The sermon 'Tokens of Mercy' by Jason Dohm examines the first chapter of the book of Jonah, highlighting the theme of God's mercy amid human rebellion and disobedience. Jonah, a prophet, is called by God to go to Nineveh and warn the city of impending judgment due to its wickedness. However, Jonah attempts to flee to Tarshish, resulting in a divine storm that threatens the ship he is on. The sailors, initially pagan, react by crying out to their gods and eventually to Jonah's God, Jehovah, after casting lots and realizing Jonah is the cause of the storm. Jonah confesses his disobedience and suggests being thrown overboard to calm the sea. The sailors, reluctant but desperate, comply, and the sea calms, leading them to fear the Lord and make vows to Him. God, demonstrating mercy, prepares a great fish to save Jonah from drowning, emphasizing His unrelenting desire to extend mercy and teach about His nature. The sermon underscores God's central role in the narrative, urging listeners not to focus solely on Jonah's actions but on the divine lessons intended through this historical account.

Our sermon text is the prequel to our memory text. The backstory if you will. Jonah chapter 1, please follow along. 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. But the Lord sent out a great wind on the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship was about to be broken up. Then the mariners were afraid, and every man cried out to his God and threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten the load. But Jonah had gone down into the lowest parts of the ship, had lain down, and was fast asleep. So the captain came to him and said to him, What do you mean, sleeper?

Arise! Call on your God! Perhaps your God will consider us, so that we may not perish." And they said to one another, Come, let us cast lots, so we may know for whose cause this trouble has come upon us. So they cast lots, And the lot fell on Jonah. Then they said to him, Please tell us, for whose cause is this trouble upon us?

What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you? So he said to them, I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.

Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, Why have you done this? For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord because he had told them. Then they said to him, What shall we do to you that the sea may be calm for us? For the sea was growing more tempestuous. And he said to them, Pick me up and throw me into the sea.

Then the sea will become calm for you, for I know that this great tempest is because of me." Nevertheless, the men rode hard to return to land, but they could not, for the sea continued to grow more tempestuous against them. Therefore, they cried out to the Lord and said, We pray, O Lord, please do not let us perish for this man's life and do not charge us with innocent blood, for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you. So they picked up Jonah and threw him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly and offered a sacrifice to the Lord and took vows. Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

Let's pray. Oh, Father, this is an exciting story, but it's so much more than that. There are applications for us today. May we understand your holiness, your righteousness, your desires, your mercy toward us, and our inherent rebellion and stiff-neckedness. We ask you now to bless the words of Jason as he brings the message from you to us.

May there be attentive hearts and open ears in Jesus name. Amen. The title of the sermon this morning is Tokens of Mercy. There's a lot of judgment in the text, but I think you actually find that there's many instances of mercy in the text as well. I hope to develop that as we proceed through the text.

We're starting the book of Jonah today. It's four chapters. We're going to take four weeks. So it really will be, I think it will seem like a sprint through it. Forty-eight verses.

There are many chapters in the Bible that have as many verses as that. So There's a lot packed into a small amount of space. What this represents is us easing into prophetic books. I don't think we've ever preached through a prophetic book, and I don't feel equal to the task, so we tried to pick off an easy one. Jonah is probably the easiest.

I'm going to give you all the prophetic words. Are you ready? Yet forty days and none of us shall be overthrown. Chapter 3 verse 4. That's it.

That's all the prophetic words in the whole book. The rest of it is a history that teaches us. It's very fast paced. It's very entertaining. But the objective of the author is very clearly not entertainment.

As Gary just said, it's teaching. One of the commentators that I read calls it didactic narrative. Didactic narrative. Didactic just means teaching. Narrative just means a history.

So it's a history, The purpose of the recounting of which is to teach you. It really did happen. So it's not fiction, but the purpose of telling you this history is to teach you certain things. And it's really certain things about God. Jonah isn't the central character of Jonah.

God is the central character of Jonah. I think that comes through very clearly. You get sort of a warped view if you make Jonah the central character. So please don't do that. Let God be the central character of Jonah.

And let God revealing himself to us be the purpose of the book of Jonah and not any sort of moralistic teaching about what Jonah does or doesn't do at various points in the book. There are things to learn from what he does and doesn't do, but the grand purpose is for God to reveal himself through this historical account. Through this historical account. So as we come to chapter one, let's pray. God, I'm so thankful for the histories of Scripture which teach us what you are like and how you faithfully intervened throughout the centuries to not leave mankind to ourselves but to extend your mercy to us.

You have not left us alone to just perish, to destroy ourselves, but you are a God of compassion. You reveal yourself so clearly to be a God of compassion in the book of Jonah. Oh, let this be pressed upon our hearts. Let it be sweet to us as we see you extending mercy to sinners. Pray in Jesus' name, amen.

I'd like to begin by giving you some background of the book and then we'll work our way through the chapter. Jonah only appears one place in the Bible outside the book of Jonah And that's 2 Kings 14. So please turn there to 2 Kings 14. He's only mentioned in one verse. But that one verse presses on us the fact that this is real history.

Some interpreters through the centuries have said that this is a parable or this is an allegory. 2 Kings 14 tells us that this was a real person with a real hometown who really prophesied and this is a historical account. One of the phrases I'm trying to purge from usage is Bible story. I know what's meant by Bible story. I've used that phrase a thousand times, but I don't want to use it anymore times.

And the reason is this. It makes it sound like fiction. I don't believe we believe Jonah is fiction. I think we believe it's actually history. It's not story time.

It is a history that God gives us visibility to so that we learn about Him and how He's intervened in history. So This is the history of Jonah. Part of it is in 2 Kings 14. Follow along as I read verses 23-27. 2 Kings 14, 23-27.

In the fifteenth year of Amaziah the son of Joash, king of Judah. Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel became king in Samaria and reigned 41 years. So there's a northern kingdom, 10 tribes called Israel. There's a southern kingdom of two tribes called Judah. And as first kings and second kings progress, it tells you who's the king of one of those two kingdoms when another king becomes king in the other kingdom.

So you have a sense of who's reigning in which kingdom during a period of time. That's what that is. So we've just been introduced to the new king of the northern kingdom, the ten tribes, Israel, and it is Jeroboam. It's actually Jeroboam the second. Verse 24.

And he did evil in the sight of the LORD. He did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who had made Israel sin. He restored the territory of Israel from the entrance of Hamath to the Sea of Ereba, according to the word of the Lord God of Israel, which he had spoken through his servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet who was from Gath-Hefer. For the Lord saw that the affliction of Israel was very bitter, and whether bond or free there was no helper for Israel. And the Lord did not say that He would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, that he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam, the son of Joash.

So what do we have here? Well, we have the introduction of a new king of the northern kingdom, the ten tribes, Israel, and it is Jeroboam, and he is the second king named Jeroboam. The first king named Jeroboam is also referenced and if you are familiar with second kings, you see that often, often, often the new king of the northern kingdom will be introduced and if he is evil it says that he followed in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, this is Jeroboam 1, who was the first king of the northern tribes when the kingdom split between Judah and Israel and he instituted the idolatry that many many of the succeeding kings of Israel followed along in. So it calls out his sin as the one who originated this idolatry in the Northern Kingdom. So, Jeroboam II is introduced to us and if I had to summarize from this text the reign and life of his.

I would say the summary would be he's an evil king with a long reign. He followed in the sins of his namesake, Jeroboam the first. He continued in that idolatry. He led Israel into that idolatry and he had a 41 year reign. So a tremendously long reign.

From 793 to 753 BC. I know it doesn't stand before Christ, but that's a useful acronym. 793 to 753 BC. So There's about 120 years between Jeroboam I, who starts idolatry in the Northern Kingdom, and Jeroboam II, and there's 12 kings between them. That gives you some sense of the timeline.

What we learn here in this text is that God didn't treat the nation according to what their sins deserved. They've persisted in idolatry for a long time. And yet, when God raises up a prophet during the reign, the long reign of Jeroboam II, he doesn't say what you would expect him to say, which is, I'm bringing judgment on you. What does that prophet say? That prophet says, I'm actually going to restore territory that has been lost to the Syrians in the past.

I'm going to give that land back to Israel. So, God didn't treat the nation according to what their sins deserved or according to what the sins of their king, their evil king, Jeroboam the second, deserved. God actually gave them a period of relative peace and victory. Not comprehensive peace and victory, but relative peace and victory. God raised up a prophet to promise the restoration of territory, getting back from Syria what had been lost to them in previous wars and then he fulfilled it.

Look again at verse 25. He restored the territory of Israel from the entrance of Hamath to the sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the Lord God of Israel which he had spoken through his servant Jonah the son of Amittai." So right at the beginning of our text Our prophet is going to be introduced as Jonah, the son of Amittai. This is our prophet. The prophet who was from Gath-Hefer. Gath-Hefer was on the border of Naphtali in terms of tribe.

And it is about three miles north of Nazareth. So Jonah grew up essentially in the same location that Jesus would grow up 750 years later, right there in Galilee. Who wrote the book of Jonah? The book of Jonah doesn't say, the text doesn't say. But the book is completely dependent on autobiographical information.

In other words, no one could know what the author knows unless it was either Jonah himself or had heard it, had a source from Jonah himself. When was it written? It has to have been written between the mid 700s BC when this occurs, during the reign of Jeroboam II, and the mid 200s BC. There's really nothing in the book that locates exactly when it was written. By the mid-200s BC, all the minor prophets are being circulated in one scroll called the Book of the Twelve.

There are twelve minor prophets. And they were brought together in one scroll and were being circulated that way by the mid-200s. So it has to be somewhere in that time frame. We don't know more than that. Now to the book of Jonah.

I'll be re-reading sections and then talking about them. So follow along as I re-read Jonah 1 verses 1-3. Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, named Just like we just saw in 2 Kings 14, 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. In these three verses we have the word of the Lord and Jonah's response. So if you're taking notes on the handout and filling in the blanks, response fills in the blank. The word of the Lord and Jonah's response. Now the word of the Lord came to such and such a prophet is a phrase that occurs more than a hundred times in the Old Testament.

So it's used over and over and over and over and over again to introduce God raising up a prophet and then speaking through him. Arise, go are two Hebrew words used together to express urgency. So there is an expectation of immediate obedience here. Arise, stand up, and go to Nineveh to declare the words that I am putting into your mouth. What has God told Jonah that he must do.

He must cry out against Nineveh for their wickedness. God is sending the prophet to a wicked people to pronounce judgment and condemnation. To go tell them what they don't want to hear, but what they need to hear. That their sins, their wickedness, is known to God, and that He is pronouncing condemnation against them and bringing judgment upon them. This is language very similar to what we see in Genesis chapter 18 verse 20 when God says to Abraham, the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave.

The wickedness cried out to God. The oppressed from the wickedness cried out to God. God heard their cry. God had seen that their sin was very grave. And of course with Sodom and Gomorrah you know how that ends, with fire coming from heaven and consuming these two cities.

So sin has been happening in Nineveh but it hasn't been happening unnoticed. God has seen it all. Sometimes sin happens for a long period of time and it seems like God must not have even noticed. That is never true. It wasn't true with Sodom and Gomorrah.

It wasn't true in Nineveh. Sin happening for a long period of time but no judgment, no condemnation. Where is God? God is watching. He is seeing.

And He is acting in just the right time with perfect wisdom. Sin has been happening in Nineveh but it hasn't been happening unnoticed. God has seen every sin. Now what and where is Nineveh? Nineveh is a capital of Assyria.

I say a capital and not the capital because during periods of time the Assyrian nation and empire had different capitals. But Nineveh is a capital of Assyria. Where is Assyria? Well you have Israel, the northern kingdom, the ten tribes, then north of it you have Syria, Damascus being the capital of Syria, and then north of Syria you have Assyria with Nineveh as one of its capitals. It's about 500 miles away from Galilee, from where Jonah was from.

It is described in verse 2 as that great city. Chapter 3 verse 3 says that it is a three day journey in extent, Meaning if you walked from one edge of it to the other edge, it would take you about three days to do so. Chapter 4 verse 11 says that there are 120, 000 inhabitants. It's possible that it was the greatest city in the world at the time that the circumstances related in Jonah are written. It's at least one of the great cities on earth at this time.

120, 000 three days journey across. When I started reading the commentators, I confess I didn't really understand what God was calling Jonah to do. I'm picturing maybe being in modern day equivalency, maybe a prophet being called to New York City. Go to Times Square. Stand in Times Square, right in the middle of the city where the throngs of people always are and cry out against New York City, yet forty days and New York City will be destroyed.

And then see what happens. Or maybe, if you want to get more extreme, go to Portland at night. And go down where the riots are happening every night and say, yet 40 days and you rioters will be destroyed and then see what happens. If you do that in Times Square, you're definitely going to get cussed. You're definitely going to get cursed out.

You'd probably get assaulted sooner or later if you did it long enough. If you went and you brought that message of judgment and condemnation to the people who don't want to hear it in Portland. You'd be taking your life into your hands. You might be beat with an inch of your life. So that's what I'm envisioning.

But As I read about the Assyrians and how utterly brutal they were, my view of what Jonah has been called to, I changed. I can't say from the pulpit what I read in the commentators. I can say this. They were known to tear out the tongues of living captives. Alive people.

Tear out the tongue. They were known to burn children alive when they won a battle and they had captives. That's just from the things that I think I can say from the pulpit. So the modern equivalent wouldn't be go prophesy in Times Square or even go prophesy among the rioting and looting that's happening nightly in Portland. It would be much more like go to the capital of the ISIS caliphate.

This is recent history. Terrorists carving out a out their own territory and saying this is now a country. They were beheading people and they were murdering people and now God calls you to go to the capital of the ISIS caliphate and say that God is displeased with them, that He has seen their wickedness, and that in 40 days he's bringing judgment. By the way, As we liberated the people who were part of this caliphate and defeated this caliphate, the last battle was Mosul. It's in northern Iraq and that's where Nineveh is, ironically.

Nineveh is in Northern Iraq, the ruins of Nineveh are right outside Mosul. So humanly speaking, if you were called to go bring that message to those brutal people in the capital of the Isis Caliphate, you would almost certainly, it would be a death sentence and a gruesome death at that. They would probably decapitate you. Verse 3, but, the word of the Lord came to Jonah, but, God gave Jonah an urgent instruction with an expectation of immediate obedience, but Jonah went in exactly the opposite direction. He went west to the Mediterranean seaport of Joppa and paid the fare to go to Tarshish.

We're not 100% certain exactly where Tarshish is, but there's a pretty strong consensus that it's probably on the southern coast of Spain, which is exactly in the opposite direction and as far away as possible in the Mediterranean world, which would have been the known world to these people. So he's going to the outer reaches. In our modern language we would say to the ends of the earth. Jonah is going to the ends of the earth. He went in the exact opposite direction in direct disobedience to God.

I will not go to those people and bring this message. Did Jonah, the prophet of God, actually think that he could escape the presence of the Lord? By the way, that phrase is used repeatedly. It's used three times in this chapter. From the presence of the Lord.

The text doesn't say whether he really thought he could escape God or not. All you know is this. He was going to try. If he could, he would. And he was not going to be involved in any sort of a rescue mission for a people as brutal as the Assyrians.

Back to Jonah, verses 4-9. Follow along as I reread 4-9. But the Lord sent out a great wind on the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship was about to be broken up. Then the mariners were afraid, and every man cried out to his God, and threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten the load. But Jonah had gone down into the lowest parts of the ship, had laid down, and was fast asleep.

So the captain came to him and said, What do you mean, sleeper? Arise, Call on your God. Perhaps your God will consider us so that we may not perish. And they said to one another, Come, let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this trouble has come upon us. So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah.

Then they said to him, Please tell us for whose cause is this trouble upon us? What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?

So 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." In this section, the great wind of the Lord, we have the great wind of the Lord and the shipmates response. The first section was the word of the Lord. Now this is the great wind of the Lord. God sends a great wind. I'm putting these things, even writing them in the notes to drive home the point that men are reacting to God and not the other way around.

God initiated this by raising up Jonah as a prophet and then sending the word of the Lord to him. God is the one sending the great wind and the sailors and Jonah are reacting to what God is doing. Jonah hasn't paid the fare for a three hour tour. He's paid the fare to go to the far end of the Mediterranean. This is not a voyage you would man with inexperienced sailors.

This is across the ocean. This would be a voyage you would man with seasoned mariners and sailors and they actually see what's happening. The text says the ship is about to break apart and they understand what is happening. They're throwing cargo into the sea to take pressure off the ship by lightening the ship and they are crying out to their gods because they know they're right on the edge. The world of local and national gods is on display here.

Look at verse 5, every man cried out to his god, I'm from this place, this is my God, you're from that place, that's your God. Let's all cry out to our gods to see if any of them will listen and deliver us. It's clearly a time of desperation. The whole purpose of the voyage is probably to take cargo. It's almost certainly not a passenger ship.

They have taken on a passenger. But this is undoubtedly about the cargo which they are now throwing into the ocean because it's better to lose your cargo than to lose your life. Where's Jonah? He's below decks sleeping. How can that be?

That's just what the captain can't understand. What do you mean sleeper? How can you sleep at a time like this? I confess I don't know how to explain it, but I do know this. I've been in the faith for approaching 40 years and I know this.

It is exhausting to run from God. So that's speculative. There's nothing in the text that says that. But I know from experience in the faith that There have been times where I knew what God wanted me to do, I was fully committed to do the exact opposite of that, and I found it exhausting. It was on my mind all the time.

It was draining. It's emotionally costly. It is emotionally costly to know what God requires of you and to be committed to doing the exact opposite. Maybe that's why The captain tells Jonah to join the others by calling on his God. So you have a prophet on board, but he's sleeping, and the pagans are praying, and the pagans are calling the prophet to arise and call on his God.

It's really strange and ironic things are happening here in chapter one. It's clear to the crew members and to the captain that any God will do, any God who will hear us, any God who will deliver us, the God of where you're from, or The God of where you're from, or the God of where you're from, or Jonah wake up and call on your God, the God of where you're from. We're not picky, we want to live. What happens next reads to me like pure superstition. Let's cast lots, somebody's to blame.

So a lot of storms happen on the sea. Can all of them be pegged to a specific person, specific sin? I doubt it. So it reads like superstition to me, but God enters into this, into the superstitions of these pagans to bring about His will. They are casting lots to assign blame.

It's not always as easy as that. Understanding why the storm is about to sink your ship isn't as easy as finding who's to blame. The lot falls on Jonah. This is just speculation, but I'll give you this speculation. I speculate that Jonah up until this point has had a gnawing suspicion that the storm is because he's running.

And then they cast lots and it's on him. And what he suspected becomes just crystallized in his mind. This is me. This is God. He knows Proverbs 16-33.

Listen to Proverbs 16-33. The lot is cast into the lap, but every decision is from the Lord. It seems so random. It's not random. God is king.

God is sovereign. God is ruling from heaven and determining even things that we consider small, inconsequential, random chance. There is no such thing. God rules from heaven. The sailors have a lot of questions for Jonah.

What's the cause of all this? What's your occupation? Where are you from? This is what Jonah says in verse 9. So 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.

Really, Jonah fears the Lord. Jonah might fear the Ninevites. Jonah might fear a ruthless people being given the mercy of God, but Jonah hasn't shown, in our limited experience with Jonah in chapter 1, he hasn't shown that he fears the Lord, but he says that he fears the Lord. Another irony in the chapter is that it seems like the pagans are the ones who fear the Lord in our chapter. Jonah identifies himself as an Israelite, as a Hebrew, who fears the Lord.

He describes God as the God who made the sea and the dry land. So let's keep reading. We'll just continue into verse 10 here. Follow along as I read the balance of the chapter. Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, Why have you done this?

For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord because he had told them. Then they said to him, What shall we do to you that the sea may be calm for us? For the sea was growing more tempestuous. And he said to them, pick me up and throw me into the sea, then the sea will become calm for you, for I know that this great tempest is because of me. Nevertheless, the men rode hard to return to land, but they could not, for the sea continued to grow more tempestuous against them.

Therefore, they cried out to the Lord and said, We pray O Lord, please do not let us perish for this man's life, And do not charge us with innocent blood, for you, O Lord, has done as it pleased you." So they picked up Jonah and threw him into the sea. And the sea ceased from its raging. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly and offered a sacrifice to the Lord and took vows. Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. In these verses we have a failed rescue and a successful rescue.

So if you're taking notes by filling in blanks, rescue fills in both blanks. A failed rescue and a successful rescue. The rescue of the sailors failed. They tried to row out of trouble. They tried to row back to land.

That fails. God's rescue succeeds. He's prepared a great fish and sends him to save the life of the prophet. The sailors can't believe that this man who says that his God made the sea fled from him on a boat. Fair point.

Wait. You fear your God who made the sea and you fled from Him on a boat. They say, why have you done this? Because Jonah claims to know the God who is doing this, they consult Jonah about what they should do to satisfy his God. Verse 11 says, for the sea was growing more tempestuous.

So the storm is not getting better, it is getting more and more violent. So they ask Jonah what it will take to satisfy this God who is doing this. Jonah says this in verse 12. Look back at verse 12. Pick me up and throw me into the sea.

Then the sea will become calm for you, for I know that this great tempest is because of me." It was probably gnawing at him already, but then the lot falls on him and he knows that his running from God, from the presence of the Lord, has caused God to stop him in his tracks by sending this violent storm. Surprisingly, the sailors don't want to do it. We don't want to satisfy this God by throwing you into the sea and costing you your life. Ro! We learn in verse 14, the reason they don't want to do it, they don't want to be charged with shedding innocent blood.

He might be guilty in the eyes of this God, but He's never done anything to them. They're afraid that God will judge them for drowning him, for throwing him off the boat. So when rowing fails, they cry out to God, don't hold it against us. And then they throw him into the sea. And now everything is confirmed.

If they throw him into the sea and he drowns and the storm keeps going, they know that wasn't it. But they throw him into the sea and the sea becomes calm. We don't know how much time lapsed but it's enough for Jonah to drown, but not enough that there's no connection. The sailors immediately connect. This is just what Jonah said would happen, is happening.

God did send this storm. God did stop this storm. Look again at verse 16. Look again at what they say, or the result in verse 16. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice to the Lord, and took vows.

So here are the pagans. A short time earlier they were all praying to their local God, me to mine, you to yours, you to yours. Hopefully one God will hear us, one God will deliver us. And now they are calling on God but God by the name that he has identified himself or Jonah said I serve the Lord, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, Jehovah. The name God calls himself when he reveals himself to his people.

They're fearing Jonah's God who is the one true God, the God of Scripture. And so they sacrifice to the Lord and they take vows. And the sense is that they do what they can now. They make an offering now. But they promise to do more.

They take vows. They promise to do more and to continue worshipping this God later. And they do exactly what Jonah says he will do from the belly. Just look ahead to chapter 2 verse 9. Chapter 2 verse 9, from the belly of the whale, Jonah prays this, but I will sacrifice to you with the voice of thanksgiving, I will pay what I have vowed, salvation is of the Lord.

Jonah does exactly the same thing. He sacrifices any vows. This is just what the pagan sailors do to Jonah's God in chapter 1. Now We shouldn't miss this New Testament tie-in. What the sailors acknowledge is that if you can make a storm rage, And then you can still it in a moment.

You are God and you ought to be worshipped. That's exactly what the sailors are acknowledging here. If you can raise up a tempest, if you can make a tempest rage on a great ocean and then make it stop like that, you are God and you ought to be worshiped. This should immediately make us think of Jesus. Listen to me read Luke 8.

You can turn there if you are fast. I am going to read Luke 8 22-25. Now it happened on a certain day that he, Jesus, got into a boat with his disciples. And he said to them, Let us cross over to the other side of the lake. And they launched out.

But as they sailed, he fell asleep. And a wind storm came down on the lake, and they were filling with water and were in jeopardy. And they came to him and awoke him saying, Master, Master, we are perishing. Then he arose and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water. And they ceased.

And there was calm. But he said to them, Where is your faith? And they were afraid and marveled, saying to one another, Who can this be? For he commands even the winds and water, and they obey him." Jonah is the answer to that question. Who can this be that even the winds and the water obey Him?

God. God, this is just one of the marks of the Messiah. The Old Testament reveals the promised Savior to be God in some texts and to be man in the other texts. And Jesus in the Gospel accounts is proving himself over and over again to be God. Only God can make a tempest rage and then make it stop in a moment.

And he's proving himself over and over to be fully human in other places of the Gospels. He is the fulfillment of the Old Testament foreshadowings of the promised Savior. Finally, verse 17. Back to Jonah. The last verse of the chapter, look again at verse 17, now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah.

Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. I love this phrase. Now Jonah had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah. Now the Lord, did I say Jonah? Scratch that.

Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah. You don't get the details. It could have been this or that. I mean, it could have been, could have made that fish that day. My guess is, years earlier, in a remote part of a remote ocean, a baby fish was born and grew and grew and grew and grew and was at the right place at the right time to swallow Jonah and save his life.

The Lord had prepared A great fish to swallow Jonah. The actual Hebrew word literally means something like an aquatic beast. Whale is too specific. There actually is a Hebrew word for whale and a Greek word for whale and those aren't the words that are used here in the Old Testament or even in the New Testament where it gets quoted. It's a much more generic word for aquatic beast, aquatic animal, than this.

We think of it as a whale because we don't know of a fish bigger than a whale. I guess a whale is not typically, technically a fish. But anyway. You expect me to believe that a man was swallowed by a fish and lived for three days. I'll say this.

Only if you believe God created everything from nothing, and only if you believe Jesus is alive. You really have to pick. If you believe that God created everything from nothing, that He actually is the God of Scripture, and if you believe that the tomb is empty, the rest of it gets a lot easier. Once you are convinced of the who, the how stops being important. The how, like how could he live?

How did he get his oxygen? How, how, how? Only matters to people who don't think that God created everything from nothing. Once you accept that God created everything from nothing, how did that happen? I don't know.

I don't know. Once you believe that Jesus is God and He rose from the dead, that death could not hold Him, the how, you stop asking questions about oxygen. I know my life began in my mother's womb and for nine months I never drew a single breath. I know that. And the point is, God isn't subject to these systems.

You understand that. Nature isn't outside of God, as in God is subject to laws of nature. No, no, no. Nature is the creation of God and He made these systems to serve his purposes. So God doesn't have to try to figure out a way for Jonah to live three days.

He's not back in the lab working on a solution to this problem. He created the systems that just even described the problem. To him, it's not a problem. So get convinced about the who and you'll suddenly stop caring about the how. Listen, this is a change of topic, but listen to what James Bruckner, a commentator that I haven't been familiar with up to this point, but I'm reading him on Jonah and I'm finding it helpful.

He writes the NIV application commentary. Here's what he says. The big fish swallowing The big fish swallowing the rebellious and drowning prophet is a sign of Yahweh's pursuing and extraordinary mercy. Extraordinary mercy. The fish's swallowing Jonah is a sign that Yahweh will not be dissuaded from his intention to present the possibility of repentance and forgiveness to Israel's enemy.

It demonstrates the astounding links to which God will go to reconcile Jonah and the violent Ninevites to himself through Jonah. I just want to read that sentence again. It demonstrates the astounding links to which God will go to reconcile Jonah and the violent Ninevites to himself through Jonah. The fish represents an, quote, unbelievable, end quote, theology. Yahweh wants to save the rebellious and violent.

The big fish makes a specific point of God's extravagant, unrelenting, pursuing, and saving love. The big fish makes a specific point of God's extravagant, unrelenting, pursuing, and saving love. He didn't send the big fish to eat Jonah. He sent the big fish to save Jonah. Jonah was drowning.

When we read in Jonah's Prayer from the belly of the fish in chapter 2, he was as good as dead. He had seaweed wrapped around his head. He felt like he was at the base of the mountains. The grave had closed over his head. We'll pick it up here next week.

Applications. What should we do with what we learn in Jonah 1? It is a great story, but it's not there just to be a great History. It's there to change us. I give you three.

Number one, behold sin and where it takes you. Matthew Henry says this, Sin brings storms and tempests into the soul, into the family, into churches and nations. It is a disquieting and disturbing things. Sin brought a ship wrecking tempest into Jonah's life and into a bunch of people who had nothing to do with Jonah's sin's life. Behold sin and where Behold sin and where it takes you.

Don't run from God, run from sin. Run to God. Wrong direction, Jonah. Run to God. God is merciful.

God is good. God's ways are right and wise. Number two. Behold the omnipresent God. There is no running from him.

Tarshish isn't far enough. Nowhere you've ever heard of or known of, the astronauts are not far enough. People on the space station are orbiting the earth now. Jonah never could have gotten that far. That's not nearly far enough.

You can turn to Psalm 139. This is what David says in Psalm 139 verses 7 through 12. Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend into heaven, you are there.

If I make my bed in hell, behold, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall follow me, even the night shall be light about me. Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from you, but the night shines as the day. The darkness and the light are both a light to you.

You cannot run from God. He is everywhere at once. He is everywhere at once. Number three. Behold God and His tokens of mercy.

Let's name them. Let's name some tokens of mercy in the chapter and then apply them to you and me. A token of mercy. God sends Jonah to the Ninevites to announce their condemnation and judgment. Does God have to do that?

No. Those who sin without the law perish. Their conscience is enough. God has written it on their hearts. God is bringing about events for a great corporate repentance of a great city.

That's a token of his mercy that God is sending Jonah. He has no obligation to send a prophet. There were many wicked cities that God never sent a prophet to. And it was enough that they knew in their heart of hearts that they were wicked. And they perished in their sin.

God's not content to leave it at that with Nineveh. In His mercy He raises up a prophet and He makes sure the prophet gets there. Even the prophet who was running in exactly the opposite direction in direct disobedience, He makes sure he gets there. What does this have to do with me and you? At some point God sent someone to me or to you to break through our self-righteousness and to convince us that we needed a Savior.

It was a token of mercy that God sent that person to talk to you and to convince you that you weren't righteous even though you had convinced yourself that you were righteous and you had justified your sin And that you needed a Savior. And God sends us, God sends believers. He's sending us into the lives of our co-workers and our neighbors and the people in our community to help them to see they must have a savior. Here's a token of mercy. God sends the wind to stop Jonah in his tracks.

God didn't need Jonah. He didn't need Jonah to save Nineveh. He could have let Jonah just have a nice voyage, smooth sailing, all the way to Tarshish, all the way to southern Spain, To live out his days in comfort, he could have done that. He was too merciful to do that. He was too merciful to leave him in his sin and his rebellion.

Listen to what Patrick? A Patrick Henry. Wow, not Patrick Henry, Matthew Henry. Patrick Henry said good things too. But this is Matthew Henry.

This wind was sent after Jonah to fetch him back again to God and to his duty. And it is a great mercy to be reclaimed and called home when we go astray, though it be by a tempest. Amen to that. It is a great mercy of God not to just let us go. We want to go and we're running in the wrong direction and God could just let us be.

He could just back up and let us be. But He's too merciful for that. He brings His people back. God leaves the 99 to bring back the one who is straying. It's Matthew 18.

If you've been in the faith long enough, you know that one of the great elements of your assurance that you're really saved is that a hundred times God didn't just let you drift off. You didn't want to obey. You were committed to going in the opposite direction, and God could have just let you go, but he didn't. And you can think of 10, if I gave you 10 minutes, you could think of 10 times where he intervened in your life and brought some sort of a storm, a merciful storm to turn you around and bring you back to himself. If you've been in the faith for very long, those stories are right on the tip of your tongue.

Here's a token of mercy. God uses these circumstances to reveal himself to these sailors. The voyage starts with a boat full of pagans and it ends with Men who fear God, who are vowing to continue to worship Him and are sacrificing to Him. I don't want to read too much into this. We don't get a lot.

We don't know if they persevere in the faith or whether this is a temporary thing, but you know they have been introduced to the God of the Bible. Here's a token of mercy. God prepares a great fish to keep Jonah from drowning. God has a thousand ways to rescue you. And your rescue is in motion before you even know you're in trouble.

Do you Remember that from Esther? It was so sweet to study the book of Esther and to see that before the Jews even knew that they were in trouble, that someone was plotting for their annihilation, the rescue plan was already in motion. They weren't even in trouble yet, but the rescue plan was already in motion. They weren't even in trouble yet, but the rescue plan was already in motion. This is God.

That little fish was swimming out there somewhere, I think. Growing every day. Growing disproportionately into this monster that could hold a man for three days. But before the word of the Lord even came to Jonah, the rescue had been in motion probably for years. I believe that's true.

If it's not true in this instance, it's true a hundred other ways, a hundred other times. God's plan to rescue you is in place. It's progressing before you even know you're in trouble. Praise God. Let's pray.

God, I thank You for this book. I pray that You would make the study of it sweet to us. We would know Your love for Sinners, even though you're angry at wickedness, that you are still so kind and so merciful, and you cause the sun to shine on the just and on the unjust. And so often you reach out to rescue people who are utterly undeserving. This is the story of many of our lives.

Thank you.