A Whale Of A Time

There's a lot more to come.

Today, jonah and the sailors are faced with a life and death decision.

I'm going to read the passage and then talk about it for just a few minutes this morning.

Jonah, chapter 1, if you're following along, and I'm going to break in at verse 10.

Jonah 1 · chapter mention

Jonah 1.10.

Then the men became extremely frightened and they said to Jonah how could you do this?

For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he told them.

So they said to him what should we do to you that the sea may be called for us, for the sea was becoming increasingly stormy.

And he said to them pick me up, throw me into the sea, then the sea will become called for you, for I know that on account of me, this great storm has come upon you.

However, the men rode desperately to return to land, but they could not, for the sea was becoming even stormier against them.

Then they called on the Lord and said Lord, we earnestly pray.

Do not let this man perish on our account, do not put innocent blood on us.

For you, o Lord has done as you pleased.

So they picked Jonah up, they threw him into the sea and the sea stopped it's raging.

Then the men feared the Lord greatly.

They offered to sacrifice the Lord and made vows, and the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and he was in the stomach of the fish three days, three nights.

The book of Jonah is unique among the prophetic books of the Bible because it really is focusing on Jonah's relationship with the God of heaven.

Jonah tells us his story of rebellion and redemption, of God's sovereignty and salvation.

Today we're going to look at three things from this passage the consequences of sin, the provision of God and the experience of grace.

When the sailors confront Jonah, and about the storm and his responsibility for it, jonah begins to realize several things that he got wrong.

First, he realized you can't run from God.

If you disobey him and run away, he will always be one step ahead of you to try to turn you back around.

Second, not only did God make the sea, he controls the sea.

If you disobey him and run away, he can control that, control all of your circumstances to lead you in the right direction.

The third and probably the most profound thing Jonah realized here was that the storm that God sent, putting all their lives in jeopardy, was not sent to judge the Gentile pagan unbelievers.

This was huge in his mind.

It was sent to judge Jonah for his sin.

I can't tell you how that must have really shaken him.

They didn't know the true God, like Jonah did.

They're being more pious and religious than he is.

Prior to this, jonah always thought God's wrath should be poured out on just the pagans for their sin, not one of God's chosen people, to say the least.

This was one of the biggest surprises he discovered about God.

God's wrath was not sent against these Gentile pagans.

It was sent against Jonah for his sin.

It was proven by what happened next.

All this was part of God's lesson for Jonah that he might see these people differently, as people who need to know the God of creation and his grace.

These realizations, I think, are what humbled and convicted Jonah.

Could it be?

Jonah is really just as bad a sinner as these pagan Gentiles.

Jonah finally confessed and admitted that his sin was against his God and that put them all in danger.

He is the one who must suffer the consequences for his sin.

Jonah knew his sin was grievous.

It wasn't an unintentional sin.

It was outright rebellion against God In his word.

Jonah knew that God's just penalty for his sin was death.

He knew that.

Now Jonah was faced with a choice.

He could futilely try to save himself and by some time convince the sailors keep rowing hard, keep rowing hard, maybe we can make it to land, maybe they could reach shore, maybe he could save himself.

But he knew probably God would just destroy the ship, everyone in it, before they reached land.

The other thing he could choose he could instruct the sailors to throw them overboard, let them drown, consequence of his sin, and then the sailors would be saved.

Well, you heard the story.

He chose a ladder.

He would sacrifice himself so the sailors could live.

The sailors knew, when Jonah said throwing up, they knew that he would probably drown.

They knew if they did that it was a death sentence.

That's why he said please, lord, don't hold his death, don't hold his blood against us.

They knew it was a death sentence.

So did Jonah.

So they kept rowing hard to save him.

But when they decided to throw him overboard and pray, the Yahweh would not hold him guilty.

I don't know if Jonah had much contact with Gentile pagans before this, but I think when he saw their concerns for him to try to save him, I think his whole framework of his view of them changed.

Well, you're doing it, which is what God intended.

You know, the Jonah assumed that God wanted him dead.

The sailors assumed he would drown, but God appointed a great fish to save Jonah.

Now, the fish didn't swallow Jonah to eat him, but to shelter him.

Ironically in this book, in contrast to Jonah, the fish does what he's told.

Let's take a moment talk about this great fish before we move on.

Much ink has been spilled over Jonah's fish.

Some liberal theologians argue this is just a whale of a tail, not the actual tail of a whale.

Even some conservative people I've read have a hard time believing this is true.

They say the story of Jonah is just a metaphor.

Show us that God loves everybody.

Not only have people, commentators, theologians wrestled with the reality of this account, they've also debated what kind of fish it was.

Was it a whale?

Was it a shark?

We're not told.

It could be either, or it could have been some special creature God created for just this purpose.

It just says in Hebrew text great fish, huge.

And in the ancient world during this time, they didn't really distinguish one species of fish with another.

It was either a fish or a sea monster.

One of the two.

I personally believe this is absolutely a true account, not a metaphor.

It's Jonah's own testimony about what happened to him.

If you press me further on it, I believe that great fish was probably a large whale.

Why do I say that?

Because there have even been recent reports of people who have been swallowed by whales and have survived.

For instance, in June 2021, this guy, michael Packard, was swallowed by a huge humpback whale and lived.

You can see him there in that picture, just going inside the mouth of that whale.

The captain of the boat he was on took a picture and the boat captain saw what happened, followed the bubbles after Michael was swallowed and said I saw Mike come flying out of the water, took him in the boat and he said Joe, I was in the whale.

I can't believe it.

The boat captain then, well, the interviewer from a newspaper, when he interviewed Michael Packard, packard said all of a sudden I felt this huge shove and the next thing I knew it was completely black.

I could sense I was moving and I could feel the whale squeezing its muscles in its mouth.

I was completely inside the whale.

I thought to myself there's no way I'm getting out of here, I'm done, I'm dead.

In a Facebook post, packard said he began pounding on the inside of the whale.

I didn't think it was funny, but maybe it was.

He began pounding on the inside of the whale and the whale spit him out.

I say that to say it is very possible.

This story is true.

I'm convinced it is.

Jonah didn't have reporters or Facebook, but he was a prophet who knew God was orchestrating both the storm and his rescue and recorded it for all time in the Scripture.

Jonah had just received God's amazing grace.

Let's talk about that for a minute.

Jonah knew he deserved death for his sin of rebellion, but God delivered him.

He interviewed and delivered him by grace, not because Jonah deserved it or earned it, not because the Lord somehow saw Jonah in a different light, but because of the Lord's grace and loving kindness.

What's going on behind this is God really wanted Jonah to experience his grace so he would know what it feels like, what it looks like, so he'd be equipped to share it with others who did not deserve it.

How did being swallowed by the whale teach Jonah this thing about grace?

Well, like I said, jonah knew that his sin really set him up for the consequences of death, and I believe we'll look at it in the next few messages here.

While he was in the water he really thought he was going to die.

We'll look at that.

He expected to die but second, you see, prior to his deliverance here by the whale, jonah had been refusing to preach to Nineveh so that they wouldn't be saved from God's wrath.

But now he's helpless in the water, he's helpless in the whale.

He now, he himself, needs God's grace and God is ready to give it to him.

God is ready.

When Jonah's ready which we'll see, it'll take a little bit when Jonah's ready to give him his grace and give him and you only like this message coming up he's going to give him a second chance.

The great fish, I believe, does represent God's grace in Jonah's life.

It's a life-saving provision, it's a miracle.

He's alive.

God intervened and saved him from certain death.

Let me ask you a question.

May I have to think for a minute?

Have you experienced God's grace in some profound way when you think of a time in your life when there was no way something was going to work out?

You knew it, and then God intervenes and provides, can you think of something like that?

Can you think of a time when there were just too many coincidences leading to somehow your benefit.

You know what that is.

That's called God's grace.

That's what Jonah needed to experience this.

He needed to know there was no way he's getting out of this, but oh, the God of all creation has something to say about that.

Of course, the most profound way we experience God's grace is to know that he delivered us from his ultimate judgment for our sins in eternity.

Ephesians in the New Testament, chapter 2, 8 and 9, many of you know this.

Paul says for by grace you've been saved through faith.

Don't miss that word grace, because when you see that word, it means I didn't deserve it.

I deserve just the opposite.

By grace you've been saved through faith.

Faith in what?

Not yourself, faith in Jesus Through faith, and that's not of yourselves, it's a gift of God, not as a result of your works, so that no one may boast.

I don't want to ever get over God's grace in Jesus.

I replay my conversion experience regularly, 52 years ago, regularly.

I don't want to ever forget it.

It was nothing I did, but boy did God come in, did he reveal Himself to me.

When I bowed my head, I said I want Jesus in my life, I want to have Him in my life.

And he did.

And he made it very clear he did 52.

I replay it in my head often Because it's so remarkable to me.

It's like where did huh, what, huh?

What See?

God sent a great fish to save Jonah from physical death.

God sent Jonah to the Ninevice to save them from God's wrath for their sin.

And guess what?

Hundreds of years later, god sent Jesus into the human race with a message that we can be saved from God's eternal wrath if we would leave it in His Son, jesus.

In order to be saved, you see, the Ninevites had to believe Jonah's message and respond to that truth, which we'll see they did.

For us to be saved, we have to believe the message God sent us in the gospel of Jesus.

He came to die for our sins on the cross, our sins.

He took our place so that we would never have to be judged for our sins in eternity.

John the Baptist in the New Testament called Jesus our sacrificial lamb.

In John 1.29, john says the next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

And Jesus said that anyone who really understands who he is and what he did, beholds him and believes in him, will receive eternal life.

John 640,.

Jesus said this is the will of my Father, that everyone who beholds the Son, you get him.

You see who he is as the Son of God and what he did, beholds the Son and believes in him, will have possess eternal life.

And I myself, jesus said, will raise him up on the last day.

Now, if you've never opened your heart to receive Jesus as your Savior, sent to save you, and receive the gift of eternal life, I'd urge you to do so.

You could just bow your head right now and say dear Jesus, come into my heart.

I believe you are the Son of God, the Messiah sent to forgive my sins by dying on the cross.

If you've never done that, I urge you to do that and, like me, when he reveals himself to you, you'll be replaying that the rest of your life.

Wow, so that's grace.

Let's pray.

Father, thank you for your manifold amazing grace.

Forgive us, lord, please forgive us for taking all your provisions, all your rescues, small and large, all the undeserved blessings in our life for granted.

Thank you, jesus, that you became our substitute to endure God's wrath for our sins, and Father, I pray as recipients of your amazing grace.

Would you please teach us to be a grace giving people.

I pray all this today in Jesus' name, amen.