The scripture we're reading today is Jonah 1, 1-3. Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it, for their wickedness has come up before me. But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it. go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. Please pray with me. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this gorgeous Sabbath day. We pray that we can come before you today humbly with open hearts and hear the word of the Lord preached by Boyd. We pray that you be with him as we begin our study of Jonah. Bless our fellowship. time together today. We pray these things in your son's name. Amen. After four and a half years in the gospel of Matthew, we are moving on. We have covered the birth and life and death and resurrection of Jesus. in Matthew's gospel and examined every miracle and parable and teaching. We covered the encouraging passages and even the difficult ones. And I must confess that the book of Matthew really just gave me a different perspective. It impacted my life over the last four and a half years as I studied it and preached from it. And I hope in some way it did yours as well. But today we are completely changing gears as we begin a new study in the Old Testament, a study of the book of Jonah. And I'm just making a guess here that it will not take four and a half years to get through Jonah. And I'm afraid if it did, you might put me on a boat to Tarshish. But it's a shorter book and it's only four chapters. But today I want to begin by examining some of the key truths and actually one of the objections to this book in this miraculous story of the book of Jonah. And so this is more like an introduction, an overview of what we're going to be getting into. I want us to more take a step back and next week we'll begin more of an in-depth verse by verse study. And so the book of Jonah is unique in a few ways here. And this is where I want to go in our study. So turn there if you're not there already. If you can't find it, if it helps you, it's right after the book of Obadiah, which is the shortest book in the Old Testament. So let's begin. Let's read the first chapter. And I realize this is a familiar story to most of you. I realize that many of our children are very aware of what takes place here. But let's read the first chapter. And now the word of the Lord came into Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Arise and go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before me. But Jonah rose up to flee into Tarshish from the presence of the Lord and went down to Joppa. And he found a ship going to Tarshish, so he paid the fare thereof and went down into it to go with them into Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. But the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea so that the ship was like to be broken. Then the mariners were afraid and cried every man unto his God and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea to lighten it of them. But Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship, and he lay and was fast asleep. So the shipmaster came to him and said unto him, What meanest thou, O sleeper? Arise, call upon thy God. If so, be that God will think upon us, and we perish not. And they said, everyone to his fellow, come and let us cast lots that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us. So they cast lots and a lot fell upon Jonah. Then say they unto him, tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us, what is thine occupation and which comest thou, and what is thy country and of what people are thou? And he said unto them, I am a Hebrew. I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, which made the sea and the dry land. Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, Why hast thou done this? For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them. They said unto him, What shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be common to us? For the sea wrought most tempestous. I guess I'm saying that right. And he said unto them, Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea, so shall the sea be common to you. For I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you. Nevertheless, the men rode hard to bring it to the land, but they could not. For the sea wrought, and the tempest was against them. Therefore they cried unto the Lord, and said, We beseech thee, O Lord, we beseech thee. Let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not upon us innocent blood. For thou, O Lord, hast done as it pleased thee. So they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea, and the sea ceased from her raging. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly and offered a sacrifice unto the Lord and made vows. Now 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. And wow, what a great story this is. And I said it's a familiar story. Most of us here at Heritage, we know this story. I would guess that all of us have an understanding of what happens here. In fact, many unsaved people Whether they believe this story or not, they know about this story. They have some level of familiarity with what happened to Jonah. And the basic short answer most people will tell you is that this is a book about a man who was swallowed by a whale. But as we will see as we study this, it's much more than a story about a man in a whale. So the first thing I want us to cover is the main objection. The opposition that the book of Jonah has, many people believe that Jonah is just a story, not an actual event. There are many critics that believe that this was just made up, or at best, this was just a vivid dream that Jonah had. But I want to consider some supporting truths that prove that the events that Jonah went through actually did happen. Because you see, Jonah is a book in the Bible that is perhaps one of the most disbelieved books of all the scriptures, maybe next to the creation account in Genesis. This is probably right up there with one of those books that is just not believed by so many people. So I want to examine the evidence of why we can believe the book of Jonah. Now, and perhaps you've heard this story about the little girl sitting on an airplane and she was sitting next to a man and she was reading her Bible and this man claimed to be an atheist. And he started to question her about the book of Jonah. He said, you know, that Bible is just a bunch of made up stories. You know that, don't you? You don't believe everything you read in there, do you? And she said, well, yes, I do. He said, well, was Jonah real? And she said, yes. And when I get to heaven, I'm going to meet him and talk to him about it. And the man said, well, what if Jonah didn't go to heaven and went to hell? And the girl said, well, then you can ask him. So the truth in that little story is that there's so many people that do not believe the story of Jonah. It was something that could have not possibly happened. I mean, to imagine that someone would get swallowed by a whale after voluntarily saying, listen, you throw me over, this will take care of itself. And then three days later to live and then go preach. I mean, this is just this sounds crazy. But there are people who say, I believe most of the Bible, except for that part about Jonah. But Jonah is a true and actual event, and I'll go as far as to say, if you do not believe the book of Jonah. If you do not believe that this was an actual event, you cannot believe that Jesus is the son of God. Now, that's a strong statement, but I'll prove it to you, if you do not believe that the book of Jonah is true, then Jesus cannot be the son of God. And you're thinking, wow, that's a that's a big leap from not believing Jonah to not believing Jesus is the son of God. How could that be? Well, I'll walk us through that here in just a moment. But the first truth I want to present concerning this objection that Jonah is just a story or it's just a myth. Look at verse 1 again. Now, the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Now, for those who argue that Jonah was not a real person, let's go to another portion of Scripture. Turn to 2 Kings chapter 14. 2 Kings chapter 14. 2 Kings 14 verse 23. In the 15th year of Amaziah, the son of Joash, king of Judah, Jeroboam and the son of Joash, king of Israel, began to reign in Samaria in forty and one years. Now, here's the problem. No one ever debates this verse. You think, well, what did we just read? What was so significant about that? See, here's the thing. Historically, what I just read to you about Joash, about Jeroboam, about Israel, about Samaria, no one ever debates that historically. It's accepted historically. You never hear of anyone specifically targeting this verse and going, that verse in 2 Kings 14, 23 is absolutely not true. People do not go after that verse like they do Jonah, the book of Jonah. There's no debate about the existence of Joash or Jeroboam or Samaria or anything like that. There's no debate about that. But let's keep reading. Look at verse 24. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. And he departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who has made Israel to sin. He restored the coast of Israel from entering of Hamath into the Sea of Plain, according to the word of the Lord of God of Israel, which he spake by the hand of his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet, which was of Gephether. So here's the deal. Follow me on this. Jeroboam was a real person and a real king. We know that Israel, even to this day, is still a nation. And that Hamath was an actual place. History agrees with all this. And no one questions that. No one questions what we just read. But as we keep reading, we see, whoa, Jonah was mentioned here. He must have been a real person. And we look at whose son this is in Jonah, in 2 Kings. It's Amittai's, which Jonah 1.1 says, The word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai. So Jonah is recorded in another book besides his own. And for those who are saying that, well, the Jonah in Jonah is not the same as the Jonah in 2 Kings. Well, there's a big stretch to say that. To tell me that there's two Jonas living in that same time period who not only have the same names, but have the same names for their dads and they both were prophets. Now, again, if anyone ever questions the truth of the book of Jonah, look at it this way. Shortly after the book of Jonah is the book of Nahum. A couple of chapters, a couple of books over. And that book, Nahum, is about the destruction of Nineveh. Now, in the book of Jonah, the people repented. Jonah, we know the story. He went, he preached, they repented. But then about 150 years later, the city turned back to sand and God destroyed Nineveh. But nobody questions the book of Nahum. Nobody says, well, wait a minute, that didn't really happen. That's not true. Nobody questions whether or not the person of Nahum really existed. They don't question that. But here's the thing, the book of Nahum is the only place in the Bible that you'll find Nahum mentioned in the Old Testament. You won't find it anywhere else in the Old Testament. And yet Jonah is mentioned not only in his book, but it's also mentioned in 2 Kings. And yet there's this great disbelief about Jonah. But Nahum here was actually a real person, and no one seems to question that. And yet he prophesied and spoke about Nineveh being destroyed about 150 years later, even though there are no other Old Testament confirmations with his name in it. You don't hear stories, true or not. You don't hear funny little atheist on an airplane talking to a little girl story about Nahum. You hear it about Jonah. But people accept Nahum, but they don't accept Jonah. Why is that? because they don't want to believe. They would rather reject this miracle than accept the truth. But the problem even goes further than that. Turn to Matthew 12. Can't quite pull myself away just yet. Matthew 12. Look at verse 39. Then certain of the scribes and the Pharisees answered, saying, We would see a sign from thee, but he answered and said of them, an evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall no sign be given to 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. 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 we have Jesus referring to whom? The prophet Jonah, not Nahum. Jonah, in fact, Jonah is the only minor prophet where it is recorded that Jesus actually says his name. And there's a great connection here, I want us to understand. Again, no one ever raises concerns about whether or not the prophet Nahum existed. But here we read of Jesus himself referring to Jonah, not just the person of Jonah, because some people say, well, I believe Jonah existed, but I don't believe that story about the well and all those three days. I don't believe that. But Jesus is confirming not only did the prophet Jonah exist, but he's also speaking about him being in the belly of a well for three days and three nights. That's Jesus who's saying that. And this is critically important. You see, if Jonah is not real, or if the story of Jonah and the whale is not real, then that means that Jesus is what? A liar. And if Jesus is a liar, then he cannot be the Son of God. And if Jesus is not the Son of God, then he cannot save you from your sins. So do you see the seriousness and the great importance of Believing the book of Jonah, that what happened happened just as the scripture said. Because the second you don't believe the story of Jonah or believe that Jonah existed, you instantly by default are declaring that Jesus was a liar. You can't say that Jesus was a great teacher or truthful in everything he said and taught if you don't believe the story of Jonah, because Jesus believed the story of Jonah. So we actually can build our case for the truth of this book and the truth of the story of Jonah in the well. We can build it from the top down. If Jesus said it happened and if Jesus believed it and if Jesus referred to it and he taught about that, then it is true. I want you to see how significant this is, how important it is to know that all scripture is God breathed, as Second Timothy 316 tells us. The book of Jonah is not some great children's Bible story. That's not just what it is, although children love to hear this story. This book has eternal significance for our own souls. And and we'll see that in more ways than one as we as we study the book of Jonah. So if you're thinking we're going through Jonah, that's just that's a kid story. This is not a kid story. Jonah would be the first to tell you this isn't a kid story. But Jesus himself validated the truth of Jonah. And for us as believers, that itself should be sufficient. Regardless of how hard it is to comprehend that someone was thrown overboard after volunteering himself to be thrown overboard so the wind would stop. And then to see a whale come by and take him. I mean, my first thought is, what did those men think? I bet they did worship. They did make sacrifice. They were scared when the wind was coming. I can't imagine how scared they were when they saw what happened to Jonah. Maybe they didn't see it. Maybe they threw him over and went. But this is a real story. Jesus referred to it. And I have to confess, as the Lord started to direct me here towards Jonah for our next study, knowing that Matthew was on the horizon of being finished, my first response was, Lord, everybody knows this story. But what I failed to realize immediately was that believing the book of Jonah has a direct connection to our own salvation, because if you cannot believe the book of Jonah, then you can't believe Jesus. Jonah is that important, no matter how familiar you are with the story. But that's one of the main objections is everybody says this is not true. But let's look at what Jonah is about. I want you there in your outline, if you have your bulletin, fill in the blank for yourself there on the second point. If the book of Jonah is about, you can just go ahead and put your little guess or whatever down you want. What you think the book of Jonah is about, just in one word, maybe two, what is the book of Jonah? What is it really, really about? Now, if you're brave enough, show your neighbor. This is what I put. Now, when you hear someone mention the book of Jonah, There are many parts to it that come to mind. So what is the book of Jonah about? Well, you may have written, well, it's a book about Jonah. Or it's a book about a whale. Maybe you're a little bit more spiritual than your neighbors, but it's a book about missions. Or it's a book about evangelism, or it's a book about grace or about repentance or God's kindness, or it's a book about rebelling and running from God, or it's a book about an unsafe city, or it's a book about the world's worst missionary. I mean, you could have put a lot of things down. Now, let's go on and on. But at its simplest, yet greatest understanding, the book of Jonah is a book about God. It's a book about God. Yes, there's Jonah, and there's Nineveh, and there's the whale, and there's the sea, and there's the boat, and there's the wind, and there's all these things. It's all part of the story, but the main character here is God. This is ultimately a story about God. In fact, let me put it to you this way, because when we hear the book of Jonah, we first think about Jonah and the whale. But if you back up and look at the entire book, the whale is only mentioned four times. Out of the whole book. Four chapters, the world's mentioned four times. And the word Denim is only mentioned nine times directly. You can throw in two more times when the word city is used, we know which one we're referring to. And Jonah, who many think is the main character, is only mentioned 18 times. But God is mentioned 38 times. That's more than all the other three combined. Now, please don't believe that just because God's name is mentioned more in a numerical sense, that that qualifies that book to be about God. That's not the basis of this truth, because I imagine the word the is mentioned a lot as well. But what we have to understand is that the entire Bible is about God and his working. In fact, the book of Esther does not even mention the word God. But anybody who reads that It's clearly evident that God is continually at work in the book of Esther. But the point I'm trying to make is when you look at the book of Jonah, especially the book of Jonah, it's such a miraculous story, it's very easy to walk away thinking this is about Jonah. Or this is about the whale, or this is about Nineveh. But it's not. This is a book about God. And it's easy to miss God because of how incredible the story is. It's easy to get caught up. Just like so many times we can get caught up in the blessings of God. that we forget God. But God is the main character here. He's the hero. And it's his grace and his kindness that we see. And that's what I want us to see as we study this book, not to walk away appreciating Jonah and the whale and the story more, but appreciating God. I want us to see how great our God is and how merciful and gracious he is to both saints and sinners. Let's not sell ourselves short here and miss the Lord God in the book of Jonah. Instead, I want to see how magnified God is in this book of Jonah. Now, again, sort of an overview. And next Sunday, we'll get into more details. We dig a little deeper verse by verse. But there is a word that is used four times in this book that I believe in some ways sort of categorizes the book of Jonah. And it's the word great. And we see it used four different times here in the Book of Jonah. The first time we see it is in verse 2. Chapter 1. Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before me. So the first great is the great city of Nineveh. Now, Nineveh was a great city. Not great in the wonderful sense, but it was the capital of the Assyrian of the Assyrian Empire. It was located on the Tigris River. If you go to your map, it's in northern Iraq today. That's where it would be. And ruins and all kinds of things have been found regarding Nineveh. Now, in the book of Jonah, we read that it was such a large city. Then it would take three days to walk across it. Jonah chapter three, verse four, so Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now, Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days journey. So this was a big place, especially for that time period. In chapter 4, we're given an idea of the population of that city. In Jonah 4, verse 11, the Lord says, And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons, that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also much cattle. So the Bible tells us that at the time of Jonah, there were more than 120,000 people in that city. Now, I did a little Googling. and found that's about the population of Charleston, South Carolina. Our closest city would be Cary, North Carolina. It's got about 135,000 in the city, but the closest one would be that Charleston, South Carolina. That's about how big the city of Nineveh was population wise. So it was a huge city, especially back then. And can you imagine God telling you to go and preach to the people of Charleston, South Carolina and say you go and preach to them and get them to repent? So the city was a great city. It was a big city. Had a lot of people in it, but there was a lot of wickedness in it. The next great thing that we see in the book of Jonah. In chapter one, verse four, but the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea and there was a mighty tempest in the sea so that the ship was like to be broken. So we have the great wind that's on the sea. And this had to be a very great win. That probably is almost an understatement. But this win was so great that it scared these veteran sailors so bad that they feared for their lives. I mean, they were already chunking stuff overboard just to make the ship lighter. They started pleading with their gods. When they go from trying to see if they can help themselves to praying, you know they're scared. They even pleaded with Jonah to appeal to his God. Now, if this had just been a regular storm, because you understand, these guys were used to storms. They were sailors. They knew that came with the territory. That's part of the job. But this one, it scared them. They would have not acted this way, where they just started to make promises and to plead. To seek out what was, this was unusual. This magnitude of a storm. There had to be something supernaturally wrong on the boat. They were scared for their lives. It almost broke the boat in half. These sailors had probably never seen anything like this. It was a great wind. And it was a wind that God was going to use to get Jonah's attention. Although Jonah at the time was asleep. Which isn't that just the weirdest thing? We read in Matthew where the disciples are on a boat with Jesus and they're scared to death. Jonah is on the boat running from the Lord and he's found asleep. Some things I just don't understand. But these guys were scared to death. This was a great wind. This was not a breeze. This was not just a passing thunderstorm. This was a great wind. So we have the great city of Nineveh and now we have a great wind. If you look down a little further, look at verse 17, the last verse of chapter one. Now 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. So we have the great fish that God prepared. Obviously, if a man is going to be swallowed whole by a fish, it has to be bigger than the man. Whales get that big. And we'll examine some other possibilities later, because in my studies, there have been other people who have been swallowed by fish or whales and have lived to tell about it. I want us to realize that this animal here was created by God and prepared by God for this moment. God had that whale there at that time for the purpose of swallowing Jonah. And it was a great creature, not only in size, but it was great in its purpose. God prepared the creature to take Jonah back to dry land. There is no limit to what God can use for his purposes. Some of you in here today feel that you cannot be used of God. You feel inadequate or untalented. You feel like, you know, that you're below average or whatever. You think of yourself this way and you believe that lie that God cannot use someone like you. That's so far from the truth. Because you read the scriptures, God can use anything and anybody. He used animals. He used people. He used angels. He used nature. He used circumstance. He even used the devil himself to bring about his purposes. So how foolish for Jonah or any of us to turn the other way when God has called us to obey. So this fish was great and it was prepared and used by God for this purpose. The last great thing about the Book of Jonah is found in the last chapter. Turn to the last chapter. Look at verse two. Now, this is after all has been kind of said and done and Look at verse two. And he prayed unto the Lord and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying when I was yet in my country? Therefore, I fled before the cautious, for I knew that thou art a gracious God and merciful and slow to anger and of great kindness and repentance of the evil. So there's a great city and there's a great wind and a great fish. And again, the scriptures tell us there is the great kindness of God. As I said earlier, the book of Jonah is a book about God. Our great God and His great kindness. Yes, Jonah is a part of the story. So is the whale and the wind and the city of Nineveh. But ultimately, this is a book about God. And God loved the people of Nineveh so much that He sent a whale to swallow a man to redirect him so that he would go back and preach to the lost souls of that city. What was it that caused God to do this? What was it that caused God to prepare this well to do this? It was his great kindness. In the words of Jonah, God is also gracious. He is slow to anger, to which Jonah himself should be personally thankful for, considering his great disobedience. But here's something else I find to be very revealing about our God. God has loved and cared for people since the beginning of time. There has been those who his wrath has come upon. 150 years later, it comes upon Nineveh. But we see him constantly offering the chance to repent. And here we are reading in the Old Testament Think back just for a moment here. Here we are reading in the Old Testament about God wanting to redeem Gentiles. Are we not? That's what we're reading about here. Jonah, Hebrew, is being sent to this city to preach to them so that they can repent and turn to God. Jonah is a missionary, not a very good one at this point. He's a prophet who is being sent to a foreign city, a great city, to preach repentance. And Jonah knows that God is gracious. Because see, this city was an enemy of Israel, of the Hebrew children. These were enemies. This is one of those countries that you're like, Lord, please save those people. But if you don't, please just remove them. It's one of those, you know, I kind of hope that the Lord would save them. But there is such a pain. They're so hated by us and they hate us. It would just be better if they were just not here. It's one of those kinds of groups. Love your enemies. This is where that verse applied when it came to the city of Nineveh. And so here Jonah is told to go. To go and preach repentance to these people that he's like, those people? Are you sure? And that's why he says in the prayer, Lord, I know You're so great with kindness. You're slow to anger and you're merciful. I know you're going to give these people one more chance. And Jonah's thinking, I wish you wouldn't. I wish you would not do that. Because these were his enemies. And here we're reading the Old Testament about God wanting to redeem Gentiles. Jonah knows that God is gracious and slow to anger. And he's mad to some degree. that God is kind in that way. But one more thing here, the word great there, in all four usages here that we see in Jonah, the word great in the English is all the same. But in the Hebrew, it's different. The great city and the great wind and the great fish, that's all the same word. It's the word gadol, which means large or intense. A large city, a large fish, an intense wind. But when you get to the kindness, the great kindness of God, it doesn't mean large or intense. It's the word rab, which means abounding in or exceedingly. So God, as Jonah is declaring, is abounding in kindness. He is exceedingly kind. This is the heart of our Lord. This is the God of both the Old Testament and the New Testament. See, I think a lot of times, and this is important because I think many times we think that the God of the Old Testament is mean and the God of the New Testament is love. I think sometimes we get that stuck in our heads. Look what we're reading about here. The God of the Old Testament wanting to redeem and preach repentance to people who were enemies of Israel. It's the same God. He changes not. And there is great kindness. There was great kindness to Jonah. He was kind to the men on that boat. He was kind to the people of Nineveh by sending them someone to preach repents. He is kind to us today. And this is the God that we are worshiping. That's why we have gathered this afternoon. We are able to gather this afternoon because of the great kindness of God, His great mercy, His grace, His love towards us. That is a God that we are worshiping today. And as we close, I want to encourage you, either on your own, fathers, read it to your children. It takes about 15 minutes to read the Book of Jonah. It's four chapters. It's easy reading. Read it. Become familiar with it in the sense of what happens. Examine some of the details. Chase some of those rabbits with your family. I think a lot of times when you're so familiar, you just kind of read over it, kind of know what's going to happen next. And we miss some of those things. Discover again as you read Jonah. You can discover again the great kindness of God. Let's pray. Father, I thank you as we embark on a new Book of the Bible. One, Lord, that is much debated and not believed by many, but one that you have allowed us to learn from, to read and to be very grateful that we can learn from the lessons of Jonah. And I know in our own way, we have all, in some sense, been told to do something and have gone the other way. And as we continue through this journey, as we continue through the book of Jonah, Lord, I pray that we would, that we would grow, that our familiarity with it would not be a hindrance to what you're wanting to teach us. That you would show us through your spirit, those things we must learn. And that you would teach us. Thank you for your kindness, for your grace. and for letting us grow and learn. In Jesus' name, Amen.