Sermon Tone Analysis

INTRODUCTION

Last week, we left off the story of Jonah with him being tossed into the raging sea by the desperate sailors who realised they had no other choice.

The place

How the Lord saved Jonah.

By Grace

Through Faith

In Christ

What the Lord saved to.

was saved from.

We saw that God gave Jonah a message to deliver to the people of Nineveh.

Due to Jonah’s own hatred for the Assyrian people who had been very cruel to him and his people and due to his concern that God would spare them if they repented, Jonah callously boarded a boat headed in the complete opposite direction from Nineveh.

All was not smooth sailing however, and we should never expect smooth sailing when we who know God and are His children go away from God and rebel against His command.

Jonah quickly begins to find out just how powerful the chastening hand of God can be as God sends a storm of epic proportions on the ship.

To his own shame, the sailors on board show more sensitivity toward God and their situation than Jonah does.

Jonah is acting like a man who would rather die than obey God.

His behaviour as a man who truly knows God is shameful and cowardly, just ours is when we stay quiet and don’t tell others about the hope that lies within us because of the gospel.

After valiantly but futilely attempting to save Jonah’s life, the sailors have no other choice but to cast him into the sea.

And that’s the end of Jonah!

No, actually it is not as we read in .

God still had a plan for Jonah.

When Jonah tried to run from God, God ran right after Him.

1:4 God sent a storm that would result in him being cast over.

Then we find out that God was ready when he was cast overboard.

God has already made preparations by choosing a great fish to come and swallow up Jonah from the bottoms of the sea.

Just as life is ebbing out of Jonah and all hope is lost, God’s fish scoops him off the seabed and after three days and three nights vomits him back on dry land.

Total mission failure is given a reboot and God’s rebellious servant, though no doubt physically marred, is spiritually ready to obey and to bring the Lord’s Word the second time.

jonah 2:10-3:2

The theme of Jonah 2 is “salvation” - “the Lord’s salvation.”

jonah

We see that Jonah is beyond all hope, that the Lord saved when he repented and called out in faith to the Lord.

Jesus - gives life to save life

We see in it a picture that points to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, a far greater Jonah, who willingly died, was buried, and rose again for us and to save us and all people from their sin.

This prayer by Jonah was not a plea for deliverance for there were no petitions in it.

The prayer is a psalm of thanksgiving (v.

9) to God for using the fish to save him from drowning.

The prayer was made while Jonah was in the fish’s stomach (v. 1) but it was written of course after he was expelled from the fish’s stomach.

Sensing that the great fish was God’s means of delivering him, Jonah worshiped God for His unfathomable mercies.

Jonah praised God for delivering him from death (cf.

Ps. 30:3) in a watery grave (cf.

Bernhard W. Anderson, Out of the Depths.

Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1974, pp.

84–6).

The contents of Jonah 2 correspond in several ways to the contents in chapter 1:

Jesus came into our world, took upon Himself our sin, took upon Himself our curse, died and gave up everything, but when it looked like all hope was lost, God raised Him up from the dead.

The Sailors

1:4

Crisis on the sea

1:14

Prayer to Yahweh

1:15b

Deliverance from the storm

1:16

Sacrifice and vows offered to God

The Prophet

2:3–6a

Crisis in the sea

2:2, 7

Prayer to Yahweh

2:6b

Deliverance from drowning

2:9

Sacrifice and vows offered to God

This chapter records the prayer of Jonah as thanks God for answering his cry for deliverance.

It contains many truths about salvation, particularly from the book of Psalms, that flooded his mind as he felt he was about to perish.

And as he cried out to God and experiences God’s salvations, he praises God and promises many things to God.

As we go through it today, we are going see some very important truths about salvation that apply to us as well.

1.

We need saving.

a. Jonah was not a good person.

His decision to disobey God was cold and calculated.

He knew that to disobey God would mean the destruction of thousands of people, but he did it any way.

He slept in the bottom of a ship while experienced sailors risked their lives in a storm that was his fault and he did not seem to care very much.

He then told them to throw him overboard because he would rather die than obey God.

We too like Jonah make many cold and calculated decisions to do our own thing, to go our own way, and to completely disregard what we know God would want us to do.

From brith, we also have a mad desire to die rather than obey God, that’s how much we love our sin and the temporary pleasure it gives.

b.

Jonah was perishing.

Jonah’s rebellion led him “down to Joppa” (1:3), “down into a ship” (1:3), “down into the sides of the ship” 1:5), and now “down to the bottom of mountains [of the sea]” 2:6).

Jonah is going down, down, down, down.

He “paid the fare thereof” (1:3) but it will cost him more than a boat ticket; it will nearly cost him his life.

Because now, he is rapidly sinking to the bottom of the sea where He knows He will die.

Listen to His words describing his descent (jonah 2:3-6)

Notice that it is God who cast him into the deep (even though the sailors threw him overboard)

Jonah has run and run and finally his time is about up.

He is sinking into the deep (the deepest part of the sea).

He like you and me was dying, perishing, on his way to the deep.

Jonah is getting what he deserves.

God cast him there not because he was a good man who deserved rescuing, but because he was a rebellious man who deserved chastisement - this was justice

He is getting a taste of what he hoped would come on the Ninevites.

At some point God’s mercy will run out, and regardless of whether we die of cancer, a car collision, or natural causes, it will be when God justly decides to no longer be merciful but to give us what we deserve.

rev

v.3 He is in the midst of the seas at first, and the floods and billows and waves crash over him.

Jonah was finally getting what he asked for but does he now want it?

jonah 2:1-

The truth is that all of us are in the process of dying or perishing; it is only a matter of time before we hit the bottom.

God cast him into the deep - deserved it

Deep - deepest and most remote part

Forgotten about, no one would get to him, no one knew where he was

In he is trying desperately to “run from the presence of the Lord” and that’s what he is now getting.

But God saw Him and knew where he was

He accepted God’s discipline (Jonah 2:3).

The sailors didn’t cast Jonah into the stormy sea; God did.

“You hurled me into the deep … all your waves and breakers swept over me” (v. 3, NIV, italics mine).

When Jonah said those words, he was acknowledging that God was disciplining him and that he deserved it.

How we respond to discipline determines how much benefit we receive from it.

According to Hebrews 12:5–11, we have several options: we can despise God’s discipline and fight (v.

5); we can be discouraged and faint (v.