Alone with God — in a Fish!

I’ve had Haiti on my mind a lot lately. The news from there just keeps getting worse, and it breaks my heart to think of the suffering of so many innocent people there at the hands of the brutally violent gangs that are now essentially in control of that nation.

As hard as life was for the Haitian people when I was there in 2018 and 2019, what they face today is immeasurably worse.

Many of you know that I have fond memories of my months in Haiti, even though the living situation for so many there was dire, even though some of the situations I encountered there were tragic.

And one of those fond memories was of the week that Pastor Chris and Christina brought a short-term team from Supply and Multiply to do ministry there.

Now, I love Chris and Christina, but it wasn’t their presence that made this week such a fond memory for me. It was the fact that my wife was part of that team.

We’d been apart for about four months by that time, and the separation was just as hard on both of us as you might expect.

So, the chance to serve alongside her for the week was exciting. I got to see her dancing with children, caring for the elderly and simply sharing the love of Jesus with literally hundreds of people throughout the week.

This was no Caribbean vacation for either of us. We were both there to work.

But then, Chris and Christina surprised us by sending us to a resort for a night.

Now, I should explain that Haiti is a study in the haves and have-nots. The vast majority of the population lives in ramshackle huts , eating rice and beans and plantains, along with the occasional fish or scrawny chicken leg.

But the political and business elite are a different matter. They live in grand mansions with hot and cold running water, and they eat many of the same things we do.

These folks have regular workweeks, nannies and gardeners and other paid staff to take care of their homes, and cars to get around in. And they often vacation in Montrouis, the little seaside town where I served.

When they come to Montrouis, they stay in one of a couple of different all-inclusive “resorts” that have private rooms, pools, fine dining, and breakfast buffets.

And since that wasn’t the Haiti I’d come to serve, I never gave much thought to the resorts until Pastor Chris told me they’d reserved a room at one for Annette and me to stay in one night.

It wasn’t until Annette and I were alone at that resort that I realized how much we needed time together, alone.

We strolled around the resort grounds. We enjoyed a marvelous dinner and then breakfast with the nastiest excuse for bacon I’ve ever eaten.

We watched the sun set over the Atlantic from a little jetty. We chatted. And we just spent time in the presence of one another, something we’d dearly missed for the previous four months.

I’d objected to the night away from ministry when they’d first told me about it. But to this day, I’m so thankful that the Surbers basically forced us to do it.

Our relationship was strong, but that time together and apart from the group was something my wife and I desperately needed.

Now, we’ve been studying the Book of Jonah the past few weeks. You’ll recall that this prophet of the Most High God had been called by God to go to Nineveh, in the kingdom of Assyria, to proclaim God’s impending judgment upon that brutally violent and pagan city.

But Jonah had responded by trying to flee from the presence of God. He’d boarded a ship bound for Tarshish — as far away as he could go in the opposite direction from Nineveh.

Jonah hated the Ninevites, and he didn’t want to take the chance that they’d repent and that God would withhold His judgment on that city.

And if avoiding this particular calling meant Jonah had to break fellowship with God, then that’s what he seems willing to do.

But who’s in control of everything that happens in Jonah’s story? God is!

And so, God sent a violent storm to threaten the ship and everyone aboard it. And when the crew cast lots to try and see who was responsible for bringing this calamity upon them, God made the lot fall to Jonah.

And when they asked Jonah what they could do to appease his God, he told them to throw him overboard, and the sea would become calm.

So, they did. And last week, we left Jonah there, dog-paddling as hard as he could in the midst of the Mediterranean Sea as the ship and its crew sailed off into the sunset.

But we haven’t forgotten him, and neither had God.

Jonah had been trying to flee from the presence of God. But God knew that what Jonah REALLY needed was MORE of God’s presence. He needed some alone time with God.

And so, in His marvelous grace, God sets things up so that Jonah will be FORCED to be alone with Him. Much as the Surbers basically forced Annette and me to take some time away from our ministry to be alone together.

Look at verse 17 of chapter 1.

Jonah 1:17 NASB95

17 And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights.

Let me ask you something. What had Jonah deserved for his disobedience to God, for his sins? He’d deserved death. The wages of sin is death. That’s what the Apostle Paul tells us.

Jonah had sinned greatly by disobeying God’s calling and by trying to flee from God’s presence.

And death seems to be just what Jonah was expecting. Israel was not a seafaring nation, and its people were generally afraid of the open water. Jonah might not even have known how to swim.

So, when he told the sailors to throw him overboard, he had every expectation that he’d die there in the water. Maybe he even recognized that such a consequence would have been just punishment for his rebellion against God.

But then, while Jonah is splashing around, while he sinks beneath the waves, instead of being swallowed up by death, he’s swallowed up by a great fish.

And folks, that’s the grace of God in action. What Jonah had deserved, he didn’t get. And what he didn’t deserve — rescue — he was given.

That brings us to the fourth of 12 spiritual growth indicators we learn from the Book of Jonah: “A life that’s growing spiritually acknowledges and responds to the grace of God.” [Mark Yarbrough, Jonah: Beyond the Tale of a Whale, (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2020), 70.]

Now, we’ll begin looking at Jonah’s actual response to God’s grace next week. But for today, I just want you to recognize that, just like Jonah, we who follow Jesus Christ in faith have ALSO received the grace of God.

We are all sinners, and we all deserve death — physical death AND eternal separation from God — for our rebellion against Him.

But God, in His infinite grace, sent his unique and eternal Son, Jesus, to live as a man — yet without sin — and to give Himself as a sacrifice at the cross so that all who turn to Him in faith will be saved.

God’s grace is greater than our sins.

And it’s right and proper that we who’ve been saved by grace both thank God that He doesn’t give us what we deserve and praise Him for giving us what we DON’T deserve — eternal life.

When we begin to lose sight of grace as followers of Christ, we begin to look a lot like Jonah does at the beginning of this book.

He was bitter and angry about God’s plan. He was full of hatred for those he considered his enemies. And he was disinterested in fellowship with God, even though he had clearly believed in and served God before these events.

But God had His eye on Jonah, and He wasn’t going to let even the absurd and childish behavior of His prophet interfere with His plan to save the Ninevites or to change Jonah’s heart.

And so, He sets up a nice, quiet space where He and Jonah can be alone together, without distractions. Unfortunately for Jonah, this quiet space was in the belly of a great fish.

As R.T. Kendall puts it: “The belly of the fish is not a happy place to live, but it IS a good place to learn.” [R. T. Kendall, Jonah: An Exposition (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978), 101; Keil and Delitzsch, “Jonah,” COT, 10:398.]

And in the belly of that fish, God will use those three days and nights to teach Jonah about grace and to remind him that “salvation comes from the Lord.”

But I don’t want you to miss how this verse points to the this book’s theme of the sovereignty of God.

Notice that the text tells us God “appointed” the fish to swallow Jonah. The idea here is that God sent this fish to the particular place where Jonah would be in the Mediterranean Sea at the particular time when Jonah was about to drown so that he’d be rescued.

And so there’d be no way to interpret the rescue as anything but divine in origin, He did it not through a passing ship or a piece of wood Jonah could cling to. Instead, He rescued Jonah with a big fish.

Now, we could get all caught up in the matter of what kind of sea creature this was. Was it a whale? A big shark? Something else? We don’t know.

The Hebrew word that’s translated as “fish” here is dag, and it can refer to any aquatic creature.

And I’ll be the first to admit that, based on what we know about science, a fish swallowing a man whole and a man living inside the belly of a fish for three days and nights seem unlikely.

But the God we serve is the God of all science, just as much as He is the God of all grace. Indeed, the laws of science are HIS laws. He is sovereign over science itself.

Look, if we believe that God created the heavens and the earth — If we believe that He does miracles — If we believe He is sovereign over everything — If we believe, as Jesus asserts in the Book of Matthew, that Jonah’s story is historical fact — Then, it shouldn’t be hard for us to believe that God appointed this fish to swallow Jonah and allow him to live in its stomach for three days and nights.

And if such a great fish didn’t exist on earth at that time, then it would have been no trouble for the God who created all the fish and they waters in which they swim to have created one specially fit for the purpose of rescuing Jonah and giving him a warm place to spend some alone time with God.

The important thing in this verse isn’t the fish. It’s the sovereign and gracious God who SENT the fish.

As one commentator puts it: “Men have been looking so hard at the great fish that they have failed to see the great God.” [Tom Constable, Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible (Galaxie Software, 2003), Jon 1:17, quoting Morgan.]

And it’s easy to miss the greatness of God in this verse while we’re focused on the greatness of the fish.

Remember that I’ve said God never does just one thing. When God is at work, we can expect to see His greatness and His glory manifesting itself in ways we couldn’t even have imagined.

In the story of Jonah, for instance, we see the great fish rescuing Jonah. But it’s not just Jonah who’s saved.

Spoiler alert: Because Jonah was saved, the people of Nineveh would hear God’s warning of impending judgment, and they’d repent and worship Him. So, the Ninevites were saved, too.

And because the Ninevites were saved, they didn’t attack their enemies in Israel until about 40 years later, when God finally sent the Assyrian armies into the Northern Kingdom to punish their faithlessness by sending them into exile.

Jonah knew God was sending him to Nineveh to be a conduit for their salvation. But he didn’t understand that God was also saving HIM. And he didn’t understand that God was also saving his people, giving THEM time to repent from their faithlessness.

And we’re not so different from Jonah in this regard. If I’m paying attention, I might recognize how God is blessing me individually by His grace.

But it’s much harder — and often impossible — for me to see that what He’s doing in ME will be a blessing to OTHERS.

So, when we choose to act like Jonah and try to escape God’s calling on our lives, not only do we disobey God and shortchange ourselves of the blessings God has for us, we ALSO deprive others of the blessings God wants to give them through us.

But the fullness of God’s grace and glory in the story of Jonah goes even beyond what He did for Jonah, what He did for the Ninevites, and what He did for the people of Israel.

Let me ask you a couple of questions: Did God know Jonah would disobey Him? Did God know Jonah would be thrown overboard in the midst of a great storm?

Did God know He’d have to send a fish to rescue Jonah and that this reluctant and disobedient prophet would spend three days and nights in the belly of that fish?

Of course He did. So, then, why didn’t God send someone to Nineveh who’d be obedient to His calling?

I’d like to suggest that He sent Jonah precisely BECAUSE He knew Jonah would wind up disobeying and spending a long weekend inside the belly of that great fish.

To understand why I say that, I need you to understand the idea of typology in the Bible. Typology is a theological term that describes the relationship of Old Testament people, events, or objects to New Testament concepts, and especially to Jesus.

Israel, for example is a TYPE for the church. They were described as God’s chosen people in the Old Testament, and the church consists of all who have been chosen to answer the call to salvation through faith in Jesus.

And Jesus makes it clear in the Book of Matthew that Jonah was a type pointing to HIM. Indeed, Jesus is the GREATER Jonah.

Look at the passage beginning in verse 38 of Matthew, chapter 12.

Matthew 12:38–42 NASB95

38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.” 39 But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; 40 for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41 “The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment, and will condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. 42 “The Queen of the South will rise up with this generation at the judgment and will condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.

Jonah’s three days and nights in the belly of the fish TYPIFY the three days Jesus’ lifeless body lay in the tomb before God raised Him from the dead.

And what Jesus is saying to the scribes and Pharisees here is that, just as God raised Jonah from the belly of the fish, so would He raise Jesus from death itself.

“Jonah was in the fish’s belly as Christ was in the grave, in payment of the penalty of sin. Moreover, each by accomplishing this saved men from death.” [H. D. M. Spence-Jones, ed., Jonah, The Pulpit Commentary (London; New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1909), 22.]

Indeed, both sacrifices accomplished atonement, expiated sin, pacified the Divine Judge, satisfied His divine justice, abolished guilt, restored peace, and brought reconciliation. [Ibid.]

Of course, types aren’t perfect, nor are they meant to be. Jonah suffered for his OWN sins. But Jesus died for your sins and mine.

Jonah’s sacrifice saved the men aboard his ship from physical death. But Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection provide ETERNAL life for all who follow Him in faith.

Jesus is the GREATER Jonah. And it’s interesting that in this same passage, Jesus points to the wise King Solomon as another type for Himself.

Jesus is the greater prophet, and the greater king.

But the scribes and the Pharisees — at least, most of them — refused to believe. Indeed, their rejection of Jesus, the second Person of our Trinitarian God, can be compared to Jonah’s desire to flee from the presence of God.

They had God Himself standing in their presence in the person of His eternal Son, and they wanted nothing to do with Him. In fact, they had Him killed in an effort to silence Him.

And that, too, was God’s immeasurable grace in action. Because only by faith in His life, His death, and His resurrection can we be forgiven for our sins and welcomed into God’s kingdom as adopted sons and daughters.

How have YOU responded to that grace? Have you turned to Jesus in faith that He alone provides the way for you to be reconciled to the God who created you to be in a relationship of trust in Him and Him alone?

Or have you run from His grace, like Jonah ran from God’s presence?

If that’s you, then let me encourage you today to stop running. Give your life to Jesus, and take comfort and rest in the One who is sovereign over everything, the One who commands the very seas and even the fish that swim in them.

And if you HAVE placed your faith in Jesus, then let me encourage you this week to move TOWARD God’s calling for you, rather than away from it; to make your works match your words; to make your life a testimony to God’s grace; and to recognize and acknowledge the many acts of God’s grace in your lives.

And let me encourage you to find some time each day to be alone with God. Time to read His word. Time to pray. Time to meditate on His goodness, His mercy, and His grace.

As important as it was for Annette and me to have time together away from our missions team, it is infinitely MORE important for each one of us who follows Jesus to spend time alone with HIM.

Don’t make Him send a big fish to swallow you up.