lessons in Romans chapter
4. Can you imagine this? We give God thanks that you were
the servant of sin? How in the world could he thank
God that they were the servants of sin? In this sense, Brother
Wayne said, if they had never been servants of sin, if they
had never fallen into sin, They'd have never known that redemption
that's in Jesus Christ. If Adam had not have fallen,
we wouldn't have needed a Savior, would we? That's amazing. And nobody knew
any of this at this time. The Ninevites were rejoicing
in their sins. Jonah was sleeping in the belly
of this ship. And these sailors were enjoying
a smooth sea. And nobody knew anything of what
God was ready to do. And then all of a sudden, we're
told here in verse 4, but the Lord sent out a great wind into
the sea. And it came suddenly. This word
sent out, it means to hurl. To hurl. You've been on the side
of a bank of the pond or a little lake or something, picked up
a little flat pebble, and you hurl it out and watch it skip.
That's what that word is. He had a storm in his hand, a
storm of wind in his hand, and he hurls it out on the Mediterranean
Sea. And suddenly, boy, it begins
to churn. And their world is turned upside
down. And they think we're going to
die. We're going to perish. And here's the mystery. He sent
that storm out upon the sea, not to destroy these men, but
to save them. One of the things I love about
the book of Jonah, everybody's saved. Everybody's saved. That's just a marvelous thing,
isn't it? Everybody the Lord sends this old prophet into contact
with winds up being saved. These sailors, He saves these
sailors. He brings Jonah up from the sea
and sends him to Nineveh, and He saves all the men of Nineveh.
That's an amazing thing. Everybody is saved. And this mighty wind came, and
verse 5 said, the mariners were afraid, and cried every one unto
his God, cast forth the wares that were in the ship to lighten
it of them. And He said there in verse 4
that the ship was likely to be broken. There's another place. Hold that and turn over to Psalms
107. I thought of this as I was reading
about this storm that these sailors got in. And I thought of Psalms
107. This is one of their main modes
of transportation and travel back in the Bible days was by
ship. And they had stories to tell
about the awful storms that they got into. And you talk about
some prayer meetings. They had some prayer meetings
on the seas because people got in trouble and they prayed. He was lacking this storm to
what goes on in a person's conscience. A storm comes to the conscience.
A storm of conviction and guilt and apprehensions of God's awful
judgment. And he says it's like being in
the sea during the storm on a ship. And he gives us different examples
of that. And here in verse 23. Look in verse 23 of Psalms 107. And they go down to the sea in
ships that do business in great waters, seas. These see the works
of the Lord and His wonders in the deep. For He commandeth and
raiseth the stormy wind which lifteth up the waves thereof. They are out on this sea in these
old ships and here comes a storm and God has sent it. In verse
26, they mount up to the heaven. They go down again to the depths. Their soul is melted because
of trouble. They reel to and fro and stagger
like a drunk man and are at their wits end. I was reading this
the other day and thinking about it. I got trouble with motion
sickness and I almost got sick looking at this and thinking
about it because I saw this ship You can see this old ship with
the big sails and the storm has suddenly hit. And there they
are out in the Mediterranean Sea and the waves are so high
it takes that ship and it sticks it straight up in the air. And
you've got some inside the ship and they're hanging on to poles
or ropes. And you've got some on the deck of the ship and they're
hanging on to whatever they can hang on to. And they're looking
straight up, hanging on for dear life. And then suddenly it passes
the way, and you look down at just a huge hole. And the ship
heads down, and they're sticking straight down, and it looks like
they're going all the way to the bottom. They hit the bottom
and back up they go again. And they're dashed and vomitous
flying through the air, and mist and salt. and they're sick, and
they're at their wits' end. I've never been out on the ocean.
I've never seen a storm. Wayne may have had. But I can
imagine from reading these things like this. Everything is out
of control. Your rudder don't mean a thing.
Forget about it. Drop your sails and try to ride
it out. And that's what happened to these
men. They're at their wits' end. But look in verse 28. Then they
cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He bringeth them out of their
distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so
that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad, because they
be quiet. So He bringeth them into their
desired haven. Oh, that men would praise the
Lord! for His goodness. His goodness? His goodness. He sent a storm. He about drowned
in us. We thought we was going to perish.
Yes. But out of that storm, He sent
a calm, didn't He? I've never known anybody that
experienced the calm of conscience that the blood of Christ gives
until they first come into conflict. over the guilt and the apprehension
that, oh, I'm against God. I'm against God. I need to be
saved. I need to be reconciled. And
the Lord gives you peace to the conscience. He gives you peace. And you bless Him and you praise
Him for His goodness. I tell you, if the Lord sends
a storm, and out of that storm He's going to save you, then
that's His goodness. If He sends a storm to correct
you, and He corrects you and brings you back to Himself, that's
His goodness. And if He sends a storm, it's
for your good. If you're one of His, it's for
your good. And it was for the good of these
men that this storm came. I mean, they got scared, boy,
and they cast all the wires into the sea, threw everything they
had overboard, and they said, This is it for us. This is it
for us. This ship is going to be broken.
We're going down. And what you all need to do,
you've got a God, and you've got a God, and what you need
to do now is start praying to your God. It doesn't matter which
one. Just pray to your God that He'll get us out of this mess.
And that's where we find these men at. And then, back here in
our text again, in Jonah chapter 1 in verse 6. Jonah chapter 1 in
verse 6. Every man was crying to his Lord.
And Jonah was going down into the sides of the ship. Now imagine
that in verse 5. And look at this. He was fast
asleep. Boy, I tell you, isn't it just
amazing Sure you hit a storm like this. It's already got so
bad that they've had to throw everything overboard. They're
screaming and crying and praying. And this man is asleep. How could
that be? I mean, some fellows have speculated
why he was asleep, that he'd been traveling. He went all the
way from Gap Helper. Man, that's a long ways down
to Joppa. And finally he was wore out. Some says he's wore
out from sorrow. When you get so full of sorrow
and depression, you just want to sleep. And that's what he
was doing. I don't know why, but he was
fast asleep. May have been a hard heart. May
have been a hard heart. Boy, sometimes we can harden
our hearts. We can sleep spiritually as well
as physically. But now in verse 6. Now in verse
6. Verses 6 through verse 8. Boy,
Jonah, I imagine this would have This would have embarrassed Him
to death if He hadn't perceived they were all in such danger.
If He knew we were going to get out of this pretty quick, and
things were going to be alright, and they came and confronted
Him as they did here, this would absolutely embarrass Him to death.
Have you ever had lost people to rebuke you? Have you ever
sinned and they caught you up in it? And they confronted you
with it? I tell you, that's one of the
most embarrassing things in the world. That's what they did here
to Jonah. They come down here in verse
6, and they said to him, the shipmaster come and said, What
do you mean, old sleeper? Arise and call upon your God,
that He may thank upon us that we perished not. What's the matter
with you? Aren't you even concerned? And then in verse 7 and verse
8, boy, they confront him. They confront him. They said
unto him in verse 8, Tell us, we pray thee, for what cause
this evil is upon us. They knew it was his fault, and
he knew it. What is your occupation? What's
he going to tell them? Huh? What's he going to tell
them? I'm a prophet. How's that? I'm a prophet. You
a prophet, old sleeper? You a prophet of God, old sleeper? Remember Abraham when he went
down to Egypt and he told Sarah to tell everybody that you're
my sister? She was his half-sister. But
he lied like a dog, didn't he? And he went down there and Pharaoh's
princess was going to take her for their own. And the Lord played
Pharaoh's house. And Pharaoh said, Abraham, what
have you done to me? He reproved him and sent him
on his way. Abraham did it again. to Ahimelech, the king of Gerah. But buddy, he didn't let him
by so easy. Gerah took her into his house, and the Lord plagued
his house and gave to him in a dream and said, You're a dead
man. You and all your people are dead
men. He said, Lord, what have I done? He said, You've got another
man's wife in your house. Who is it? It's Sarah. Lord,
he told me that that was his sister. In the integrity of my
heart, I've done this thing. And the Lord said, I know it.
I know he deceived you and I'm going to give you an opportunity
to straighten him out and this will never happen again. And
that king went to Abraham and looked at him right in the eye
with all of his servants sitting around. He said, Why have you
brought such a sin on me and my kingdom? Can you imagine how
embarrassing that was? He said, You've done things to
me that you ought not to have done. There's a reason Abraham never
lied again like that. God raised this man up, this
heathen king, to rebuke a child of God. I remember I was working
one time at a place, and to keep from getting in trouble, I told
a lie. I told a lie. And my boss caught
me up in it. I thought, boy, if I don't just
tell a little white one, that's what I thought it was, a little
white one, you know how we embellish And he caught me in it. And he
didn't let me out of it either. I think sometimes it was the
Lord in that heathen man talking to me. And you know what he said? I can't trust you. You lied to
me. And man, I tell you what, I couldn't
wait to get out of that place. I got in my car and for eight
miles I bawled like a baby. It tore my heart out that I,
a child of God, had to be rebuked by a lost man for my sin against
God and against Him. And that's what they're doing
with this man right here. What's your occupation? What
do you do for a living? I'm a prophet. Shame on you! Look what you've brought on yourself
and look what you've brought on all of us. We've already lost
all of our cargo. We're apt to lose our life and
it's your fault and you're a prophet of God. Tell you what, buddy,
the Lord knows how to rebuke us, doesn't He? He knows how
to rebuke us. Whence comest thou? I'm fleeing
from God. I'm fleeing from God. You're
fleeing from God? You know God? Don't you love
your God? Why are you fleeing from God?
What a rebuke that was! And then they ask Him this, what
country are you from? I'm from the land of promise.
God gave us this land. And now you're fleeing from it?
You're leaving it? People leave this church and
go out there and not go anyplace. I hope somebody confronts them.
Where do you go to church? I've been there, haven't you?
You start witnessing to them and telling them about the Lord
and His greatness and sovereignty and love. Where do you go to
church? Oh, I don't go anywhere right now. You don't go anywhere. You're talking to me about the
Lord and salvation and you don't even go to public worship yourself.
You ever had that to happen? Yeah, we've had that to happen.
I've been there. What people Art thou of?" Who's
your people? The chosen people. I'm from the
chosen people. A true believer may get low,
but I tell you this, he'll never deny his God. He'll never deny his God. He
said there in verse 9, I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord. You are
not going to deny that, are you? Boy, you may get down and out.
You may get low. You may feel sorry as a dog.
But when somebody asks you who your God is, you are going to
tell them, aren't you? They ask you who you are. You
are not going to deny that covenant relationship. I am a Hebrew.
I come out of that holy lineage all the way from Seth down through
Noah and Shem and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. I am of that
holy lineage. God's chosen people. God is my
God. And who is He? He's the God that
made the heaven and the God that made the sea and all the dry
land. Dear child of God, I don't care
how you feel. You may feel sorry as a dog.
And there's nobody in this building any more unworthy than I am. But if God is your God, confess
Him. Confess Him. Be bold about it. Come out with it, just like this
man did. None of us are any lower in living
in such disobedience as this man did. But when they said,
Who's your God? He told them, didn't He? He told
them. God that made the heaven is my
God. God that made the sea and the dry land, He's my God. Well, I can almost hear these
sailors say, I've heard about Him. Can't you hear that? Did
you hear him say, My mother told me about Him, the God of the
Hebrews? I remember her telling me when
they came out of Egypt that He parted the Red Sea and brought
them through it and drowned Pharaoh's army. I remember this God now. And fellows, we're in trouble.
We're in trouble. Because He's the God of this
storm. And if He's pleased, He can drown
us. He's God. He's God. And there in verse 10, Then were
the men exceeding afraid, and said unto him, Why hast thou
done this? For the men knew that he fled
from the presence of the Lord, because he told them. He told
them. And then in verse 11, this is
a wonderful passage here in verse 11. I want you to look at what
a sense of substitution these men had. They understood substitution. Look at this in verse 11. And
they said unto him, What shall we do unto thee, that the sea
may be calm unto us? That is substitution, isn't it?
They understood substitution. What can we do to you that will
propitiate this sea and be calm to us? That is substitution,
is it not? That's the way God saves sinners,
isn't it? He punishes one man and lets
others go free. That's what they're saying. Can
we punish you and appease this seed? The God who made the seed,
what can we do? And you and I, brothers and sisters,
have sinned against the justice of God. And God demands our sins
to be punished. God's wrath is against our sins. But God has devised a way to
punish our sins and to spare us. And you know how He does
that? Substitution. Substitution. I think verse 12 here lines up
so well with Romans 8.32. Romans 8.32 says, God spared
not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all. And look what he says in verse
12, "...Jonah said unto them, Take me up, and cast me into
the sea, so shall the sea be calm unto you." That is substitution,
isn't it? Isn't that remarkable how these
heathen had such a sense of substitution? We were down in Mayan ruins,
down just south of Merida. and the Yucatan, and you could
still see the black where they burned people. They made human
sacrifices. And the reason they burned humans,
and sometimes if you burned a little innocent child, he was a better
sacrifice. If you had greater sins to be
atoned for, you could find a virgin or a child and you could appease
that God. They had a sense of substitution
even among the heathens. That's the way God saves sinners,
isn't it? He gave His only begotten Son to atone for your sin, that
the wrath of God may be appeased, that justice might be satisfied. And that's what they had a sense
of here. Jonah says, here's what you're going to have to do to
be saved. I'm going to have to be your substitute. I'm going
to have to appease this sin. And boy, so they grabbed him
and threw him overboard, and there was a great calm, and that was
it. It didn't happen that way, did it? Isn't it amazing when
you tell somebody the gospel, and it just goes right over their
head? And they say, man, man, that's so, that sounds real good.
Then they start working like crazy to save themselves. Everything
you told them about substitution, this goes right over your head.
And that's what happened here. They said, what must we do to
you that the sea may be calm? Cast me overboard, the sea will
be calm to you. And in verse 13, nevertheless,
the men rode hard to bring it to the land. Why don't you just
throw him overboard? You know, there's something,
and I think probably of all the blessed truths in the Scriptures,
There's something that this world disdains more than anything else,
and that's substitution. I mean real substitution. A substitution
that saves. Not just a substitution that
he gave his best effort, that he's really trying to save everybody,
but he can't. I'm talking about a substitution
that actually redeems people from their sins and reconciles
them to God. This world hates that. I've often
said this, and it's true. This world loves this thing that
Jesus loved everybody so much that He gave His life for everybody,
without exception. He made the best effort He could
by dying upon the cross, and now He's done everything He could
do, everything He could do, and now the rest is up to you. Don't the world love that? And
listen, the world looks at that and says, He's so kind. It's
so kind of Him to try to do that. To try to save everybody that
way. But listen, that's not the substitution of the Bible. Here
we have a good picture of substitution. You throw me overboard and the
sea shall be calm for you. Here's Bible substitution. Jesus
Christ took the sins of all His people, every one of them, to
Himself, and He atoned for those sins. He put them away. And listen, those people have
to be saved. They have to be called and regenerated. They cannot perish. Why? Because their sins have been
punished already. Isn't that wonderful? I just
can't believe, brothers and sisters, that Christ would have died for
men who was in hell at the time that He died. I can't understand
that. That's not substitution, is it?
And He said, You throw Me overboard, and the sea shall be calm to
you. And boy, they said, we're going
to try our best to save ourselves. And they got to row. rowed hard, it means to dig.
If you've ever been out on a paddle boat with your oars, and you
want to turn around real fast, or you're racing people, you
know, you put those oars deep down in the water. That's what
this word means. To dig. And they put their oars deep
in the water, and man, they were pulling as hard as they could
go, and their muscles were flexing and aching, and sweat was running. They were groaning, trying their
best to get to shore. But they couldn't Why? Because the sea wrought and was
tempestuous. There ain't but one way God is
going to save a man, and that's by substitution. And a man can
try his hardest to satisfy the justice of God and to appease
the wrath of God, but you can't do it. You just can't do it. It's against us. It's contrary
to us! And we've got to be saved by
Christ and His work upon the cross on our behalf. And these
men said, well, we understand what you're saying, Jonah, but
we can do it, I think. We're going to try it a little
bit harder. So that's what they did. But you know something? The Lord was determined to save
these fellows. He was determined to save these fellows. I love
it when the Lord's determined to save somebody. I find such
rest in that. I didn't know He was determined
to save me. I thought, He's never going to save me. That may not
be your experience, but that was my experience. I started
out trying to save myself. Then I started out thinking me
and the Lord could save me. Then I realized, no, He's going
to have to save me Himself. And I didn't think He was going
to ever do it. I didn't think He was going to ever save me.
But boy, I tell you what, I love it when He's determined to save
somebody. And no matter what they do, He won't let them go.
Everywhere they turn, He's got them shut up. And these fellows
said, We can make it. Try harder. We can make it. And
they couldn't win. They just kept dashing around.
And finally, they cried unto the Lord and said, We beseech
Thee, O Lord, we beseech Thee, let us not perish for this man's
life. Lay not upon us innocent blood, for Thou, Lord, hast done
as it pleased Thee. They risked their lives to save
this man. Jonah risked his life to keep
Nineveh from being saved. Isn't it sad when sometimes lost
people are more tender than saved people? They said, we're going
to save your life, man, if we can. This one of him, he wouldn't
even go preach to Nineveh. Ain't that sad? Wouldn't we get
so hard? I think sometimes we as Christians
have the capacity to get so hard and unkind and unfeeling towards
people. We just don't care, do we? We
just don't care. We've had Christians, God's children. I think some are God's children
that have been mean. They just get mean and hateful.
And you tell yourself sometimes, a lost person, a good moral person
wouldn't do that. Wouldn't be that mean. Oh, here's
a mean one. These heathen was more kind than
he was. I love this though. I love verse 14. We started out
over there in verse 5 and everybody was crying out to his God. Somebody said there's no atheist
in foxholes. And they're probably not, but
which God are they crying to? These fellows said right here,
it don't matter which God you cry to. Just pray. Just cry to
some God. But over here, boy, he said,
they cried unto the Lord. It changed it. It changed. There was none of
this which God you want to pray to. They said, Him alone. He's
the God that made the heaven and the earth. This covenant
God. Cry to Him. Cry to Him. That is one thing
I like when the Lord begins to bring us to Himself. He brings
us to the knowledge that all of these other gods are just
thornies. They were praying to a God who
could not save, and now they are crying out to the Lord. And, verse 15, So they took up
Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea, and look at this, and
the sea ceased from her race. Oh, can't you see them hugging
each other and kissing each other and jumping and shouting? There's
joy in the low bottom of their soul. And they said, It's true!
It's true! He does save by substitution! It was the truth! And all the
peace that came to their conscience and to their seed was amazing.
And notice then, this word, verse 16, Then they feared the Lord
exceedingly. and offered a sacrifice unto
Him and made vows. Then they feared the Lord. They didn't fear Him really until
then, did they? Oh, there's a fear of going to
hell. There's a fear that God's going to put me there. But this
is a different kind of fear. This is the fear of His goodness.
This is where He's forgiven us, and now we have this reverence
for Him. He saved us with His grace, Reverence
in Him. And you know there is no true
worship as long as there is turmoil and guilt screaming in the conscience. As long as this conscience is
raging with its guilt and its fear against God, there is no
worship there. But boy, as soon as he reveals
Christ to the heart, As soon as He washes the conscience in
His blood, then, then we can worship. Then we can love Him. Then we can follow Him. And they
sacrificed to Him. I wonder what they sacrificed.
They didn't have anything left in the ship. They threw it all
on them. And they made valves. I wonder
what they promised. I imagine they offered themselves
as a sacrifice. present your body as a living
sacrifice. And I bet what they did. I bet
they said, Lord, I'm yours as long as I live. I'm yours. I'm
yours. And they offered the sacrifice
of praise, the fruit of their limbs, Greg. I praise you, Lord,
that you've had mercy on me. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and
all that's within me. Bless His holy name. And they
said, Lord, you give me grace. I'll live for you the rest of
my life. And I'll call upon you. And I'll never worship any other
God besides You. And lastly, verse 17. Then the
Lord, they feared, and then they threw Him overboard. In verse
17, the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And
he was in the belly of that fish three days and three nights.
If you read certain men, they give reasons for people not believing
this. One fellow, he did studies on
it. He said there was no whales in
the Mediterranean Sea. There's one. There's one. There may not have been any,
but there was one. There's one. And he said it was
impossible. It was medically impossible for
a whale to swallow a man and you stay in there three days
without those digestive juices literally eating you alive. Breaks
down your flesh. And he said it was impossible
for a human being to go down to the depths of the mountains,
to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea where these whales can go.
It's impossible. He should read the Bible where
he said with God all things are possible. With man! With man this is impossible. See when we take up this Bible,
We get out of the realm of inabilities. We get out of our realm where
we're so limited and we get into God's realm where all things
are possible. That's our hope of being saved,
isn't it? It's not medically possible for
a virgin to conceive and bear a son. It's not possible. But it is in this realm. And
that's our hope, isn't it? That's our hope. Our salvation
is of the Lord. And that's our hope. That's our
hope. We'll start there next Sunday,
Lord's willing, and look in chapter 2. Very interesting. Very, very
interesting chapter. Let's pray.