And you missed out on the Mother's Day giveaway. We do still have a few giveaways to give away. I know Josie wasn't here. Elna wasn't here. Anybody else? You weren't here. Where's Ben? Young Ben? You're not a mother, but come on ahead. Come ahead and you can do the needful for us, Ben. So if you would like a giveaway, just raise your hand if you're a mother, and we'll see that you get one of these. It's a picture frame, and you can put the picture of your favorite pastor in it. Is it me? Thank you, Elna. Give Elna two. All right, Jonah is where we are this evening, Jonah, and chapter 1, Jonah chapter 1. We're thinking about those who were detained in Scripture at His Majesty's pleasure, those who went through prison experiences. And we have thought about Joseph, and we thought about Samson, and now we want to think about Jonah. And let's pick up in Jonah 1, verse 1, and this is a story that is really very familiar, I think, even to the secular world at least. The early part of the story is familiar territory. But let's read it, and let's not treat the Word of God with any degree of contempt in that regard, but let us read it as though it was the first time we'd ever read it, looking for something in the detail that God might use to speak to our hearts this evening. Chapter 1 of Jonah and verse 1. Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness is come up before me. But Jonah rose up to flee unto 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 unto 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, that we perish not. And they said every one 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 the lot fell upon Jonah. Then said they unto him, Tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us? What is thine occupation? Whence comest thou? What is thy country? And of what people art thou? And he said unto them, I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land. Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, Why hast thou done this? For the man knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them. Then said they unto him, What shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto us? For the sea wrought and was tempestuous. And he said unto them, Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea. So shall the sea be calm unto 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 was tempestuous against them. Wherefore 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 it 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. Shall we pray? Father, we thank Thee tonight for the Word of God. We thank You tonight for the book of Jonah. And Lord, we do know the story of Jonah well. It's one that we've heard perhaps from childhood. And Lord, it's one of those stories in the Bible that we feel that we know so well that we barely need to read it. But Lord, we believe that every word of your book is true and every line is important. And so, Lord, I pray that you'd help us to come to the Word of God tonight with reverence and to open these pages and to receive the truths as they are, in fact, the very words of the living God. we pray father that you would teach us tonight that you would encourage us that you would instruct us that you would point our hearts and minds heavenward and lord that we would have been benefited at the end of the day for having been here and having sat under this time of teaching and preaching lord help me tonight help me physically help me mentally lord help me even with my speech, Lord, to be clear and to be able to express myself well. And I pray, Lord, you help me above all to honor the Lord Jesus with my lips and to glorify Him in all that is said. We pray your Holy Spirit will take what is said and use it as it pleases Him within this congregation. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, as I say, we've been looking these Sunday evenings at various Bible characters who were, by the will of God, held in prison. And our character this evening really has the shortest prison term of them all. He goes in for just three days, but he also has the most unique prison experience of them all. His prison was warm, Slimy and dark, and every few moments his body was washed over with whale saliva. It's probably not the kind of prison you'd rather be in for very much longer than three days, I should imagine, if at all. And he came out a very different man than he went in. Well, unlike all the prophets, all the other prophets of the Old Testament, Jonah is unique. He was a prophet sent on to a Gentile nation rather than to the Jewish nation. He was sent on to the Assyrians. He was sent to their capital city, to the city of Nineveh. He is God's foreign missionary of the Old Testament. He was sent with a word of warning to a very wicked people, but also with an offer of grace to those same people. He is proof, in fact, that though God chose Israel in the Old Testament, He did not nonetheless neglect or care for the Gentiles. He did care for the Gentiles, and He did reach out to us, and His desire was to show compassion unto those beyond the borders of Israel. So what do we discover about this Old Testament prisoner? Well, we see, first of all, in verses 1 to 3, how he was sent. It says, The word of the Lord came on to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before me. But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. and went down to Joppa, and he found a ship going to Tarsish. So he paid the farrier thereof, and he went down into it to go with them unto Tarsish from the presence of the Lord." Now let's understand that when Jonah was called to go to Nineveh, He wasn't some fresh-faced kid, straight out of Bible college, wet behind the ears, no idea what he was doing. He was a seasoned and experienced prophet of God. We know from other portions of Scripture that he had been used to prophesy the expansion of Israel's borders, and God had blessed that. So he wasn't a novice when he was called. He wasn't a new start. He wasn't someone who was in over his head, so to speak, if you'll excuse the pun. He wasn't someone who was in over his head. Sometimes you say things and they just come out wrong. I just, I wasn't even thinking about the story when I said that, but obviously he, he ends up in over his head, but nevertheless, uh, but, but, uh, he was someone, uh, whose experience and whose message was, was, was brought with some gravitas. He had a certain degree of respectability. He had a reputation. He was a prophet who was taken seriously. within the borders of Israel. But he received this call, he received this commission from God to go to Nineveh, and as such he was already a practicing prophet, and so God begins to detail for him his task. He's to go to that great city, one of the chief cities of the area of Assyria, And Assyria, of course, was the arising power of that time. It was on the ascendancy all over the ancient world. In fact, Nemepho was a massive city for that era. It was a little bit like Stokken in that it was a conurbation of other towns that had all come together and meshed into one great city. And they built this huge wall. around the city. I think they said it would take you two days to travel around that wall. And they could travel around it on chariots, two abreast, around the city walls of Nineveh. So it was a pretty large city by ancient standards. And this was the place to which God had called Jonah. But Jonah was loath to go. You see, the moment he gets this call, he immediately rebels. No sooner does he hear what's to become of him and what God wants for him, it says that Jonah rose up to flee on to Tarshish. And I love that little line in the middle of verse 3, it says, and so he paid the fare thereof. Let me tell you something. When you run away from God, you always pay the fare. God never pays that journey for you, okay? You know, when you're in the will of God, God takes care of you. But when you're out of the will of God, you're paying the fare. And Jonah's going to pay the price. He's going to pay the price for his rebellion and his backslidden condition and his reluctance to surrender to the will of God. Now, there's all kinds of reasons people suggest as to why Jonah didn't want to go to the city of Nineveh. Some people say, well, he was a coward. And that's a very harsh criticism. We might think to ourselves it would be a perfectly reasonable thing not to want to go to Nineveh. It was a fearsome place at the time. It was a very violent place. It was a place inhabited by extremely cruel people. History records that when the Assyrians fanguished other cities and other peoples, There was a tremendous slaughter that would take place. They were merciless. They tortured those people. One monument from the time shows onlookers that are gloating as a man has his tongue physically torn out of his mouth. History records how they would take men. stake them out on the ground and flay them alive, and then put their skins over their city walls. These were not pleasant people. On other occasions, they would take a great pole and they would stab it into the lower part of a man's chest, just beneath his ribcage, and then they would just put it up and make him dangle there in front of every wall until he died a most torturous and painful death, helplessly writhing aloft among these gloating and happy spectators beneath. So, you know, you can well understand that he wasn't being sent to the Bahamas. He wasn't being sent to, you know, Samoa or somewhere where people were going to greet him with garlands of flowers and welcome him. No, he was going to be sent to a very difficult environment. And, you know, we could well, you know, excuse him perhaps if he was lacking in courage to do that. But that I don't think is Jonah's problem. And you say, well, how do you know that? Well, as you read down this chapter, what does Jonah do? He sacrifices himself. To save the mariners or the seamen on the ship, he's willingly thrown overboard. As far as he knows, he's going to his death. Well, you know what? That's not the actions of a coward. A coward doesn't step in for others to save the lives of others. A coward takes care of his own life first. Jonah wasn't that kind of guy. Other people suggest, well, he was prejudiced. that being a Jewish missionary, a Jewish prophet, that he had no intentions of going to speak to the Gentiles. He hated Gentiles. Gentiles were dogs that he had no care for. What worried had he that they would be going to hell? But actually that's not the case either with Jonah. He wasn't in any sense a prejudiced individual. You think about where he got his ship to. He went to Joppa and he got his ship to flee on to Tarshish. Where's Tarshish? Well Tarshish is down in the southeastern corner of Spain. you know here's when I holidayed there many years ago with our children in that little area and there's a little village there called Mohaka and it's a very popular holiday resort now and you know it's a lovely place to holiday but once you leave that coastal town and you head up into the hills I'll tell you where you arrive you arrive in the Tabernas desert it's the it's the biggest desert in Europe and so you think about where he was heading he was going to to visit the Gentile land. You know, here's a man, if he was prejudiced, if he didn't want to go and evangelize Gentiles because he hated Gentiles, why would he run into a place where there was more Gentiles? That makes no sense at all. But I'll tell you what he was doing. Just as he was willing to pay the fare, he was going to pay the fare for his backslidden condition, he was also heading to the wilderness in his backslidden condition. And then he was proud, they say, well, you know, by delivering a message to the Ninevites that their city would be destroyed with the possibility that it might not be destroyed. And that was the message he came with. Listen, you've got so much time to repent. If you repent, God will save you. If you don't repent, God will destroy you. And so he figured they wouldn't repent. He hoped that they wouldn't repent. But at the same time, he didn't want to see his reputation destroyed. And so he didn't want any damage to his credibility, they suggest. And again, we consider his actions on this ship. There's an acknowledgment that he was the cause of their trouble. The fact that he willingly surrendered in that confession, not only his reputation, but his entire life, really sets aside any notion that he had any personal prestige involved in his ministry to Nineveh. But Jonah had his reasons for not wanting to go. Let's look in chapter 4 and verse 2 and we'll see, we'll get a little inkling of why Jonah didn't want to go to Nineveh. He prayed unto the Lord and he said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying when I was yet in my country, before I left? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish." So this takes us right to the beginning of the book. What was Jonah's issue? For I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil." Now, when you and I read that description of God, we think, well, you know, really, that's all the more reason to go, wouldn't you think? A preacher doesn't want to go and preach a God who's gracious, a God who's merciful, a God who's slow to anger, a God who's of great kindness or compassion, a God who turns from judgment, is willing to save people. And yet Jonah was that preacher. He didn't want to bring that message. You see, Jonah knew, as a consequence of being a contemporary to Hosea and Amos, that Israel was set up to be invaded by the Assyrians. Amos said this, So if you like, Jonah was on the inside. He knew what God's plans were. He was one of those prophets. He understood God's will for the future. He knew her future. He knew that God was designing for the Assyrians to come and to destroy the Israelites, to invade their land and to capture them and take them off and to cause them to suffer many of those terrible things that we discussed earlier. But he also knew that God was a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness. So he took those two bits of knowledge, what he knew about the Assyrians, or what he knew about God's will for the Assyrians, and what he knew about God's character, and he put them together, and here's what he reasoned. Well, if I don't go to Assyria, then the Assyrians will not repent, and God will what? Destroy them. If God destroys them, what happens to Israel? Saved. It's a win-win, as far as Jonah could think. As far as he thought, that's the best outcome for Israel. But he says, if I go to them and I preach that God is kind and God is merciful and God is so to anger and they respond to that message of grace and they get saved and God doesn't destroy them, what does that mean for Israel? Israel's going to be destroyed. So in some ways he's acting almost as a patriot. He's acting in defense of Israel. Now that wasn't forgivable because God had expressed his will for Israel. But I want you to notice that as he's heading out there to Tarsus, he's heading out for wilderness, he's paying the fare. And I want you to notice, even in our reading there, there's a lot of going down. If you follow that passage along in verses 1 to 3, in verse 3 it says, Jonah rose to flee on to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, and he went down to Joppa. And he found his ship going to Tarshish, so he paid the fare thereof. and he went down into it. In chapter 1 and verse 5, Jonah was going down into the sides of the ship. And in chapter 2 and verse 6, whilst he's in the wheel, he says, I went down to the bottoms of the mountains. Down, down, down, till he could go no deeper down. That's what happens to us when we run away from the will of God. You pay the fare, you're heading toward the wilderness, and your life is on a downward spiral. Well, he had been sent. Then he was swallowed. And that's what we read in verse 17. Actually, all the way from verses 4 to 17, but for the sake of time, we'll read just verse 17. It says, Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. Now this story, and we shouldn't really call it a story, this record is always open to ridicule. You know, people who want to bash the Bible often come to the book of Jonah and they criticize it and they say, this is such a ludicrous event to have taken place. You know, imagine such a silly thing. In fact, I just saw a wildlife program a few weeks ago in which they were intimating that the book of Jonah was a nonsense. You know, they were talking about sharks and the idea that a shark could swallow a whole person. And they were laughing about that, you know, and they didn't mention the Bible or Jonah specifically, but it was quite clear they were alluding to to the biblical story. And so, you know, it's always been there for open for criticism. And there are many people who want to decry it, who say it couldn't have happened, that that's just make believe. But, you know, those of us who believe the Bible believe it's God's word. We accept it as God's Word. And the question is, was it a whale? Was it a great fish? The Old Testament says that God sent a great fish there in verse 17. Jesus said it was a whale in Matthew chapter 12 and verse 40. Actually the Greek literally says a sea monster or a sea dog. A sea dog is a type of shark. And the truth of the matter is, we don't really know what kind of creature it was. We don't know whether it was specifically a wheel, or whether it was a shark of some kind, or whether it was another creature altogether that God sent along. But you know what? It's not important. The important thing is that Jonah gets swallowed. So often we get our eyes off the ball, don't we? It always cracks me up this time of year, coming up to Easter. It drives me crazy. And you probably don't have the same kind of friends I have. But my friends will start, around Easter time, they'll start criticizing the idea of Jesus dying on Good Friday. And then they'll go on and on and on about Jesus didn't die on Friday and then some will say he died on Wednesday and some will say he died on a Thursday. And they'll argue this thing back. Do you know what? They missed the point. The point is Jesus died. That's the point. And the same thing here. People get caught up, was it a whale? Was it a fish? Was it a freshly created creature? What was it? Who knows? It's not important. The important thing is that Jonah got swallowed. And many of us have the notion that when he was swallowed, that was God's punishment upon Jonah. But when you think about it, that's not it at all. Had the whale not swallowed Jonah, had the great fish not swallowed Jonah, what would have happened to him? He'd have died, he'd have drowned, wouldn't he? He was thrown out in the middle of the sea. He would have drowned. So God actually uses this creature, not to punish Jonah as such, but to preserve Jonah, to keep him from death. Sometimes God sends a man or a woman to prison, not to punish them, but to preserve them. In fact, that was even the case with Joseph, where we started out this series. Let's go to Genesis chapter 45. And remember what Joseph said of his own experience of his brothers selling him into slavery, of his subsequent imprisonment, of his rise to power in Egypt, and then his reconciliation with his brethren. And when he recounts those events toward the end of the account in Genesis chapter 45, Joseph says this, Genesis chapter 45 verses 5 through 7, he says, For these two years hath the famine been in the land, and yet there are five in which there shall neither be earing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. You see what God did there? By putting Joseph into that situation, he was actually protecting the entire nation of Israel. He was protecting the messianic line. So God was preserving Jonah by putting men to the wheel. Secondly, he was painting a picture by putting Jonah into the wheel. Look with me for a moment in verse 14 of chapter 1 of Jonah. And, you know, I never really thought about this before, but I want you to listen to the words of the mariners in response to their predicament he says wherefore they cried unto the lord and said we beseech thee oh lord we beseech thee let us not perish for this man's life and lay not upon us innocent blood for thou oh lord has done it as it pleased thee now notice their prayer is there is actually the opposite the exact opposite of what jesus did for us have you ever noticed that before They prayed that they would not be sacrificed for this guilty man's life. They prayed that they would not be the ones who would be held to account for the death of this man. And Jesus did the opposite. He came, and He did perish for our lives. He was put to the cross for our sin. And our guilt was laid upon Him. So, you know, the death of Christ is intimated, but actually, more specifically, the resurrection of Christ is clearly pictured. Look in chapter 2, in verse 2, at this point, He's in the belly of the wheel, and He said, of hell, cried I, and thou heardest my voice. Out of the belly of hell, cried I, out of Sheol, out of the grave, out of the place of the realm of the unseen dead. You know, for three days and for three nights the prophet was unseen. And in that time, he's in the belly of the wheel, communing with his God, cut off from the land of the living, until the third day when the wheel beaches and deposits him upon the shore. Boy, I wish we could have a one night in with Jonah. Wouldn't that be great? What a testimony that would be. Come and hear the man who ended up as wheel vomit. What an eight that would be. Let's look at Matthew chapter 12. And verse 38. Let's look at Matthew chapter 12 and verse 38. Here's a turning point in Jesus' relationship with the Pharisees. when they blaspheme against the Holy Ghost, and he begins to speak in parables, also in keeping with Old Testament prophecy, so that they would no longer understand what he was saying. In other words, they crossed the line, and God began to remove his grace from them. And verse 38 says, Then certain of the scribes and the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee. You know, to this point, he had done numerous signs. But he answered and said unto 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 wheel's belly, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. So there you have it. Three days and three nights in the heart of the earth is equated to Jonah's three days and three nights in the wheel's belly. We see that Jonah's experience paralleled with and was symbolic of the gospel message that had pointed to the death and the burial and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And notice verse 41. 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. You know, I think these people today who critique and criticize the book of Jonah and suggest its mythology will also find that the men of Nineveh will rise and condemn them and say, no, actually, that happened. That really took place, and you guys should have believed. Well, finally, Jonah is submissive. Let's go back to Jonah chapter 3. Jonah chapter 3 says, And the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the second time, saying, This is after he's been spat out by the wheel. Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee. So Jonah arose and went unto Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey. And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them even to the least of them. For the word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and he covered him with sackcloth and sat on ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published throughout Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed nor drink water. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth and cry mightily unto God. Yea, let them turn every one from his evil way and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish not? And God saw their works that they turned from their evil way. And God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them, and he did it not. Now, when it says about God repenting of the evil, that's not of the sin, because God doesn't have sin. It's not that God needs to turn from sin, but the idea is he was going to turn from the judgment, the condemnation that he was going to bring to bear upon these people. Now Jonah's prison experience changed his mind. Prison sometimes has a way of doing that to people. That's our hope in our society. It doesn't always work, sadly. I think we've made our prisons perhaps a little bit too comfortable in some instances. But some people do go to prison, and it is a life-changing experience for them. They come out, and they say, well, I'll never do that again. They never go back to prison. And Jonah decided he didn't want to go back to his prison, having been swallowed by a wheel once. I guess he didn't want to be swallowed by a whale a second time. And so he did what was asked of him. And he went to Nineveh. And much to his dismay, people got saved. A spiritual revival broke out. Isn't that amazing? Can you imagine a city as wicked as Nineveh? I mean, this would be like somewhere like you know, Las Vegas or Bangkok or some place that is known for a particular wickedness, you know, suddenly finding the Lord and, you know, casinos shutting down and just all kinds of worldly and wicked places closing. You know, that's what happened in Nineveh. God reached out and he touched these people, the Assyrians. You say, how could that possibly be? Here we are, and we're knocking our heads against a wall, it seems sometimes, trying to get people to see sense, to trust Christ, to come in, and to be saved, and all the rest of it, and we're struggling. And this guy, he shows up one day, one day, in the wickedest city on earth, and there's revival. And you say, is that even fair? Well, history tells us that Nineveh and the Assyrians were actually ripe for such a message as that which Jonah brought. Let me explain some things to you. First of all, nationally there had been a downturn in the Assyrians' fortunes. There was a sense of panic. There was a sense of uncertainty among the people. They had endured one weak king after another weak king. As a consequence, their empire was being lost. It was beginning to retract. And, you know, even Israel was beginning to take portions off them. And then a great plague afflicted their land. Many people lost their lives in a tremendous epidemic of disease. And finally, in June of 763 BC, there was a total eclipse of the sun right over the land of Assyria which was in their pagan minds an omen of something even worse that was yet to come. Then came Jonah. At this precise moment in time, Jonah comes into town preaching, 40 more days, that's it, 40 more days and Nineveh will be overthrown. You know, God's timing is always right. And you know, there were no doubt other preachers in that city and other indigenous religions, but you have to ask, well, why would they believe Jonah's message before all the others? Well, remember, he was a sign. He was a sign to the Ninevites. Let's look in the gospel of Luke for a moment. Luke chapter 11. Luke chapter 11. This is really a reiteration of what we read in chapter 12 of Matthew, but let's read it again just for the sake of clarity. It says in verse 29, And when the people were gathered thick together, he began to say, This is an evil generation. They seek a sign. And there shall be no sign be given it but the sign of Jonah the prophet. Now notice, for as Jonah was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of Man be to this generation. Now, how was he a sign? Well, frankly, I doubt they ever saw a stranger preacher than Jonah. You say, well, what do you mean? In 1891, a man by the name of James Bartley was swallowed by a wheel off the Falklands coast. This is in historical records. It says that he was in there a relatively short time in the belly of that wheel. For one night, actually, he spent in the belly of that wheel. His fellow wheelers, managed to get the animal that had swallowed him. They pulled it on board, they cut it open, and James Bartley fell out of its stomach, still alive. He records how in that whale he was indeed washed over with whale saliva and all the rest of it. But interestingly, those gastric juices burned all the hair off his body just in one night. Every hair on his body was burnt off. He didn't, he went in, A hairy man, he came out with not even eyelashes. He lost every hair on his being. Not only that, it bleached his face, neck and hands, they said, to a deathly whiteness. They said even the texture of his skin changed so that it appeared like paper. So he's only in there 24 hours. Jonah's in there 72 hours. How did he look when he came out? He didn't look like your average preacher. He didn't come out looking healthy and tanned and like he'd just come from his nice office with his Bible under his arm. He came out looking like an alien. So he comes into the city, he's bleached white, he's completely bald, he doesn't have eyelashes, he doesn't have eyebrows. You know, this is the time when men wore beards, he has no beard. His skin is just as smooth as can be, it's like paper. And probably in the midday sun, he was glistening. So he comes into the middle of the town as they're expecting an omen and he says, repent or 40 days from now God's gonna have you. And they thought, this guy's serious. And that's what they did. You see, God, God knew what he was doing. God could have saved Noah, or not Noah, Jonah in any other way. He could have sent the ship along, couldn't he? He could have had him thrown overboard and a wave push him onto the land or something very quick. He could have used any other means. But God chose to use this animal to swallow Jonah. Why? Because those superstitious Assyrians needed a sign. And so this zombie-like creature, if you like, comes wandering into the greatest city in the Assyrian Empire, and he declares that God is going to judge them for their wickedness. I want you to think about something else, by the way. Think back to the first chapter of this book. And those mariners are on their way to Tarshish. They're on their way to Spain. And when they're hit by this storm, we read that they began to, in verse 5, throw their cargo overboard, their wares that were in the ship into the sea. And that's what people did in those times. Indeed, even in our own time, that may not be an unusual thing to do in dire circumstances. So they began to throw their cargo overboard. And so, you know, this is a merchant vessel. Its purpose is to deliver goods to Spain. Now they've got no goods to deliver. What are they going to do? Carry on to Spain, have a holiday in Oaxaca? There's nothing in Oaxaca. What are they going to do? Go home. That's all there is to do. They've got nothing to sell. Let's go back to Joppa. So they turn their empty ship around, they go back to Joppa. They come back sooner, they're back sooner than anticipated. They step off that ship. Now what do the sea men do? What old sailors, you know, if you ever watch Only Fools and Horses, you have Uncle Albert, you know, the joke is he keeps telling old sea stories, doesn't he, from his naval days. And that's what old sailors are known for. Old sea dogs tell stories. Well, these guys have a story and a half to tell. They're going to tell a story about a mighty storm that rose. They're going to tell a story about this Hebrew prophet that was sleeping in the hull of their ship. They're going to tell how they brought him up and how he was willing to sacrifice himself. And against their conscience, they threw him overboard nonetheless. And to their surprise, a great sea monster came out and swallowed him alive. Now guess what? The city of Joppa was a trading post. Guess who traded in that city? Assyrians. Assyrians would have heard about Jonah. They would have heard what happened to him. This would have been a story that would have set the tongues on fire. So now they come back to their city, and they're saying, hey, you'll never guess what happened. These guys have just come back from Joppa. They met this guy, and they threw him overboard in a big ship. And next thing, here he comes. 40 days. 40 days, and you guys are done for. Repent or perish. You see, what happened here was they really did get a sign. They got a sign of one who was dead, who was buried, and who rose again. And he comes, think about it, glistening. He comes, you know, white as a sheet. That's a picture of Christ. Christ comes out of the grave. He doesn't go out of the grave like he went into the grave. He comes out and he is glowing. He's displaying his glory now. And that's what they got that day in the city of Nineveh. No wonder they believed. You know, by the dozen they believed, by the hundreds they believed, from the greatest prince upon their throne to the lowest pauper on their streets. They repented and were saved. Scarcely did any prophet in all the word of God have such resounding results in his ministry as did Jonah. And yet, He was sorry. Look in verses one and two of chapter four. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. He prayed unto the Lord and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my sin? Did I tell you this would happen? That's the way he's praying to God. Did I tell you this was going to happen? You know, I may say that to my wife sometimes, and she says that to me a lot of times, but to say it to God is something else. Was not this my saying when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish, for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. You know, most preachers are happy if they see one person saved. But here's a man who witnessed up to a million people perhaps repenting and turning to the Lord from their sin, and he's angry. He's upset about it. Why was he upset? Because their salvation meant Israel's condemnation. It meant the continuation of the Assyrian Empire. Interestingly, not only in the days of the prophets, but in the days to come, as I said before, those men will not only condemn ancient Israel, but may even condemn our day. 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. Well, what lesson does this unlikely prophet bring before us this evening? Well, first of all, he lays before us the example of one who gets out of the will of God, who runs away from the express will of God for their lives. It's a downward path. It's a path that leads to the wilderness. It's a path in which you will end up paying the fare. But then he shows us how even in disobedience, God in his grace preserves us. Isn't that good news? You know, some people believe in the perseverance of the saints. I believe in the preservation of the saints, that God preserves us in his grace. And, you know, our prison experience, harsh as it may be, is in all likelihood more of a preservation than a punishment. And finally, his prophecy reveals how God loves us. Look in verse 11 of chapter 4 as the book closes out. God, in response to Jonah's protest, says this, Should not I spare Nineveh, that great city wherein there are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also much cattle? Six square thousand persons, 120,000 people that couldn't tell their left hand from their right hand. Some people say, well, that's referring to people who had mental disability. It could be, but that's unlikely to have such a population as that. It's more than likely referring to children. You know, when you're a little kid, you don't know your left from your right. So God is saying, you know, are you really serious, Jonah? Do you want me to destroy a city with 120,000 little ones in it? And then he refers to the animals. What about the animals? You know, sometimes we forget that God cares about animal life too. And God's compassion extends toward all men, not just to Jews, nor just to Gentiles, but to all men, the wicked as well as those who live what we might call comparatively good lives, little children as well as men and women, beasts and animals as well as humanity. And I wonder this evening, you know, can we not see how God loves us? Maybe you're here at night, you're on the run from God. You know what you need to do. You know what God wants for you and what he's calling you to, but you're resisting it. You're trying to go the other way. Maybe God has been dealing with your heart about something and you're resistant and you're rebellious. Let me tell you something. I don't care who you are. You can be Hussein Bolt, but you can never outrun God. He'll always catch up with you. No matter how far you go, you cannot flee from his presence. You should know that. You should know also that satisfaction is only ever found in his will. And maybe you're here this evening, you're not a Christian. I want you to know that God loves you, no matter what you've done. You know, I'm pretty sure you haven't laid anybody out and skinned them. If you've done that, you can speak to me after the service. But I'm pretty sure most of us are not in that category of sinner. But you have done some things that were offensive and are offensive to God that are contrary to his holiness. No matter how bad you think it is, I want you to know that his compassion extends even toward you. And if you're like the people of Nineveh, would turn from your sin and trust Jesus as your Savior, you can experience the same joy they had that day when this strange prisoner of God wandered into their city and offered them an extension of God's grace. Why not tonight come to Jesus and trust Him before it's too late? Let's pray.