"I Fear God, Kind Of"
April 23, 2023 • Jonah 1
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Heavenly Father, we thank you for the blessing it is to gather as your people to hear from your Holy Spirit, from your holy scriptures. We thank you, Lord, that you did not leave us in the darkness of our ignorance. Often we have fled from you, from your presence, from your word, from community, and we've done it intentionally, and we've done it in order to further our ignorance. Instead of leading us groping in the darkness, Lord, you send us people, messengers, ambassadors, evangelists, missionaries, Christians, believers, those who spoke the truth with love in a way that compelled our hearts. Lord, if there is anyone who is not yet a believer, a follower of Christ, a child of God today, save them. Today, override their reluctant will, and, Lord, save them from their sins.
And for those of us who are your children, Lord, remind us that you have commissioned each one of us to go and make disciples, people of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Bless our time in the holy scriptures today, continue to expand your holy church, Lord. Jesus, you promised that you will build your church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it, so continue to expand your kingdom, your church, and take territory from the enemy. I pray all this in Christ's holy name. Amen.
We are beginning today a brand new sermon series through the Book of Jonah. We're really excited about it. It's four chapters, four weeks, and then we believe the Lord is leading us to do a deeper study of the life of Joseph, in Genesis 37 through 50. And then that'll take us through the end of the summer.
The series title is Reluctant Believer. The title of the sermon is I Fear God, kind of, and that's who Jonah is. He's a rebel. He's not just reluctant or recalcitrant. He's often resentful of God in his ways. It's the only book about a prophet gone rogue. I had a brother approach me after the service and he said, "When I was younger, I scoffed at Jonah, and said, 'What a moron. Why would he run from God?'" And he said, "After 10 years in the faith, I can relate." And I think we all can relate.
The other reason why we chose this book is because as we studied through the Book of Romans, we saw that the gospel, it's not just new news, like new news. No, the gospel was grounded in Old Testament, Hebrew scriptures. The Apostle Paul constantly quotes from the salter and the prophets to show us this was the plan from the very beginning. Romans 1:16, "For I'm not ashamed of the gospel, the good news for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek."
The gospel is for everyone. This isn't new. This was the plan from the very beginning, God's family has room for everyone. This is the message at the heart of the Book of Jonah that God's compassion extends to the most wicked, even to the Gentiles, even to us. That nothing can thwart God's purpose to save sinners. And that purpose is not limited to any one group. The Gentiles, or the nations, we're always in the heart of God. He longs for people of all nations to come and to pray to him.
The Jewish people were blessed with possession of the scriptures. They were told by God to bring this message that every person can be reconciled with Yahweh, to bring this light to the Gentiles. But they failed miserably as missionaries to the nations, as we'll see with Jonah, mostly because they started taking God's grace for granted. "Well, of course God loves us. We are the chosen people, of course." And we as Christians, we have to fight that tendency as well.
Paul and the other apostles had to be taught, this is surprising, that God had always included the Gentiles in the number of his elect children. And that for they not all Israel, who are of Israel, Paul writes. So Jonah was the first Jewish missionary to a Gentile nation. He's called one of the 12 minor prophets. Minor, not because lesser in importance, but because of what they wrote was just shorter. Jonah was only four chapters, compared to Isaiah 66, Jeremiah 52, Ezekiel 48 chapters.
The book is all about God's love. It's not about Jonah, it's about God. It's about God's pursuit of rebels. It's about God helping us overcome our pride, showing us our sin, exposing our self-righteousness and leading us to repentance by giving us the gift of grace. And then we see that God is a missionary God. God longs to save people from all nations. And ultimately, this book is all about the gospel that God's love, the Lord, Yahweh is a God of boundless compassion, not just for us, Christians, or in the story Jonah, the Israelites, but also for them, the pagan sailors, the Ninevites.
And we have to keep a guard of our own hearts and the culture of our church to make sure that we continue to be welcoming to absolutely anyone and everyone. It's not us and them. It's not, "We are Christians because we're better." No, no, we're Christians because God saved us. God superimposed his will upon our will. He regenerated us. And if there's hope for us, even us, there's hope for absolutely everyone. This is the message of the Book of Jonah.
So today we're in Jonah 1:1-17. Would you look at the text with me? Now, the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of amortized saying, "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me." But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going down to Tarshish. So he paid the fair, went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.
But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up. Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his god. And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship and to the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone into the inner part of the ship and had laid down and was fast asleep. So the captain came and said to him, "What do you mean, you sleeper. Arise, call out to your god! Perhaps the god will give a thought to us that we may not perish."
And they said to one another, "Come let us cast lots, that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us." So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. They said to him, "Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country and of what people are you?" And he said to them, "I'm a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the city in the dry land." Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, "what is this that you have done!"
For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord because he had told them. And they said to him, "What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?" For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. He said to them, "Pick me up and hurl me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you." Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them. Therefore, they called out to the Lord, "Oh Lord, let us not perish for this man's life and lay not on us innocent blood, for you, oh Lord, have done as it pleased you."
So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
This is the reading of God's holy, inerrant, and infallible, authoritative word may write these eternal truths upon our hearts. Is it a fish or a whale? Let's start with a really important questions. According to our graphic, that looks like a whale, looks like a whale in the graphic. I don't know. The Hebrew says fish, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Billy Graham said, "If you believe that in the beginning God created the world," and he's like, "even if it said Jonah ate the fish, I'd still believe it." So that doesn't matter.
What matters is that God is sovereign. There are many lessons to learn from this text. Three points to frame up our time. First, the compassionate commandment of God. Second, the stiff-necked rebellion of a religious man, and the relentless pursuit by the hound of heaven.
First, the compassionate commandment of God. God comes to Jonah and says verse one, now the Lord, the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me." Well, first of all, you got to pause and say what an honor. What a great honor that God's word would come to you, and that God would so be gracious to you to give you a job, to give you a calling. A prophet being called by God to journey to Nineveh to deliver this message. This is an extraordinary phenomenon. Prophetic Oracles against nations were commonplace, but they were spoken in the prophets native land for his fellow nationals.
So if we follow the pattern of the other prophets, it would be word of Lord comes to Jonah. Jonah get up in front of the Israelites, and say, "The people in Nineveh, they're terrible." And obviously, everyone in Israel is like, "Yeah, we agree." That's not the mission. Here he is given the mission and he's selected for a role to bring a word of judgment upon the people, kind of like the angels were sent as agents of divine destruction against Sodom in Genesis 19.
Jonah, what do we know about him? He was a contemporary of Elijah, most likely he was one of the sons of the prophets of Elijah referring to Elijah's school. Elijah was a man and Saint john tells us that, "Elijah was a man." Elijah, one of the greatest prophets. And in the same way that Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are, we can pause here and say, you know what? Before we start knocking Jonah, "You should have known better as a great man of God." He's still a dude. He's still a guy. The fact that these prophets were given a divine commission and divine inspiration did not make them not human. They still had a temper and they still had their own character and their own flaws, and the prophetic call was something apart from and altogether independent of their intellect or even their will.
So what do we know about Jonah as the man? Well, the Hebrew name for Jonah means dove, which is nice. And if you go the allegorical route, you can infuse lots of meaning here, dove and the New Testament is a symbol of the Holy Spirit. Jonah, like the Holy Spirit brings revival to Nineveh. But what's fascinating is that Jonah is more like a hawk than a dove. He's not a dove at all. He's not happy about this mission. He's not happy about being a man of God. He's not happy about having to preach the gospel. He's not happy about people getting converted. But God can use the personality of even a stubborn person or a strong-willed person, like Jonah or Peter or Sampson or Paul. But first, God needs to break a man before he uses a man. He has to teach him, or a woman, obedience before they're used in service.
The other thing I want to point out here is that God has been incredibly compassionate to Jonah. Jonah grew up in a believing family. His father was a believer, follower of the Lord, and Jonah has given the task of being a prophet, and he's given grace to live in a time where the people of God deserved judgment. 2 Kings 14:25 sets Jonah in the reign of eighth century BC King Jeroboam II. Well, Jeroboam II, he was a sinner. He did not do what God wanted him to do, and yet God, because of his grace on these people, on Jonah, he allowed the kingdom to expand. So 2 Kings 14:25 about Jeroboam II, he restored the border of Israel from Lebo-hamath as far as the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he had spoke by his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was from Gath-hepher.
So Jonah had experienced God's grace firsthand. He saw that God can restore even a kingdom for his people, because of God's great compassion. His compassion overrides the waywardness of the people. So Jonah has been given grace, and it's expected that Jonah who has received grace is going to now share that grace with the people of Nineveh. He did not want to do that. Why? Because Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian empire, the sworn enemies of Israel.
Nineveh was found in east of, today, Syria, northern part of Iraq. It's on the east side of the Tigress River. Even today, Jonah's association with that place is well known. There's a Muslim shrine there to the prophet Yunus or Jonah. And this is the last capital of the Assyrian Empire. From excavations, we know it was a grand city, had famous hanging gardens, dams, parks, a 50-mile aqueduct, great roads, a double wall protecting the city.
The wall was world renowned, greater than Babylon. The wall was a 100 feet high, so broad that three wagons might be driven on it at the same time. The walls were fortified with 1500 towers at proper distances. Each rising 200 feet in height, rendering the city seemingly impregnable. No one can touch us, we're fortified. The city was also wealthy. It was the center of commerce between the East and the West. And the wickedness of Nineveh kept pace with its commercial importance and external greatness.
Why Nineveh? Why Nineveh? Well, God chose Nineveh, but also we see that God often uses this same method to reach a people. This is the same way the St. Paul reached the Roman Empire. He picked city centers, urban city centers, places of influence, places where ideologies were formed and from which they were shipped. And this is where he wanted to plant the gospel.
So you see the New Testament, you see all the epistles and the epistles are usually written to city centers, churches in city center, the epistles to the Romans, you got Rome, Ephesus, Thessalonica, et cetera. So in a way, this city, Nineveh, was a city set on a hill, unrivaled in splendor, but also an influence. Something that happened here would be heard about everywhere. So if the gospel, if the message of mercy, that God is a loving God, a merciful God, that our evil has come up before Him, but if we repent, He will relent of sending the wrath that we deserve. God is saying, "Jonah, go plant the gospel in the heart of your enemy's greatest city." That's what He's doing.
Obviously, the parallels to what we're doing here in Boston are very clear. The reason why we came here, the reason why we're working so hard to establish this church in this city, is because Boston, pound for pound, is the most influential city in the world. Historically speaking, between the last three, four, five decades, look at the influence of this city upon the world. This is an ideology center of the world. People come here, their minds are filled with ideology, and the export the ideologies elsewhere.
What is God telling us? He's saying, plant the gospel where you are. Plant the gospel in the heart of your enemy's greatest city. Plant the gospel in the heart of your enemies. This is how the Lord operates. And what's the job that Jonah is given? He says, "Call out against the city, for their evil has come up before me." None of us described as a great city, great in population, great in resources, great in the enormity of its crimes. Later on in chapter four at the end it says that there are 120,000 people that know neither left or from their right. Most likely it's talking about children. So if you say that children are one fifth of a population, you're talking about maybe 600,000 people in population, maybe upwards of a million.
Incredibly, incredibly powerful, but also sinful. People who are committing acts of evil against God, heaven daring iniquities. And we're reminded from the very beginning that that God is holy. And before Jonah brings a message of forgiveness, which he didn't want to bring, he does bring a message of judgment. That evil, our evil, the Ninevites personal evil, their evil has come up before the Lord. We're reminded that God is holy.
There are things that you and I get used to, but God as our holy creator never will never get used to, He's revolted by. Idolatry and lying and cheating and stealing and hatred, adultery, murder things we get accustomed to. Things we write off as weakness, God deems wickedness. He does use the word evil. So point number one, well, I said that God is given a message of compassion to Jonah. Well, where's the compassion in going to a people and calling out their evils?
Where's the compassion there? Well, friend, that's the most compassionate thing you can do. The absolute most... If we believe that God is truly holy, and if we believe that one transgression against his commandment is enough to render us guilty for eternity, and unless we repent of our sin and turn to Christ, we will spend eternity in hell, and internal damnation. If you really believe that, the absolute most compassionate thing that I can do is to tell you the truth that God can do.
This is the most compassionate thing. That there is evil that you have committed that has come up before the Lord. We need to know this and we need to respond to this mission. Realize the gravitas of the situation that we stand condemned before a holy God. So what does God do in his love? He sends a messenger who will bring this message. And this is a good reminder that our salvation does not begin with ourselves. How did you come to faith? And by the way, this is a great practice in your community group. Maybe this week share a little bit, maybe one to two people about how you came to faith. And specifically about whom did God send into your life to nudge you over? Whom did God send to nudge you over?
He sends a lot of people to prepare us, and I was kind of like this. I grew up in a Christian family. I went to Christian camp. My dad would be like, "Yeah, believe in Jesus." And I was like, "Yeah, but you're my dad." And then one time I went to this, randomly, this conference, I heard this guy speak. He was a Slavic immigrant that grew up here, was educated here, spoke Russian fluently, spoke English fluently. What's dead serious about God, did not take himself seriously at all. So he cracked jokes, and I was nine and I liked that. And he just explained the gospel. He was like, "Yeah, you're a sinner, you're going to hell." I was like, "Yeah, that's true." And he's like, "Just trust in Jesus." And I was like, "That's all he takes." He's like, "Yeah."
And I was like, "All right," so I repented my sins. I trusted in Jesus. He didn't say anything that was new or novel or different, but for some reason the Holy Spirit took his words and just nudged me over the edge. So God, this is how He operates. Did God bring someone to preach the gospel to you, to explain the gospel to you? Praise God for those people, but also understand that it wasn't them. Before they came and they spoke this message to you, God moved their hearts. God filled their hearts with compassion, and God moved their will to speak to you.
So friends, also a reminder that you perhaps are that person for someone. You are that person for someone. There are people in your life perhaps that are ready. You just need to nudge them over the edge. Continue speaking the truth. Continue speaking it in love.
Point number two is a stiff-necked rebellion of a religious person. Tarshish got all my S's messed up. Jonah 1:3, but Jonah rose to fleet to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa, found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fair and went down into it, to go with them at Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.
What's fascinating, first of all, whenever God tells you something or tells someone something, if the next word is, "But Jonah," the story isn't going well. This is only verse number three. Come on, we're just getting started, so that's... The other thing, I call the guy stiff-necked because Tarshish is literally the opposite direction of Nineveh. He literally went to the ship station and he is like, "Where is diametrically opposed to this place? I want to go there." And that's why I call him stiff-necked. Stiff-necked is you know exactly what God's will is, but you're doing the opposite.
I use that phrase because in the Old Testament, that's how God describes the people of Israel, stiff-necked. Over Christmas break, I went shark hunting. It's just a cool way of saying I went fishing for sharks, but I went shark hunting and I caught a bunch of sharks. They were epic. They were massive. They were so big, they almost ate me. No, they were tiny. They were so small. And so you reel it up, and then like you got to grab this thing by the neck to take the hook out. My goodness, I've never felt a more powerful neck on a tiny little creature, and I've got children, so that's why that's a big deal. He's stiff, "No, I'm not going. I'm going the opposite direction."
Literally, he goes, trying to get away from God away from the presence of the Lord. You see this phrase over and over, away from the presence of the Lord. It sounds ludicrous. You can't get away from the presence of the Lord. So what is happening in your mind, Jonah? Well, first of all, you've got to ask and say, who's running? Well, this is a prophet. This is a religious man. This is a man of God, but for some reason, something happened where there is just a major gap between his relationship with God and his religion.
In some ways, his religion became more important than his relationship with God and his word. It was his religion that prevented him from obeying God, because his religion taught him, he thought, and that was actually a man-made interpretation. No, no, no, no, no, love your enemy? No, no, no, you got to hate your enemy. Hate your enemy. Despise your enemy. That's your sworn enemy. That's who the Assyrians were. That's who Ninevites were.
If your religion friend prevents you from loving your enemy, then you are not a child of God, because God loved us when we were yet enemies. God loves His enemies. He loved His enemies so much that he gave his son up for us. Lesson, you can be religious and sitting at the same time, and Jonah was running away from the revelation of God. He believed that God only spoke to his prophets in Israel. He thought, "If I get out of Israel, I get out of the confines of God's presence."
But what we see here more than anything else is that Jonah gives us a definition of sin. Sin isn't just transgressing a commandment, it's transgressing the will of God. There are sins of co-mission, when we break a commandment we have committed a sin. But there are also sins of omission, where if you know the good that you ought to do, the good that God has called you to do, and you do not do it, you've disobeyed God in the same way as if someone transgressed the law. So what is sin? It's disobeying the will of God. And if that's the definition of sin, my goodness, everyone's guilty, and that's the point from the very beginning.
The wicked Ninevites are as guilty as Jonah, the prophet. The pagan sailors, who at the end of this chapter bring sacrifice to the Lord, they are in trepidation, trembling, fear of God. They're making vows worshiping God, because they understood that they also were sinners. A definitive word comes from God. When Jonah chooses to disobey, he chooses to base his understanding of reality on religion, on nationalism, ethnicity, tradition, et cetera. So he runs from God. He isn't running from the spacial presence of God as much as he's running from the relational presence of God.
Do you know that feeling, when you know you're in sin? We know it. It's like the Bible becomes kryptonite. It's just like a magnet, it's pushed away from you, the Bible is. Christians, no, all of their phone numbers blocked. Blocked, you're not reaching. First thing you do, you drop out of community or drop out of church, you drop out of... What are you doing? You know that when you're with the people of God, you feel the presence of God. You know when you're a holy scripture, you feel the presence of God. So when you know when you're in sin, you're stiff-necked and you're like, "I want to get away from the presence of God," because at that moment, the presence of God is not comfortable. The presence of God is convicting.
It's a fool's errand to run from the spirit of God. He's everywhere. Psalm 139:7-12, where shall I go from your spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol,, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night," even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.
It was not that God was not everywhere present, but that there were consecrated places that represented the presence of God, and he wanted to get away. Obviously, it was silly, but we've all been in situations like this. Where you know the Lord has brought you in a situation, perhaps a relationship, and he's like, "So you got to stay here," or in a church community, sins been exposed, "stay here, work through it."
Sometimes we run like Jonah. Perhaps God has a particular call on your life. Are you fleeing it? Tarshish was a city on the coast of Spain. So they're headed there. And we see in the language, it just describes this dissension that's happening with Jonah. He arose to flee. He goes down to Joppa. He found a ship, pays the fair, went down into it, down, down, down. Trying to flee from the presence of Lord always brings you down.
Why did Jonah run? Well, he tells us in chapter four, the thought is he's afraid. Assyrians, they're going to kill him. That's what he's afraid of. Well, I don't think that's the theory because for a number of reasons. First of all, the guy's suicidal. Four times he's like, "Just kill me. Just kill me. I don't want to do anything. I don't want to be here. Lord, just kill me." And God's like, "Nope. Nope. Nope." He also does tell us, he's like, "Lord, I knew what would happen if I preached to the Ninevites."
This is Jonah 4:1-4, but it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. He preaches to the gospel one time. He goes through a stroll. He is like, "You're all going to die. You're all going to die." That's like the dream sermon, man. I would love to do that. Just walk the streets to Boston, "Everyone's going to die!" But the thing is, I got to keep living here. Jonah gets to leave. So he preached the gospel. Everyone gets saved, and he's bummed about it. He's so mad.
But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. And he prayed to the Lord and said, "Oh, Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding and steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Therefore, now, oh, Lord, please take my life from me, for it's better for me to die than to live." And the Lord said, "Do you do well to do anger?"
He was afraid not that the Ninevites would not repent, no, he was afraid that they would repent. That's how much he hated them. He's like, "God, I would rather die than spend eternity with these losers." That's the sentiment in his heart. So God sends Jonah to preach to the Gentiles, even though Jonah despises them. This would be like Yahweh sending a patriotic South Korean evangelist into North Korea to preach to Kim Jong Un, same situation. And so Jonah is representative of his people, as the elder brother in Luke 15 is representative of the Pharisees. It's like Jesus spending time with tax collectors and sinners. Similar to the parable of the unforgiving servant who's forgiven a huge sum only to deny forgiveness to a colleague over trifling debt.
Jonah too is a sinner saved by divine grace who wants to do everything possible to not allow pagan sinners to be the same recipients of the same grace. We're all like Jonah in many ways desiring justice for others, but grace for ourselves. "Yeah, I don't deserve it, but that person deserves it even less than I do." This is the sinful, self-righteousness in Jonah.
So what happens? Well, point three, the relentless pursuit by the hound of heaven. And I get this phrase from CS Lewis who talks about God like that. He said the night of his conversion, he was in his dorm room on his knees. He felt the presence of God really heavy in the room, didn't want to repent. He's like, "I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it." And then finally submits to the Lord. And he said, "That night I was the most reluctant and despondent convert in all of England." Like, "Yeah, I'll believe in you, but I'm not happy about it." That's the same situation with Jonah.
Verse four, but the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so the ship threatened to break up. Who sends the storm? God sends a storm. God sends a storm because Jonah needed a storm. And God at times uses pain to get our attention. It's a means of grace. In storms, the real you comes out. Storms reveal who you are and your need for God. That we are contingent, we are dependent. As Lewis writes, "Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasure, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world."
This is the function of pain on the lowest level. It's to shattered the illusion that all is okay and to plant the flag of truth within the fortress of a rebel's soul. On a higher level, pain shatters another illusion that we are self-sufficient. We are not. Verse five says, the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his god. And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the seat to lighten it for them. And Jonah had gone into the inner part of the ship and had laid down and was fast asleep. So the captain came and said to him, "What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call out to your god! Perhaps the god will give a thought to us, that we may not perish." So you see the sailors using emergency measures, jettisoning cargo. This is the last grasp at life.
And the captain comes in and says, "What do you mean? What do you mean?" I like the King James version, "What meanest thou?" Where it was like, he just doesn't have any. Like, "What are you doing? We're all in the brink of death and you're sleeping here." And Jonah's like, "Yes, that's the point. I'm trying to die." And in storms, we see that people do get religious. All the sailors, they're pagans, and they're like, "We're praying to our god. Do you have a god? Our gods aren't working. Do you have one? Try your god out."
And of all the men in the ship, Jonah was the person that should have been awake more than anyone else. Nevertheless, he was asleep, fast asleep. The creaking of the cordage, the dashing of the waves, the howling of the winds, the straining of the timbers, the shouting of the sailors nothing can arouse this guy. He's fastened in the arms of sleep. The Hebrew word here is radam, which means the deepest sleep. The word is used to describe the sleep that God puts on Adam when he takes the rib from him, like anesthesia, deep sleep.
Many a preacher commentator said that, "Jonah hears asleep because his conscience is asleep." The great pastor Charles Spurgeon has a great sermon on this. If your conscience is asleep, you should read that sermon. But I don't think that's what's going on here. I don't think he's asleep because of a seared conscience. Later on, because I see that he's very quick to repent. No, I think there's something else going on here. I think this is an anguish of the soul. The Holy Spirit has been convicting him and he's been trying to fall asleep. Just before his crucifixion, Jesus prayed in Gethsemane. And as he prayed, he sweat great drops of blood, and then Jesus found his disciples asleep.
Why were they asleep? Luke 22:45 tells us, and when he rose up from prayer and had come to his disciples, he found them sleeping from sorrow. Sometimes the response to grief is sleep. I will tell you that rebelling against God is exhausting, and it's exhausting at the soul level. Jonah's retreating from God, from the presence of God. Perhaps God had removed His gracious presence and replaced it with His disciplinary presence. We're not sure. A Jonah 1:7 says, they said to one another, "Come let us cast lots, that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us." So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah.
When the trial by lot was resorted to figure out what was going on. I think at that moment the lot falls on Jonah, Jonah felt the arrest of God's hand upon him. It said, "Jonah, you're exposed, sovereignly exposed, what do you do now?" Verse eight, then they said to him, "Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?" And he said to them, "I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea in the dry land." Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, "What is this that you have done!" For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them.
Jonah, maybe he doesn't understand, maybe it's cognitive dissonance or something, but even the sailors get it. "You just said you fear the Lord and then you told us that you're running from the presence of God. We're all about to die and you keep telling us that you're a great follower of the Lord." No, no. They're rebuking him. The pagan sailors are rebuking a man of God. God rebukes him, the storm rebuked him, and the pagan sailors rebuked him, because this is not fear of God.
Fear of God is to hate evil. Well, it's evil to disobey God. So no, you do not fear God in the moment that you disobey him. You fear something greater. You can't but admire the frankness of Jonas confession of guilt, and he's willing to surrender to the claims of justice as we're about to see, when he could have denied the whole thing. At this moment, the captain comes to him and says, "Wake up owe you sleeper, what meanest thou?" And Jonah wakes up and says, "I meanest nothing. Leave me alone. I'm ready to die." "Is this your fault?" "Nope, not my fault. Not my fault." "Who do you believe?" "Don't worry about it. I'm going back to sleep."
He doesn't do any of that, so that's why I don't take the interpret interpretation that he was asleep because of seared conscience, because as soon as providence forces him to deal with this issue, we hear of no shuffling excuses, no dishonest evasions, no blame shifting, but only the unreserved utterance of a heart already conscious of guilt. He's ready to take on the judgment that he knows he deserves. Verse 11, then they said to him, "What shall we do to you, that the sea might may quiet down for us?" For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. He said to them, "Pick me up and hurl me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great temp has come upon you." Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them.
These men are over overawed by the manifestation of divine justice that they're seeing right in front of their eyes. Some preachers would get up and like, "Hey, you should believe in Jesus. Here's my testimony. Everything was terrible. I believe in Jesus, and everything was awesome." Jonas, the anti-testimony, he gets up and he is like, "Look, if you disobey God, this is what's going to happen to you." So they're absolutely freaking out and they think that they see God's vengeance upon this person, and they're like, "This same God sent the storm," so they are absolutely humbled by God. They're doing everything possible to protect themselves from God's judgment. That's why they're rowing so hard.
And finally, verse 14, they called out to Lord, "Oh, Lord..." Oh, Lord, that sounds like believers. They believer. "Oh, Lord, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not on us innocent blood, for you, oh, Lord, have done as it pleased you." Oh yeah, they believe in the sovereignty of God. So they picked up, Jonah hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. And then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Jonah feared God, kind of, because of his example. We see these men that fear God and they fear him exceedingly. The fish, this was miraculous, but it just shows the sovereignty of God. Here, I want you to meditate with me real quick on both severity and the mercy of God toward Jonah.
Did you notice it's not enough for Jonah that he confessed his transgression and condemned himself on account of it? Why doesn't the storm stop at that moment? Jonah gets on his knees and says, "Yahweh, I repent of my sin. I'm so sorry. Forgive me." The storm should have ended. That should have been the end. He should be like... they all get saved. And then he's like, "Church isn't a cruise ship, it's a battleship. Let's go, gentlemen. We're go to Nineveh." Rallies up the troops and goes take Nineveh. That's not what happens at all. There wasn't enough.
Why doesn't God stop the storm immediately after the confession? Why? Because justice demands more. Why such painful severity here? Because the ends of the divine government required it. First, in the instance of Jo Jonah himself, he had sinned presumptuous against God. He must bear the penalty. It was a righteous thing for God to do and inflict such judgment. Hebrews 12, dear Christian, a lot of Christians live and they operate with theology that's completely removed to Hebrews 12. And in Christ, there's no condemnation for my sins, but if I sin against God and I do it willfully, like Jonah does, Hebrews 12 kicks in friends.
Hebrews 12, go back and read Hebrews 12:5-12. It says, if God loves a son or daughter, and the son or daughter are walking wayward, disobeying, what does... God does discipline those whom he loves. Still more was, which this is an example of severity needed for the good of others. The honor and the cause of God were at this time particularly bound up with the faithfulness of Jonah and having failed in the way of duty to promote the glory of God, he must in another way, become an instrument in advancing the glory of God.
He should have glorified God by preaching to the Ninevites. And God would've blessed them and God would've been glorified. Instead, God will be glorified through this man, even though the man doesn't want to be glorified as an anti example, don't be like this guy. Thus, we learn from his experience that a near relationship to God purchases no immunity from sin or from discipline, and that's Hebrews 12:5-11.
2 Timothy 2-20-22 talks about this. Do you want to be a vessel of honorable use in the house of God or dishonorable use? I would recommend you read that. What befell Jonah was severity, but also the mercy of God. No sooner is he cast out, as a victim of divine justice into the raging deep, a great fish was ready to swallow him. Not for instant destruction, but for safe preservation.
Jonah is spared final death with a temporary death. People wonder how in the world did he live 72 hours in the belly of a fish simmering in gastric juices? I just like saying that phrase. That's a juicy phrase. You can practice it, gastric juices. I think he died. I don't know. I would've died. I don't know. Whatever happened, he was entombed. Did God keep him alive? Did God resuscitate him? Did God resurrect him? That doesn't matter.
What doesn't matter is he's taken to darkness to finally be brought to light, and God often does that. 2 Corinthians 4:6, for God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Fast-forward about 750 years from the storm, from Jonah's entombment in the belly of the fish, comes Jesus Christ, the greater Jonah.
Jesus began his messianic mission by preaching the gospel to crowds in the Galilee region, which was at the heart of the northern kingdom one time, before being captured by Syria. As the crowds grew, Jesus' popularity grows. His opposition from the religious leaders, Pharisees, also grew. So Jesus is doing miracles, and yet they won't submit to him. They finally come to him and they say, "Give us proof that you are the Messiah." Matthew 12:38-42. Mind you, this is after Jesus had healed a man with a withered hand, healed two blind men, restored the life of a young girl along with countless other miracles.
Matthew 12:38-42, then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him saying, "Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you." But he answered them, "An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here."
Knowing that they were trying to trick him, Jesus says, "The only sign that you're going to get is the gospel, the sign of the prophet Jonah. What is it? It's death, it's burial and it's resurrection." And Jesus says, "What happened with Jonah was just a sign pointing to Jesus Christ." Jesus speaks of this forthcoming sign, His death, His resurrection as the sign of Jonah, those Ninevites who believe Jonah's preaching will be called by Yahweh as witnesses on judgment. They will testify that they believe in Jonah's preaching on far less evidence than Jesus has given the scribes and the Pharisees, because it's never a question of evidence.
It's never a question of evidence. It's always a question of will. If the gospel of Jesus Christ, if you seeing what God did there and the gospel of Jesus Christ, where God should have just killed all of us, a storm on all of us, we're all just dead, spend eternity in hell. No, no, no. Jesus Christ, willingly, Himself, God comes incarnate, lives a perfect life, perfectly, in this broken world, surrounded by evil people, surrounded by sinful people. This same God goes to the cross to die for our sins. What is Jesus doing there?
He's bearing the wrath of God that we deserve for our evil. The same condemnation that the Ninevites deserve, that Jonah deserves, and that the sailors deserve, we deserve. And Jesus goes, and on the crust, he's bearing the wrath of God for our sins. He's taken the storm of the wrath of God, the raging of the wrath of God that we deserve for choosing our own will. For every single moment in life, when we said, "No, no, no, God, not your will, my will be done."
For every single one of those moments, Jesus Christ comes and he says, "No, no, no. For that moment, I paid. I paid by saying, "Not my will, Father, but yours be done." Jesus Christ, the perfect servant of God, submits himself not just as a testimony to us and an example to us. That's all good and well, but he does that to save us from our sins. He wasn't forced to do it, he did it willingly. Out of love for us here.
Here just a message for believers and unbelievers alike. I've met many of people who like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll come to God on my time. All right, I'll, I'm going to go to Tarshish for a bit. I'm going to take a ship. I'm going to get on a boat, and I'll come back. I'll do my job." Let me just tell you something. After studying Romans and studying Jonah, do I believe in free will? The closest we get to free will in the book of Jonah is the fish, Free Willy. There is no free will. There's zero free will in this book.
Jonah does not want to preach. "Jonah, you're going to preach." "I'm not going to." "You're going to preach." "God, I want to die." "You're not going to die yet. You're not going to die. You're not going to die." "God, I don't want them to get saved." "They're going to get saved." This guy is stubborn and he was forced by God into submission to bow. His lips were compelled to utter words, which of himself he would've never done. It was all the Lord's doing. God will accomplish His will in your life.
The only question is, will you come willingly and joyfully? Which you should, come on. Or reluctantly and begrudgingly? Christ's death and resurrection is the foundation for the gospel, which is to be preached to the ends of the earth and is the sign of Jonah, which lives on. And the commission that God gave each one of us go and make disciples of all nations.
So friend, if you are not yet a Christian, a child of God, if you're not sure, just know your evil has come up before the Lord, and if your evil is not dealt with on the cross of Jesus Christ, it will be dealt on you for eternity. So we plead with you, receive God's grace, repent, and believe in Jesus Christ. And for those of you who are Christians, let us not forget our marching orders. We are to follow Christ in making disciples. Amen. Let's pray.
Heavenly, Father, we thank you for this wonderful text. We thank you for this wonderful book. We pray that you continue to make us a people full of your compassion, the same compassion you feel for others. Let us feel it as well. In particular, in sharing the gospel, helping people meet you and be ushered in to the kingdom of God. We pray all this in Christ's name. Amen.
