Sermon Tone Analysis

Let’s Continue...

The storm, though terrifying and costly, is an act of God’s grace.

He commands the seas, which obediently confound the reluctant prophet from attempted abdication of his calling.

Think on this...God often allows storms into our lives in order to redirect our course.

However, his actions are always ssssssssssasssssss, never punitive.

Question:

When storms come our way, how can we look at them from a divine perspective?

What should we ask from God in them?

We must never forget; Jesus paid the full price for all our rebellion against God.

There is no punishment left for us—only grace, forgiveness, and redemption.

We can rest assured that the storms God allows our way are always for our good and His purpose.

Let’s look at verse 14…

Before they commit the deed, they commit themselves to prayer.

When the storm first broke in verse 5 we find them desperately crying out to their pagan idols.

As the events of the chapter have unfolded, those idols have been abandoned.

It is Jonah’s God to whom they now pray.

They plead with the Lord not to blame them for what they are about to do—take Jonah’s life.

Here’s the irony that struck me...Usually we ask forgiveness after sinning.

Here the request is ahead of time.

With no other options the sailors reluctantly throw Jonah overboard and immediately the seas become calm.

Taking Jonah and throwing him overboard may have been all that was left to the sailors, but it was still an act of faith.

Seriously, this is huge...There could be no going back now.

Not only were they casting Jonah into the deep, but they were casting themselves upon God at the same time.

There must have been immense anxiety among them as they tossed Jonah over the side.

Would God answer their prayer not to hold them accountable for Jonah’s life?

They did not have to wait long.

The raging sea grew calm the instant Jonah hit the water.

Throughout chapter 1 the fear of the sailors has grown.

It is a steady progression, not merely in intensity but in the focus of its direction.

In verse 5 they are afraid at the storm.

In verse 10 they are terrified at their plight as they realize from Jonah’s answer that, in the storm, they have come face to face with Jehovah.

But at the point where the sea becomes as smooth as glass and it would appear the crisis is over, they are seized with a very great fear.

This time it is for the Lord Himself.

They are not seeking something from Him; they are seeking Him.

Without apparently waiting until the ship finally limps home, they offer a sacrifice and make their vows.

The vows look ahead to what is to come as they promise to serve the Lord.

Their experience is nothing less than a wholehearted conversion, having abandoned their idols during the course of the storm, and sought the face of Jehovah as the turbulent waters are subdued.

Jonah had unintentionally converted and entire crew of Gentile sailors.

Question:

Consider the poor and compromised example of obedience and service that Jonah set before the sailors.

Why then were they were still drawn to the God Jonah purported to serve?

Onto Chapter 2

Before we start, let’s ask this question:

How was God present with you when you were at your lowest point?

So when we read of a great fish swallowing Jonah, it is as well to accept it at face value.

We spoke about this last week.

This is not a work of fiction or a parable, it is a historical writing.

And then from inside the stomach of the fish, Jonah prays.

Apart from the opening and closing verses, chapter 2 is entirely prayer—quite a change from Jonah’s silence before God in chapter 1.

We should also note that the fish is appointed by God.

Even down to its precise placement within the Mediterranean Sea and the opening of its mouth, its every movement is directed by the Lord.

Has anyone in here seen the movie The Dark Knight?

In a scene in The Dark Knight, the police get Batman to retrieve a criminal who has escaped to China, beyond their jurisdiction and reach.

The criminal is quickly apprehended and returned to Gotham for prosecution.

God provides a great fish—the ancient equivalent of an Uber—to get Jonah back on track to where he wanted him to be (1:17).

There is no place and no one that is outside of God’s jurisdiction and his reach.

We can run to the far reaches of the earth and still he is just as near as ever.

David writes about this in Psalms 139:7–10.

Jonah’s prayer

Although Jonah prays from inside the fish it is not his first prayer.

His first prayer came as he was tossed into the water.

He had gone down to Joppa, down to the ship, down into its hold, and then finally he sank down and down in the sea.

It was not the horror of drowning that terrified him, but the thought of being abandoned by the Lord in death.

Despite his long and determined flight from the presence of God, the prospect of ending his life outside the presence of God, and then for ever, are too terrifying for words.

And so, as the final seconds of his fragile life approached, he cried out in immense distress to the Lord, his God (despite Jonah’s disobedience he had never stopped looking upon the Lord as his God).

In the desperation of that cry the Lord answered and rescued him.

The Lord provided a great fish to swallow Jonah (1:17).

Suddenly Jonah is snatched violently and thrown headlong into a hot and constricted mass of rotting vegetable matter.

Through the utter confusion of what is happening to him, he eventually comes round and realizes that he can breathe—after a fashion.

And then it dawns on him what has happened.

The Lord has answered his prayer for deliverance!

So now, from inside the fish, Jonah reflects on what has just happened to him.

His prayer is one of thankfulness and hope.

It is also full of description as he recalls the extremity of his trials.

From the depths he had cried and from the depths he had been heard.

Quite rightly, he does not blame the sailors for throwing him into the water but sees that the Lord has been behind all of it Jonah 2:3

Jonah acknowledges that he had been sinking down—a process that had begun before he even got to Joppa in 1:3.

The self-induced downward slide had brought him to the very gateway of death.

He describes himself as being at the depths of the grave, but the Lord his God had brought his Jonah 2:6

Hope

Imagine what it must have been like inside the great fish?

The heat, the overpoweringly nauseous smell and the burning of the stomach acids must have been horrific.

Maybe Jonah was slipping in and out of consciousness and alludes to it in verse 7,

But there is hope here.

The Lord who has saved him so dramatically from the water will surely deliver him at last.

Jonah could have confidence that the Lord who had answered this initial prayer would bring him final deliverance (v.

4).

He would yet sing praises of thanksgiving (v.

9a) and would return to useful service (v.

9b).

The Lord’s answer

Jonah’s prayer went straight into the Lord’s dwelling place (v. 7).

From there the Lord answered him (v.

2).

Not only was this in stark contrast to the pagan idols who had been impotent to answer the desperate pleas of the sailors, but it was also in complete contrast to Jonah himself who had turned a consistently deaf ear to the Lord throughout chapter 1.

But we should note that while Jonah’s first prayer, from the depths of the sea, was answered spectacularly and immediately, as indeed it had to be, his second prayer from within the fish was answered after a considerably long time.

It was to be three long days before Jonah would finally be delivered.

We can only speculate what went through his mind during that period.

He had no way of measuring time, of course, but it must have seemed endless.

Certainly, when it eventually ended it is likely that Jonah was physically incapable of lasting very much longer.

Question:

So why did the Lord not answer sooner?