Sermon Tone Analysis

Psalm

Prayer

Introduction

Matthew 12:

Last week, we ended our study of Jonah with Jonah in a bit of a lurch.

If you’ll recall, God called Jonah to go to preach to the perennial enemies of Israel, and Jonah said nope and headed off in the opposite direction trying to sail to Tarshish.

God hurled a storm at the ship and Jonah is eventually thrown overboard, the sea immediately calms down and the once pagan sailors worship God.

That is where we stopped, and really that is where the book of Jonah could have stopped.

Jonah has been thrown overboard and received the just penalty for his rebellion against God.

Jonah deserved death, and that is exactly what throwing him into the raging sea would normally give a person.

Death

Scripture

So, we pick up our story in and we will read through chapter 2 verse 10.

If you are able, please stand for the reading of God’s Word.

We stand to show appreciation to God for His Word and in recognition that these are the most important words that we can hear today since they are God’s very Words.

says,

Thank you, you may be seated.

Thank you, you may be seated.

The first thing I want us to notice is that God has acted again.

God commissioned Jonah, hurled the storm, and now has appointed a fish by which to deliver Jonah.

And perhaps we should also address the elephant in the room – or address the fish in the story.

This story is remarkable.

A giant fish swallowed a man and he was in it for three days and three nights.

We live in a time of skepticism and unbelief.

Throughout the centuries many scholars have tried to deal with this story of Jonah and the great fish in different ways.

Some have rejected it outright saying that it is just a story to teach a lesson and could not have actually happened.

Those scholars are mistaken and implicitly or explicitly deny the truthfulness of the Word of God.

Others try to turn the story into an allegory claiming it is true in some way, but as an analogy, not literally, again they are mistaken for the same reason.

They deny God’s truth in doing so.

On the positive side, some Bible scholars have sought to find various species of marine life from the Mediterranean Sea that would have been able to swallow a man and him survive for three days.

And still others have looked throughout history seeking to find similar accounts where people have been swallowed whole and survived.

These approaches can be helpful and they take seriously what God has said in this passage, and we should appreciate and utilize that.

The harsh reality, though is that no amount of proof or evidence or anything else cause a person to believe something they have already decided to reject.

I want to look for just a moment at .

It says,

What’s going on in that passage is some Scribes and Pharisees – some of Jesus’ antagonists – are rebelliously seeking a sign.

They are not asking for a sign in good faith.

Jesus has been doing all kinds of signs already.

In fact, earlier in Matthew chapter 12, Jesus healed a man who was demon possessed and you know what the Pharisees response was? “Oh, well yeah, but Jesus must have done that by the power of the Devil.”

You see the problem?

The problem is not with the story or the facts, the problem is with the heard heartedness that rejects the truth.

These Pharisees had seen the truth face to face and rejected it.

This is the problem.

We can prove all day long that fish can swallow men and they can survive three days inside of it and spit them out onto land, but do you know what the unbelieving heart says?

The unbelieving heart says, okay, so what?

Fish swallow people, whatever, that doesn’t mean God had anything to do with it.

Storms happen at sea, that doesn’t mean God sent the storm.

That is the nature of the wicked and rebellious heart.

The wicked and rebellious generation.

What’s going on in that passage is some Scribes and Pharisees – some of Jesus’ antagonists – are rebelliously seeking a sign.

They are not asking for a sign in good faith.

Jesus has been doing all kinds of signs already.

In fact, earlier in Matthew chapter 12, Jesus healed a man who was demon possessed and you know what the Pharisees response was? “Oh, well yeah, but Jesus must have done that by the power of the Devil.”

You see the problem?

The problem is not with the story or the facts, the problem is with the heard heartedness that rejects the truth.

These Pharisees had seen the truth face to face and rejected it.

This is the problem.

We can prove all day long that fish can swallow men and they can survive three days inside of it and spit them out onto land, but do you know what the unbelieving heart says?

The unbelieving heart says, okay, so what?

Fish swallow people, whatever, that doesn’t mean God had anything to do with it.

Storms happen at sea, that doesn’t mean God sent the storm.

That is the nature of the wicked and rebellious heart.

The wicked and rebellious generation.

What we ought to do is take God’s Word for what it says.

It says God appointed a fish to swallow up Jonah.

There’s species capable of this?

That’s cool, maybe God used one of those species.

We don’t know of any sea creatures capable of swallowing a man alive and him remaining alive?

No problem at all because the God who created everything out of nothing is big enough to create a single fish for a single mission.

You see, people either believe what God has said, or they reject what God has said.

Throwing evidence at them isn’t going to change their mind, a new heart will change their mind.

God provided for Jonah deliverance from his sin.

From the consequences of his sin.

That deliverance came from a divinely appointed fish.

Chapter 2 verse 1 tells us that Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish.

Finally!

Throughout chapter 1 the pagan sailors kept telling Jonah to pray to his God and Jonah never would do it.

He was still fleeing.

Even the sailors prayed to the One True God before Jonah did!

But finally, Jonah does call out to God in his distress, and he records his adventure.

Jonah while in the belly of the fish is giving thanks for God hearing his prayer for deliverance.

is a psalm of thanksgiving.

There are a number of Psalms of Thanksgiving in the book of Psalms, and this one of Jonah’s falls exactly in line with them.

In fact, Jonah uses some of the exact same words and phrases in other Psalms.

Jonah realizes that God has appointed this fish as a means of deliverance, and so he gives thanks.

Jonah sings of how he was as good as dead.

There was no hope for Jonah.

He was at the bottom of the sea.

Remember how in Jonah there is this recurring theme of fleeing the presence of the Lord.

Jonah was trying to go as far westward as he could as far from his commission as possible, but there is also a theme that as Jonah flees God’s presence, his relationship with God becomes estranged from God and that is represented by the “down” language.

He went down to Joppa to get a ship, down into the ship, down into the belly of the ship, then tossed down into the sea, then, now down at the bottom of the sea.

Yet even at the depth of rebellion and sin, as estranged from God as Jonah could get, God rescued him.

Look at the middle of verse 6.

Yet You brought up my life from the pit O Lord my God.

Jonah had much to be thankful for indeed and so he sang of God’s deliverance.

Jonah knew that he didn’t deserve God’s grace or mercy, Jonah was sinking down receiving what he actually deserved.

But God was merciful to him through a fish that swallowed him and subsequently vomited him out onto land.

God didn’t have to save Jonah.

Even faithful servants of God die in terrible ways.

In the book of Acts, God left James in prison to be martyred, and rescued Peter.