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Bro. Bill Nichols
Okay, good morning. This morning we're going to cover the second chapter of Jonah. Last time, but first let's pray. Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for this day and thank you for all our many blessings.
Thank you for giving us your Son, your Scripture, and the Holy Spirit. Help us as we go through and study that your Holy Spirit remains with us and enlightens us and takes us to the point that we understand the lesson that you have waiting for each one of us.
Bless us and keep us go through all the services today. In Jesus name we pray, amen. So last time we covered chapter one and we discovered four things. The first thing we discovered is that Jonah received a three-step commission from God.
Back in chapter one, verse one, it said, Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittiah, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for the wickedness is come up before me.
So what was his commission? Get up, go to Nineveh, and cry out against it. Now Jonah is not already a prophet when the word of God came to him. He is now. He is now called by God to be a prophet. The second thing we learned is that Jonah did not go to Nineveh.
In fact, he headed in the opposite direction. The third thing we discovered is that Jonah did not pray about his decision to try to run away from God and to run away from his assigned task. And a fourth thing that we discovered is that even though Jonah tried to run away from God and run away from his task, God was not finished with him.
So that was last time. The book of Jonah shows us an important principle concerning the sovereignty of God. Question, what happens when God wants a person to do something, but the person doesn't want to do it?
That would fit Jonah perfectly, wouldn't it? God wanted him to do something. Jonah didn't want to do it. What happens? He closes the other doors. That's one way of saying, yes, indeed. He closes all the other doors, and he eventually will take us to a place where we will do what he wants us to do.
We always do. There's never been a time in the history of the world that anybody failed to do exactly what God wanted them to do. Everybody always does what God wants them to do. After all, God is sovereign.
Everything happens as he wishes, and he is also all-knowing, so he knows what's going to happen. It's no surprise. Now, sometimes God changes us. He can even change us so that we want to do what he wants us to do, but that doesn't always happen.
It doesn't happen always, and it doesn't happen here. To sum it up, we always do what God wants us to do, but sometimes we don't like it, and this is the case with Jonah. As we'll see later, not so much this chapter, but in the chapters to come, Jonah does it, but Jonah doesn't like it.
Jonah does go to Nineveh. He goes, but only reluctantly. He's not rejoicing at all in his assigned task. Wouldn't you think that you'd be delighted to do something when God tells you in person to do it, and you know exactly what it is that you're supposed to do, but Jonah didn't rejoice?
Of course, Jonah didn't have in his scripture Philippians 4, but the concept, even though the scripture wasn't there, the concept is certainly there, and he should have been aware of it. What does Paul say in Philippians 4, verse 4?
Rejoice. Rejoice in the Lord always, and again, I say rejoice. I can't ever read that verse without thinking of Myron Goldman. He said this is the most redundant verse in the Bible, because to rejoice means to have joy and to have joy again, and so what he's saying is have joy and have joy again, and again I say have joy and have joy again.
He was really focused on joy in this passage. Let your moderation be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. Be careful for nothing. Don't worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication and with thanksgiving, let your requests be known unto God, and that doesn't mean he's going to answer all your requests exactly the way you want them answered.
He'll only answer them the way they should be answered. He doesn't say you'll get everything you ask for, but he does say this, and the peace through God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and your minds through Jesus Christ.
Jonah didn't have that scripture. We have that, but Jonah should have known that. Paul knew it, so now we're going to go to Jonah chapter 2 verse 1. Then Jonah prayed. Oh, by the way, what did Paul say in Philippians?
In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, pray and be thankful. Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly. Now the first thing to consider is when did Jonah decide to pray?
Well, let's look at all the times he could have decided to pray. He could have prayed when the Word of God came to him to go to Nineveh, a perfect opportunity to pray and have the Lord explain more clearly what he would have done or bring him peace with going.
If he had prayed, he would have had peace with going. He didn't pray. He could have prayed when he decided to try to escape the presence of God, but he didn't. He could have prayed before he paid, before he rose and to flee to Tarshish, but he didn't.
He could have prayed before he paid the fare to go to Tarshish, but he didn't. He could have prayed while the storm was raging, but he didn't. He was sound asleep. He could have prayed when the sailors asked him to call on his Lord, but he didn't.
He could have prayed when the sailors asked him, what should we do unto thee that the sea may be calm, but he didn't. The sailors prayed. They prayed to their gods and God could do nothing. They even prayed to Jonah's God, but Jonah didn't.
And now, finally, at an undetermined time after, after what? After they, the sailors, took up Jonah and cast him forth into the sea, and the sea stopped her raging, and after the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah, but before his three days and three nights were finished, finally, Jonah prayed.
Now, look at the two adjacent verses, Jonah 117 and Jonah 2 -1, and read them both together as if the title, as if the caption wasn't there. I'm going to do that for you. This is beginning with Jonah 117.
Now, Jonah had prepared a great fish to swallow, whoops, I said wrong, didn't I? But the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly. So, when did he decide to pray? Apparently, after the three days in the belly of the fish. Now, another question arises. Did Jonah die or was he kept alive through this whole ordeal?
I'm going to read verses one and two again of chapter two. Verse one, then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of fish's belly, and he said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me.
Out of the belly of hell I cried, and thou hearest my voice. So, what do you think? Was Jonah dead or was he alive? And then another question, was he always alive? Is there any time during the time that he was thrown overboard and the end of the three days, is there any time that he was not alive?
Well, John MacArthur addresses this, and he kind of addresses it in a non-definitive way. I'm going to read what he says. The phrase, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me out of the belly of hell.
That phrase does not necessarily indicate that Jonah actually died, and then he puts in a parenthetical. Maybe he died, and maybe he didn't. So, MacArthur's not going to take a position on that, at least explicitly.
He goes on to say, hell frequently has a hyperbolic meaning in context where it denotes a catastrophic condition near death. So, he's giving himself an out. If he didn't die, he was at least close to it.
So, he didn't take a definitive position, but he did give a hint. If you read all of MacArthur's commentary on Jonah, he cites King David in Psalm 30 verse 3. I'm going to just read. You don't have to go there.
O Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave. Thou hast kept me alive that I should not go down into the pit. He brings that passage up, but he focuses on the first part of the verse in his commentary.
Thou hast brought my soul from the grave, not the second. Thou has kept me alive that I should not go down into the pit. David has been kept alive, but that may not pertain to Jonah. That's my comment.
That was not MacArthur's. David had been kept alive, but that probably does not pertain to Jonah. Reading between the lines, Dr. MacArthur apparently believes that Jonah has died and then has been miraculously raised from death.
I didn't highlight that in my notes, but I should have. Raised from the dead. I'm going to pause a second and tell you there's a difference between being raised from the dead and being resurrected with a glorified body.
Can you think of anybody that was raised from the dead and was not given a glorified body? Lazarus was one, and in fact, he came back and the Pharisees plotted to kill him. Did they manage? We don't know.
Did he die again? Probably. He's not around today. So he was raised from the dead, not put in a glorified body. His body was probably just like it was when he left. Can you think about anybody else that was raised from the dead and not given a glorified body?
The guy that fell out the window? Paul raised him from the dead? Yes. The ones that came out of the grave while Jesus was on the cross? We don't have records of all of those people after those events, but we can assume that they lived the rest of their lives and died again.
I wanted to make that clear before we go on, and I was very careful not to say he was miraculously resurrected because I think there's a difference between being resurrected and being raised from the dead.
Being raised from the dead, you resurrected, you are raised from the dead, but you're raised from the dead different than you were before. So I don't think Jonah was resurrected. I think he was raised from the dead, and I want to mention that maybe next time when I make a comment on what Brother Otis used to say.
Brother Otis thought that when the great fish spit Jonah up on the shore, that he was bleached white from the acid in the stomach of the fish, and that when he got to Nineveh, all of these things that when he said, woe unto you, you get 40 days and you'll be destroyed, that that added power and emphasis to his message.
I don't think that. I think he looked exactly like he did when they threw him overboard. I think he was just raised from the dead in exactly the same way. We'll get to that later, and we'll discuss it at proper time.
Okay, Dr. MacArthur apparently believes that Jonah has died and then has been miraculously raised from the dead and placed in the belly of the great fish where he stayed three days and three nights. That needs to be the case so that Jonah could be the sign that Jesus revealed to the Pharisees.
So let's go, all of us please, to Matthew chapter 12, verse 39, and we'll pick it up there. I'll start just a little bit into the into the verse. There shall be no sign given it but the sign of the prophet Jonah.
For if Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Now, at the end of his three days, Jesus was raised from the dead, but Jesus was also resurrected.
He came out of the grave different than he went in with his glorified body. At the end of his three days, Jonah also is raised from the grave. He is taken out of the whale, and at the end of his three days, Jonah begins to pray.
Now, Matthew Henry, as we shall see later, also seems to agree. His take is that the great fish did not immediately swallow Jonah when he was cast into the sea, but that he, in fact, remained at sea dead for some time before he was scooped up, and that it was near or at the end of his three days in the belly of the fish that he prayed.
Now, one thing did happen immediately when Jonah was thrown into the sea. What was that? The sea became calm at the very moment that Jonah was cast into the sea. So, Jonah was cast in the sea. The sea became calm.
Jonah, I think, at some point died. The great fish scooped him up. He was miraculously brought back to life, prayed in the belly of the fish at the end of the three days. Now, let's take a little closer look at Jonah's prayer.
Jonah's prayer shows that he was a man of God, that he was a man that knew the Scripture. As you read some of these verses, you're going to see phrases that he has taken from the Psalms. Let's just begin.
Verse 2. And said, I cried by reason of my affliction unto the Lord. So, he's begun his prayer. And he heard me out of the belly of hell. I cried, and thou hearest my voice. Now, you don't need to go here, but I'm going to read Psalm 18 .6.
In my distress, I called upon the Lord. I cried out to my God, and he heard my voice. And now, Psalm 31 .22. For I said in my haste, I am cut off before your eyes. Nevertheless, you heard the voice of my supplication when I cried out unto you.
Verse 3. For thou hast cast me into the deep, in the midst of the sea, and the floods compassed me about. All thy billows and thy waves passed over me. Now, two things in this verse. First, Jonah realizes now, it was not the sailors that cast him into the sea.
It was God himself. He said, he didn't say the sailors cast me into the sea. He said, you cast me in the sea. For thou hast cast me into the sea, in the midst of the sea, and the floods compassed me about.
All the billows and thy waves passed over me. Look at Psalm 42 .7. Deep calls unto deep. At the noise of your waterfalls, all your waves and billows have gone over me. It's almost like he is selecting quotes to put in his prayer.
Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight, yet I will look again toward thy holy temple. Jonah now has recognized that he's dead, has been dead. His greatest pain was not the calamity of his death, but his separation from God.
His feeling that he was cast out of God's sight. Still, he was determined, even in the belly of the fish, to turn his head toward God and toward God's temple. Simply put, Jonah remembered the Lord. Verse 5.
The waters compassed me about, even to the soul. The depth closed around me. Roundabout. The weeds were wrapped around my head. I believe in chapter 5, in verse 5 rather, that Jonah is already dead. But you need to keep this in mind.
Acts 17 .11. These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things are so. So don't believe what I tell you.
Search the scripture and see. And I went down, this is verse 6. I went down to the bottom of the mountains. The earth with her bars was around me forever, yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God.
So what's happened? In verse 6, he is scooped up by the great fish and restored to life as a sign given by God to Jonah, as well as the Pharisees in Matthew 12. I think I've already read 12 .39, but I'll read it again.
Starting at 39. Matthew 12 .39. But he answered and said unto them, an evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall be no sign given it, but the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
And the men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah. And behold, a greater than Jonah is here. So why did God give them the sign that he gave them?
He didn't say you won't be given a sign. He said the only sign you'll be given is the sign of Jonah the prophet. Why did he give them this sign? To emphasize the importance of the lesson that Jonah was taught and that the Pharisees were taught.
And what's the lesson? The lesson is the Jewish nation was chosen to be God's instrument by which his message of salvation was to be delivered to the world. And whether they liked it or not, they would serve Jonah and the Pharisees.
They served as God's instrument by which the Gentiles received his message of grace. And Jonah didn't like it, and the Pharisees didn't like it. But you know what? They both did it. Look for a second.
You don't have to go here. Genesis 22, Genesis 22, verse 18. And in thy seed, all nations of the earth shall be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice. This is God talking to Abraham. And who's the seed of Abraham?
Through which all the nations of the earth will be blessed. And how many nations of the earth are left out? None. Well, Paul is going to tell us which one it is. In Galatians 3 .13, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree, that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
And then down at a couple of verses later, now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not unto seeds as of many, but as one, and to thy seed, which is Christ. And this I say, that the covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was 430 years after, cannot disannul that it should make the promise of non-effect.
So it's saying no matter what happens afterwards, there's nothing that can be done to make this promise of no effect. Now, in particular, Jonah was sent to Nineveh, though he never called upon the men of Nineveh to repent.
They repented anyhow. So why did they repent? Maybe not because Jonah called upon them to repent. He didn't do that. But because God extended his grace to them. And one more thought on verse six. I went down to the bottom of the mountains.
The earth with her bars was about me forever, yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption. Oh Lord, my God. Corruption, Shekoth, the King James Version of the Bible, translates the following ways.
Corruption, four times. Pit, 14 times. Destruction, twice. And grave, once. And so here's what he said. King James Version. I went down to the bottom of the mountains. The earth with her bars was around me forever, yet thou hast brought up my life from corruption.
Oh Lord, my God. Now, the English Standard Version, translated this way. At the roots of the mountains, I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever, yet you brought up my life from the pit.
Oh Lord, my God. So Jonah is brought up from the grave, brought up from the pit, and restored to life. Verse seven. When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple.
And so now finally, he prays. Now, we're only two verses away from the end of this chapter. They that observe lying vanities forsake their mercy. This is verse eight. They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.
Did Jonah have any lying vanities? Jonah's lying vanity was himself, his opinion, his desire to do his own will instead of doing the will of the Lord toward the Ninevites. It had caused him to forsake his faithfulness to the Lord.
He wanted to run away, and he did. He tried to, but now he recognizes that in his attempt to run away from God, he was unsuccessfully trying to forsake God's mercy. God didn't let him run away, and God reneged on the mercy that he was extending to Jonah.
Verse nine. But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord. So Jonah finally realizes that his salvation was not of his own doing.
He had not been saved to do his own will, but to do the Lord's will, and Jonah had to actually lose his own life to realize that. Now, so far so good, but you might note he only said he would sacrifice and that he would cease running from God.
He didn't say that he would enthusiastically obey him. Verse 10. And the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon dry land. Matthew Henry has a couple of things to say here. One, we have here Jonah's discharge from his imprisonment and his deliverance from that death, which there was threatened with his return, though not of life, for he lived in the fish's belly, yet to the land of the living.
Now, I remember Matthew Henry believes that he was dead. The fish scooped him up. He was brought back to life, and he was alive in the fish's belly. So that's what he's saying. He's not been released yet from the imprisonment.
His resurrection, and I would not use the word resurrection here, but Matthew Henry did. His resurrection, though not from death, yet from the grave, for surely never man was so buried alive as Jonah was in the fish's belly.
Now, we have an instance of God's power over all creatures. God spoke to the fish, gave him orders to return him as before he had given him orders to receive him. God speaks to other creatures and is done.
They are all his ready obedient servants. But to man, he speaks once yet twice, and he perceives it not, regards it not, but turns a deaf ear to what he says. Note. God has all creatures at his command, and he makes them, makes what use he pleases of them and serves his own purposes by them.
And those all creatures, that includes man as well. So all creatures are at his command, man as well. As an instance of God's mercy to a poor penitent, that in his distress praise to him, Jonah had sinned and had done foolishly, very foolishly.
His own backsliding did not correct him, and it appears by his afterconduct that his foolishness was not quite driven from him. No, not by the rod of his correction, and yet upon his praying and humbling himself before God, here is a miracle in nature wrought for his deliverance to intimate what a miracle of grace, free grace, God's reception and entertainment of returning sinners are.
When God had him at his mercy, he showed him mercy and did not contend forever. And then we have this passage, this also from Henry. As a type and figure of Christ's resurrection, he, let's say Christ, died and was buried and lay in the grave as Jonah did.
Three days and three nights a prisoner for our debt, but on the fourth day he came forth as Jonah did by his messengers to preach repentance and the remission of sins, even to the Gentiles. And thus was another scripture fulfilled, Hosea 6 -2.
After two days will he revive us, and on the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight. Henry goes on to say, the earth trembled as if full of her burden, as the fish was of Jonah.
And that ends chapter two. Let's pray. Most gracious heavenly father, thank you for this day and thank you for all our many blessings. Thank you for giving us the example of Jonah and the extreme mercy of God, who will not allow his children to successfully run away from him.
He will punish them, he will chasten them, he will bring them back to him if they belong to him in the first place. Lord keep us and bless us in Jesus name we pray, amen. So any other comments or questions?
I didn't think, but at least I have a picture of rock models, someone, maybe a drug addict who's having a near-death experience and passed out, covered in bone, you know, just a vile human condition.
And then I hear about Jonah and I realize he was the father, and it wasn't a near-death experience for him, it was beyond that. He's a fine rock model as we consider it. We often give up on the person who's getting on the bottom line.
And you know what is the most.
Interesting thing about that? Whether we give up on them or not, if they belong to God, he doesn't. That was a blessing for Jonah, that was a blessing for the drug addict that was laying in the vomit.
That is a lesson for me. When I'm at rock bottom, God does not forsake me. That's a wonderful thing. Anything else? Any other? Yes, sir.
I think it's interesting to get different scholarly viewpoints on it. I don't know if anybody knows for sure, but I think, to me, it doesn't make sense that a person in this paradise can be able to break himself out.
I think I see the rich man certainly could have tried. Of course, he was on the bad side of the show. He was in the 80s. If Jonah did die, he was in a texbism, right? There's a person there even wanting to get out.
Certainly not praying and saying, Lord, save me from, he'd already be alive in heaven, why would he do that? So I think more likely than not, in the sense that it actually happened to him when he was spit out by Jesus or some other thing.
He's in that whale's belly. In his mind, I'm sure he's thinking, I'm already dead. I'm going to die here any second. I'm going to be dead in a matter of seconds or minutes. That's just my view.
Yeah, and in fairness to Garther, he said, maybe he died, maybe he didn't.
It's okay, as long as you say that's what you're doing. Yes. Either way, it's a miracle because he's in the belly of a fish for three days. Where's the oxygen? The Lord sustained him miraculously.
Well, the Lord sustains him miraculously, that's for sure, and does not allow him to run away. He does not allow him to run away. And that's the frightening message for us all. We shouldn't get lost in all the details that we missed that lesson.
The Lord will not let us run away from what he has ascribed for us to do. Noah was to be a prophet to the Gentiles. He didn't like it, but he became one. He didn't like it while he was doing it, and he didn't like it after he got done.
I don't know. I guess what I'm saying is we won't necessarily like everything that the Lord asked us to do, but we will do it. That's the good thing, and he'll make us do it. Anything else? I think he could say that.
He was not willing to. He wasn't willing to fully obey. Well, let me say one word different. But one thing that he was not willing to enthusiastically obey. He wasn't willing to accept it and to receive it with joy and thanksgiving.
He did it, but he did it reluctantly. That is whether we like it or not. You know Noah. Jonah could have avoided the whole thing.
He could have gone when he said to go. Well, see, I hadn't thought about it either until.
Brother David mentioned it. If he is dead, if he's still dead, and he's in the fish's belly, he's not really there. That's only where his body is. He is in the good side of paradise.
Why would he want to come back? He didn't want to go free, so he sure wouldn't want to come back.
So that does give some food to thought for Matthew Henry's position that he died when he was in the water, and when the fish scooped him up, he was brought back to life. Yeah.
At least that. Yes. Yeah.
And given a second chance. Yeah.