Jonah was not a nobody, unknown, unrecognized. He was a Hebrew. That's what
he says in chapter 1, verse 9. He said, I'm a Hebrew. I fear
the Lord, the God of heaven, which made the sea and the dry
land. Jonah was God's prophet. It says in chapter 3, verse 1,
the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time. Arise,
go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the preaching
I did thee. Jonah was a prophet of God. Take
just a moment and turn back to 2 Kings chapter 14, the first
time by name that Jonah is mentioned. This is in the days of Elijah
and Elisha. In 2 Kings 14.25, he restored
the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath under the
sea of the plain, according to the word of the Lord God of Israel,
which he spoke by the hand of his servant Jonah, the son of
Amittah, the prophet, which was of Gathipher. Some people believe
that Jonah was the prophet that Elisha sent to anoint Jehu. Some people believe that Jonah
was the son of the Shunammite widow whom Elijah brought back
from the dead. Jonah, very impressive, very
impressive prophet of God. In fact, his experience is confirmed
by our Lord Jesus Christ himself in Matthew 12, if you would like
to turn to Matthew 12 and give you a little more insight into
this man, whom we believe wrote the book of Jonah about his own
experience. But his experience was confirmed
by our Master in Matthew 12, when he, verse 38, Then certainly the scribes and
Pharisees answered and said, Master, we see a sign from you. And he answered and said unto
them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign. Show me a sign. Show me a sign. But there shall no sign be given
to this generation but the sign of Jonah, the prophet Jonah,
the scriptures. Let them hear the word of God.
That's our sign, that's our evidence, that's our proof, the word of
God. I'm not going to show you a miracle besides this miracle
right here. This is miracle enough. There
it is. I'll read on. For as Jonah, this
is Christ speaking now. I hear people debating about
the fish, the whale, the possibility of a man surviving or living
in the bed of the whale, the juices of the stomach and all
that junk. My Lord said Jonah was in the bed of that whale.
That's sufficient for me. How God preserved it. God prepared
the fish. Remember that. God prepared the
fish. In fact, the whale. Every time
I see a whale on television, the show on that animal channel
where whales are, I think of the book of Job, when God said,
I made the Leviathan, that's the whale, to play with. He said,
can your maidens play with the whale? Will he go and come like
you tell him? And every time I see a whale, I think of the
Lord playing with those big fish. That's what he said. He made
this fish. He made this fish. And our Lord
said he was in the preacher, some fat-ass preacher, said,
you believe that story, about Jonah and the whale. Here's
a little foolishness to get your attention. You believe that story
about Jonah and the whale, and the preacher said, yes, I do. He said, well, you really do. He said, yes, but when I get
to heaven, I'm going to ask Jonah all about it. And if that's it,
what if he's not in heaven? He said, why don't you ask him
then? Our Lord said in verse 40, that's
how foolish it is to deny this. Our Lord said Jonah, what is
the problem with the miracle? God did it. Jonah was three days
and three nights in the whale's bed. So shall the Son of Man
be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Christ
used Jonah as a type of himself. This is serious. He used Jonah
as a type of insect. Christ was raised from the dead
after three days. Jonah was delivered from the
veil after three days. He was there that long, that's
what Christ said. Well, Jonah's experience is a picture of our
spiritual resurrection. It's a picture of the power and
the grace and the goodness of God in saving sinners from a
spiritual grave. from a dungeon of death and sinfulness. I told my class this morning,
this is something everybody needs to know who studies the Old Testament
scriptures. The Old Testament scriptures
are like bifocal glasses. We have in our glasses, us older
people, bifocals. This part down here shows me
close up. I can see things close up. This
part here, I see things far away. And when the scripture, it's
like I preached last Sunday on the rock. Now, that has this
application first. There was a nation of Israel,
a people called Israel. They were in a real wilderness
in the flesh. There was no water, a dry and
thirsty land. And Moses prayed to God, and
the Lord said, there's a rock and a hole, and I'll be on that
rock. And you come to that rock and
smite it. And the water will come out, and all the people,
millions of them, will have enough to drink, bathe, cook, wash,
do whatever. Plenty of water out of that rock.
Well, that's a true story. And the Arabs think they know
where that rock is. They've described it, talked
about the height of it, and the depth of it, the thickness of
it, they even think they see a place where water poured forth
from it like lips. They really stole it, it really
happened. That's consensual. But Paul came along and said,
they've lost Christ. They've lost Christ. These people,
sinners, you and me, we're in the wilderness. We have no life,
no water. It's a dry and thirsty land.
When the water is, we're powerless, hopeless to sustain life, even
to get life, to keep life. But God said there's a rock in
a weary land. There's a stone, a trod stone,
a certain sheer stone, a faithful stone, a rock Christ Jesus. And
that rock's been smitten not by Moses, but by God on the cross
of Calvary from his side. He had water to sanctify, blood
to purify, to cleanse. That's the story. And when you
read that over the numbers that happened to Israel, you're not
just reading what happened to Israel. That's not a history
book. It is, but it isn't. It's an
end book. H-I-M. Christ. Every stone, this
right here, is Christ. That's what Christ said. But
Job is a type of meat. And it's a type of our resurrection. Look over here at John 5. See,
we're born dead in first places in sin, without life, without
hope, without God, and we're sinning. In John 5, verse 25,
the Lord said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming,
and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of
God, and they that hear shall live. That spirit, the hour is
coming, now is, right now, when the dead hear the voice of the
Son of God. Christ said, my sheep hear my voice, and I give them
life, eternal life, and then they'll perish. They hear my
voice. That's spiritual resurrection. You say that, they say that's
physical resurrection. No, verse 28 is physical resurrection. Now he admired this, marveled
at this spiritual resurrection, that an hour is coming, he didn't
say now he is, he said it's coming, in which all the immigrants will
hear his voice and come forward, some unto life, some unto death,
some unto eternal glory, some unto eternal damnation. So this
picture, this is what happened with Jonah. is a picture of Christ
giving life to sinners. So let's look at chapter 2. So
verse 17 of chapter 1, So the Lord prepared a great fish to
swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of
that fish three days and three nights. And Jonah prayed unto
the Lord his God out of the fish's belly. He was in a dark dungeon. Think about this. Utterly helpless,
hopeless, a prisoner, crying to God. I don't want to
look like this, but he couldn't look, it was dark. Which direction
would he look? I can't even imagine how totally
desperate and devastated he must have been. How devastated he
must have been, down in that vicious battle of darkness. But
that's our state of the Jonah was a captive of a fish. You and I are captives in Adam,
captives of the law, captives of the kingdom of darkness. Jonah
was in the fish, we're in Adam, dead in trespasses and sin. In
Adam, all die. Without Christ, without hope,
without help, without God in this world. Jonah, without help,
without hope. Secondly, he said in verse 2,
I cried by reason of my affliction unto the Lord. I cried because
of my affliction. I cried because of the shape
I'm in, the condition I'm in, the hopeless, helpless situation.
I cried to God. I looked at his Pharisees and
said, why is your master eating with those sinners and pagans?
I looked at him and he said, do not need a physician. But those that are sick, Joe
needed help. That's why he was weakened and
in need, he needed help. He was hopeless and helpless.
Joe was asleep in the bed, but he's not asleep now. He's alive
and wide awake. He's crying for help. And men,
they sleep in the comforts and luxuries of this fleshly life. not knowing the danger, but if
they ever discover their danger, their desperate, desperate condition
in Adam, dead in sin, hopeless, helpless, they'll cry. They'll
cry. They'll seek the Lord. I cried
unto the Lord by reason of my affliction, and he heard me.
From where? Out of the belly of the grave.
Out of the belly of hell, that word is the grave, Jonah admits
where he is. He confesses where he is. As men need to admit where they
are. David said, Out of the depths
have I cried unto thee. Oh Lord, hear my voice. We need
to know where we are and what we are. We're in trouble by nature.
Out of the belly of hell have I cried unto thee. And then he
said in verse 3, For thou, O Lord, offended by my transgressions,
offended by my rebellion, offended by my disobedience, has cast
me under the knee. God put me here. You've turned
me away from you. You've turned us out of the garden.
Read over here in Genesis. Turn here a minute. This is what
happened. In Genesis chapter 3. Jonah said, I disobeyed God
and he cast me into the deep, into the midst of the sea. Adam
disobeyed God and Genesis 3 said, verse 23, Genesis 3, therefore
the Lord God sent him forth. The Lord God sent him forth from
the Garden of Eden to tell the ground from which he was taken.
So he drove out the man, drove him out, and placed at the east
of the Garden of Eden cherubims and a flaming sword which turned
every way to keep the way of the tree of life and the man
away from it. Jonah said, Lord, I disobeyed
you, and you cast me out. Adam disobeyed God and you cast
him out. That's right, cast him out. And what's the consequences?
Listen. Thou hast cast me into the deep, into the midst of the
seas, the floods have compassed me about. All the billows and
the waves pass over me. Oh, what a mess I'm in. All the
billows and the waves of sin pass over me. I'm out of your
sight, verse 4. Out of your sight. Your sins
have separated you from God. Will God still answer the question?
Do you think God will really forsake and desert a human being? Ask Christ on the cross. Will God really, totally forsake
and desert a human being? Ask Christ. When I, Lord, I substitute
my sins in his body on the tree, my God, He forsaken me. And Jonah was in that fish's
belly. He said, I went to the bottom.
I went to the bottom. I went to the bottom, into the
deep. You've cast me out of your sight. You've separated me from
your presence. When I laid hold of that cross,
I represented him. I sent off him. He was separated
from God, turned his back. And I'll tell you, Men who have
not Christ are away from God. Now they may, preachers may run
around saying we love you and God loves you and smile, God
loves you. But I tell you where we are by
nature, by sin, without Christ, we're away from God. In the deep,
the waters, listen to verse 5, the waters compass me about even
to the soul. My body is a prisoner of sin
and my soul is a prisoner of sin. The prison dungeon, the
depths closed around about me. Sin is everywhere. Darkness is
everywhere. The weeds wrapped around my head.
My sins just cover me and imprison me like weeds. I can't get out
of them. They're just wrapping up, binding
me to sin and an evil nature. What I would do, I can't do.
And what I would do, I do. Trapped in this awful condition. Verse 6, I went to the bottom.
That's the state and condition of me and my nature in Adam,
our firstborn. Jonah's in the belly of a fish. He can do nothing to alter his
condition. Nothing outside can do anything. Even the fish can't do anything.
He's as utterly helpless and hopeless and devastated as you
can describe a person. And that's what we are by nature.
And there he is in that darkness with the weeds wrapped around
his head, imprisoning him that bars the earth, she closed her
bars about me forever! Yet! Oh, I love that word, yet. There's some hope, but I tell
you, it's not in him, it's in the Lord. Yet. I brought up my
life from the pit. Oh Lord, my God. When my soul fainted within me,
I remembered the Lord. I remembered the Lord. The Lord's
just, but He's merciful. The Lord is righteous, but He's
love. I remembered. He is love. He is righteous.
Look over at chapter 4 a minute. I'm going to deal with this tonight.
This is a good while later. Jonah prayed to the Lord and
said, O Lord God, was not this my saying when I was yet in my
country? I fled before unto Tarshish, for I know, I knew that you are
a gracious God, merciful, slow to anger, of great kindness,
and repentant of evil. I know that. He said, I know
that when I was in my country. When you came to me the first
time so quickly to go to Denver, that great city, and cry against
it, I knew that you were a merciful God. I knew that. Gracious, merciful,
slow to anger, a great, courteous soul. Here I am. In this awful, awful, awful,
indescribable, helpless state. And I remember. I'm here because
I deserve to be here. I justify God. Because of my
transgressions, you cast me out. Because of my sins, you separate
me from your presence. Because of my disobedience, I'm
here. But, I remember the Lord is merciful. Can you think about
that? Anybody here that's in this shape? I was, most of you were, and
knew it. So, my prayer came in unto thee,
unto thy holy temple." He didn't know which direction the temple
was. He didn't know which direction he was going. He's down here
in darkness, total darkness. But he looked in his mind to
a place, no, to a person. To a person. You say to God,
yes, but to God in Christ. Why do we look to the temple?
Because I tell you, in the temple there is a holy place with the
bread and the light, the candlesticks and the altar of incense, which
is a holy of holies. And in that holy of holies is
an ark that contains a broken lawn. And on top of that ark
is a mercy seat, where the high priest went once a year with
the And he sprinkled it on that mercy seat, that propitiation,
that covering, and that blood forgave the sin. Unto Christ
our propitiation came, and went not into the holy place represented
by the ark and the mercy seat, but into heaven itself. And his
blood on the altar of glory for the sins of his people. And old
Jonah, in that condition, said, I remember the Lord said to Israel,
make an ark, put the book of Noah in that ark, put a mercy
seat over it, put the blood on it, and I'll meet you there.
No matter how sinful you are, how wicked you are, how disobedient
you are, if you want to meet me, meet me at the mercy seat.
Meet me at the covenant. Meet me at the blood. And Jonah
was down there, and he was taking the mercy seat. God is merciful,
God is gracious to the chief of sinners. We think Christ came
and saved sinners, but when I'm chief, my mind goes back to the
mercy seat. And my prayer came in to the
Holy Temple in verse 8. People that don't have that don't
have anything. That's where he says, they that
observe lying vanities, they that come to a building or come
to a preacher, robe, get all kind of religious garbs, kiss
a ring, count a bead, those people, they don't have a mercy sin,
they don't have a sacrifice, they don't have a savior, they
don't have a blood, they don't have propitiation to put away
transgressions, they forsake Don't go anywhere else, there's
no hope anywhere else. Come to Christ. He's the mercy
saint. And all in general, a dark man
in this condition, I can't do anything. But I can remember
the Lord. He's gracious and merciful and
kind. He delights to show mercy. But
I'm going to appeal to him on one basis. Look at verse 9. All
the rest of them can go to their lying vanities and lying false
gods, but I'm going to do this. I'm going to sacrifice unto thee.
He's got no sacrifice to bring. Not down there. He doesn't need
that title. He's going to sacrifice a sacrifice
of praise and thanksgiving. Jesus is going to recognize in
his mind, in his heart, in his whole being what he is. His helpless, hopeless, disobedient
condition. He's going to remember who God
is, and who God is in Christ, a Savior, a Redeemer. And he's
going to use that with thanksgiving. That's the price he brings. He being said, hey, everyone
that wants to come to the waters, come buy wine and milk without
price. How can you buy something without
price? You buy it with your thanksgiving. You buy it with your willingness
to receive it. You buy it with your praise. You buy it with your giving the
glory to God. He's admitting he can't do it. He's admitting no one else can.
He's admitting he left himself in a state of it. He's admitting
God is his savior. But God is his saving because
he's got a substitute. He's got a sacrifice. He's got
a blood sacrifice. So he's going to acknowledge
it and fight God's fight and give God the family fight. And
he says, I'm going to pray what I owe to God. Pregnancy, glory,
worship, honor. I'm going to pray that out loud.
Father, salvation is of the Lord. I wish everybody in the world
could come to that conclusion today. That's where mercy is. Salvation is right here in your
heart. You shall confess with thy mouth, O Lord Jesus, and
breathe in thy word. God raised him from the dirt.
That's what they say. That's the reason I don't tell people
to come in and talk to me and whisper in my ear and sign cards
and go to the inquiry room and do all these things. Just sit
right where you are. Jonah couldn't move a muscle,
Jonah couldn't go to work, Jonah couldn't go to the confessional,
Jonah couldn't go to the police, Jonah couldn't go to the front,
Jonah couldn't go to the altar, he went down the pit so he couldn't
go, and that's not working in his heart. To the throne of grace,
to the mercy seat, and he said, I acknowledge I'm where I deserve
to be, I've got nothing to bring, nothing to do, but salvation
is of the Lord. And like that little leper said,
Lord, if you will, you can make me whole. And the Lord said,
I will. You know, folks just don't want
a salvation for nothing. They don't pay for it. Because
they want to say, part me. Jesus did a part, now part your
names. Sin left your country the same,
but me and the Lord washed it white as snow. No way. Salvation
is of the Lord. And when he said that, the Lord
spake to the fish, let him go. Tell him to leave! But he's not going to deliver
a fellow that's a rebel from the prison. No, he's going to
leave him where he is until he ceases to be a rebel. He's not
going to deliver a fellow that still says, well, the Lord did
alright, but I had to help him. No, you're going to stay right
there where you are. But if a man can come to the,
like I wrote down here in closing, is the adjunct here, who will
remember the Lord as merciful, who will lift the curse, who
will pay the bound, thanksgiving and praise. That's all. This is the knowledge he's got.
My Lord and my God. That's it. I'll tell the world
that. Some day before long, this body is going to lie in the grave,
a grave of burden. As my soul once lay in the grave
of sin, and as was the foundation, so shall be the topstone. God,
by his will and power, delivered my soul from death, he'll deliver
my body from the grave. Salvation of the Lord. There
may be people on this earth in churches who have free will here,
but there's none up there. There may be Arminians in churches
here, but there's no Arminian in heaven, I guarantee you. People
may say down here, salvation is part of the human will, but
there's nobody up there that says that. Jonah never said that. that their glory, they say, unto
him who loved us and washed us from our sins, and made us unto
our God, kings and priests, unto him be all the glory, both now
and forever." That's who's there. They sing one song, not two or
three. And I preach, listen to me in
closing, I preach salvation is of the Lord. And I don't preach
that to show how difficult it is to be saved. Although the
scripture does say, if the righteous be saved with difficulty. But
the difficulty is not on your part, it's on his part. He had
to send his son to redeem us. That's the difficulty. Christ
had to obey the law for us. That's difficult. Christ had
to die. Christ had to be separated from
God. Christ had to go to the grave and be raised. That's a
difficult work. Christ had to ascend to the right
hand of God, but that's his work. It's easy for me. I believe it. So I don't preach salvation just
by grace and of the Lord to show it's difficult to be saved. I'm
just showing how it is, how man can be saved. That's what I'm doing. I'm just
showing that how man can be saved. The only way man can be saved
is by the power of God. Only then may I let fish his
belly. By the will, the word, and the power of God. There's
only one way for you out of sin. That's by the will, the word,
and the power of God, through the blood of Christ. And there's
only one way for my dear loved ones in that cemetery out there,
someday to come out of it. By the will, by the word, by
the power of God. can do what they will. But I
tell you, those who sacrifice to lion wonders, lion vanities,
for Satan, they're only merciful. But those who like Jonah can
remember the Lord. Will he save me? He's merciful. He is merciful. He delights to show mercy. I promise you. You don't know
me. He does. And he loves his people.