Jonah 1:11-17

All right, Jonah chapter 1, and we want to look at verses 11 to 17 this morning. Then said they unto him, what shall we do unto thee? That the sea may be calm for us, for the sea wrought and was tempestuous. And he said unto them, take me up, cast me forth into the sea. So shall the sea be calm unto you. for I know that for my sake this great tempest is 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 under the Lord and said, We beseech thee, O Lord, we beseech thee. Let us not perish for this man’s life, and lay not upon us innocent blood. For thou, O Lord, has done as it pleased thee. So they took up Jonah and cast him forth into the sea, and the sea ceased from her raging. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, offered a 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. May God bless to us, his sacred and holy word this morning. In the game of chess, the idea is to corner or to checkmate your opponent. This means that his king comes under attack by one or more of your pieces, and his capture cannot be prevented. He’s trapped. He’s blocked. On all sides. Now, your opponent may have more chess pieces on the board than you do, but it makes no difference. If his king has nowhere to go when he’s under attack, he is defeated. Jonah has decided to play games with God. He was commanded to preach at Ninevehah and has refused to do so. He has run, in the very opposite direction, going down to Joppa, taking a ship across the whole Mediterranean sea, it seems, all the way to the far coast of Spain. And for a time, Jonah seems to have had things as way. But playing games with God is not very practical. Eventually, and inevitably, God is going to corner and checkmate you. Well, Jonah is now trapped by God. God, he’s blocked on all sides. He has nowhere to go. He has no escape. He has been defeated. The storm and the captain and the lot have all been used to expose him, and God has announced checkmate. Now, as we look at this text of Scripture, we see First Jonah’s solution for sparing the ship, here in verses 11 and 12. 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, cast me forth into the sea, so that the sea shall be calm under you, for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you. Why do you think the sailors ask Jonah what to do with him? Right. Who’s going to know Jehovah God better than Jonah? And so now that he’s been discovered, as the source of their trouble, we see that something still has to be done. The storm’s still raging just because he has confessed that he’s the guilty party and what he did didn’t stop the storm. And, you know, they’re thinking the ship’s not going to last much longer. We’ve got to do something here. We’re all going to perish. And so it wasn’t their idea to throw Jonah overboard. It was Jonah’s idea. It was Jonah’s idea. And perceiving that Jonah was. was a prophet of the Lord, knew best, you know, what would appease his God. They consult him. And Jonah here we see has told them about the true God. And the true God has made a deep impression upon them. Not only they fear the Jehovah, but they’re very respectful here of the prophet of the Lord as well. Now why is Joseph? Johneth thinking when he tells the sailors here to cast him into the sea. What do you think that? What his mindset is here? He’s not a new convert. He’s a seasoned prophet. And he’s in a state of where he’s out of fellowship with the Lord. He is in what we call the backslid condition. But he’s not ignorant of the Lord’s ways. And he knows what God exists. Now, we have to, very frankly and freely acknowledge that God is just in all that he does. And he has admitted this. And he takes the blame for endangering the ship and the crew. He says here, I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you. I know I’m the source of the problem. And so he surrenders himself here as a sacrifice that he might spare the ship. Turn the ship around and head toward men of that. But then it will be fine. Well, we’re going to talk about that in a moment. But, yes, do you want to add something? I think he was thinking he was going to die. I think that’s what he thought. And I think this was the means that he thought would solve the issue here. Now, we don’t know if anything was revealed to him by God. I don’t know God revealed to him, this is the solution of the problem, or whether he thought the only way is to get, like you said, you got to get me off the ship because I’m the problem. We don’t know. And so we know, though, he’s sacrificing himself to save others. There are no compromises. There’s no other alternatives. Just submit to death. Cast me into the sea. He knows he offended the most high God. And he knows that God’s anger is waxed hot against him. So he has been facing this terrible experience of being confronted with your sin and an angry God. And clearly, he sees, I deserve to die for what I’ve done. And this is his solution. Throw me overboard. Now, we see here in verses 13 to 15, the sailors learn the true consequences of sin here. Now the sailors valiantly attempt here to save Jonah in verse 13. Nevertheless, the men rode hard to bring it to land that they could not. For the sea wrought and was tempestuous against them. How do these pagan sailors show more compassion on the prophet of God? Okay, but how does that show more compassion than Jonah did? Do you have something you to ask that? Yeah. Isn’t it interesting when you look at this whole situation? Someone said that sometimes non-Christians look better than those who claim to be Christians. Their behavior is better in some cases. Jonah here in his disobedience quite willing for all the inhabitants of none of the parish. But the sailors here are not willing for Jonah to pay. They’re trying everything they can to spare his life. And so in some ways, they’re acting better than Jonah. They had every right to throw him overboard. He told them to. But they’re unwilling to do that. If they can spare him, they’re thinking maybe we can still spare it. The Hebrew literally says here the men digged to bring it, the ship, to land here. The idea was that they were really working at the war. They were attempting to get out of the storm maybe and get the land. They put for this tremendous effort. They’re rowing against the rough waves and the wind. They did everything humanly possible. We have the idea of trying to spare Jonah. But what do you learn here about man’s endeavors in God’s purposes in verse 14? What do we learn here? You can’t, I mean, this phrase that is used here, for thou, O Lord, has done as it pleased thee. The indication is we can’t overcome what you’re doing. They tried. They were working hard, but they couldn’t do it. And here we see how God’s purposes are always going to come to come to pass. No matter how hard man tries to overcome the situation, if God has placed that situation upon them, there’s no escape from it. Now, what do these verses teach about doing what God commands even when it’s contrary to your desires. Because eventually here, in verse 15, they have to take them up and they have to cast him to the sea, even though this is not what they wanted to do. God, through the prophet here, is commanding them to do it, and the prophets told them to do this. They can’t, you know, you’ve got to do what, the only way to do it is what God says. Outside of that, nothing’s going to work, and it’s not going to solve your problems. also you’ve got to trouble in that, though. You’ll notice here that these sailors recognize that God will not relent. They wanted to thwart God’s effort here and save Jonah, but they have to admit God’s going to do what he pleases, and I can’t, he can’t, you know, he’s in the heaven, he does whatever he pleases, basically, as the scripture tells us, and who can stop him? Who can prevent it? Now notice here, they, could not turn the clock back. They couldn’t go to Joppa and drop them back off at Israel. They couldn’t get to Nineveh. So here they are. There is no other option. They can’t get to shore, any shore. It’s too late to solve the problem. Anna, is just a… That’s a good question. I don’t know. That’s a good question. He’s admitted it, but you’re right. He hasn’t repented. Yeah, because it’s, you know, God never put It takes the belly of the whale to get him to repent. Yeah. Yeah, his ass thinking is, I’m not going no matter what, even if I have to die, evidently. They reluctantly cast him overboard, but you can imagine how this moment must have been as they had to, you know, after all their effort, they had to pick him up. And, you know, you can imagine the deck reeling, and they’re picking him up, and they’re slipping him up, and they’re slipping in the rain. and then, you know, they have to throw him overboard. And that moment comes when he goes under the waves, and he disappears. And the fear of Jehovah burns deeply in their souls, but they learn a lesson here. And what is the lesson they learn about sinning against Jehovah? And sitting against Jehovah may mean death as far as, you know, they’re looking at it. This guy’s going to die if we throw him over them. And so they cast him into the sea. If we were going to be able to see. going to maybe draw a conclusion from this. What does this passage teach about the executional justice in our society? Can we draw any conclusions from this? Is there a situation and where the wicked in society, if they’re not given capital punishment, how does that reflect upon the nation, that these people would continue to live and maybe even continue to do what they’re doing? What happens? Yeah. Execution of the guilty is warranted by God’s word, and especially those who have taken other people’s lives on things of this nature. And so it’s necessary at times. Even though these people did it reluctantly, they’re thinking, you know, don’t hold his blood against us because we’re throwing him into the water here. They’re fearful of Jehovah here. and they think they’re shedding innocent blood. They’re thinking that this guy’s going to die. But it was necessary to preserve the ship. And sometimes when you look at society, we have to realize there’s times when it’s necessary to eliminate, execute those who are causing difficulties in society. The third thing, any other thoughts on that? Okay. The third thing. We see God’s grace to Jonah and the sailors in verses 16 and 17. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly and offered a sacrifice under 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. God saves the sailors through Jonah’s witness. What do you make here of this phrase, the men feared the Lord exceedingly. Interesting. There’s three times they’re said to be fearful. They’re fearful with regard to the storm. They’re fearful when they hear Jonah telling them why the storm has come upon them. And now they’re exceedingly fearful of the Lord. What can we learn from this? what does that indicate to us? I wonder, you know, they’re seeing that the one responsible for… They, when you see the storm ceases, when they saw this had happened here, you know, it made a dramatic effect upon them. And all of a sudden, as soon as they cast Jonah overboard, the storm stops. Next thing we know the sun’s coming out. Next thing you know, the sea becomes calm. It was such a dramatic thing. It reminds us, of course, in the New Testament of Jesus when he calmed the sea, the raging sea that was threatening the ship and the disciples were, you know, wow. You know, this guy is something special here. I mean, it really showed them the deity of Christ and his power. And it took them back to see that. And it took these sailors back when they see the dramatic effect, this is the God of heaven and earth that. was telling us about. It had an effect upon them. And what may we learn from this verse about temporal losses with regard to the ship’s goods and spiritual advantages? Can we learn anything from text on this? They had to throw all the stuff overboard that was on the ship. But ultimately, what came out of that? Ultimately, the loss of the goods was nothing. Ultimately, the loss of the goods was nothing. compared to the salvation of their souls, right? The benefit that came out of all this storm was, it seems to me, that they, when it says here that they feared the Lord, we can take this in the sense of they worshipped him because of what we see. In the following verse here, where they made a sacrifice under the offered a sacrifice unto the Lord. They took vows. regarding the Lord. They were no longer ignorant of the true God. I mean, they were praying to all these other gods beforehand, but well, their change took place here. And they were very impressed by the true God. It made a real impression. God used this occasion, it seems, to convert them. Now, I think it’s important that the seed that they made the vow after they were delivered. Now, why? Why would that be important? Why would that show some impression upon them that was lasting? Trouble. They make all kinds of vows beforehand, right? Well, they’re in the foxhole, and the enemies coming and the bolts are flying. They’re making all kinds of vows. But then afterwards they forget about their vows. They go back to their normal, sinful way of life. But these people, after they’ve been delivered, they make the vows. And that seems to me that indicates, a real change here that has taken place in their lives. And so I do believe that there was a conversion. It seems like the whole tax here indicates some type of conversion that they actually believed in the true and living God here and were converted. Now, we’re going to look at this later, and I’m not going to get into it this morning, but we should realize that this whole event with Jonah, is going to picture forth the work of Christ, that one will die to save the rest. And so even, you know, we’ll say that for another study, but what I want you to see here, that this is what it’s leading up to. This whole storyline is about Christ ultimately and his work. And so we’ll come back to that when we read some of the New Testament passages. But keep that in mind, that they’re learning something. about Christ here in this whole event. And if we don’t see Christ in it, we’re missing the main thrust of the story, ultimately. Now, we’ll come back to that. The servant of Jehovah has to die for the sake of others being saved. And we’ll talk about the belly of the whale in three days and three nights and what that represents as well. But all these things are for our learning. It takes us beyond a little story here to the great theme of Scripture about the Savior. The fact that God has brought about this whole situation where even in sin of Jonah, something good comes out of it, the salvation of these other men here, this teaches us here, that God’s purpose does include sin. It has to. And even though God’s purpose here is for good, he brings good out of this sin, men do things for the wrong purposes, of course, but God in his providence and his decrees ultimately from the beginning have purposed a good thing to come out of it. And that’s what we see. Now we also see here that God spares Jonah’s life. Jonah’s life. Jonah, when he’s, he’s cast into the sea. I think he expects to die, and I think the sailors thinking that we’re shedding innocent blood, they expected him to die. But he makes a very startling discovery as he goes under the waves. He gets swallowed up by a great fish, and here he’s not alive, or not dead, he’s in the belly of the fish, and he’s alive in the belly of the fish. He is cradled by God’s everlasting arms, and he’s protected, even though he’s in a belly of a huge fish. Well, God’s wrath is raging on the sea. the surface here and leads to this situation. We find here that God prepared for Jonah’s deliverance. It’s interesting, he says he prepared a great fish. Now think about this a minute. This indicates to us that none of this happens haphazardly. God has a purpose. We’ll look at that more detail. tell later. We haven’t seen the last of Jonah yet. We see that God’s love has not turned cold, but we do see mercy here connected with his judgment. In wrath, God remembers mercy. The scripture indicates to us. God does not destroy his guilty people here in this case Jonah, yet he doesn’t immediately deliver them from afflictions. What does that teach you here? Jonah’s spared. His life is spared, but he’s still in big trouble. He’s still working with Jonah at this stage. And it’s important that we see that if we look at this situation. Now let me mention a couple of things here as we close with some practical thoughts here. do you acknowledge the justice of God in his dealings with you? Because Jonah here has been forced, really, to admit the justice of God. You have to recognize the justice of God’s dealings with you, verses 11 and 12. You have to admit that the penalty that he has brought upon you because of your sin has to be submitted to, verses 13 to 15. And then, only then can you hope to receive God’s grace and mercy in verses 15 to 17. So you have to take the blame for your sin. A lot of people find that hard to do to condemn themselves and acknowledge that God is just. Sometimes we’re thinking, well, I’ve suffered enough already, or God’s being too hard on me or something of this nature, I deserve better treatment when we ought to be confessing that we’ve been, you know, we have had less blows than we really deserve, as the scripture indicates to us. Secondly, you must accept without reservation the consequences of your actions. Jonas says here, cast me forth into the sea, I deserve to die. Clearly, God’s purpose was to demonstrate to Jonah that the wages of sin is death. I think betrays a lack of understanding of the character of God and his grace. If we think somehow or other we can argue with God or some kind of make a deal with God here, he doesn’t make any deals here. He just says, you know what, I deserve to die, just cast me in. And I think we should recognize there were points at which we have to, confess that whatever God brings is just and submit to it. Notice here that you can go so far in your sin that no one can rescue you. Jonah has gone so far in his rebellion against the Lord. At this point, there’s no way to reverse course. We can’t get back to shore. We can’t go to Nineveh. His companions did their best to help him. God wouldn’t allow it. There are times we should keep this in mind. You can sin. You can walk contrary to God’s truth and Christian friends may be praying for you and may attempt to extract you from the situation in which you find yourselves. God may hear their prayers. He may spare you. Through their intercession and counseling and rebukes and loving efforts, maybe you can be brought to repentance. And may get out of the net. But there are times where we cannot escape and God’s going to put us through a period of time of affliction that we may learn our lesson or we may be brought to repentance and as this case seems to indicate. if you read Amos chapter 7 and I don’t have the time to look at it this morning but our first nine verses there the prophet sees a couple of these different visions and he’s interceding with God attempting to spare his nation from destruction. And the first is this vision of the grasshoppers that come along and just defyre the land and he prays to the Lord and asked the Lord that he would spare the nation and in these this judgment God says okay I will relent I won’t send that and then he sees another situation where God sends a fire and burns up the situation here. burns the land up. both of these times he praised the Lord and he gets a stay of execution and God says, okay, I’ll spare the nation. Now these seem to refer to Assyrian invasions in which they didn’t completely destroy the nation at that point. and then the third vision he has is of a plumb line where God is measuring Israel out, seeing how if they’re out of kilter or not, and this time there’s no way to spare the nation. It’s their past the point of where the prophets’ intercession is going to help them. and this is it. I’m not going to relent this time. and so they’re a crooked wall. they’re a crooked wall. had to be torn down. and that’s what God conveys to them. so you can have many Christian friends and they may work at the ores of their prayer life to try to spare you. But there’s a point in which every man has to bear his own burden and you have to answer to your own master. Sometimes God doesn’t allow you to back up. Sometimes God doesn’t allow you to reverse course. Sometimes you can’t get disentangled immediately from your problem. You may have to bear the consequences of your sin. And there are earthly penalties that we have to bear. You like Jonah have to bear them. The third thought is this. You can only find peace when your Jonas are cast out. I remind you that God is a holy God. And when he brings afflictions under our life and the storms are raging, there’s really no solution to the problem except to deal with the sin in your life and repent of it. Turn from. You can try as hard as you. like to cling to your Jonas and think that somehow maybe we can escape, God’s not going to let that happen until he brings us to repentance regarding our sin. So there’s a point in which, you know, God brings rough seas into our life and he’s saying, you know, you’ve got to get rid of the Jonas in your life. Until they’ve got rid of, well, it’s going to be rough going. and so here are the things that I suggest. Any other thoughts or comments on this section of scripture? Maybe there’s something you thought of that I haven’t brought out. All right, let us do.