Give Thanks: Salvation is from the Lord! - Jonah 1:17-2:10

Give Thanks: Salvation is from the Lord!

Jonah 1:17-2:10

Introduction: Once again, my careful planning, months in advance, is evident, as the Sunday before Thanksgiving we come to a text focused on giving thanks to God. No… not really. God in His sovereignty must have planned our fifth week in this series on Jonah, the prophet’s Song of Thanksgiving, to come Thanksgiving week! I did not. In fact, initially I thought we’d be finished with Jonah by now, but you knew better! There is a lot to learn in this little book, a lot to learn about God and a lot to learn about ourselves. We see in this book the holiness of God, His wrath against sin, and also His mercy and grace. We see how he is working in Jonah to mold him into a more usable disciple. We also see Jonah as a mirror that will expose our own hearts that are so prone to wander and rebellious. Last week Pastor Al preached about “Kingdom Prayers: Touching Heaven to Change Earth.” It may be that is a major point of the book of Jonah. But Jonah is not there yet.

       We have seen prayer already in the book of Jonah, but not on the lips of the prophet. The pagan sailors first prayed to their lifeless idols in the storm, and then, they, not Jonah, call on Jonah’s God for mercy. The storm ends suddenly when Jonah is cast into the sea – and the sailors recognize the awesome power and presence of God, and respond to Him in worship as the true God. Jonah’s prayer in chapter 2 shows that finally, as Jonah is sinking into the depths, nearing death, he finally looks up and cries out to God…

The Maine* Idea: In every situation in life we can give thanks to God our Savior!

Context: “I was sinking deep in sin…” (cf. 1:17). We left Jonah in the fish’s belly…

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…

       We know from Jonah’s prayer in chapter 2, that as he was going down, tangled in seaweed, almost out of air, that he prayed to God… and God heard his prayer. Though the answer probably wasn’t what he would have expected!  What would you have thought if you prayed to God for help, then turned around and saw a giant fish coming at you? “God, I said ‘Have mercy’ not ‘I’m Sushi!’” God hears the prayers of his people, and He is good and He does good… all the time. True, the answers might not be what we would expect, but we can trust Him, always. In every situation in life, we can give thanks to God our Savior!

      There is some irony in the language here. The Lord “appointed” a great fish to swallow Jonah, and it does exactly as it was supposed to do, later it vomits him onto the land when God tells it to do so. In chapter 4 the same word is used three more times, as God appoints a plant to grow, a worm to kill the plant, and a scorching wind to blow on Jonah. Nature obeys, precisely fulfilling the role that God had for it. Jonah first resisted God’s call to go to Nineveh, and after a storm, nearly drowning, and three days cramped in the fish’s belly, will he reluctantly obey, though we’ll see that still his heart is not in it, at least not in terms of having  compassion for the Ninevites. Jonah had some lessons still to learn about being thankful to God, our Rescuer, trusting and believing Him in every situation in life.

I. Thank the God who saves: Seeing what we’ve been saved from, we’ll be thankful (2:1-7).

Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the belly of the fish,  ² saying, "I called out to the LORD, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice.  ³ For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me; all your waves and your billows passed over me.  ⁴ Then I said, 'I am driven away from your sight; Yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.'  ⁵ The waters closed in over me to take my life; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped about my head  ⁶ at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever; yet you brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God.  ⁷ When my life was fainting away, I remembered the LORD, and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple.

       Jonah’s prayer begins with a general statement, “I called out to the Lord in my distress, and he answered me…” He then addresses God directly, “Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and YOU heard my voice…” The two lines are parallel, affirming that God heard Jonah’s cry for help. I called… He answered… I cried… You heard… God hears and answers the prayers of His people. This is the language we see in Psalms of Thanksgiving, songs where the writer looks back and remembers how God has delivered him and answered his prayers in past times of crisis. It is praising the God who saves. Jonah realized that he had been running from God, and he didn’t have any right to expect God to save him. Like the prodigal son when he returned to the Father, “I have no right to be called your son…” But God is rich in mercy. As he prays, Jonah looks back on his near-death experience, as he was about to drown, and recounts how God heard and answered his prayer.

    Jonah also makes it clear that he is not the “innocent victim of blind justice,” cast into the sea by no-good pagans. On the contrary, he recognizes God’s hand in his circumstances…

³ For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me; all your waves and your billows passed over me.  ⁴ Then I said, 'I am driven away from your sight; Yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.'

       Jonah doesn’t overtly confess his sin as the cause of his circumstances. At least one writer called “repentance” the “missing note” in Jonah’s song. But as He says God is the one who cast Him into the sea, the One who owns the storm, he is implicitly recognizing the judgement, or at least the chastening, of the Father. As his life was nearly slipping away, perhaps in his last seconds of consciousness, he remembered the Lord, and his prayer went up to Him, into His “holy Temple.” (v.7).  As Jonah recognized God’s chastening, He looked up, seemingly with a repentant heart, determined to cry out to God. As I taught this part of Jonah to our Olympian kids, the “sticky thought” we tried to emphasize was, “No matter what, no matter where, talk to God, He is there!” Like the Father in the parable of the Prodigal Son, the Father is always watching and waiting, ready to receive us.  

       Jonah cried out to God in His Temple. Think about the Temple in Jerusalem, which was a tangible representation of the throne of God in heaven. In the holy of holies was the Ark of the Covenant, which contained the tablets of Moses, the Ten Commandments. A gold covered lid, the Mercy Seat, covered the box, with Cherubim on either side. The symbolic presence of God was there, between the Cherubim and above the mercy seat. Once a year, on the Day of Atonement, the High Priest would sprinkle blood on the mercy seat. It is a striking picture: All humans are guilty of breaking the commandments, we would have no hope of approaching the Holy One. But God sent the Son, the Lamb of God, who shed his own blood for us. The writer to the Hebrews tells us that the Son, our great High Priest, entered not the earthly Temple, but heaven itself, and not with the blood of a lamb or a goat, but with His own precious blood. Remember what happened to the Temple veil when Jesus died? It was ripped in two, from the top to the bottom. Because of Him, in the name of Jesus, we have access to the God of Heaven who made the sea and the dry land. And so, “No matter what, no matter where, talk to God, He is there!” His mercies are new every morning – that is truly amazing grace! And so, in every situation in life, we can give thanks to God our Savior!

II. Thank the God who is: A Thankful heart will reject vain idols (2:8).

⁸ Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love.

       The NLT seems to clarify the sense well: “Those who worship false gods turn their backs on all God's mercies.” Idols are vain, empty, powerless, unable to hear or to help in time of need. Jonah is saying that choosing idols, “gods” that we make up in our own mind, means that we are rejecting the ^chesed, the steadfast love, the covenantal faithfulness of the true God, the God who “is.” Yahweh is the God of Heaven who made the sea and the dry land. He is our Creator, mighty and merciful. The Phoenician sailors had been idol worshipers before the storm. The Ninevites had their false Gods. But the Jews? Modern westerners like us? Does this warning even apply? We would never carve an image, call it our God, and worship it… would we? Tim Keller says,

“An idol is whatever you look at and say, in your heart of hearts, ‘If I have that, then I’ll feel my life has meaning, then I’ll know I have value, then I’ll feel significant and secure’” (Counterfeit Gods, xviii).

Your job, your account balance… Whenever we look somewhere else for our ultimate meaning and purpose and fulfillment in life, we are worshiping the creation rather than the Creator. I truly believe that God wants us to enjoy life in His creation. At its best, we get glimpses of the way life should be, the way life will be, in the New Heavens and the New Earth. But they are only glimpses. Like C.S. Lewis said, we live in the Shadow Lands. The future God has in store for us is more and better than we can imagine! The best part, will be that the veil will be removed, sin will be gone, we’ll know God and fellowship with Him without our vision dimmed by our fallen nature. Because that is our sure hope, even as we live in this fallen world, in every situation in life we can give thanks to God our Savior!

III. Thank God with an offering of praise: A Thankful heart is prepared for true worship (2:9a).

⁹ But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay.

      Think of the faith, and the hope, that is expressed in these words! Jonah is speaking from the fish’s belly!  The English translations all translate this as a contrast with the preceding verse. In contrast to those who give regard to worthless idols, Jonah vows to praise and worship the true God. The implication is that he will experience the ^chesed, the steadfast love, the covenantal faithfulness of the true God, the God who is. That concept is at the heart of God’s dealing with humans. He graciously chose a godly line, and made a promise to keep them, and to one day bring a Seed into the world who would crush the serpent’s head, a Rescuer who would deliver a remnant from every tribe and nation.

       The psalms focus on worship, the response of humans to God. Lament psalms show humans crying out to God, voicing their pain and confusion, pleading for deliverance. Hymns are declarations of praise to the God who is, focusing on his nature and his attributes. Thanksgiving psalms are similar in that they are praise, but they describe how God has delivered and saved the psalmist or the nation and offer praise and thanksgiving for His intervention. That seems to be Jonah’s prayer here. He remembers how he cried out to God and how God answered. He was still in the fish’s belly, but somehow, miraculously, he could breath, he was alive. Only God could have done that! Even if the answers to your prayers have not been what you would have expected, can you trust that God is working, that He is present in your life? Can you believe that He is good, and that He will cause every detail to work together for your good and for His glory? That brings us back to the Maine* Idea: In every situation in life we can give thanks to God our Savior!

IV. Thank God through witnessing: A Thankful heart will proclaim the Good News of Salvation by grace alone (2:9b-10).

“…Salvation belongs to the LORD!"  ¹⁰ And the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.

      Jonah makes a profound theological declaration. Some have called it the most concise and profound theological statement in the entire Bible: “Salvation belongs to the Lord…” The language of 2:9b is saying that God alone is the source of salvation. He alone gets the glory. Salvation is not something that we can earn, or merit, or add to or complete. As Paul said in I Corinthians 1:30, “He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus…” Jonah couldn’t save himself. And he had no right to expect anything from God but judgment. Neither do we. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. His sacrificial death provided redemption for all who believe. As Jesus said in the Good Shepherd discourse, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me… I give to them eternal life and they shall never perish…” (John 10:27-28). Jonah’s final declaration in the belly of the fish may well have been part of his prayer of thanksgiving, but he also reflected on that as he later wrote the words down in the document that we have before us. So, he is testifying to his readers that the Lord saves, that He is our Rescuer, He alone is the source of life – and the eternal life for which we were created.

        Notice again in v.10 that God speaks to the fish and it obeys. He told the fish to swallow Jonah and it did. Now, as Jonah voices his thanksgiving and worship to God, affirming Him alone as the source of salvation, God speaks to the fish and it “vomits” Jonah onto dry land. That word appears only twelve (12) times in the Hebrew Bible. In every other case there is a negative implication, an expression of disgust or judgement. In Leviticus 18 the word appears three times in a context warning the people not to follow the abominations of the pagans in the land…

²⁴ "Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean,  ²⁵ and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.  ²⁶ But you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you  ²⁷ (for the people of the land, who were before you, did all of these abominations, so that the land became unclean),  ²⁸ lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you.

That is quite a picture, and quite a warning! We’ll see that God was not finished with Jonah. Though the prophet had realized his sin in running from God, and had vowed to obey the Lord’s call and to worship Him, we’ll see that His heart was not yet right with respect to the Ninevites. He did not long for their conversion, but still hoped for their judgement! As he saw His own need for the grace and mercy of God, he still needed to learn to express that same grace and mercy, even to pagans, like the men on the ship, who it seems Jonah never did pray for. Like the inhabitants of Nineveh, who were about to face the judgment of God. Jonah wasn’t there yet, and the fish “vomits” him onto the land… God knows Jonah’s heart, and he will continue to patiently work on Him. Just as he is working on you and me. We’ll see that God gets the last word in this little book, and if we take it that Jonah was the writer, the implication is that Jonah finally gets it…

What is God saying to me in this passage? The Maine* Idea in this passage, in Jonah’s prayer from the fish’s belly, is that in every situation in life, we can give thanks to God our Savior! As Paul told the Philippians, “…do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:6,7).

What would God have me to do in response to this passage? The pilgrims traveled to this continent in search of a new life, the opportunity to live freely and to worship without being persecuted. God supplied their needs through the kindness of some indigenous people, pagans who were ignorant of the true God. Those early days in a New Land had to be very hard, but they could see God’s hand providing, protecting, rescuing them from certain death.

       Jonah was at the brink of death, and he finally cried out to God, and God was ready. The answer must have been on the way before Jonah even prayed, and it came in the form of a great fish! Don’t get distracted in debates about the fish, or the whale, or the sea monster, that is not the point of the story. This story is not about a great fish, it is about a Great God, a God who is real, not an idea made up by humans. A God who has spoken, who has revealed Himself to us. A God who is holy and just, and who is merciful and gracious. A God who works in history for our good, and for His glory.  He is the Father, waiting for the prodigal to turn homeward, to see His need and to trust that God is the only hope… Have you been there? Maybe you are there now. No matter what, no matter where, talk to God, He is there. He loves you so much that he gave his only Son… Salvation is from the Lord… In every situation in life, give thanks to God our Savior!  AMEN.

Justice, or Mercy? - Jonah 1:10-17

Justice, or Mercy? (or, “God isn’t Finished with me yet!”)

Jonah 1:10-17

Introduction: A mother approached Napoleon seeking a pardon for her son…

 The emperor replied that the young man had committed a certain offense twice and justice demanded death. 

"But I don't ask for justice," the mother explained. "I plead for mercy." 

"But your son does not deserve mercy," Napoleon replied. 

"Sir," the woman cried, "it would not be mercy if he deserved it, and mercy is all I ask for." 

"Well, then," the emperor said, "I will have mercy." And he spared the woman's son. 

       Mercy. We’ll see as we get further into this book that Jonah’s heart was hard toward the pagan Ninevites, he was focused on their evil and wanted only justice for them—in the form of the wrath of God Almighty. In fact, when they later repent and are spared by God, he says that is why he didn’t want to go, he knew that if they turned from their evil God would relent from destroying them (4:2). Ironically, in fleeing from God’s call to go to that pagan city, Jonah gets on a boat full of pagan sailors. As he slept below deck and the storm raged, Jonah was unconcerned about what the crew was facing above him. They jettisoned the cargo, but their lives were at risk as the storm raged around them. But now as these terror-stricken men stand before him, pleading for some explanation of what was happening, and some direction about what to do, Jonah seems to soften at their plight… He knew his rebellion against God had brought the storm, why should they go down with him and the ship? God was working in Jonah, softening his heart, leading him toward repentance—but he wasn’t quite there yet. We’ll see that he was also working in the hearts of the pagan, gentile crew, revealing his power and justice, and He soon would reveal His grace and mercy…

The Maine* Idea: God’s mercy, the only hope for fallen humans, has been extended toward us in Christ…   Let’s back up a verse and remember the…

Context: Jonah’s sin was exposed! And, by the way, so is ours, for “…all have sinned and fall short…” (10). The Lord will bring to light the things hidden in darkness… Everyone, until they believe, is likewise in rebellion against God.

¹⁰ 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. 

       That rhetorical question harkens back to the Garden, and the context of the Fall, as God spoke to the man and the woman of the consequences of their sin. God will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. His justice demands judgement. These men hadn’t had a course on Bible doctrine, but they had enough truth evidenced in this supernatural storm that had come up out of nowhere, and that now threatened to break up their ship—coupled with the simple testimony of Jonah, “I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry ground…” Jonah was running from THAT God, and He was not going to let him get away! What have you done Jonah! They were, literally, in the same boat with him, and they were terrified, they “…feared a great fear…”

       By the way, 800 years later or so, there were some men on a boat with another prophet, a Prophet greater than Jonah. The men woke him from sleep as well. But Jesus stood up in the boat, and with a word calmed the stormy sea – “Peace, be still!” And those men likewise, “…feared a great fear…” They asked, “Who is this man, that even the wind and the waves obey Him?” They knew they were in presence of holiness, of a power that they were struggling to understand. Their teacher was no mere man! These pagan sailors in the storm with Jonah were terrified, because the power of Jonah’s God was evident, and His wrath against Jonah’s rebellion left them all in peril! The points us to…

The Maine* Idea: God’s mercy, the only hope for fallen humans, has been extended toward us in Christ.

I. God’s wrath against sin must be satisfied (11-12). And, “…the wages of sin is death…” (Rom 6:23; Heb 10:30,31). One takeaway from the Book of Jonah has to be the holiness of God, and His wrath against sin.

¹¹ Then 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.  ¹² 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."

       From the perspective of the sailors they could see the awesome power and the wrath of Jonah’s God. Indeed, as the writer to the Hebrews said, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God…” (Heb 10:31). The Egyptians knew it the night of the tenth plague, as God sent judgment and death into every home. Pharaoh’s army experienced it as they pursued the Israelites and the waters of the sea came crashing over them… In fact, the first man and woman experienced it as they were cursed, along with all creation, and were driven from paradise into a fallen world of thorns and thistles. Wasn’t that awfully harsh, for one little bite of fruit? I don’t think we grasp the holiness of God, and how horrible sin is before Him. When God appeared to Moses on Mount Sinai, he expressed his character to Him… in Exodus 34:6-7… 

⁶ The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,  ⁷ keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation."

Even as I read that my eyes and my mind go to the attributes like merciful and gracious, loving and faithful… but it also says He “…will by no means clear the guilty…” His justice, His wrath against sin, must be satisfied. God is love, He is also holy and just. The New Living translation says in Habakkuk 1:13a, “But you are pure and cannot stand the sight of evil.” We can’t focus on God’s love and grace, without also recognizing He is holy and just. He will not simply overlook sin. Remember what he told Adam, “The day you eat of it, you shall surely die…” (Gen 2:17). Paul may be referring to that verse when he said, “The wages of sin is death…” (Rom 6:23a). As God called Jonah to go to Nineveh, He said, “…call out against it, for their evil has come up before me…” (Jonah 1:2). Our sin is like a stench in the nostrils of God, and yet Christ “…bore our sins in his own body on the tree…” That is the horror Christ anticipated in Gethsemane when he said “Father, if it is possible, take this cup from me… yet not my will, but your will be done.”

        Too often, like Jonah, we know what God wants, we know what He has said in His word, and still we choose to turn our back, just for a minute we rationalize, we’ll ask forgiveness later, but still in the moment we choose to do things our own way!  Jonah tried to put space between himself and God, and sometimes, we do the same thing. In Numbers 32 God says that because of unbelief, all the adults that came out of Egypt, 20 years and up, except for Joshua and Caleb, would perish in the wilderness. And the new generation had to be warned to learn from their fathers’ failure, “…you have risen in your fathers’ place, a brood of sinful men, to increase still more the fierce anger of the Lord against Israel!” (Num 32:15). Moses warns them to believe and obey God, to fail to do so is sin, and he says, “…be sure your sin will find you out…” (Num 32:23). You can run, but you can’t hide!  He has appointed a Day in which He will judge the world in righteousness.  God’s mercy, the only hope for fallen humans, has been extended toward us in Christ.

II. We cannot save ourselves by our own effort (13; cf. Titus 3:5).

¹³ 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.   

      There is something in fallen humans that makes us think we’re ok, not that bad, not too far gone. We just need to tighten our belt a little. The sailors were told by Jonah what needed to be done, but they were unwilling at first, maybe if they just rowed a little harder, a little longer. Most people think they can make their way to safety, they think they can be saved, by human effort. Paul told the Ephesians that salvation is “…not the result of works, so that no one may boast…” Standing before the holy creator of the universe, we all deserve judgement. But even from the beginning, in the wake of the sin of the first humans, God extended mercy, and gave hope for redemption, as he promised a Seed who would crush the serpent’s head, and gave the man and the woman skins, as a covering for their nakedness. God’s wrath against sin would be satisfied, in the fullness of time, as the sinless Son would come into the world, and bear our sins in His body on the tree… He was righteous, yet He willingly drank the cup of wrath, the judgment that we deserved, so that we could be saved. Paul put it this way in Titus 3:4-7…

⁴ But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared,  ⁵ he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,  ⁶ whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,  ⁷ so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

That paragraph is a sermon for another day, but for now I want to point out v.5a, “…he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy…” The sailors on the ship with Jonah wanted to know, “What should we do?” It was time to surrender, to take God at His word, the little that they had from Jonah, and to cry out to Him for mercy, because… God’s mercy is the only hope for fallen humans. Thank God, it has been extended toward us in Christ.

III. Coming to God on His terms, we will find mercy (14-16).

¹⁴ Therefore they called out to the Lord, "O Lord, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not on us innocent blood, for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you."  ¹⁵ So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging.  ¹⁶ Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.

    First, notice that the word Lord in the ESV is written with all capital letters, indicating the personal name of the God of the Covenants. They call out to God, Yahweh, the God of history, the God of the covenants, the God who is (14). Notice in these three verses, the name of the Lord is used five times. The men called out to the Lord, they feared the Lord, then, after the storm ceases, they made sacrifices and vows to Him. In short, they believed, and they worshipped Him.  Contrast them with Jonah, the prophet of the Lord. He has testified that He feared the Lord. He has even brought a prophetic word to the men, telling them what to do to avert their imminent destruction. But, as far as we can tell, he hasn’t prayed—and he won’t until chapter 2, from the belly of the fish!

       The prayer of the sailors is personal, and specific. “O Lord, let us not perish for this man’s life…” They don’t want to be judged for taking a life, if God had ordained this as the only way they could be saved! This is different than Pilate, who washed his hands as he condemned Jesus on the insistence of the Jewish leaders. Remember how the leaders responded to Pilate, “His blood be on us and on our children!” (Matthew 27:25). There wasn’t an expression of personal conversion in any of those words! These men see that God was angry with the prodigal prophet, and by Jonah’s word, they knew what they had to do. And first they pray, essentially, “Lord, your will be done!” Ironically, as Jesus went to the cross, God’s will was being done, even as Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, “not my will, but yours.”

       They submit to the prophetic word in fear (15a). The only Word of God they had was the testimony of Jonah, coupled with the evidence of the storm. They had tried everything else, now they see there is nothing else to try.  Either they all die, or this man would have to die so that they could be saved. God had “hurled” the great wind after Jonah, the sailors first “hurled” the cargo into the sea, and now they submit to God’s word, and “hurl” Jonah into the waves.

       They respond to God’s power and grace in worship (15b-16).  Notice that these men did not make vows or promises to God in the midst of the storm. They only prayed for mercy and expressed faith in v.14. In verse 15b, the storm seemingly ceased as soon as Jonah hit the water, disappearing under the waves. Their response is the kind of fear the disciples had when Jesus calmed the stormy sea… in fact, in Mark 4:41, immediately after Jesus rebuked the wind and the waves and there was a great calm, the disciples “feared a great fear,” the identical phrase that describes the sailors when the storm ceased. These sailors had seen how this storm came up so suddenly, inexplicably, out of nowhere, and they saw how quickly it all turned calm when they obeyed the Word of the Lord. They saw the power and the presence of Yahweh, even there on the sea, and they responded to Him in worship. God is holy and just. But those whose eyes and hearts are opened to Him, who come to Him on His terms, find mercy. That’s the Maine* Idea: God’s mercy, the only hope for fallen humans, has been extended toward us in Christ.

IV. The Father, in His mercy, shows love for prodigals (17). We read in v. 17,

¹⁷ 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.

       Next week we’ll look at this verse with Jonah’s prayer in chapter 2, which includes a reflection on what happened in his heart once he went under, sinking deeper into the sea, closer to death. God was working in this story to get His word to the Ninevites. He was working too to get His word to the crew of the ship that carried Jonah. He was also working in the Prodigal Prophet, saving him from certain death, sending a great fish, not to kill him, but to save him. We are reminded that God is sovereign, and will work for our good, and for His glory. God spared Jonah’s life, and gave him time to repent. And despite human rebellion, God would send the Son in the fullness of time, without sin, to give his life for us, and to be raised from the dead three days later! We’ll pick up there next time.

What is God saying to me in this passage? The Maine* Idea illustrated in this part of Jonah’s story is that God’s mercy is the only hope for fallen humans, and it has been extended toward us in Christ.

What would God have me to do in response to this passage? The sailors rowing with all their might, trying to get back to land, illustrate the futility of religion or good works to bring us to God. We were equally without hope before we knew Him.  Paul describes the condition of the Ephesians (and all of fallen humanity) and the basis of their conversion in Ephesians 2:1-5,  

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins  ² in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience-  ³ among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.  ⁴ But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,  ⁵ even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ- by grace you have been saved…

Don’t miss verse 4, “…but God…” God is just and holy, He is also rich in mercy. If you have been “rowing hard for the land,” trying to save yourself, Jonah is your “cease and desist” order. Cry out to God for mercy, trust in Him alone. If you have believed, but have turned away from the Father’s face… know that He loves you too much to let you go… It is no longer a question of justice if you are His child. Because of Jesus, God's wrath has been satisfied, and you are forgiven. But know that He will discipline every son the He receives. He will do what is necessary, to lead you back home. He is still working in you, even if it means sending a storm to get your attention, or a great fish. He isn’t finished with you yet… so come home…  He is waiting.   AMEN.

Nothing is Hidden From God - Jonah 1:7-10

Nothing is Hidden from God (or, “Christians off the Grid?”)

Jonah 1:7-10

Introduction: Last week was a significant anniversary. No, I am not talking about the 502^nd anniversary of the start of the Protestant Reformation! It was the 50^th anniversary of the start of the internet!  I am sure that start was humble. In the early years services like AOL and Compuserve were used by many, dial-up modems the means of getting “connected.” As slow as ours was, when we finally got a computer in the 1980s, you could do about as well with the post office! Times have changed. People today are always “connected” via their electronic devices… Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, people are ready to let you know what they are thinking or doing minute-by-minute. My life is really not that interesting! Or, as they say in New York, “Nobody cares!” What seems to me as revolutionary as the internet, is how connected people are because of their mobile phones. When I was young Maxwell Smart was talking into his shoe phone, and that was fantasy. Our phones were still rotary phones, and yes, with wires! Now today, when cell service is down, that is when life gets tough. Or if there is no power to charge your phone! Occasionally someone will “take a break” from social media. I had a pastor friend who a couple of times, during Lent, went off of Facebook. That’s a choice. Some of you have cancelled your accounts for a time. But what about when you are traveling in a remote area, or spending days “off the grid” with no service, that can seem a little weird, you feel disconnected, right?

        What about your connection with God? Can you hear me now?  In our passage, Jonah was trying to go “off the grid.” His problem was not that he couldn’t get online with God, but rather that he didn’t want to… He wanted to get so far away from God and the mission He was calling him to, that God would need to send someone else to bring His warning to Nineveh. Remember Psalm 139, Where can I hide from his presence? God is omnipresent, and omniscient. Nothing is hidden from Him. That included Jonah and his rebellion, and it includes our sin.

The Maine* Idea: God will expose our hidden sin, causing us to face the truth about ourselves, mercifully calling us to repentance.

The context (6): “Arise… call out to your God…” It seems the only one not praying on that ship, in that storm, was Jonah, the prophet of God! Why? He was closing his heart, his mind, and his ears to the Lord. He had turned away from the Lord. How could he ask God’s help when he willfully turned from the face of God?

⁶ 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." 

       Jonah was running from God. He was not in a praying state of mind. Had he repented and asked passage back to the coast, would the storm have relented? We don’t know. But Jonah was not ready to repent, or to talk to the Lord. Have you gone through times in your spiritual journey when you found prayer increasingly difficult? Were there times when you, consciously or subconsciously, “cut the cord” and went “off the grid” spiritually speaking? Maybe staying away from church? Missing reading the Bible? Avoiding people or situations that might lead to spiritual discussions? I don’t know all the details of your story, but I know this: if you tried it, God didn’t let you go. He pursued you, like what someone called “the hound of heaven,” He would not let you get away. And here you are, by grace!

       I want to notice another detail here. Jonah is silent, withdrawn from the living God. These men are crying out to their impotent idols, desperate for rescue. Notice that captain’s justification for urging Jonah to pray to his God, “Perhaps the god will give a thought to us, that we may not perish.” If you read ahead in Jonah, we see an almost identical statement on the lips of the king of Nineveh… “Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.” The pagan captain and the pagan king are willing to cry out for mercy to the God of Jonah! Still, the prophet is silent. He doesn’t reflect the character of his God, who “…is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” (2 Pet 3:9). He doesn’t show the heart of God who “…so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life…” (John 3:16).  The prophet greater than Jonah came in the fulness of time, speaking the truth, and fulfilling all righteousness. Willingly, He took on Himself the guilt of all who would believe. Jonah thought his sin was hidden. But God will expose our hidden sin, causing us to face the truth about ourselves, while He mercifully calls us to repentance.

I. How do we know what God expects of us? We need revelation. For us that means not casting lots, but the Word illumined by the Spirit (7).

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. 

       Casting lots doesn’t seem like a very spiritual activity! But Jonah, the prophet of God, waylaid by his own sin, was silent before the sailors… It seems he had no response for the captain’s appeal in v.6. So, they did what they knew, maybe “the gods” would reveal to them through lots who was the cause to their perilous situation. It was clear that this was no typical storm at sea. It had come on them so quickly and with such ferocity that they could only think there was a supernatural force behind it. The ship was about to break up, they had to try what they knew.

       “So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah…” Jonah was exposed as the reason for the storm!  Casting lots may seem like a strange way to find truth in a situation like this. The use of “lots” to discern the will of God is not unheard of in the Bible. A couple of examples from Scripture…

Numbers 26:55-56  “…But the land shall be divided by lot. According to the names of the tribes of their fathers they shall inherit.  ⁵⁶ Their inheritance shall be divided according to lot between the larger and the smaller." (cf. Josh 18:6-10).

Joshua 7:14  “In the morning therefore you shall be brought near by your tribes. And the tribe that the LORD takes by lot shall come near by clans. And the clan that the LORD takes shall come near by households. And the household that the LORD takes shall come near man by man.” And so, the sin of Achan was exposed!

Proverbs 16:33 “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.” 

Acts 1:26 “And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.”

What is noteworthy, is that after the pouring out of the Spirit on the believers on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2), there are no more examples in the Bible of lots as a means of seeking God’s will. Why? First, Christ commissioned the Apostles as His authorized representatives and spokesmen in the foundational period of the church. They brought the word of Christ to the early church, and in their teaching, which is preserved in the New Testament, we have the Word of God written. Secondly, the Holy Spirit himself abides in every believer. And so, we are led by the Spirit, guided and empowered by Him, and when necessary convicted by Him. And God has given us a community of which we are a part, brothers and sisters who also are filled with the presence of God. So, we can make decisions based first of all on the objective truth of the Word, guided by the counsel of fellow believers, and checked by the inward prompting of the Spirit. When those things align, we can know that we are on track. No need for lots!

       By the way, it starts with being in the Word. Do you have a regular program for reading the Bible? I like the idea of giving a regular, daily time to Bible reading and prayer. For me that is in the morning. Whatever works for you. Prayer goes with Bible reading like air goes with life. Jonah isn’t praying yet, even though the storm is raging around him. Remember the song, “Oh what peace we often forfeit, oh what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.” Don’t let sin keep you from praying. Let it drive you to Him, knowing that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness… (I Jn 1:9). After all, we can’t hide, if you are a believer know that God will expose your hidden sin, causing you to face the truth about yourself, mercifully calling you to repentance.

II. How do we know the truth about who God is?  (8-9).

⁸ Then they said to him, "Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?"  ⁹ And he said to them, "I am a Hebrew, and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land." 

        The men question Jonah, seeking an explanation (8). They pepper him with a series of questions about his work and his nationality. Part of the motivation was no doubt a search for information about the god of the land from which he came, something that would give them a clue about what to do to save themselves. Jonah never says he is a prophet. The one question he doesn’t answer is their first question, about his occupation. He was taking a sabbatical, he was off-duty, taking a break from his calling. I am not trying to be harsh, but think about this, have you ever decided to “take a break” from church or from involvement in church? I recently had someone say they were listening to their favorite preacher from home and reading the Bible on their own. Those things are fine. But the Bible clearly says that we are not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together (Heb 10:25). God has designed the church as His means of building up His people in the faith. We need each other! God has gifted us and called us to build each other up, to provoke one another to love and good works.

       Jonah answers his questioners in part. It is interesting that he first identifies himself as a “Hebrew.”  He doesn’t call himself a prophet, but at least he admits to being a descendant of Abraham.  Let me answer that last question first… “I am a Hebrew…” Jonah, even in this moment of crisis, puts his race, his ethnicity, before his confession of “faith.” I don’t want to offend anyone by saying this. I am proud to be an American. I recognize the many privileges we have here. But first of all, I am a Christ-follower, by God’s grace, a child of the King! Our defining identity is not race or nationality. If we know God, we are first of all a part of His family.

        Jonah does say “…I fear the Lord [Yahweh]…” He says it, but he has admitted that He was running from the presence of the Lord! You fear the Lord? Really Jonah? Your practice does not reflect that profession! There are moments when that will be true in our lives. When I first came to faith, I was the only believer in my family. My siblings, and my parents, the people I worked with, they were all ready to let me know when my choices didn’t measure up! “Is that how a Christian acts?” I heard that more than a few times! We are His witnesses. The question is, will we be a good witness or a poor one?

       Jonah called God, “…the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land…” That is the God who Jonah should have believed, and feared, as he professed. But he was trying to flee rather than obey! God wouldn’t let him go. Nor will he let you go. He loves you too much. God will expose our hidden sin, causing us to face the truth about ourselves, mercifully calling us to repentance.

III. What can we do about the problem of sin? Our sin will impact our lives, and often to lives of others (10).

¹⁰ 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 claimed to fear the Lord, but his actions seemed to contradict that. These sailors, hearing that Jonah was running from the Creator God, the very God he claimed to fear, were “exceedingly afraid,” literally, they “feared a great fear.” We don’t know how much these sailors knew about the God of the Jews. This was happening early in the period of the divided Kingdom, Israel in the north and Judah in the south. They had certainly heard that these people had some relationship with the God of David and Solomon, and perhaps they even knew the story of God having brought these people out of Egyptian bondage through the Red Sea. They surely knew what they were seeing with their own eyes, Jonah was running away from this God, the God of the Hebrews who made the sea and the dry land, and now this God had brought a tremendous storm out of nowhere, a storm that threatened to break up the ship and drown them all!

      In their fear they ask Jonah, “What is this that you have done?!” (1:10; cf. Gen 3:13; 12:18; 26:10). Does that question sound familiar? It is used elsewhere of a pagan rebuking a follower of God for doing something that put them in danger of offending the God of the Hebrews. For example, Abraham (Abram) in Genesis 12, told a half truth, failing to mention that Sarah was his wife…

¹⁰ Now there was a famine in the land...  ¹¹ When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, "I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance,  ¹² and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, 'This is his wife.' Then they will kill me, but they will let you live.  ¹³ Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake."  ¹⁴ When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful.  ¹⁵ And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house.  ¹⁶ And for her sake he dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels.  ¹⁷ But the LORD afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram's wife.  ¹⁸ So Pharaoh called Abram and said, "What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife?

There is that question again, just as the sailors asked Jonah, so Pharaoh questions Abram, essentially rebuking the man of God. Well, like father like son, because we have almost an exact repeat of that story in the life of Isaac, in Genesis 26:6-10…

⁶ So Isaac settled in Gerar.  ⁷ When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, "She is my sister," for he feared to say, "My wife," thinking, "lest the men of the place should kill me because of Rebekah," because she was attractive in appearance.  ⁸ When he had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out of a window and saw Isaac laughing with Rebekah his wife.  ⁹ So Abimelech called Isaac and said, "Behold, she is your wife. How then could you say, 'She is my sister'?" Isaac said to him, "Because I thought, 'Lest I die because of her.'"  ¹⁰ Abimelech said, "What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us."

You have put us in jeopardy of offending your God! How could you do such a thing? How sad to see such situations when believers, those who know the truth and who have a relationship with the true God, act in such a way that they evoke a rebuke from the world! By the way, in many of these cases, as in the case of Jonah and the Phoenician sailors, not only the mortal life, but the immortal souls of the pagans were at risk. Instead of living a life of witness and testimony to the truth, the man of God was silent about who God is and what He expects of us.

       By the way, that same question comes up earlier in the Bible, in Genesis 3:13, in the midst of confronting Adam and Eve for their disobedience, God asks the woman, “What is this that you have done?” In chapter 4, using almost the same phrase, God asks Cain in Genesis 4:10, “What have you done?” The first sin, in the garden brought death and the curse. The first son committed murder. The question to Jonah echoes these earlier scenes, and reminds us that we live in a fallen world, and that all humans have a sin problem. Whether it is a distorted view of God, or outright rebellion and refusal to acknowledge His rightful rule over us, we need God to rescue us from our sin. One writer said, “…He [God] wants to do for us what He did for the lot-throwing idol worshipers on the ship with God: He wants to break down our idols and teach us to rely solely on the grace of God in Christ…” (Jonah, Eric Redmond).

What is God saying to me in this passage? God will expose our hidden sin, causing us to face the truth about ourselves, mercifully calling us to repentance.

What would God have me to do in response to this passage? On this first Sunday, as we prepare for the Lord’s Table, we can ask ourselves if we, like Jonah, have been trying to hide ourselves, or our sins, from God. He knows. After Jonah’s sin is exposed, he volunteers to be thrown into the sea so the sailors can be saved. But he would offer himself not for their sin, but for his own. 800 years later or so, a greater prophet came, and took our sins, drinking the cup of the holy wrath of God against sin, offering Himself, so that we could drink the cup of blessing. What love! How could we deny Him? Why would we flee from His presence? Still we do, every time we choose to sin. As we prepare for the Table, let’s bow before Him, confessing our sins, and receive the cleansing from unrighteousness that He offers (I Jn 1:9). You don’t have to bear the weight anymore. Trust Him!  Come to Him. He is waiting. Amen.