All right, so we're on the book of Jonah. I'm gonna go ahead in a second and read the entire book. Jonah, he is, tell you a little bit about him. He is the son of Amatiah. That's how I'm gonna pronounce it. He lived in the 8th century BC. He was born at Gathhefner in the tribe of Zebulun, five miles north of Nazareth. We know a little bit about him because he's also mentioned in 2 Kings. 1425 I'll read that that passage says he restored the border of Israel from Lebo Hamath to as far as the Sea of Arabah according to the word of the Lord the God of Israel which he spoke by his servant Jonah son of Amite the prophet who was from Gath Hepner so We know a little bit about Jonah from that. He was probably very popular because he had promised the victory of Israel and the expansion of its territory beyond the original boundary. At the time, he was told to go to Nineveh. Nineveh is a city of Syria. The capital at this time was preoccupied with the, the Assyria, the nation though, was preoccupied with the mountain tribe of the Uretorah and did not continue the Western campaign to capture Israel until 745. You know, Assyria is gonna be used to judge the northern 10 tribes because of their disobedience in the future. Of course, they don't know that, although people are warning them that and will warn them. I read some guys who said, look, had the nation heard that Jonah had received a call or a mission to call out judgment on Nineveh, they would have been excited. They'd have been like, yes, he's gonna go pick, during the Cold War, he's gonna go to Moscow and he's gonna have judgment against Moscow. Those are our enemies. Well, he's gonna go to Nineveh. And he probably would have been treated of a hero. And of course, they would never think that God was gonna give grace to a country and a city like Nineveh. And so the book in itself is unusual. As far as a prophetic book, it's a story. It's almost like Job or Esther in the poetic books. It's a story. There's no oracles. We don't have any idea who wrote it. It doesn't appear that Jonah wrote it. It was probably written post-exilic, after the exile. It does not begin with a date, the name of a king, or anything else. And of course, conservative scholars consider it historic. Liberal scholars hate it because how can a man survive in a whale if they don't like that whole story, or a fish, great fish, not a whale. So I'm gonna go read it, and then what I'm gonna do is this. I'm gonna read the story, the book, then I'm gonna go through it, not verse by verse, but just kinda go over some interesting points at the end, and then I'm gonna sum up with some things at the end of it to wrap it up, and then we'll be done. So Jonah. Chapter one, verse one. Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, rise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me. But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa, found a ship going to Tarshish. He paid the fare and went aboard to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord. But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea. so that the ship threatened to break up. Then the mariners were afraid, each cried out to his God, and they hurled cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down to the inner parts of the ship and lain down and was fast asleep. So the captain came to him and said, What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, go to your call out to your God. Perhaps the God will give thought to us and we may not perish. And they said to one another, come, let us cast lots that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us. So they cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. And then they said to him, tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? What people are you of? And he said, I am a Hebrew. I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, what is this you have done? For the men knew that he was fleeing for the presence of the Lord because he told them. Then they said to him, what shall we do to you that the sea may quiet down for you? For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. And he said to them, pick me up and hurl me into the sea, and the sea will quiet down for you. For I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you. Nevertheless, the men rode hard to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them. Therefore they called out to the Lord, O Lord, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not on us his innocent blood for you. O Lord, have done as it please you. So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Chapter two, when Jonah prayed to the Lord, then Jonah prayed to the Lord, his God, from the belly of the fish, saying, I called out to you, the Lord, out of my distress, and he answered me. Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice. For you cast me into the deep, into the hearts of the seas, and the floods surrounded me. All your waves and billows passed over me. Then I said, I am driven away from your sight, yet I shall again look upon your holy temple, the waters, closed in over me to take my life. The deep surrounded me, weeds wrapped around my head and 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, when my life was fainting away, I remember the Lord and my prayer came to you into your holy temple. Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love. But I, with the voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed, I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord." And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land. Chapter three. Then the Lord of the Word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time saying, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against the message that I tell you. So Jonah rose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days journey in breadth. Jonah began to go into the city, into the day's journey. He called out, yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast, put on sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least. Then the word reached the king of Nineveh, and he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he issued a proclamation to publish throughout Nineveh, by the decree of the king and his nobles, let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out Almighty to God. Let everyone turn from his evil ways, from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we may not perish. When God saw that they did what they did and how they turned from the evil ways, God relented from the disaster he had said he would do to them and he did not do it. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. He prayed to the Lord and said, O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious God, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Therefore, now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live. And the Lord said, do you do well to be angry? Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city, made a booth for himself there. He sat under the shade till he could see what would become of the city. Now the Lord God appointed a plant and made it come over to Jonah that he might have shade on his head to save him from discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of this plant. But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant so it withered. When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, it is better for me to die than to live. But God said to Jonah, do you do well to be angry for the plant? And he said, yes. "'I do well be angry, enough to die.' And the Lord said, "'You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, "'nor did you make it grow, which came into being "'in night and perished in shade. "'And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, "'in there are more than 120,000 persons "'who do not know the right hand from the left, "'also much cattle.'" All right, let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this day. We thank you for this book. I just pray that you would help us now as we study a little bit. Just bless this time. In your name I pray, amen. Alright. So Jonah. So you guys think Jonah before was a faithful prophet. He did what he was supposed to do. And he told them what and all of a sudden, chapter 1, he receives the call to go to Nineveh hundreds of miles away. And Nineveh is well known because it was in the middle of the ninth century, Israel had been forced to pay Assyria as a vassal state. So Assyria was already sort of semi-ruling over Israel and making them pay, so they knew all about it. But their evil had come up against the Lord of this city. So God calls him to go, but Jonah, who's always been obedient, runs away. He says, I'm not doing that, I'm leaving. He flees from the presence of the Lord. And why does he flee from the presence of the Lord? Well, we don't find out until chapter four, verse two, which we'll talk about in a little bit. Well, providentially, he finds a boat in Joppa, headed for Tarsus. He's able to get a seat. It was not the love boat, but it was a nice boat. And he estimated that their journey could have taken up to a year. Would have cost a lot of money. This was a long trip. This was not some river cruiser. He was not going to go to cruise the Mediterranean. This was a long cruise. So God, in verse four, he originally calls him, he disobeys, now God makes the second move, which is he hurls a great wind upon the sea and makes this terrible storm. Verse five, it's a very scary situation. Each man, each sailor calls out to their God. Jonah, it's interesting, they're all praying, Jonah's not praying. He's not engaged at all. He actually has gone below, and he's asleep. And you know, as you read this story, there are parallels in other places of scripture where things like this happened, and just similar things all throughout. You know, it makes me think of the men on the boat, and Jesus is asleep, but here we got the opposite. Verse six, the captain goes to seek out sleepyhead Jonah, wake him up. Hey, hey, we gotta pray to our gods. What are you doing? We're gonna die. What are you doing? And he says, yeah. And then in verse seven, the crew starts casting lots to figure out, and apparently this works back then, and the lot falls on Jonah and he's implicated. So they know that he's the guilty person. And they come to him in verse eight and say, hey, why is this happening? What have you done to your God that caused this to happen? Verse nine, this is what he says. And he said to them, look, I'm a Hebrew. I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. and so they all of a sudden they now realize that he knows it's kind of weird because they're praying to their gods but the moment he starts talking about the God who created the land and the sea they understand that he's worshiping the real God and they want to know what he's done How could you defy him? Here, the sailors are fearing their false gods. They're afraid, it said earlier. They're afraid, they're having fear of their false gods, but Jonah has no fear of the true God. He's just ignoring them. He's not doing anything. He's not praying. He doesn't seem concerned at all. And so, in verse 11, since Jonah is now the authority in the crowd, since he's the one who the lots went to, and he's the one who knows the real God, they say, what do we do here? And Jonah, again, if you think about it, Jonah doesn't pray. He doesn't say, look, let me go pray and ask for forgiveness. And he just resigned. He says, just chuck me in the sea and it'll be okay. I don't know how he knew that. He said, you get rid of me, everything's gonna be okay. Well, I mean, these pagan men, they didn't like that option. They said, we're not gonna do that. So they now decide to row to get out of the situation. It was a sailboat-rowboat combo, kind of like, have you ever seen Ben-Hur? I don't know if I've ever mentioned that before you, but yeah, you've seen it, Rick, Rick. Every year, Ben-Hur, you know, when number 41, they row and they sail, same deal. I mean, Ben-Hur is everywhere, folks. This Easter, you gotta watch it. You can go to the bathroom during the intermission, or you can stop it and listen to the great symphony piece there. Anyway, so the men don't like that option. They try to row to get out of the situation. Number 41, he's rowing, because they have a great respect for life. The men pray to Jonah's God. Now the men start, before they're praying to their false gods, now they start praying to the real God, and they do not wanna be responsible for shedding innocent blood. They don't wanna throw Jonah in there and say, hey, look, you're the real God, and we're gonna kill one of your guys. We don't wanna do that. So they have this plea where they say in verse 14, therefore they called out the Lord, oh Lord, let us not perish for this man's life and lay not innocent blood for you Lord have done as it pleased you. So we don't want to be guilty for this man's life. Jonah still doesn't pray. No sign of Jonah repenting or praying. He's just ready to go in the drink. He does not, and so Jonah does not pray. In verse 15, the men throw him into the sea and the sea stops raging. So earlier in chapter, in verse five, the sailors were afraid and called out to their gods. Here, they fear God for his awesome power once the storm, and that's, again, that's the Sea of Galilee, right? So when they're in that storm and Jesus calms the seas, it says the disciples were instantly scared to death, fear, because who are we in this boat with? And the men had the same response, although they did not have, obviously, Jesus as God in the boat. But once God calms the storms, once Jonah hits the water, they realize the awesome power of God and have fear. They start making sacrifice and vows. They have life-changing decisions to follow the Lord because of Jonah's disobedience. And the Lord here brings glory to His name through judgment and discipline of a disobedient believer. And the other interesting thing is, you know, So these men, how would you, no, you know, we've got a lot of things here we don't know, and we're gonna talk about that. How would whoever wrote this story know this, that these men did this, unless these men made their way to Jerusalem and told the story or relayed it somehow. Jonah doesn't know, he's underwater. So somehow there's some kind of communication with these guys that they went to Jerusalem maybe, maybe made some sacrifices, we don't know. Chapter 17, but despite Jonah's disobedience and his unwillingness to pray, to ask for help, to seek God's guidance, to repent, Despite all of that, his disobedience, God still protects him and guards him by sending him a fish to swallow him where he spends the next three days and nights. So we don't know how we know, how would Jonah know it was three days and three nights? When I was a kid, I saw this cartoon of Jonah sitting Indian style on this giant whale and he had some notches on the wall, the belly of the fish. I don't think that happened. I don't think his watch was working. He had one of those Fred Flintstones, one with the sundial on it, but there's no sun in the belly of the fish. We don't know. There is some thought that is an idiom of the Old Testament. Because we have several verses where like 1 Samuel 30, 12 referring to David, it says, for he had not eaten bread or drunk water for three days and three nights. There's other similar examples with Isaac, Hezekiah, and Hosea. And of course, the best reference though is Jesus, when he refers to his burial, he spoke the sign of the prophet of Jonah being buried for three days and three nights. And so maybe we know this is true because Jesus referred back to it as in authenticating that time. But regardless, it's God's word, we believe that it's true. He spent three days and three nights in the belly of this fish. We don't know what kind of fish, We don't know if it was a white shark or whatever. I don't know. I've heard all kinds of different theories. I don't really care. It's God's word. It doesn't hang me up. If God wanted to invent a fish to do this, he could do it. He's God. So at the end of chapter one, we've had all this, and now we have Jonah in the belly of a fish. Not with a campfire putting notches on the wall. So then, finally, after all of this, Jonah begins to pray. And he has this long prayer where he says, he calls to the Lord. And it's really a turning point in Jonah's attitude. Before, everybody else is calling to their gods, and he's going through all this. Now he calls the Lord, and he says, you answered me. And despite his disobedience, God answered him. Did he call as he was doing a cannonball over the side? Lord, help me! I mean, we don't know, but he called out to the Lord, and the Lord, again, despite his disobedience, he answered him and helped him. And it's interesting to see, he says, the sovereignty of God, he says, you flung me into the sea. He didn't say those lousy, good-for-nothing pagan sailors did. He said, Lord, you flung me into the sea. He ignores the roles of the sailors and points to God's sovereignty. Verse six, he says, I went to the land whose bars closed upon me forever. Here all hope was lost in Jonah's mind. He feels like he's dying. He says, the Lord brought his life from the pit where his life was fainting away. He's dying. And then, after this all happened, Jonah remembered the Lord. And basically, he says, my prayer came to you. Verse eight, he says this. You know, here he was, just who knows how long ago, we don't know if this is day one, day two, or day three, I don't know. But just whenever on the boat, he's with all these pagans praying to their false gods while he was sleeping, and then he heard it, and here he says in verse eight, he says this, those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of a steadfast love. And so it's like he wants those who pray to false gods to know how off base they are. And then Jonah has three responses to God's loving kindness in verse nine. He says, just like, almost very similar to the men on the ship, he says, I will offer sacrifices to the Lord, he intends to fulfill vows, and then he emphasizes salvation belongs to the Lord. So the Lord then answers this new prayer, or this prayer from Jonah, and he answered it probably the best way he could at this certain circumstances. He vomited, or as some of my patients say, vomicated his Jonah upon the land. Years ago I had this patient, I gotta tell this story, I had this patient, she was 100 years old, like 102, and her daughter was bringing her in here who was like 82. And she says, mama, you need to tell the doctor you've been vomiting. I had not been vomiting. Yes, you too, mama. You've been vomiting. I have not been vomiting. Mama, I saw you vomiting. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I said, wait a minute. I need to know. Mama, are you vomiting or not? We solved that problem. What now? What? No, no, I just, I gotta keep it interesting. I mean, y'all know the story. So the Lord vomited. Not the Lord, the fish vomited. He must have looked horrible. I mean, think, he's got this seaweed in his hair. He's got clams clamming onto him. He's got acid probably eating half his clothing and his skin. He probably looks horrible. You know, a few years ago, some guy crawled out of a fish. He looked terrible. That was only like for a day. Yes, it's happened, that's what I'm saying, I didn't make that up. All right, chapter three. So, the Lord came to Jonah a second time, so God just restates his charge. Okay, back in Israel before all this mess, I told you to go to Nineveh. He says, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I will tell you. So God reiterates his charge to Jonah, patiently giving Jonah a second chance. He says, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against the message that I tell you. He repeats his command for Jonah to go. This command is a little more specific where he says, call out the message that I will tell you. So, verse three, after being chastised by being thrown in the sea, swallowed by a fish, vomited on the ground, he comes and goes to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. I'm gonna do what I'm supposed to do now, what the Lord has called me to do. We have no idea how long it took, but we know that when he gets to the city, that the city is three days journey-wide. And they say that probably included the suburbs and the whole deal. So he walks into town looking like who knows what, saying, 40 days and none of us shall be overthrown. He didn't, you know, he didn't open a coffee shop. He didn't come and have a relationship with the people and try to get to know and, you know, play whatever these Syrians played back then. It was probably golf, don't you think? Rod's golf. But he didn't do that. He just gave the message out. Gave the message. I'm gonna tell you what the Lord told me to say. Nineveh then, shockingly I would say, believes in God. This response contrasts with the future response of Israel, where he just came from, when Jeremiah will have this similar proclamation to them, they arrest Jeremiah. But here, Jonah, they listen, You know, when you start pulling off clothes and putting on sackcloth, you know good things are happening generally in the Bible. That's when good things are happening. So in verse six, the king of Nineveh hears this, he arises, he tears his robes, he repents, and really his actions are symbolic of the entire city. In verse seven, he commands the entire city to fast, even the animals. Animals mentioned show that this extends probably to the surrounding farms around there. You can't feed your cow tomorrow. He says, verse eight, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth and let him call out mighty to God. Let everyone turn from his evil ways from the violence that is in his hands. And this is interesting if you think about it. He tells them in verse eight to repent. And then in verse nine, He's not even doing this in a sense, he doesn't even know if God's gonna avoid judgment because he says in verse nine, who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we may not perish. I mean, he's almost doing it not because he's trying to avoid punishment, just because he's decided he knows it's the right thing to do. Obviously, his heart has been changed. But he's saying, hey, look, if we do this, we might not even perish. So in response, as they repent, the whole city repents, God relents. Ironically, again, Jonah's own people do not repent and therefore experience judgment. And you know what the ironic thing is? God is gonna use the nation of Assyria to judge the northern 10 tribes. And when that judgment came through, that judgment was fine. We don't know what happened to those people. I mean, they're gone. They're not like the southern tribe that went to Babylon and came back. These people are just wiped out, absorbed, we don't know what happened to them. Great story. Okay, well then Jonah has his response to all this. So you did what the Lord told you, took a little kick to get there. In chapter four, verse one, but it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. Jode is angry at this whole thing, he doesn't like it. And now, verse two explains why he got on the boat to leave, because this is what he said. And he prayed to the Lord and said, oh Lord, is this not what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee Tarshish, for I knew that you were a gracious God, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster. Jonah hated these people so bad that he didn't want them to repent. And he knew that if he went, that they would repent. That's why he didn't go. It wasn't because he was the reluctant missionary, and he didn't want to live in Africa, or he didn't want to do the thing that was hard. He just knew, I know if I go, these people are going to believe. And I don't want that to happen. And he uses this like, he almost uses this creed for them. He uses this phrase, you are a gracious God, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and relenting for disaster. This is almost like an old Israel creed that was referred to them when they disobeyed and Moses prayed to relent This is what they said. Oh God, you are a God who's slow to anger. They used the same phrase to spare Israel from judging for their disobedience. And because of that, he knew that, or was very confident that God was gonna relent and not judge Nineveh. It'd be like us sending missionaries somewhere where I hope they don't believe. Oh yeah, you can go talk to those Iranians, but I don't want any of those Muslims to believe. I mean, that's almost what it's like. He's thinking, how can our unique relationship that we have as a nation of Israel with God, how can this be shared with a place like Nineveh? Of course, he doesn't understand the sinful nature of Israel, sinful nature of all mankind. It's almost as if this common trend that we see that he thinks they're special because of something they've done, not just because God's own good pleasure, which is the same for us, right? I mean, your salvation, you're not saved for any kind of extra insight into God's word or any kind of special, it's just out of God's good pleasure, it's unexplainable. So, because of God's forgiveness to Nineveh, that pushes Jonah to the point of no longer, he doesn't want to live anymore. And God, in verse four, says, are you right to be angry about this? So in verse five, though, we back up a little bit, I think. This predates this exchange. I think, because Jonah went out to the city, it doesn't say this, but he bought a big bag of popcorn and he had a Coke, and he was gonna sit there and he was gonna watch fire and brimstone come down in this country. He was, I mean, this is gonna be good, you know, I'm up here, I'm gonna watch this happen. And he's got this little booth up there, And then God appointed a plant to come over him and give him shade. I mean, the Lord loves to use plants. Everyone should be planting bulbs this fall. I want you to know that. The Lord loves plants. So he's got this nice little booth with a plant. I'm sorry, she said that Jonah did not understand decree, which is Jerry's personal hobby. He's got this plant. This plant comes up over Jonah, providing him shade, probably smelled nice. It was probably some kind of, you know, who knows? I don't know what it was. Honeysuckle? Well, it was a castor oil plant. That's what the, what Bible is that? Was that the Reformation Study Bible? Oh, see, they know. So it was a castor oil plant. Okay. Did it say that in my Bible? Anyway, this plant grows up over him. Well, God appointed the plant. Now God appoints a worm to eat the plant. So the worm comes in and just, all it had to do was eat the stem, you know, once you cut off the spot. Early, early in the morning. And then, as the sun comes up, the third thing he appoints, he appoints a scorching wind and sun to beat down on Jonah's head. Jonah becomes faint. He's gonna get sunstroke. And now he wonders again if it would be better if he was dead. Jonah now gets to experience a little of the judgment that he's already had at once, and now he's getting some more judgment as he sits up here angry about these people converting. So he's getting mad again. And again, God asks him a second time. But this time, he adds a little, do you have a right to be angry for the plant? And Jonah says, yes, I have a right to be angry about this plant, enough to die. And then God says, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. You have pity on a plant that you had nothing to do with? Shouldn't I, as God, have pity on a city of Nineveh that has 100,000 people in it? And cattle, he says? And so God is using this to show the contrast. You had nothing to do with this plant, and you're having pity over it, and you're upset about it, and you're upset with me for having pity over people? Okay, so I'm gonna wrap up here with several themes that are common to other prophets. That is the covenant Lord of Israel of God is the God of heaven who made the sea and the land. God exercises complete control over creation. He uses a storm. He appoints great fish. He appoints a vine, devouring worm. He appoints wind and sun. Another theme that's consistent through the other prophets and books is that he will bring judgment on wicked people, sparing those who turn to him. As Jonah is swallowed by the fish, he is taken down to the grave, down to the depths of the sea. He remains in that state for three days. He cries to God and he's delivered. From there, Jonah comes up and brings salvation to the Gentiles. And that's the same thing as Jesus, right? Jesus' ministry prior to his day on the cross was mainly to the house of Israel. There were some other people, but those were usually exceptions, not the rule. But once he died, was buried, and he arose, he commissions the apostles, of course, now to spread the gospel throughout the world to the Gentiles. So just as Jonah came out of the grave, so to speak, to reach Gentiles, so Jesus did also. Matthew 28, 18 through 20. And Jesus came and said, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe that all I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. And then I had this book that has got some parallels between Jonah and Jesus that I just wanted to go through. Some of them are going to be repeated. But things that happened to Jonah and also happened to Jesus in a way. First, the Lord of the Word came to Jonah. Well, Jesus is the Word who came to me, came to us, came to the world. Jonah was sent by God to deliver a message of condemnation to the people deserving judgment. John 3.17, Jesus sent by God to deliver a message of salvation to a people deserving judgment. When God called Jonah to go to Nineveh, Jonah turned and went the other direction. Of course, when John went through the book of Luke, he talked about over and over again how Jesus set his face towards Jerusalem, the exact opposite response that Jonah had. Because Jonah had been disobedient to God, Jonah offered himself up to die in the sea so that everyone else on the ship would live. And Christ offered himself up to die that we may live. A guilty Jonah was thrown off the ship to die by sailors who said, Lord, don't make us die to pay for this man's sin. And Jesus, that's exactly what he did, right? Jesus went to the cross to die for our sins. Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights and was vomited on the dry land. Of course, Jesus spent three days in the tomb. Jonah was powerless to save his own life from the bottom of the sea in the belly of the fish. Christ was raised from the dead. Jonah preached to the Gentiles who were quick to repent. Again, what I just said, Jesus then reached out through the apostles. His ministry spread to the Gentiles. Jonah was angry as he sat over the city. and they repented. Jesus, looking over Jerusalem, had compassion. And Jonah wanted to die rather than live in a world where people he hated experienced God's mercy. And I'll just read this last one in relation to that. Contrast that with Ephesians 2, 3 through 5. among whom we also once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, having been rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by the grace you have been saved." Okay, so to quote my pastor, that's all I've got.