In The Felly Of A Bish:Part 4, Scene 3, Beyond Death's Door... And Back

so let's start with prayer we're going to get into this father in heaven thank you for the beautiful prayer that Alex already prayed and we do want to arise that's exactly what we want to do we want to arise as we learned about last week boom we want to arise and cut it off cry out call in the name of our God and Father you are so good so faithful so wonderful as we now turn our attention to you and Scripture father just melt away all the distractions all of the things that would occupy us father even those little rectangular things that have shining flashy lights father anything whether it's a worry or a bill or an anxiety or a fear father whatever it is may we just have a little oasis here where we can come apart and think about you and your word and then apply ourselves to this ancient and yet ever new word be with us now we pray in Jesus name let everyone say Amen all right so what book are we in everyone we're in The Book of Jonah join me there in the Book of Jonah and today we're going to be in chapter 2 Jonah chapter 2 Jonah chapter 2 we continue our series in the Feli of a bish part 4 scene 3 beyond death's door and back beyond death's door and back we continue our walk through the six scenes of the Book of Jonah we've mentioned a number of times the Book of Jonah divided into two parts each part having three scenes those themes being very similar we've been through chapter 1 verses 1 to 3 where God calls on Jonah last week we were in chapter 1 verses 4 to 16 where Jonah spends time with the Gentile sailors and today we find ourselves Jonah calling on God the third episode the language that we've been using is the setup the build up and then now today we'll be in the speak up next week we'll launch into the second half when we get into chapter 3 the first three verses there so today we're going to see a change in scene we mentioned this last week especially for a largely land land of bearing not let's not what I'm looking for but a people that spent most their time inland not a seafaring people for the Jews the sea was a place of volatility it was a place of danger and a place to generally be avoided and so the author of Genesis on on a Kate on repeatedly on various occasions he wants you to know that things are becoming more perilous more dangerous and more potentially death inducing and so the book of Genesis opens on dry lands as we've noted he then moves precariously into the hostile environment of the sea then the stormy sea then he's thrown into the sea which is where we were last week where the sailors hurled him over board at his own request and then today we're going to be in the depths of the sea and for any Jewish reader as well as for those of us who can just basically get our minds wrapped around being thrown into a stormy sea as you read this your sense of anxiety and fear should be increasing you should begin to feel the hair stand up on the backs of your neck a little bit be like man I just want to get back to dry land which is actually where we're going to end up at the end of our time today we'll take a look at verse 17 with me if you would Jonah chapter 1 verse 17 last verse of chapter 1 says this now the Lord Yahweh had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights at some point of course we're going to have to deal with the actual nucleus or the the crux of this story and that is this idea that a man was swallowed by a fish and that he lived to tell about it now we don't know if it was a fish or a whale or exactly what it was the Hebrew word here just is a generic word for a sea creature says the Lord had prepared a creature of the sea well it is certainly conceivable that a man could be swallowed whole by a sea creature this here is a blue whale - blue whale - scale and you can see up there that's the approximate size of an average man and this is an average blue whale so it's not inconceivable that a man could be swallowed by a large sea creature and remain there but something that's even a little more menacing than a blue whale which I think we all kind of regard is nice and would be cool to see a blue whale but this is quite a fascinating thing that you may or may not know about and I want to share a little bit of it with you what you have there on the screen those little white things I say little those are the teeth of a great white shark okay so if those are the teeth of a great white shark a full-grown great white shark what is going on with the large black fossilized tooth right there okay this is the tooth of what is called a Megalodon shark raise your hands if you've heard of Megalodon okay just a few hands going up well here's another tooth of a Megalodon gives you a sense for the size of the tooth that we're talking about here and other skeletal fragments have also but not skeletal fragments but teeth have been found of course there are cartilaginous fish and so what the what's that he's uh scientists are able to do is judging by what we know about the size of a great white tooth and then the size of a great white shark we can take a look at this tooth a Megalodon very similarly shaped and we can sort of say okay this is how big the the Megalodon mouth and jaw would be and there are a number of these reconstructions and here's a reconstruction with a man sitting inside of it here's another reconstruction you can see a door over here just to the left you can see that's a door so no problem a man could walk right through that right this is a very very large fish this is how large okay so what you have down there the lower left-hand corner is a man average-sized man and then the green thing is an average-sized great white shark okay average size great white shark about two and a half meters to two and a half two to three meters then the next one there the purple thing that you have is a whale shark the largest known fish in the sea that we have the red thing is the average size the-the-the seem that what appears to be the average size of a Megalodon and the gray is what many regard as the upper limit for the size of a Megalodon shark some 20 to 25 meters meters long okay in other words the size of that great whale that was pictured just a moment ago so it's not inconceivable that that there's fish large enough there's creatures large enough that could have swallowed a man and the man could have gone whole into the belly of that fish that's not impossible to imagine in fact Discovery Channel about three years ago during their famed Shark Week actually ran a whole hour-long episode titled Megalodon the monster shark lives is Megalodon still alive is a 60-foot prehistoric sharp shark named Megalodon still out there sightings of massive sharks around the world suggest to some that it's possible anybody see this episode absolutely terrifying my good friend Matt Parra who's afraid of all things shark is absolutely convinced that Megalodon still exists and so there's this idea that you know may be out there somewhere in the deep so these giant sharks so at some point we have to come to grips with this idea that a large sea creature of some sort of large fish a whale swallowed Jonah and swallowed him whole enough that he was able to be preserved in the fish and pray the prayer that we're going to be studying momentarily now notice Jonah chapter 1 verse 17 again this is the verse we just read and I love this point here it says now the Lord had what's the next word prepared God had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights will return to the three days and three nights thing at the end of the presentation but this idea that God prepared something already strongly suggests that there is something miraculous going on here and I did spend part of this week actually looking into stories and there are a number of stories of of whalers who had supposedly gotten thrown overboard and swallowed by whales and and then the whales were caught harpoon and gutted and the sailors came out alive it's very difficult to know most of these stories are from the you know sort of 1800s and late 1800s Early 1900s but they're it's sort of out there in folklore and in the tales of Mariners that this actually has happened even in modern times but we don't have to find some natural example of this having happened to believe it because Scripture is clearly declaring here that there is some miraculous element to it Yahweh specially prepared this fish for this there's something miraculous going on here it's not merely a natural act but a supernatural act and that phrase alway prepared something it's actually a phrase that's going to come up three more times in the book of johna okay we've already seen here chapter 1 verse 17 Yahweh prepared a great fish okay when we get to chapter 4 we're going to see that he prepares a leafy plant that springs up quite quickly and then he prepares a plant eating worm and finally Yahweh prepares a scorching east wind in each in each instance as Jonah is seeking to make a left or a right God is there as the god of nature and the creator of nature to effectively cut Jonah off and not allow Jonah's rebellion to go to its natural and inevitable end which would have been death the message is unmistakable here and that is that Yahweh the Creator is ultimately in control of nature and that nature serves the purposes of Yahweh not the other way around if God is in need of a great fish to discipline one of his prophets he can prepare it if God is in need of a plant to grow up to shield one of his rebellious prophets he can do it if God is in need of a worm to destroy that plant he can do it if God is in need of an easterly wind to blow he can do it God is in control of nature as the creator of nature can somebody say Amen so it's really important that you understand the the story that the Book of Jonah is telling here within the context in which it was written remember that the sailors were each praying to their own deity which regional deity have we offended and Jonah said I am a Hebrew chapter 1 verse 9 I serve Yahweh God Elohim who made the land in the sea I believe in the Creator God now Jonah in a twist of irony is fleeing from the very God that he claims to fear and worship but the author of Jonah wants you to know that whenever God is in need of creation to serve his purpose he can prepare a fish he can prepare a plant he can prepare a worm he can prepare a wind okay so in an excellent commentary the Tyndale Old Testament commentary by Baker Alexander and Walt key on the Book of Jonah they say if one starts with the view that miracles never occur there's no way a man could be eaten by a fish and spat out a few days later doesn't happen they say if you start with that view well then it would follow automatically that Jonah could not have been returned to land inside a great but such an assumption however prejudges the issue you mean prejudges it is the it is the author's belief that is to say the author of Jonah's belief the Book of Jonah that this miraculous event did occur and he asked the reader to accept his testimony to that effect consequently we are left with the choice of accepting either the modern dictum that if it's miraculous then it son historical or to believe the witness not only of the author of Jonah but of other biblical writers that in certain circumstances miracles do occur now I'm just wondering here by the raising of hands is there anybody who would say I'm not going to put you on the spot but is there anybody here who would say by the raising of your hand you have witnessed something that you would regard as certainly miraculous raise your hands if you've experienced something he would say that is I that was a miracle that should not have happened okay very good I can raise my hand I can raise both of my hands okay if miracles occur then Jonah's story is entirely believable the point that the Tyndale Old Testament commentary is making is if you decide at the outset that miracles aren't possible well then of course it's impossible that Jonah was swallowed by a fish and regurgitated onto dry land but if you if you accept that miracles are possible well then the story of Jonah becomes entirely plausible and believable because we know that there are creature to create sea creatures well capable of eating a grown man swallowing a grown man so if miracles occur then Jonah's story is entirely believable if they do not occur then what exactly are we doing here this morning Amen if miracles don't occur what are we doing sitting in church celebrating a man named Jesus Christ who is we're going to see here in just a bit Rose we believe literally historically bodily actually from the dead is that a miracle yes or no the Bible is filled with miracles stories of miracles I love this book here how many people buy a raising of hands have read this book by CS Lewis titled miracles oh I was hoping that there would be dozens of hands going up let me recommend this book to you I would first say if you've not read much CS Lewis first read mere christianity and if you've already read mere christianity you need to make it a priority sometime this year to read this book miracles it is absolutely fantastic come with me now to Jonah chapter 2 and let's read through the prayer that Jonah prays desperately from the belly of the great sea creature chapter 2 verse 1 then Jonah prayed to Yahweh his God from the fish's belly we're going to read the whole prayer and he said I cried out to Yahweh because of my affliction and he answered me out of the belly of shale shale is the is the place of the departed the grave out of the belly of shale I cried and you heard my voice for you cast me into the deep into the heart of the Seas and the floods surrounded me all your billows and all your waves passed over me then I said I have been cast out of your sight yet I will look again toward your holy temple the water surrounded me even to my soul the deep close around me weeds were wrapped around my head I went down how far down did you go Jonah I went down to the bottoms of the mountains the earth with its bars closed behind me for ever yet you have brought up my life from the pit o Lord my god I went down John has been going down since the start of the book he went down to Joppa he went down into the ship he went down into the bowels of the ship and then he laid down we see our lives in the horizontal plane God sees our lives in the vertical plane Jonah has been going down down down and now he is as far down as you can go he went down into the sea then he was swallowed by a great sea creature that took him down down down Jonah says to The Moorings of the mountains verse 7 my soul fainted within me this is basically Hebrew speak for I was on the very precipice of death I remembered Yahweh and my prayer went up to you and your Holy Temple those who regard worthless idols forsake their own mercy but I will sacrifice to you and with the voice of Thanksgiving I will pay what I about salvation is from Yahweh and then verse 10 so the Lord Yahweh spoke to the fish and it vomited jonah onto dry land so much going on here we're going to go through a piece by piece point by point okay the first thing I want you to notice is that is the really obvious parallels between Jonah chapter 1 and Jonah chapter 2 the experience of the sailors and now the experience of Jonah there are four basic parts in each instance there's a crisis okay the sailors have a storm at sea Jonah is drowning at sea the sailors reaction is to pray number 2 Jonah's reaction in the midst of a crisis is to pray and this is almost the universal reaction of humanity not just of those in the belly of a fish but also those as we'll see in the Feli of a bish number 3 after the reaction deliverance comes the the sailors the Mariners were delivered from the storm and and Jonah is delivered from shale from the very depths of the ocean and then finally the response to Yahweh for his deliverance it says that the sailors sacrificed sacrifices and offered vows and while Jonah is that unable to do that in the belly of a fish that would be tough to do he pledges that when he gets out he'll do it and so we have crisis reaction deliveries followed by response now last week we noted that when Jonah says throw me into the water they were like no no no we're going to row and we'll try to save you they dug deep you might remember this from last week and we made this point the Mariners hard but ultimately futile rowing hints that salvation cannot come by human effort however sincere and vigorous if Yahweh brings about a judgment no human effort can extricate you from that judgment now this is really cool and it's a little bit surprising so buckle your safety belt in contrast with the Mariners vigorous rowing the fish is a symbol of God's amazing grace and undeserved salvation you ever thought about that before the fish saves Jonah from the storm Jonah had no hope of survival in the wind the waves that were washing over him the storm was so serious that the Mariners themselves fear that this was not an ordinary storm this was an extraordinary storm and it began to throw things overboard right there's no hope of survival in this situation so when Jonah is thrown into the depths this is key salvation comes in what looks like the form judgment now hang on to that because we're going to come back to that in just a second notice this this might seem a little far-fetched but trust me it's what the text is saying and it's what the author is communicating notice when we contrast the ship and the fish just how different they are how purposefully different they are both in terms of God's intention and the author's recording of God's intention first of all jonah plans the ship he hires the ship but God prepared the fish Jonah's plans versus God's plans number two the ship cost money a lot of money for him to hire it we mentioned that that that the Hebrew almost intimates that he had to hire the entire ship okay so Jonah has to pay to get the ship but the fish was free can he say him in hitch a ride and the great sea creature won't cost you anything Jonah when he went into the ship he voluntarily went down into the ship and then he laid down well here he involuntarily gets to go down and not just to the bottom of the ship but to the bottom of the ocean okay he was asleep in the ship but he is most certainly awake in the fish he's crying out to Yahweh number five Jonah was trying to be alone on the ship in the fish he is actually alone okay number six are 10 of these the ship took Jonah from land the safe environment to the sea the hostile and volatile environment the fish does the reverse the fish takes Jonah from the hostile and volatile environment of the sea back to the safe land that's the last verse that we just read there verse 10 that the fish vomited that's really the ugly kind of Hebrew word similarly ugly in English similarly ugly in Hebrew there it belched him up onto the shore he was on land so the ship looked like it was the vehicle of safety and of deliverance but in fact the fish which looked ominous and menacing and dangerous and death filled actually brought salvation brought Jonah back to where he was number eight the ship sure seems desirable and the fish sure seems undesirable but compared to what sea the fish is undesirable unless the fish is going to come and save you from the waves that you could not possibly extricate yourself from now all of this gets kind of amazing and this is what we're going to go with you're going to see this in just a second why in the world is God using such a seemingly harsh and difficult mechanism or vehicle such as a fish in order to extricate Jonah from this situation the answer is really simple and really scary because Jonah had placed himself there Jonah has created a situation where salvation and judgment are not two different things but the same thing I'm going to say that again Jonah has created a situation where salvation and judgment are not two things they are the same thing finally number not our number not number is 9 and 10 the ship carried Jonah away from Yahweh's commission but the fish deposits deposits Jonah back on the shore well he will carry out Yahweh's Commission and his hope was to flee from the presence of Yahweh when in fact the fish deposits him back into the presence of Yahweh of course you can never escape from Yahweh's present presence Jonah's descent toward death now reaches its nadir the word nadir is the opposite of zenith it means the lowest possible point not only did it go down from Joppa not only did to go down into the ship not only needed to go down into the bowels of the ship he has now gone down to the bottom of the oceans it's the nadir it's the lowest possible point Jonah has gone down down down now in order to appreciate the beauty and the the structure and the complexity of this poem as with Jonah chapters 1 Jonah chapter 1 we're going to have to spend just a moment here on the structure of Jonah and again it's phenomenal just like last week there is an intricacy here there's a sophistication here there is a poetic symmetry here that's fantastic and I'm going to put it up here on the screen for you the prayer is divided into two parts and you'll see this prayer structure part one follows an ABC be a formula okay again these are called chiasm x' these are hebrew ways of communicating so you parallel the a to the a the B to the B and in this case the C is the point and so you see that in the prayer he says I cried out from shale in the opening verse and then down at the bottom part of this prayer I descended to the base of the mountains trapped forever I went down to the lowest possible place in Hebrew thinking shale was at the bottom of the mountains at the bottom of the earth there was this idea that the earth was actually suspended on large subterranean sub aquatic mountains and so when he says I went down to shale I went down to the mountains he's saying the same thing the second point there be you cast me to the deep to the heart of the sea the flood the waves all of this imagery is Hebrew language for death for the netherworld for shale he says be the waters enclosed me the deep clothes around me all of them have this idea of being enveloped and then the punchline see I am cast from your sight remember that's the very thing that Jonah thought he wanted you go back and read Jonah chapter 1 he got on a ship to flee from the presence of the Lord to flee from the presence of the Lord and now Jonah in desperation he finds himself in the digestive juices of a large fish and and he says I am cast from your sight and then this and I put it in red so you wouldn't miss it I will look to your temple hold that thought I will look to your temple then here comes the punchline you have brought up my life from the pit Yahweh my god ok so there's the first part of the poem here's the second part the second part of the poem follows a similar structure chiastic structure but no ABC ba now it's a BA ok a BA and it opens but I was about to die but I remembered Yahweh a a at the bottom idolaters forsake mercy but I will sacrifice and pay my vows to you I remember to you I will return my vows and then be my prayer reached you and again in red where did it reach alway in his temple in both the first on the second part the point that the author is driving at here is that Yahweh was reachable he was available he was accessible in his temple that's where he was he was in the temple and then here's the punchline not just of the prayer not just of the poem in the psalm that Jonah praised from the belly of the fish this is the punchline of the whole Book of Jonah right here this is the punchline of the whole book salvation or deliverance belongs to Yahweh that's the conclusion that he comes to the reasoned desperate conclusion that he comes to in the belly of the fish salvation belongs Yahweh at some point he must have had the realization that even though he's been swallowed by a fish the waves are no longer lashing about him and he realizes that he's alive and in those what he probably thought were just going to be a few moments of Prayer he quickly races approach it's funny how when your life is flashing before you can pray a whole lot in like a second can anybody relate to this I've had this on many occasions where some very serious dangerous thing has happened to me some of you might not know this or maybe you do know this I travel a lot I fly a lot and I'm terrified of turbulence you wouldn't think I would be you'd think I travels a lot he'd be I my wife will tell you as soon as turbulence Khans I turn into a giant wuss not that I'm anything other than a giant was most of the rest of the time but I turn into a giant or wuss right and it's amazing how I can just be chillin and everything will be great you know watching a movie there and maybe it's a movie that I wouldn't watch in my own home but I'm on a 16-hour flight and it's like well whatever it's not that bad and so I watch it and all of a sudden that you're playing against the Sheikh and I turn it off and like Lord I'll never watch another movie like that again never never playing goes still I'm like well it's probably nothing turn the movie back on right right many of us can relate to this that you have your whole life flash in front of you just in a moment you're like survival module right and so Jonah prays it's a beautifully you know sincere prayer like all in a moment and then you know a little time goes by he's still alive in a little time goes why we're going to get to that three days and three nights in just a second now I know this is a busy slide but if you put it all together this is what the structure of the poem looks like so you have notice at the very top end and the very bottom end that's the that's the narration Jonah chapter 2 opens with this then Jonah prayed to Yahweh his God from the fish's belly and he said that's narration then you go to verse 10 so the Lord spoke to the fish and it vomited Jonah onto dry land that's narration so the fish swallows Jonah at the beginning deposits him at the end narration narration everything in between is Jonah's poem his psalm his prayer and it's structured around this ABC da and then the punchline Yahweh you have delivered my life from the pit and then ad a salvation belongs to Yahweh and in both instances Yahweh was accessed in his temple I will pray to you in your tent I will pray to you in your temple now the structure helps us to understand the meaning if you just read that through and you don't understand the structure you might be like well this is a lot of nice flowery language but what does it mean and when you look at the structure you could be like also the punchline here is the temple is where Yahweh is accessible and Yahweh brings salvation from that temple the punchline of not only Jonah's beautiful poem but of the whole Book of Jonah and we'll see this in chapters 3 & 4 is that salvation deliverance belongs to Yahweh the contrast between death or shale and the temple is purposeful and hugely important I'm plunging toward shale and to death but I call to you in your temple these are the polar opposite places for a Jew shale is as low as you can go the temple is on top of Mount Zion so he's at the lowest calling to the highest what I love my friends is that God immediately as soon as Jonah calls upon him he immediately accesses God God can transcend the distance from the highest heavens to the lowest pit in an instant can somebody say him in just in a moment God doesn't need you to get your act together he doesn't need you to start everything out you just come on I'm sorry or Peter could save me I'd perish God nation in an instant just a moment did you see he's there God is not confounded by space and by time the moment that we call on Yahweh even if we're just opening up the door to death itself with a long idea and you can close the door and rescue us just like that that's the God we serve Yahweh's temple was the location of life-giving salvation he knew that that was the place that's the place where sin and death were defeated and so he directs his prayer to Yahweh this was the very thing that Solomon who had built the first temple had prayed man this was amazing when Solomon had built the temple of course David his son or David his father rather had wanted to build the temple but God said you're a man of blood you can't build the temple so Solomon built it and when the temple was built and constructed this beautiful dedicatory prayer was prayed I'm going to just read you part of it this is first Kings chapter right Solomon says in all it's a beautiful temple one of the great wonders of the world at the time before it was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar but will God indeed dwell on earth says Solomon Behold heaven in the heaven of heavens cannot contain you how much less this rickety old temple that I have built that by all accounts was stunningly beautiful you regard the prayer of your servant in his supplication o Lord my God all of Israel's listening while Solomon praised this amazing prayer the priests are there the sacrifices are there the musicians are there's a beautiful dedication service o Yahweh my god listen to the cry in the prayer which your servant is praying before you today but your eyes may be open toward this temple night and day toward the place of which you said my name will be there you scour the whole of earth and my name is in that temple in that place the truth about Who I am is in that place that's where sin and death are defeated that you may hear the prayer that your servant makes toward this place Jonah knows this he knows that if you're going to pray you got to pray to Yahweh toward the temple and may you hear the supplication of your servants and of your people Israel when they pray toward this place here in heaven your dwelling place and and when you hear forgive this is so interesting I'm tempted to give you the punchline we're going to get there in a moment forgive hold on to that whatever prayer whatever supplication is made by anyone or by all your people Israel each one knows the plague of his own heart I love that language each one knows the plague of his or her own heart and whenever that person spreads out their hands toward this temple all Yahweh here in heaven your dwelling place and forgive there it is again the point and the purpose of the temple was forgiveness victory over sin and death act and give to everyone according to all his ways whose heart you know for you alone know the hearts of all the sons of men isn't that true that they may fear you all the days that they live in the land which you give to our fathers moreover this is key concerning a foreigner okay what if a non Jew prays toward the temple oh this is cool concerning a foreigner who is not of your people Israel but has come from a far country for your namesake where they're going to hear I mean the gentleman's like what they're going to hear how awesome you are how great your name is and how strong your hand is in your outstretched arm when he comes and prays for this sample okay how does God relate to this national diversity is the only about the Jews is it Jews and no look at this what about what a Gentile prays to the Jewish temple here in heaven in your dwelling place and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to you can somebody say Amen there's inclusivity here not exclusivity that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you as do your people Israel that they may know that this temple which I have built is called by your name that's so different from Jonah's prayer if you noticed I will pay my vows but these idolaters will not when Solomon dedicated the temple he was like when the Jew praised when the hard hearted phrase when the person who knows the plague of their own heart there's all these different ones in there I've just selected a couple and then he says and when the foreigner praise when the Gentile praise God hear them to hear them - very different from Jonah's experience were going to see that in a second God's plan as we've already mentioned in the call of Abraham was always universal and never parochial it was not just about the Jews it was about the Jewish nation bringing the light of who God was to the wider world number two these are slides we've looked at before Jonah's flight represents all that was wrong with Israel he said go to Nineveh to the north and the east bring my good news the people of Nineveh and he chose to flee to the west to Tarshish it was a reversal of God's original intent and calling Abraham and his descendants this is why God has to act in the way that he does because he sees and we're does we are supposed to see in the Book of Jonah a miniature of reenactment a reversal of the call of Abraham and then finally God's call of Israel wasn't about borders but about blessings and Solomon knew that he said hey look when the Jew prays to this temple forgive and when the foreigner prays to this temple in your name forgive can somebody say Amen again I mean she's so beautiful I love the idea that God is not into this genetic or national or spiritual elitism that God is inviting all to come to him the temple was supposed to be a house of prayer for all peoples now I call Jonah's prayer and not quite their prayer my prayer that I described when I was watching the movie and the turbulence came is not quite their prayer I think a lot of my prayers are not quite there prayers maybe some of yours are like that maybe you can relate to Jonah's not quite there prayer if you read through this prayer your first impression and my first impression was man this is the moment this is the climax of the Book of Jonah this is where Jonah comes to himself this is where Jonah figures it all out this is what Jonah hasn't figured out almost anything at this point except he's in the belly of the fish or the belly of a fish and he wants out but notice the major shortcomings of this prayer I've given you just six of them finally a rather forced and reluctant prayer I mean come on if you have to be placed in the belly of a great fish before you pray it's a bit of a contrivance right if it takes a little bit of airplane turbulence for me to finally start praying it's a bit of a contrivance right if it takes adversity if it takes difficulty to force you to pray if it takes waiting a week to see if the cancer test comes back positive or negative for you to get really earnest it's a contrivance right if we are being manipulated or or forced by external circumstances to really seek Yahweh earnestly it's not genuine it's forced by external circumstances but God loves us just enough that he will take even our not quite there prayers can somebody say Amen because even though Jonah's prayer was not quite there God still answered it finally a rather reluctant forced prayer number two did you notice that there is no confession in the prayer at all there's no sense of Jonah's guilt there's no sorrow there's no no admission of wrong in the entire prayer it's like a Hello Jonah how did you get the belly of that fish he's like man I'm in trouble I'm in big trouble and Jonah's like God's like he didn't get into trouble you have been in trouble and I'm trying to get you out of trouble I remember when I was doing a week of prayer at a Academy years ago this young person came to me and said hey I really need some help pastor asterik I said yeah what is it he said man I've got to go to the discipline committee and I'm going to get in big trouble and I said I think you're already in trouble and the discipline committee is maybe trying to get you out of it number three there's no clear request for forgiveness he never asked to be forgiven notice that when Solomon prayed he said when he dedicated the temple when when the Israelite lips to this temple when the hard-hearted looks to this temple when the foreigner looks at this temple forgive do you see any place in the prayer would Joan asked for forgiveness he never does there's no sense of guilt or sorrow or wrong number for he acknowledges that he's in a dangerous situation but he never acknowledges its cause namely himself number five is quite fascinating because the sort of punchline here is it says that when my life was just fainting away from me I remembered Yahweh which is actually an inversion of the flood story that we talked about on the opening in the opening part of the series where it says and Yahweh remembered Noah but here Joan is like I remembered Yahweh who remembered who and then finally number six the not-so-subtle elevation of his piety over the piety of the idolaters and in the context the syntax is guess who he's talking about he's talking about the idolaters on the ship I will pay my vows I will do all of this but the idolaters forsake their mercy and gods like if you only knew the people on the ship have already done the things that you have pledged you will eventually do it reminds us of Luke chapter 18 when Jesus tells the story of the publican and the tax collector that go up to prayer the sinner and the tax collector that go up to pray I think I got that right the religious man and the publican and the religious man is the publican says I'm just so our lord have mercy on me a sinner and then the religious leader looks down and says I'm just glad I'm not like that guy that's Jonah that's just not quite their prayer I'm just glad I'm not like them now Kevin J Youngblood in his book Jonah God scandalous mercy says the shallowness of Jonah's repentance shapes the remainder of the narratives what we're going to see in chapters 3 & 4 is proof positive that Jonah's prayer of repentance is not a prayer of repentance it's a prayer of deliverance but it's not a prayer of repentance Jonah's hard-heartedness his stubbornness and frankly his misunderstanding of Yahweh's merciful character will not be understood and this is a real I'm giving a bit of the punchline away to the book here it's never understood you get to the end of the book and Jonah never gets it so we can't have Jonah getting it when he's in the belly of the fish and then coming out and suddenly forgetting it no he doesn't get it here he's just in a dangerous situation and he needs help many of us have prayed this very prayer they're not quite there prayer the prayer we want deliverance from the circumstance but we don't take the wider question that the bigger context and how did I get myself into this situation Tarsha seemed like deliverance but it brought death well that fish seemed like death but it brought deliverance salvation is not from judgment we think Oh God save me from the judgment the teaching of Scripture and of Jonah is that salvation comes through judgment salvation comes through judgment the fish was both judgment and salvation at the same time an instrument of both judgment and salvation so Tim is with us here today somewhere there's Tim I had a meeting this week with Tim and and we sat out here on the church lawn and I took these pictures of Tim and we just got together catch up Tim thought that he wanted to talk I thought yeah hey Tim wants to you know get up and catch up about some things and we ended up having a really lovely talk earlier this week but in the course of our conversation Tim told me a story and I said Tim the reason that we met today so that I could tell your story with your permission to the church this is we met I know you think we met for a different reason but this is why we met today at least from my perspective I needed to hear this story I'm sharing this story with Tim's permission and these pictures with Tim's permission so Tim spent a long time as an alcoholic and as a drug user and a cigarette smoker and he did this for years and years in here 16 years or something am I right here a long time and he prayed again and again I I really don't want to do this anymore any sense that he wanted to turn away from it but he never could quite seal the deal he would pray not quite there prayers he was earnest in his heart but it could never quite get away from the alcohol from the addiction and then one fateful evening he was upstairs and he was walking to go downstairs and he tripped and he went catapulting down the stairs and shattered both of his wrists luckily he didn't die break his neck he was home alone he could have easily died but he shattered his wrists and he was able to make a difficult phone call and to the you know ambulance and they came and picked him up and he ended up in cast for 12 weeks Tim 12 weeks and two casts totally incapacitated can't dress yourself can't can't feed yourself can't bathe yourself yet you're a totally dependent and as Tim is telling me this story he doesn't know why he's telling me the story except just to tell it to me and tell me about his journey he says almost as an aside I never touched alcohol cigarettes or drugs again and then he said best thing that ever happened to me friends Tim was not in the belly of a fish but he was in the Feli of a bish he was in his own unique situation where he needed not only salvation but judgment and these were not going to be two different things they were going to be the same thing the thing that brought about her salvation and I took the picture of the scars if you look there you can see the the large scars and you can go ask them but he'll show you these large scars those are scars of deliverance my friends how do you fall down the stairs shatter your wrist and say it's the best thing that ever happened to you because you are in such a situation you have so placed yourself in need of Yahweh's deliverance salvation comes from Yahweh that God loves you just enough not to cause but certainly to allow you to have the consequences of your own choices you shatter your wrist and you never touch the alcohol the drugs or the marijuana again salvation and judgment all rolled into a single package the fish was salvation and judgment all rolled into a single package you will likely never end up in the belly of a fish but you and I regularly find ourselves in the Feli of a bish in situations where we are distancing ourselves through decisions or choices or actions or thoughts from Yahweh and God loves us just enough to rescue us not from judgment but through it a few more points you and I'll let you go let's talk about this three days and three nights thing quickly Baker Alexander and Walt key in their commentary again say a journey of three days and three nights represented an ancient Near Eastern mythology the time required the journey to the underworld this is noteworthy especially in Jonas because Jonas Psalm contains various references to the world of the Dead shale etc so in ancient Near Eastern mythology that the Jewish people and others around them thought if you're going to travel to the nether world that takes three days to get there by the way this is why many scholars believe that when Jesus heard that Lazarus was sick he didn't immediately rush to Lazarus as aide but he let him stay in the tomb for four days so there could be no question that Lazarus was fully dead this was no resuscitation Lazarus is dead this will be a resurrection so this idea of a three-day journey actually has some very fascinating biblical significance okay this is quite cool when Abraham was told take your son Isaac and offer him on Mount Moriah that was a three-day journey that was a journey toward death that ended up resulting in life unexpectedly the journey into the wilderness when God said let my people go for a three days journey they went out three days and then they said hey who brought the water and there was no water and they said we're going to die it was a three-day journey seemingly to the precipice of death number three Jonah in the great fish three days and three nights a journey as we've already seen right to the very gates of death itself all need to be brought back from life Nineveh fascinatingly was a three-day journey we're going to see that next week to tell a prophet of Israel to go to Nineveh was it was it was a death there was an errand of death it was absolutely absurd it was a three-day journey it was a journey right to the place of death Hosea gives a beautiful prophecy of revival look at this Hosea chapter 6 verses wanted to come and let us return to the Lord he has torn in the belly of a fish are falling down the stairs or whatever it might be he has brought about judgment he has torn but he will heal can somebody say Amen Tim is healed Jonah hopefully was healed we don't ever know story doesn't tell us look at this he is torn he will heal us he has stricken he will bind us up after two days he will revive us on the third day he will raise us up that we may live in his sight something about the third day and something about the journey of three days is a journey to the very precipice of death but you come back from death and then of course the the greatest three-day journey story is the story of Jesus in the tomb again and again and again Jesus emphasizes the third day Matthew chapter 16 verse 21 he will be killed and be raised the third day also in Matthew chapter 17 22 and 23 and the third day he will be raised up Matthew chapter 20 verses 18 and 19 behold we are going up to Jerusalem and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the scribes and they will condemn him to death and deliver them to the Gentiles in mock and scourge and crucify him and the third day He will rise again so it's not just an ancient near-eastern idea but it's actually substantiative stan she ated in scripture that something about three days is a consider phi a journey to death's door and then unexpectedly back to life so when Jonah says when the author of Jonah says he was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights it may well mean that he was literally in the belly of the fish for 72 hours how Jonah would know that is difficult to know since he's in the belly of a fish and he wouldn't see the Sun rising of the Sun setting the larger point is that Jonah had a journey right to the very precipice of death he was knocking on death's door and he came unexpectedly back to life Jesus alludes to this when he says that a wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign but there will be no sign except for the sign of the prophet Jonah he then goes on to say that as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth the men of Nineveh will rise and judgment with this generation and condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah and indeed a greater than Jonah is here this is our last point here's a very interesting thing about the sign of Jonah what is the sign of Jonah I'd like to suggest at least eight parallels between Jesus and Jonah three of them by way of contrast five of them by way of similarity these are phenomenal first of all Jonah was deposited on the shores and went to Nineveh to resume the Abrahamic call to take the light of God to the nation's that's what Jesus did Jesus he was aside he was bringing the gospel not only to the Jews but to the Roman centurion and to the Samaritan woman at the well and to the leper and to the public and he was bringing the gospel to everyone and anyone can he say Amen that's what Jonah was being told to do stop hanging out with your own people and you're safe and secure and comfort land comfortable environment and go tell others about Yahweh's goodness number two in both Jesus and Jonah's story story there is this hugely and unexpectedly successful preaching ministry let me tell a prophet of Israel to go to Nineveh and preach if you would assume it would be certain death as soon as you show up and start speaking at a Hebrew accent maybe you be done so the idea that you're going to go to what would become the capital of the Assyrian Empire and preach and they would all repent was hugely unexpected the idea that a Galilean rabbi who never wrote anything and who died at the age of about thirty that he would go on to become the single most important and pivotal figure in all of human history is hugely unexpected and absurd wildly unexpected results from both Jonah's preaching and Jesus preaching in ministry number three Jonah and Jesus both had a journey - and in the case of Jesus beyond the fearful and mysterious door of death Jonah got to the door and began knocking Jesus stepped into the door number for three days and nights seemingly cut off from God's very presence Jonah cut off Jesus cut off Jonah figuratively of course he was never out of the presence of God Jesus actually was cut off from his father number five an unexpected and impossible to imagine ending resurrection when Jesus died on Calvary's cross nobody thought he was coming back to life they just thought that was another failed Messiah figure so they're going to go looking for it the next Messiah figure the next Messiah figure the next Messiah figure to finally deal the Romans the death blow that the Jews were longing to give to the oppressive power but when Jesus was resurrected that was that was the uninvent Abel story nobody saw that coming nobody saw when those sailors were looking overboard and they saw Jonah get swallowed by the great fish they're like well at least he didn't drown if they would have later heard that that same Jonah was deposited back on shore and went and preached to Nineveh they would have been astonished what an unexpected outcome that's a sign of Jonah number 6 these are the contrast you have an unwilling and obstinate prophet I refuse to go verses a willing serving loving and self sacrificial Messiah amen number seven also by way of contrast you have an unexpected unnecessary and forced descent to death's door via a large fish because of rebellion that's Jonah versus a foreseen purposeful and voluntary journey into the very tomb of death because of love that's the story of Jesus that's the sign of Jonah I love this John chapter 10 no one takes my life from me I lay it down of myself no one's taking my life for me and then finally number eight the sign of Jonah Jonah went to preach driving the people of Nineveh to repentance out of fear of judgment there's no question that what Jonah was preaching was certain doom he was beyond annoyed and he couldn't wait to see Nineveh destroyed we'll get to this a little bit later but Jonah was not preaching grace trust me on this he was preaching judgment he was preaching condemnation he was preaching wrath and he scared the heck out of the Ninevites and they repented Jesus didn't come to scare though with judgment he came to draw watch this versus drawing the whole world to repentance how by absorbing judgment into himself and thus creating an offering salvation and here's the punchline when we say that salvation and judgment are not two different things they're the same thing just look to the cross his judgment and his condemnation is your salvation so while you may never fall down the stairs and shatter your wrist and have it be the best day of your life or one of the best days of your life when you look to Golgotha you see their judgment you see shame you see condemnation and if you're looking through the eyes of faith you see salvation you see Jesus and I when I am lifted up from the earth I will draw all peoples to me not driving with fear such as Jonah's preaching would've but drawing with grace with mercy and with forgiveness the summary today is that Jesus is everything Jonah was and wasn't he was a prophet he preached his heart out he went to the very door of death and through the door of death and came back but he also as many things that Jonah was not he was not obstinate he was not unwilling he was not recalcitrant Jesus is better than Jonah he has been through the very door of death and he has come back can you say Amen friends today when we pray may we pray two things number one may we pray again and again and again and again and again that simple punch line - Jonah's beautiful psalm ik prayer salvation comes from yahweh salvation comes from God number one and let's ask God to help us to pray less and less of those prayers that aren't quite there those prayers that are forced those prayers that are circumstantial those prayers that are situational and let's say God help me to pray teach me how in my innermost soul to be honest with you the greatest gift that you could ever give God is your total honesty the greatest gift you could ever give God is your total honesty because it is our dishonesty in our self-deception that actually keeps us from going to the very thing that is our salvation salvation is from Yahweh Father in heaven we respond today through the prayer of Jonah and even though it was a prayer that was not quite there it was still a prayer that you answered father I'm so thankful that you don't hold us to account to the highest standard of what we could be Lord if you did that none of us would survive none of us would be saved none of us would endure but father you educate you teach you draw us along a little bit at a time you take us sometimes our motives are insincere our motives are incorrect our own prayers are quick they're rushed they're spontaneous they're they're born out of judgment or fear and father you don't say no I'm not accepting you until you come to me with perfect motives in a perfect way you receive us you receive us as we are with all of our flat sides with all of our faults and foibles father you call us not only out of the belly of a fish but you call us in our own lives out of the Feli of a out of those situations and circumstances that we need lessly place ourselves in situations from which we need deliverance and father my prayer for myself and for others here is that we will accept your deliverance before a judgment is necessary I want to pray that again father may we accept your deliverance and your salvation in our lives before a judgment that brings it about is necessary father there is judgment enough there is condemnation enough there is shame enough at the cross and so we look there we look there we put our full faith in Jesus help us to be honest with you to be honest with ourselves and then as the fruit of that honesty to be honest with each other father today we want to pray to you and thank you that Jesus went not only to the door of death but he broke it down he went through it and that he said himself I have the keys of death and of Hades do not be afraid today father we are not afraid our faith is in you and our faith is in Jesus in whose name we pray amen hey greetings from beautiful and sunny kingscliff Australia I want to take just a moment of your time first of all to thank you for tuning in watching the program I trust it was a blessing to you and your soul drawing you closer to God and His will for your life I also want to let you know that we are planning a significant expansion of our existing media ministry here at the kingscliff Church to find out more about this expansion and how you can get involved go to bring it kingscliff com you can go either to the home page or to the our gifts page to find out how you can come alongside us and support not just with your viewership but also financially and with your prayers hey thanks again so much for watching and take care

Channel: Kingscliff Church

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Id: 5pzHfskT1lk

Length: 56min 42sec (3402 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 11 2017