In Robert Bosley's sermon titled 'The Gracious God and the Disobedient Prophet,' the book of Jonah is explored beyond its traditional perception as a mere children's story. Unlike other minor prophets, Jonah is characterized by its narrative structure and unique cast of characters, including a giant fish and a rebellious prophet. The sermon emphasizes Jonah's disobedience when commanded by God to preach to Nineveh, a city known for its wickedness. Jonah's story highlights God's sovereignty, mercy, and the universal accountability to God's law. Despite the ease of Jonah's initial escape, his descent symbolizes spiritual and physical withdrawal from God. The sermon draws parallels between Jonah's failure and Jesus' faithfulness, urging believers to focus on Christ as the ultimate Savior, underscoring the steadfastness and mercy of God that permeates the book of Jonah. The sermon challenges listeners to reflect on their own obedience to God's commands and the nature of their faith.

Alright, well good afternoon. Please take your copies of the Word of God and open up to the book of Jonah. The book of Jonah. I've been excited and looking forward to going through this book. Some of us, when you saw the email that we're going to begin a study through the book of Jonah, may have had for a moment a brief thought in your mind, well isn't that more of a children's story type thing?

Hopefully not, but There's a good chance that might have flickered through your mind and one of the goals of going through this book is hopefully I'll be able to disabuse you of that notion This is not merely a story for children. It is a marvelous book We will be going through today the first three verses. I wanted to give a little bit of some introductory information before we get to that. Now the book of Jonah is probably the most well-known of the 12 books that we call the minor prophets. Now the minor prophets are not minor because they're any less inspired or less important than the rest of scripture.

They're minor because they're small compared to the major prophets, the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, and Daniel. Now the minor prophets are fairly similar to one another. Basically the minor prophets are collections of oracles or words from God that are pronouncements, often of his judgment on, oftentimes, the covenant community of Israel itself, or their enemies, the Ninevites, the Amorites, the Ammonites, these various groups that are enemies of God's people. However, Jonah is very different. If you read through the Minor Prophets, if you get to that section in the Old Testament in your yearly Bible reading plan, which I'm sure we're all still kept up on, right?

When you get to that section, you'll notice Jonah is very different. There's only one oracle in Jonah, and it's only five words in Hebrew, yet 40 days in Nineveh will be destroyed. That's the only oracle in the book. The other minor Prophets very rarely have large portions of narrative. They're mainly these oracles, these poems of judgment.

But Jonah is one consistent narrative from beginning to end. So it sets itself apart from the rest of the minor profits, and that's probably one reason why it is the most well-known. It's the most like a story, and so it's really for Western minds, it's the easiest to follow. And not only is its narrative structure unique, but the cast of characters, if you will, is very unique as well. Most famously, you have the giant fish.

But you also have a giant plant that grows enough to shade the prophet in one day, and a worm that is able to appear and attack and kill that plant in one day. You have a repentant, gentile king who forces even the animals to repent. You have a ship full of pagans who actually end up fearing the God of Israel more than the prophet himself. And finally you'd have Jonah, a rebellious prophet who quite frankly is the bad guy of the whole story. So it's a very different book and the uniqueness of this story, the uniqueness of this book, the larger-than-life people, the kind of out-there characters and events that are in the story Stand out and start contrast to the rest of the prophetic literature And this is one reason why when you pick up a commentary on the book of Jonah you will probably have at best a 50-50 chance of the commentary suggesting that the story is fictional or mythical or a parable or as one commentary I read put it prophetic hyperbole.

And it's not even just liberals who take this perspective. There are people who believe in divine inspiration. They believe in the inerrancy of scripture and miracles who do not believe in the historicity of the book of Jonah. One commentary I read even suggests that Martin Luther believed it was a parable. It wasn't a literal history.

Now, I don't know. I didn't read anything by Luther on it, but that was one thing that I had read. I'm not going to go into the arguments either way. But I do want to let you know where I'm at and my perspective as we go through this book. The story presents itself, in my opinion, as historical narrative.

The New Testament seems, in my estimation, to present it as historical narrative. This is an event that actually happened in real time and space and history. And so that will be the perspective that I come from in this series. Now traditionally the book has been ascribed to Jonah himself, that he himself wrote it. However, the book is technically anonymous.

Now, when we get to the end of the story, could we see that Jonah repents afterwards and he perhaps writes this sort of a biography as a warning to Israel, hey don't be a knucklehead like me, possibly. Just as easily a later author could have taken the story about Jonah and wrote it down as a warning to Israel, hey don't be a knucklehead like Jonah. There are good arguments either way. I tend toward thinking it was a later author, but I don't believe it makes any significant difference one way or another to how we interpret the book. Now when you ask the average evangelical what comes to mind, or not even necessarily evangelicals, the average American, what comes to mind when you mention the book of Jonah, what will be the first thing, and often the only thing that they can think about, the great fish or the whale in chapter 2.

Sadly, that is the only thing that people know that is contained in this book. But there's so much more to this story than an account of a slightly obscure prophet being swallowed by an enormous fish for some reason. There's so much more. As commentator G. Campbell Morgan put it, men have looked so hard at the great fish, they have failed to see the great God.

And that is what Jonah is about. The book of Jonah is not about the great fish. The book of Jonah is about the greatness of Israel's God. The book of Jonah church is about how great your God is. And so if we come away from this study with our mind focused on the problems or the intricacies of how there could be such an event as a fish swallowing a man, we have completely missed the point.

If that's our main takeaway, we've completely missed it. This book is intended to exalt God and make us amazed at how great our God is. Far from being a quaint kind of weird fantasy book, Jonah is an incredible revelation of the power and mercy of our God. The greatness of God saturates this book from beginning to end. And we see it in his sovereign providence and in the severity of his judgments, but also the quickness and completeness of his mercy and grace, even to the vilest of sinners.

And so there is so much for us to learn in this little book. So if all you've ever gotten is the children's story, veggie tales, truncated version of the book of Jonah, I think you are in for a much greater treat. So with that, let's read and we will read the first three verses, the book of Jonah, verses one through three. Now, The word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it, for their wickedness has come up before me. But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.

He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish, so he paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. So who is Jonah? Now, basically all we know about Jonah is the little bit contained in this book and what we find in the book of 2 Kings. 2 Kings 14, 23-25 gives us just a little bit of background information about Jonah and there we learned that Jonah is a prophet in the northern kingdom remember how after the death of Solomon the the kingdom of Israel split into two. You have the 10 northern tribes and the two southern tribes.

Well, the northern kingdom, the 10 tribes, that's where Jonah is, Samaria or Israel. So he's there during the reign of of Jeroboam, the second Jeroboam, the son of Joash. And this is during the first half of the 8th century BC so somewhere between 800 and 750 BC He's from the town of Gath-hephir in northern Israel, and he was a prophet during the reign of this king, who was a wicked king. And yet, despite his wickedness, God blessed them by allowing this king to recover territory that Israel had lost to the Syrians, not to be confused with the Assyrians, different group. And that's basically all we know about Jonah.

Now, his name is interesting. The word Jonah, Yonah, in Hebrew means dove. And we may think, well, that's nice. That's kind of cute and quaint and everything but that's actually not a compliment. Now we hear a dove and our mind probably runs to well the dove from Noah's Ark and or it's a picture of gentleness or peace well that's not the case in Old Testament Israel.

Doves were not highly regarded creatures. To call someone a dove would basically mean that you considered them stupid and fickle. And we can see that in Hosea chapter 7 verse 11. Ephraim also is like a silly dove without sense. They call to Egypt.

They go to Assyria. And so the prophet here is condemning Israel because they're like a dove. They go one way, they go to south to find friends in Egypt, and then they go to Assyria. They're all over the place. They can't make up their mind and they can't think through what they're supposed to be doing.

And so the name Dov, the name Jonah is kind of foreshadowing for us what kind of a person Jonah would be as presented in this story. In the providence of God, he was named this and it foreshadows his kind of fickle and flighty nature that leads him to literally flee from the presence of God in these verses. So we're gonna look at verses one through three. We're gonna look at it under two headings. First, God's surprising and gracious command.

And it's verse one and two. God's surprising and gracious command. And then secondly, in verse three, Jonah's descending path of disobedience. Jonah's descending path of disobedience. So first, God's surprising and gracious command, verse 1.

Now, the Word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai. So Jonah is this prophet in the northern kingdom and he has proven himself to be a true, genuine prophet of Yahweh. And as we go through this there will be instances where I will use the word Yahweh. If you do not know or you do not remember, when you read in your English translation and you have capital L-O-R-D, the word Lord in all caps, That is a sign to you that the word there in Hebrew is the divine name of God. It is the covenant name Yahweh or Jehovah.

I prefer Yahweh, but there are two ways to render the same word. And so this is important. Jonah is a member of the covenant. He is a true prophet of Israel's God. And the word of Yahweh comes to him again.

He has had at least one true prophecy that we read about in 2 Kings 14. He prophesied that Jeroboam would reclaim that territory, and he did. And so Jonah has proved himself to be a true prophet. Now we don't know how the word of Yahweh came, whether it was a vision, a dream, an audible voice, or just an impression in the soul, somehow the word of the Lord came to him and gave him a very specific command, a very surprising command. Verse 2, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it, for their wickedness has come up before me.

Now the Lord gives Jonah a command, a command made up of basically three imperatives, arise, go, and cry out or call out. So he's to get up, move where he's at, change his location, and preach in and to the Ninevites. Now why Nineveh? Now the text says Nineveh is a great city, but what makes it great? We will see later on the greatness of its size and the greatness of its population.

In those ways, it is a great city. But if we look at history, we can see how Nineveh was a great city. It was one of the chief cities of the Assyrian Empire. And it roughly corresponds to modern-day Mosul in northern Iraq. There's one of the chief cities of the Assyrian Empire and it would later become the capital of the Assyrians, although it is not yet the capital in Jonah's day.

That would be about another 50 years under the reign of Sennacherib. So at this time, the city is powerful. It's growing even more powerful. It's ascending in its political and economic power, even though it's not yet the capital. You can think of it as sort of the Assyrian New York City, a great powerhouse of culture and wealth, but not the seat of government.

What else is important about this city? It's a major city in the Assyrian Empire. Who are the Assyrians? Well, the Assyrians were a nation that was, at this time, growing very rapidly. They were conquering city after city.

They were expanding their territory and these were not kind conquerors. This was a brutal people. They were barbaric. Their use and enjoyment of torture and violence was so well known that when they came to a city or they faced an army in the field, the opposition would often just surrender without a fight. They had no interest in facing the anger of the Assyrians in a battle or after the battle.

They were a brutal, bloodthirsty nation. And this is the nation that will destroy the Northern Kingdom about 30 or 40 years after Jonah is off the scene. So Jonah gets this message that he's to go to this growing, prosperous, politically important city, this bloodthirsty, violent people, and He's to go there and preach against them. Now we aren't told here the content of what he's supposed to say, but we are told why he's supposed to go. It's because of their sins.

Their sins have come up before me, says God. And the Hebrew there indicates it's a, what's called a perfective aspect. It indicates this is something that's happening continually. Their sin is constantly before the face of God, And God has decided to do something about it. And so he's going to send them a prophet.

And we can, I believe, safely conclude that Jonah's proclamation is to be Twofold? One, he is to go and call them out on their sin. He is to go and tell them that God hates their sin, he hates their evil, and he will destroy them if they do not repent. So I believe there is a two-fold message that he's supposed to take to the Ninevites. You are in sin and God will judge you, but if you turn, you will find forgiveness.

Because What would be the point of sending the prophet if God wasn't also offering them forgiveness? The other minor prophets, they prophesied against foreign kingdoms from the safety of Israel's borders. They prophesied judgment. Nahum prophesied judgment against Nineveh just a decade or two after Jonah. He did it safely from within Israel's borders.

Why would Jonah have to go if God wasn't also offering them grace if they would turn. And so that's why I called this a surprising and gracious command. It's surprising because we don't expect a prophet to leave Israel. This doesn't happen in the Old Testament. You have throughout the Psalms all these great praises of God that he will bring in all the nations, but you don't see prophets being sent out.

You don't see prophets going to Egypt or going to Babylon. You don't see prophets going to the pagans and telling them that they can come and join the covenant. But here we do. God is sending Jonah to this Gentile city to call them to repent of their sins and put their faith in the one true God. So it's a surprising command, but it is also a gracious command.

God did not have to send a prophet. God could have wiped out Nineveh without ever telling them it was coming, and God would have been perfectly just to do so. And that is the same for you and me. God would have been perfectly just to wipe you out in your sins, and he would have done you no wrong. You do not deserve the Word of God to come to you.

You do not deserve to have your sin pointed out and be called to repentance. That is a grace from God. And so we see here a surprising and gracious command from God to these Ninevites. And there are some very important things for us to glean from the fact that Jonah is to go to these pagans. Three things in particular.

First, we see here clearly that Yahweh, the God of Israel, is really the God of all nations. He is the God of all nations. The God of Israel is not a tribal deity whose power extended only to the borders of Israel and no further. This is the God who has authority over all people, all places, all nations. He has a special relationship with Israel.

He has revealed himself uniquely to them, but he has the right to claim obedience from every people group, every nation, including the Assyrians. Secondly, we see here that God holds the Assyrians accountable to his law. Jonah is told to go and preach against them and call out their sin. How could he do that if there wasn't a standard by which their sin could be measured? Sin is the transgression of law, of God's law, and Jonah is to go and tell them their sin.

That means they, the Assyrians, were under obligation to obey the law of God. And it is so common today to hear people say that the moral law only applied to Israel. That Gentiles then and even Christians now are under no obligation to obey the Ten Commandments. But that doesn't make any sense. And you come to stories like this.

How could Jonah go and tell them to repent of their sin if they had no law by which to evaluate what sin even was. And so the implication is clear. If God is the God of all the nations, if God is the God of Assyria by right, just as much as he's the God of Israel, then God's law is the law that the Assyrians must obey, and they are being told to repent for their failure to obey it. And thirdly, we see that God desires all nations to be brought to repentance. Now this is not as clear in the Old Testament as we see in the New, But it is clear enough that Jesus, I believe, expected the people to know it in his day.

And the apostles were a little slow, shall we say, to understand that. And he criticized and rebuked them for that. The Psalms, as I mentioned earlier, are filled with songs praising God for his eventual gathering all nations together. And here we see a glimpse of God's desire to bring all nations into the covenant community. This is an Old Testament missionary journey, and we see the man of God being sent to bring, Really, the hope of forgiveness of sins.

He's called to bring the gospel that there is forgiveness if you will turn. We have a missionary journey here and a picture of God's desire to bring all nations in. Now this command to Jonah to go and preach begins with a pair of imperatives, arise, go. This two-part imperative is pretty much the standard way that God calls his prophets and his servants throughout the Old Testament. It's almost a formula.

Just to give you a handful of examples, Genesis 35, 1, then God said to Jacob, arise go up to Bethel. 1st Samuel 23, 4, David inquired of the Lord again and the Lord answered him, arise go down to Kala. 1st King 17, 9, God speaking to Elijah, arise go to Zarephath. Jeremiah 13, 6, after many days the Lord said to me, arise, go to the Euphrates. Now some of these use different words for the second word in Hebrew.

It's not necessarily just go, it's go up or go over or go down. These are different words in Hebrew, but the structure is the same. Arise and go. Arise, get up and move your location. Go and do this thing I'm calling you to do.

Go to this new place and obey my word." And what is the response we see every time? Well, the next verse of each one of those I just read, Genesis 35, 2, and 3. Jacob said to his household, let us arise and go up to Bethel. 1st Samuel 23 5 and David and his men went to Calah. 1st King 17 10 so he Elijah arose and went to Zarephath.

Jeremiah 13 7, then I went to the Euphrates. Do you see the pattern? God says get up and go and the man of God gets up and goes. Now yes, we do have Moses and Jeremiah who protest initially. They're not quite so willing, but they do obey.

And so we see this pattern throughout the Old Testament. God calls a man. The word of Yahweh comes to a man or a servant of God. And he says, get up, go, and do what I'm calling you to do. And every single time they get up, they go, and they do what Yahweh called them to do.

So pretend you're reading this book for the very first time. You've never read Jonah before, but you know the rest of your Bible really well. You know nothing about Nineveh, you know nothing about Jonah, but you know the rest of the Old Testament. And so you know, as soon as you finish verse two, you know that verse three will begin. So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh.

But that isn't what happens. We have someone here who breaks the pattern. And so we see here in verse 3 and a little bit into 5, Jonah's descending path of disobedience. The second point, Jonah's descending path of disobedience. Verse three, Jonah arose to flee, to tarshish from the presence of the Lord.

So you read that sentence and it should shock you. As completely unlike any other prophetic call in all the Old Testament. We should be stunned and appalled by such blatant disregard for the explicit command of God. Now where is Tarshish? Okay, well maybe, I mean Nineveh is 500 miles away.

Maybe Tarshish is a stop on the way. Maybe Jonah's just really bad at directions. No. We don't know exactly where Tarshish was, But the consensus is that Tarshish was probably in Spain. And so looking up at me, you can imagine right here is where Jonah is, northern Israel.

God calls him, go to Nineveh. That's over here, 500 miles, mostly east, a little bit north. Tarshish, way over here. It's not even remotely close. He is going literally 180 degrees the wrong direction.

80 degrees the wrong direction. This is stunning, bold disobedience. What could possibly possess a man to hear the word of God and not only say no but flee the other direction. Now a lot of commentators and preachers theorize that well Jonah perhaps fled because he was afraid. We talked about how bloodthirsty the Assyrians were, how brutal they were, and who wouldn't be afraid of that?

But the text doesn't say that. And initially no reason is given here at all for why Jonah gets up and flees, and I think that's intentional. The author wants us to to think about, well, what would make a man do this? But if you'll permit me to jump ahead a little bit, we can get an idea of what was going through Jonah's mind if we turn to chapter four and look at verses one and two. Jonah four, one and two, But it displeased Jonah exceedingly.

What displeased him? Well, the last verse in chapter 3 says how God relented from the disaster he was going to bring on the Ninevites. It displeased Jonah exceedingly and he became angry. So he prayed to the Lord and said, Ah Lord, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore, for this reason I've fled previously to Tarshish, for I know that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, and abundant in loving-kindness, one who relents from doing harm." So why did Jonah run the other way?

It was because he knew God was merciful. He wasn't afraid of the Assyrians. Jonah wasn't afraid that the Ninevites would kill him. He was afraid God wouldn't kill them. He wanted their sins to catch up to them.

He wanted the wrath of God to fall down upon them. He wanted Israel's main political enemy to be wiped out. He was so caught up, I believe, with the political and military situation of his day that he considered the Assyrians as unworthy of God's grace. His political enemy deserved to go to hell. I think there might be a lesson there for us.

But we'll move on and save that one for a future session. So Jonah goes, he intends to go to Tarshish and goes down to Joppa, he finds this ship heading west and he pays to go with them. And now notice the word that is repeated in verse 3 and again in verse 5 and we will see it again in chapter 2. He went down to Joppa. He found a ship going to Tarshish, so he paid the fare and he went down into it.

He went down into the ship. And then if we look later into verse 5, but Jonah had gone down into the lowest parts of the ship and had fallen fast asleep. And in chapter 2, we will see his downward descent continues even to the base of the mountains and into the grave itself. This imagery of going down, down, down, is to emphasize the fact that he's fleeing the presence of God. That's what he says.

He's going to, he wants to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. And it's repeated at the end to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. In Old Testament imagery, you go up to meet with God, usually on mountains. Eden was a mountain peak and Adam walked with God in the cool of the day. Moses went up the mountain to meet with God.

The Israelites went up Mount Zion to go up into the temple to sacrifice to Yahweh. And so you always go up to meet with God. And Jonah is going down. Not once, but not even twice. Three times in chapter one, and really two more steps even in chapter two.

He goes down further and further. Now what does it mean that he's trying to escape the presence of God? Well, Jonah knows better. It's not as if he thinks God is not omnipresent. It's not like he thinks God isn't in Tarshish.

Jonah knows, Psalm 139, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there your hand will lead me." Jonah knows who his God is. What he means, what he intends by going from the presence of the Lord, is he's trying to put as much physical space between where the Word of the Lord came to him, the special place where God has revealed himself in the community of Israel, in the temple, this special place where God's presence uniquely dwells. But it's also a theological statement about the state of Jonah's soul and his mind. He wants nothing to do now with Israel's God. He is backsliding.

To use a term I don't really care for, but it works. He is so opposed to this command that he wants to get as far away as possible from any influence that Israel's God could have on him. Any special presence, any special influence that would come from being in the covenant community, near the temple, among the people of God. And this is not terribly unique if you think about it. What is the one thing that the Christian who has fallen into sin, what is the one thing they don't want to do?

They don't want to come to church. They don't want to pray. They don't want to read their Bible. They are fleeing the presence of the Lord. The person whose heart is far from God, they want to flee that special presence.

Not that there's anything special about this building, but there's something special about this. The church being brought together, that is special. This is where God makes his presence known in a special way. And this is why those who are in rebellion against God aren't too excited to come. The sinner, I've heard, the sinner can't find God for the same reason the thief can't find a policeman.

That's what we've got going on here. He is fleeing the presence of God. He doesn't want to be around anything that would cause him to think on or turn back to this God that he's trying to disobey. And as Calvin puts it, Jonah is seeking to withdraw himself from the service of God. And notice here that the author doesn't tell us about any problems that Jonah runs into.

Do you see that? Now he doesn't say that it was easy necessarily, but the impression left is that everything happened really quickly with no stumbling blocks, nothing was a hindrance to Jonah whatsoever. He's able to go quickly find a ship going exactly where he wanted to go. They happen to be taking passengers, even though it's a cargo ship, and he's able to get on board. He's even able to find a place to take a nap.

Seems like a pretty good deal. Everything seems to be going Jonah's way. And so we have to understand sometimes the descent into disobedience is a very easy path. It can be a very easy road to walk on because broad is the way that leads to destruction. So what must Jonah have been thinking?

He must be thinking, God must not really be all that concerned about Nineveh. I mean, look, I've got to Joppa safely. He could have sent bandits to stop me. I could have been left here because no ship was going west. But look, this ship is going exactly where I want it to go.

And even more, they're taking passengers? God must be blessing me. How easy would it have been for Jonah to think that he actually has God's approval right now because everything is going his way. Now of course we know looking ahead that this chain of events will soon drastically alter but at this moment Jonah is a runaway prophet seemingly with no response from God. And so what do we learn from these first three verses?

How can we apply these things to ourselves and learn from these? First, you are not Jonah. I am not Jonah. But God has given us commands. The word of Yahweh has come to us.

We have the word of the Lord right here. God speaks to us in his word. And so if you're a Christian here and you want to know what God's command is for you today, read The scriptures. What is the will of God for you, Christian? First Thessalonians 4.3, this is the will of God, your sanctification.

Whatever you, or whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." 1 Corinthians 10 31. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations. Matthew 28 19. These are the commands of God for you Christian, along with many others. The word of God has come to us and we have commands that we are under obligation to obey.

And if you are here and you are not yet a Christian, God's word has come to you. And the command to you this day is repent and believe the gospel. That is the word of Yahweh for you here if you are not a follower of Jesus. The word of God for you this day is turn from your sin and put your faith in Jesus Christ. Secondly, if you are living in disobedience, If you are on that downward descent, repent.

Even if everything seems to be going okay for you right now. Even if your rebellion is not costing you a thing. If everything is going your way, but you know there are commands that you are in rebellion against, repent. Jonah saw no reason to repent by the time we are in verse 3. He sees no problems, but he should have.

He should have repented. And so if there are commands that you know you are disobeying, turn. Turn to the Lord. Repent of that sin. Do not be deceived.

Do not think that you have God's approval just because you do not see his displeasure. Jonah doesn't see God's displeasure yet in verse 3, but he will. God will bring discipline. And if you're a Christian here today, in that descent of disobedience, if you are trying to flee the presence of the Lord in your own way, if you are on your own ship to Tarshish, repent and spare yourself the pain of some discipline because God will not let his children go unpunished. He will bring discipline against the sons and daughters he loves.

Do not let secret sins cause you to slide further and further downward from the presence of the Lord. And lastly, to all of us, as we read this book and see the sin of Jonah, we should be reminded to look to the one who is greater than Jonah. If there is anything that we can learn from the Old Testament, it is that men fail. The Bible is incredibly, shockingly honest about the failures of even the holiest men and women. And our faith cannot be in men.

The best of men are still men at best. Men will fail. Each man is frail and sinful, And they make terrible saviors. Your faith cannot rest on the holiness of others, of other men that you know, influential men, even the elders of our church. As much as we love them and look up to them, they cannot be what your faith rests on.

No Christian celebrity can be the rock upon which you build your faith. We have seen that exemplified recently. Jonah was a genuine prophet of God and he failed spectacularly. And it gets even worse. And reading this should cause us to look for the one who is greater than Jonah, the Lord Jesus Christ, the only one who never fled the commands of God, the one who perfectly obeyed the law of God, the only one who is truly worthy of our faith.

Jonah was a reluctant and disobedient prophet. Jesus is the faithful prophet who fully reveals who God is. Jonah for his own sin was cast out of the ship and suffered and was in the belly of the fish for three days. Jesus, not for his own sins but for the sins of his people, was cast outside the city and suffered outside the gates and was in the belly of the earth for three days. Jonah was spat up on the land and reluctantly preached a message of doom to the pagans.

Jesus in victory walked out of the grave and he now proclaims hope and salvation to anyone who will turn and trust in Him. That one, that greater than Jonah, is the one that we all must look to today. Are you looking to Him and to Him alone? Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for this time.

Thank you that we have your word to be an example to us, even if it's a example of what not to be like. But Lord, we do thank you that you have sent one who is greater than Jonah. You have sent one who faithfully came and taught us, and not only taught, but redeemed. Lord, may we look to him more and more today and every day may you be glorified in our church in our own lives Lord may you keep us back from that downward path of disobedience. And may Christ be glorified in it all.

In His name we pray, Amen.