If you're using a Pew Bible, it's page 774. Jonah chapter 1. And let's ask for the Lord's help as we study his word. Our Father in heaven, please open our eyes to behold the wondrous things in your word. Lord, please help us. We confess that by nature we find spiritual truth dull. Keep us awake, keep us alert, keep us tuned in. Lord, work by your spirit in our hearts in whatever way brings you glory. Whether that be unbelievers coming to trust in Christ, whether that be those who are discouraged being comforted, your church built up, work this morning in our lives. Lord, help us as we study this passage to interpret it properly, apply it properly. Lord, I ask for help in my life. Help me to preach with clarity and enthusiasm. And our Father, we pray that most importantly, the Lord Jesus would be honored and exalted in this time. Through Christ our Lord, amen. Jonah, and we'll be reading Jonah 1, 17 through 2, 10. Jonah 1, 17 through 2, 10. This is the word of God. 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. Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish saying, I called out to 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 heart of the seas and the flood surrounded me. All your waves and your 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 were wrapped about my head. At the roots of the mountains, I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever. Yet you brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God. When my life was fainting away, I remembered 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. We come now to what is certainly the most familiar part of the Book of Jonah. Jonah's experience of being swallowed by a great fish. If you don't know anything else about this book, you know that Jonah spent a few days in the belly of a fish and then lived to tell about it. Well, not only is this the most familiar part of the story, it's also the most controversial. It's controversial because so many people think it's simply impossible So many people rule this part of the Bible out as simply implausible. They view it almost as a myth, like Athena being born out of Zeus' head, if you're familiar with that story. And not a few people have mocked and ridiculed and abandoned the Bible entirely because they think that such an account is impossible. Well, in response to that, I'd like to say two things. First, the idea of being swallowed by a fish and then living to tell about it is not as outlandish as you might think. In preparation for this sermon, I read a number of accounts of individuals who had been literally swallowed by some great sea creature and then spit out and lived to tell about it. I think you'd be surprised how apparently frequently this seems to happen. Just to give you one illustration that I found quite helpful, this is what I thought was the most carefully documented, carefully researched incident. It happened in 1891, and it was investigated by two reputable scientists and then recorded in a book entitled 63 Years of Engineering. Well, anyway, the whaling ship, the Star of the East, was hunting whales near the Falkland Islands, which are down near Argentina. They lowered two small dinghies down to pursue a whale that they had been going after. Well, in the pursuit, one of these boats got flipped over by the whale's tail, and all the crew fell into the water. One of the sailors who was tossed overboard was a man named James Bartley. And he disappeared almost instantly without a trace. Well, eventually, they harpooned the whale, caught it, killed it, and began butchering it. One entire day later, they hauled the stomach of the whale up onto the ship. And they were startled to see something moving around in the belly. And they cut it open, and you can imagine what they found inside. Lo and behold, there was their lost compatriot inside the whale. Not kidding you. Though he was terribly frightened and in shock, he was alive and well. And they claim that his skin had been bleached to a deadly whiteness, apparently from the whale's stomach acid. The man resumed his duties three weeks later, and he claimed that he could have lived inside the whale until he starved, for somehow he did not lack air to breathe. But there is a second and really much more serious reason why it We should not reject such an account as out of hand. When we say that such an account is impossible, completely implausible, what we're doing, we're assuming an anti-supernatural bias for the Bible. We're approaching the Bible assuming that God cannot perform miracles or does not perform miracles. In a sense, such an assumption begs the question. But I hope that you do not approach the Bible that way, assuming that there is no God, assuming that miracles cannot happen. If we believe that God did create the universe from nothing, if we believe that God did raise Jesus from the dead, then God could certainly keep a man alive inside the belly of a fish for three days and three nights. And when we approach this account with this perspective, what happens, we're really freed to study it as it is, without having to manipulate it to make it say something that it's obviously not saying. And then we're freed to learn the lessons that the Lord wants us to learn from this passage. Now let me explain to you the method I'm going to try to employ in this morning's sermon. This morning I'm gonna do something a little different. I'm not gonna tell you the point of this passage up front. Usually I do that. Usually I tell you the point of the story, then try to demonstrate that from the passage. Instead, though, this morning, I'd like to inductively study this passage and gradually come to understand it together. And I'd encourage you, as we work through this passage, try to be thinking about why God included this story in the Bible and what it means for our lives. Now just to quickly put this entire chapter in context. The book of Jonah records some very selective but very significant events in the life of a prophet named Jonah. As we've been saying all along, Jonah is someone with a special message from the Lord. God has commanded Jonah to take a message to a non-Hebrew people group, a pagan people group, and to tell them that wrath is coming. Because of their wickedness, God is not happy and he threatens to destroy their city. Well, as we saw, for whatever reason, Jonah hates the citizens of Nineveh. And he does not want to tell them this message. And do you remember why he does not want to go? He does not want them hearing about a compassionate God who is willing to forgive them if they repent. His hatred for this people group is so great that he would rather have them destroyed than rescued. Well, as we saw last week, the Lord was not pleased with what Jonah did. You'll remember Jonah got himself on a boat and headed out into the Mediterranean Sea toward Tarshish, which we think is on the shore of Spain, really in the exact opposite direction. And the Lord comes after Jonah, pummeling his ship, beating his ship, until he is literally thrown overboard and sinking down into the sea. Tells you how happy God was with his behavior. And the point of that event was to prove to Jonah that there is nowhere where you can run from the Lord. Well, one last preliminary comment. I mentioned this last week, but we need to keep in mind as we study this book that the main character is not Jonah, but who? It's the Lord. The storm, the fish, The Ninevites, all of that is the backdrop for God to display His character. In this book, He is demonstrating what He is like. Therefore, as you read this book, be asking yourself the question, what does this have to teach me about God? The same God who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now let's turn to our passage. And the first thing I'd like us to notice is Jonah's surprise rescue. In 117 through 2.1, we see Jonah's surprise rescue. from being drowned by a great fish. And to really feel the impact of this passage, you've got to forget what we know is about to take place. You and I know that there's gonna be a fish to swallow Jonah. But at this point, Jonah doesn't know that. He fully expects that he is going down and is going to drown. So try to put yourself in his shoes and imagine what it would be like in the middle of the raging sea, not knowing that a fish is about to gulp you down. And look at verse 17, chapter 117. 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. Now the first thing you'll notice about this verse is how it says, the Lord appointed a great fish. It doesn't say that a fish just so happened to swallow Jonah, but it credits the Lord with being the one who brought the fish there to swallow up Jonah. We've seen throughout this entire book, God is exercising His sovereignty over everything from the storm to the lots and now to this fish. This fish was not there as a coincidence, but he was there by the command of God. And ironically, this fish was more obedient to God than Jonah was. Well, notice with me, this, I don't want to be graphic, but Jonah wasn't eaten, but he was swallowed. This is important. Just like you or I might swallow down a couple of aspirin with a glass of water, that is how Jonah enters the belly of the fish. He's not chewed on, not digested, but he's in there whole. Now, I only bring that up because it's important for interpreting the rest of the book. I'm not trying to be gross or anything. But he's in there alive. Now some of you might be curious about what kind of fish this is. That question comes up a lot. Long story short, we have no idea. Passage doesn't tell us, and really the Hebrew word used here for fish can be also used for any large sea creature. So maybe it's a fish, maybe it's a shark, maybe it's a whale, we don't know. But God appointed some sort of large sea beast to swallow Jonah whole. Most commentators who attempt a guess think it was some kind of shark because apparently there are many enormous sharks in the Mediterranean in this area. Something you need to remember as we work through this passage is that it would have been fully just for God to have let Jonah die. You think about that. Jonah is in rebellion from the Lord. He is running from God. We know from Ezekiel 18.4, the soul who sins shall die. In the New Testament, the wages of sin are death. So God would have been fully righteous, fully just, if he had let this rebellious sinner drown. So we should view this act of being swallowed by this fish not as an act of punishment, but really as a demonstration of severe grace, showing grace upon a rebellious sinner who would have otherwise perished. Now just try to imagine what it would have been like in the belly of that fish. I think this is helpful for understanding this passage. It would, for me at least, have been completely horrifying. It's pitch black in there. You certainly can't see your hand in front of your face. It's warm, wet, sticky. Who knows, maybe this fish swallowed up other fish and they're flapping in there next to Jonah. Possibly Jonah doesn't even know he's in a fish at first. Maybe he just thinks he's dead. You know, if he gets swallowed up real quick, who knows? He might not have seen the fish behind him. Certainly there's not a lot of room to move around. He's probably in there almost like in a straitjacket. And it probably would have felt similar to have been buried alive under tons of warm mud. It's probably what Jonah's experiencing right now. Now notice quickly the length of time that Jonah's in the fish. It says, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Now that's a long time, a lot longer than I would choose to be in a fish's belly. And something we need to remember is that certainly Jonah was kept alive during this time period by God's sovereign preservation. It was a complete miracle that he wasn't digested, wasn't somehow suffocated. God was the one who kept him alive and this is an act of sovereign grace. Then in 2.1 it says, then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish. Somehow along the way Jonah figures out he's not going to die. He's in this fish and somehow he concludes that he's going to make it out of this experience alive. Maybe God told him, maybe he just put two and two together, we don't know. And as he lays there all bound up in the fish, he composes a beautiful prayer which will be the bulk of our study this morning. Doug Stewart puts this passage in context well when he says, If one thinks of the passage 117-210 in terms of a scene, that scene is played with Jonah in the Mediterranean Sea without a ship, yet in a divinely appointed, highly unique conveyance. For all but a fraction of the time he is in the dark, inside something that has swallowed him and therefore kept him from drowning. Alone with his thoughts, as it were, he prays the psalm which constitutes the bulk of this passage. Now just in passing, one of the lessons that we are reminded of here is that you can pray effectively anywhere. For some reason we have a hard time learning this. You can pray effectively anywhere. You don't need to be in a temple, don't need to be in a church, don't need to be wearing your Sunday best, you don't even need to be on land. You can pray effectively anywhere. The death of Jesus was so powerful it released so much power that anywhere we are we can, in the words of Hebrews 4.16, draw near with confidence to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find help in time of need. Now notice briefly how it says the Lord is Jonah's God. Did you notice that? It says, Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. The Lord his God. God had not forsaken Jonah. Though Jonah is running from the Lord, though he is in the belly of a fish, God was still his God. But consider again Jonah's sin. He has been about as rebellious as you could imagine. He has disobeyed a direct command of God. Not only that, he has refused to warn people of judgment. Pretty bad. Not only that, he has run in the opposite direction, away from the Lord. And yet still, the Lord is his God. And what we see here, in a sense, is a reminder of the truth of Romans 8, 38, and 39. I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, including a fish, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. For those of us who have been once and for all reconciled to God, He will never leave us or forsake us, even if we're in the belly of a great fish. And I might ask you, just in applying this, are you currently running from the Lord? My brother or sister in Christ, has your behavior lately been similar to Jonah? knowingly disobeying God's commands, knowingly doing things that you should not do. Well, if so, let me just encourage you, if your faith is in Jesus, God is still your God. And I would exhort you, repent this morning, return to Him, for He will gladly have you back. Now let's look next at this psalm of praise that Jonah composes as he's lying there. As he's lying there all bound up, he's really overcome with gratitude. And in response, he sings or writes what we have. And this psalm really is very similar to some of the psalms in the Book of Psalms. And it follows a five-sequence pattern. It moves from distress to despair to prayer to a lesson and then finally to praise. A similar pattern you see in many of the psalms in the Book of Psalms. So let's notice these. First in 2 through 3, Jonah talks of his distress. He says, I called out to 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 heart of the seas and the floods surrounded me. All your waves and your billows passed over me. Now here Jonah is recounting his time in the water. He's praying this from the belly of the fish, but this part of the song is about the time when he was flopping around in the water. And you might even try and picture this. It says, you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the sea, and the flood surrounded me. Your waves and your billows passed over me. Almost certainly after getting tossed in the water, Jonah tries to swim a little bit. Maybe he's treading water. But he's in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea during a very violent storm. So he can't keep up for very long. The waves are crashing against him, maybe going over his head. And again, Jonah hasn't heard the rest of the story yet. He doesn't know there's a big fish just looming underneath him about ready to gobble him up. So he is fully expecting to die here in the water. Now you may have heard this, but they claim that death through drowning is one of the most horrifying ways conceivable to die. And it's because you feel absolutely powerless. You see the water coming up, you feel your body going down, and really there's nothing you can do except wait to die. That's how Jonah is feeling at this moment. Now notice to whom Jonah credits with being tossed in the sea. This is important. He says, you cast me into the deep. Now how can he say that? We know from chapter 1 that who threw him in the water? Yeah, the sailors, the other mariners, guys on the boat. How then can he say, you threw me into the deep? Well, it's because he recognizes God sovereignly behind all of this. God's the ultimate cause. Though, yes, sailors threw him in the water, they did so because that's what the Lord wanted to happen. And therefore, he can say, you cast me into the deep. But more than that, look at how he describes the waves and the billows. He says, your waves, your billows passed over me. That water that's crashing against me, sucking me down, you are in control of that. So here Jonah is completely aware of God's sovereignty, God's control. He is the one who tossed him into the water and he is the one beating him upside the head with waves. Another lesson we're reminded of here is how recognizing God's sovereignty is essential for rightly interpreting life. You see that, don't you? Recognizing God's hand in and with and throughout the everyday experiences of life is essential for rightly making sense of life. Just to belabor my point, imagine if Jonah viewed all of this as a coincidence. The storm, the lots, getting tossed overboard. If he just viewed that as an accident, how different would his experience have been? He wouldn't have seen it as divine chastening. He probably wouldn't have prayed. He probably would have just said, oh, it's an accident, and goodbye cruel life. But since he saw God in it, viewed God as sovereign over all of it, he could not only recognize the Lord, but draw near to the Lord through this trial. And I ask you, do you recognize God's sovereignty in the ordinary circumstances of life? Do you view every blessing as a gift from God, every trial as a gift from God? Do you believe the words of that old hymn, every joy or trial falleth from above? You need to if you want to rightly make sense of life. Well, from distress, Jonah then goes on to despair. Look at verse 4. It says, then I said, I am driven away from your sight. He's really feeling like he's driven away from the Lord's sight. Though the Lord has not abandoned Jonah, that's how he feels. Telling us how suspect our feelings can be. I am driven away from your sight, yet I shall again look upon your holy temple. Now I should say something about the second half of verse four. I believe the second half of verse four should probably be translated as a rhetorical question. It can be translated this way, but I think it should say, shall I yet again look upon your holy temple? He's hopeless here. He's not expecting to get saved. He thinks he's going down for good. He doesn't anticipate ever rejoining God's people, worshiping with God's people in Jerusalem. Then in verse five, the waters closed in over me to take my life. The deep surrounded me. Weeds were wrapped around my head. At the roots of the mountains, I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever. Now again, imagine what Jonah is experiencing. He swims for a while, but then he loses strength. He starts to go under. And he can even see the water close up over his head. And it says he got entangled in seaweed. Weeds were wrapped about my head. So not only is he sinking deeper into the water, he's bound in seaweed. And again, not knowing at all that he's going to live. How would you feel in this situation? What emotions, what affections would you be experiencing if you were in Jonah's shoes? And as he's going down, what we really see happen, he's starting to go comatose. It says, I went down to the bars, I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever. Here he's talking metaphorically. Life is slipping away. Almost like you might see one of those near-death experiences portrayed on TV. He's going down, he thinks he's gone, life's fainting away, he's really saying goodbye, cruel world. And another lesson we learn here is how God's chastening can be utterly terrifying. You see that? When the Lord chooses to discipline His wayward children, it can be an absolutely terrifying experience. In Hebrews 12, 5 and following, the Holy Spirit says, Have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by Him. For the Lord disciplines the one He loves. Really what we have in Jonah is a picture of the lengths to which God will go to discipline his children, to bring them back to himself. Therefore the lesson for us, repent early lest God need to take you to the brink of death to teach you to come back to him. Now let's notice the prayer. Jonah's about ready to give up the ghost, but then in verses 6 and 7 we read this, Now at that very last second, he's almost unconscious, almost gone, then he cries out to the Lord. And I can't imagine it was a very eloquent prayer. I mean, his body's probably going numb, his life's probably disappearing, but that didn't matter. God doesn't really care about eloquence very much. He just cries out, oh Lord, save me. This prayer here reminds me of the prayer of the tax collector. Luke 18, 13, you remember what he said? Have mercy on me, the sinner. But that's all it takes. We don't need to pray in eloquent words. We don't need to pray in complex sentences. You just cry out, beg the Lord for mercy, and that's all you need to do. And in response to this prayer, the Lord then intervenes and saves Jonah. You think about it. Had that fish disobeyed like Jonah had disobeyed, Jonah would have been a goner. But obediently the fish swims up and right at the very last second gobbles up Jonah where he's then kept safely inside his belly for the next three days and three nights. And another thing all that this tells us is that there really are no hopeless situations with the Lord. Since God is sovereign over all of life, since he can do absolutely anything, there are no situations that are hopeless from God in God. Jesus said, Mark 10, 27, with man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God. Could you imagine a situation that was more hopeless than what Jonah was experiencing? In the Mediterranean Sea, bound up with weeds, going down quickly. From a human perspective, there's nothing you could do. But from a divine perspective, there's plenty of things that you could do. I ask you, are you in a situation that feels hopeless? Do you have, say, a health concern that feels hopeless? Does your marriage feel hopeless? Work situation that feels hopeless? Oh, if so, heed the lesson of the Book of Jonah. cry out to the Lord for deliverance for nothing is impossible with the Lord. Now after his prayer and rescue Jonah then learns the lesson that God's been trying to teach him all along and this is where we get to verse 8. In verse 8 we have what I believe is the point of this entire passage and this is what Jonah and us in the nation of Israel should have learned from this experience. In verse 8, Jonah says, those who pay attention to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love. Now this is the grand moral of this entire experience. Idols are worthless and cannot save. And remember when this book was written. This book was written around 750 BC. The nation of Israel, by and large, had turned to worshiping idols. They had rejected the Lord. So one of the functions of this book was to be an apologetic. Through being miraculously saved by this fish, Israel was given a sign that the Lord is the Lord and that He is the only source of steadfast love. Therefore, turn from your idols. Now you might remember what I said earlier about the overarching theme of the book of Jonah. Remember what I mentioned it was? It's the compassion of God, God's mercy, God's, to use another word, steadfast love. You think of the words of Jonah 4.2, part of our Congregational Scripture memory passage. The Lord is a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster. That's the character of our God. But as we see here, you must forsake your idols to experience his steadfast love. Whatever your idols are, whether they be Baal, Ashtoreth, money, pleasure, you must turn from them in order to experience His steadfast love. And for us, it's this same compassionate God who has demonstrated His love in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. The reason why God can show compassion on rebellious sinners who deserve the parish is because His Son was condemned in our place. And then his son says to us, Matthew 11, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, I will give you rest. Do you desire to experience the steadfast love of the Lord? Do you desire to be reconciled to your creator, know your creator, know the smile of his face? If so, turn from your idols, turn from your rebellion, and embrace the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our only hope of steadfast love. Now let's briefly notice the final part of this psalm. The final part is praise. In verse 9, we read, but I, with the voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord. Now ponder with me the pattern we see in Jonah's life here. Was Jonah rescued because he had made sacrifices and vows? No, if you're curious. He was rescued only because of grace, grace alone. But then in response to his deliverance, what does he do? Then out of gratitude, he says, I will offer sacrifices and make vows. That's the pattern. And that's the pattern we see throughout the Bible. Any kind of divine rescue, any kind of divine salvation is always by grace alone. But then once we have been rescued, we respond in gratitude and praise. You think of the words of Titus 3.5, he saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his mercy. If any of us, you or I, if we are Christians, we are so not because of our goodness, not because of our righteousness, not because of anything that we have done, but only because of His mercy. But then, like Jonah, in response to mercy, we praise. We don't offer sacrifices like Jonah did. Instead, as Romans 12 says, I appeal to you brothers by the mercy of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. As a Christian, you take up your cross daily, you obey Jesus, you follow Him, not to become a Christian, but in response to the mercy shown to you in Christ. Now quickly, let's ponder that phrase, salvation belongs to the Lord. This is a significant phrase, not only in the book of Jonah, but throughout church history it's been significant. And there are three ways in which I think we should understand this phrase, salvation belongs to the Lord. First, salvation belongs to the Lord in the sense that it is the Lord and nothing that we do that saves us. As I already mentioned, not of works that we are saved, but of the Lord, by grace alone. But that's not the only way I think this phrase should be understood. Moreover, salvation belongs to the Lord in the sense that the Lord is the only Savior. He is the only source of deliverance. I mentioned it earlier, but whether your idols be Baal or your golf game, they will not provide you with eternal happiness, eternal blessedness. Only the Lord will. But one last sense in which I believe this phrase should be understood is that it is the Lord and not man who determines who should hear the message of salvation. Think with me about the context of the book. It is the Lord and not man who determines who should hear the message of salvation. What did God tell Jonah? Jonah, go take my word of grace to the Ninevites. Jonah says, no, I'm not gonna do it. And you see where it got him. Bound up in the belly of a fish. And the point of all of this is to tell Jonah, you are not the one who determines who hears my word. I am, and if I want the Ninevites to hear my message of grace, you need to tell them. And as it is with us, we are not to discriminate in any way who we share God's message of hope with, but rather, as the Great Commission says, go make disciples of all the nations, believing that God is with us to the end of the age. Well, coming to verse 10, Jonah's wrapped up his song, and then we see his surprise return. All this time he's been in the belly of the fish, not on land, in the fish, but then here we have his return to land. In verse 10 it says, and the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land. Now again, God's sovereignty in all of this is absolutely unavoidable. You might think I talk about that topic a lot, but there's a reason, because it's in the Bible a lot. And we clearly see that it's God who moved this fish to vomit Jonah out. That wasn't any coincidence. And scriptures often speak of God being the one who controls all beasts, birds, fish, and other animals. Don't have time to look at them, but just to give you one example, Matthew 10, 29. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your father. Realize, my brothers and sisters, that is our God, possessing control over sparrows and over the digestive comfort of a whale. And as we bring this to a close, the question I want you to ponder is, was there any significance in all of this? Jonah gets vomited up on dry land, in the valley for three days and three nights. Is there any purpose in this that we should be noticing? I mean, just to illustrate what I'm saying, why did God use a fish? Could have sent great birds to pick up Jonah and dropped him off on dry land. Why three days and three nights? Was one too short, four too many? Are you thinking that I am being a little silly and trying to find significance in these details? Well, turn with me to Matthew 12. Matthew chapter 12. Craig already read this passage, but I'd like us to meditate on Matthew 12, 38 through 42. In Matthew 12, verse 38, we read this. Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, and just to give you the context, they're talking to Jesus, saying, Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you. But he answered them, an evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. The queen of the south will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here. Now as you can see in this passage, the Pharisees approach Jesus, and they're looking for a sign. They want some more evidence, some proof that you are who you claim to be. Give us some proof that you are God's Messiah. But as we see, Jesus isn't very interested in giving them more signs and wonders. He's already performed countless miracles and that didn't persuade them. Who's to say that more will? So instead of performing another sign, Jesus says the only proof they'll get that he's the Messiah is the sign of Jonah. Now what on earth does that mean? What is Jesus' reasoning in this passage? How could Jonah's experience in the fish, in some way or another, point to the fact that Jesus is God's Son in the flesh? Got an idea? Well, here's what I think's going on. As I've already mentioned, God's sovereignty is so thoroughly in the book of Jonah that we cannot avoid it. God perfectly orchestrated everything in this book for a purpose, and that purpose was to point us toward and to prepare us for Jesus. The being swallowed up, the three days and the three nights in utter darkness, the then being sprung out onto dry land only to take the message of God's grace to Gentiles was all perfectly woven together so that we would then recognize that Jesus is the Messiah. Let me extrapolate. Just as Jonah was swallowed up and in three days and three nights was in something that was very much like a wet coffin, so also Jesus was in a dark, cold tomb after His death and resurrection. But then three days later, just as Jonah was miraculously sprung forth, so also three days later Jesus steps forth from the tomb, stone rolls away, and He is declared to be the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Just like Jonah, after his miraculous experience, Jesus goes to the Gentiles. He tears down that curtain that divided the wall in the temple and then he creates a church comprised of people of every tongue and tribe and people and nation. And just as Jonah's wild experience in the belly of the fish should have functioned as a sign to Israel that they should reject their idols and embrace the Lord. So also Jesus' death and resurrection should function as a sign to us to reject our idols and to embrace Him as the only source of steadfast love. I'd contend that God brought about everything that happened in the book of Jonah for a purpose and that purpose was to point us toward Jesus. Now here's where the sign thing all fits in. As I mentioned, Jonah's experience in the fish would have been a sign to Israel, supernaturally proving that the Lord is Lord and Baal is worthless. So also, Jesus' death and resurrection, a greater proof, would have demonstrated that He is who He claimed to be. The Bible often points to the resurrection as the once and for all definitive sign and wonder that Jesus is God's Messiah. You think of some of these passages, I'll give them briefly to you, Romans 1-4. He was declared to be the son of God in power by the resurrection from the dead, even Jesus Christ our Lord. Acts 17-31, God has fixed a day when he will judge the world in righteousness. And of this he has given assurance by raising him from the dead. You want proof that Jonah is speaking for God? Look at the way that God preserved him in the fish. You want greater proof that Jesus is who he says he is? Look at the way that God raised him from the dead. And here's where all of this comes home to us. We know the judgment that God threatened on Nineveh. God said, you reject my word, I'm going to destroy you. So you might even imagine something like what God did to Sodom and Gomorrah. Not too nice. But now we have someone greater than Jonah who is verified not by getting out of a fish alive, but by being raised from the dead. And if God threatened horrifying things in the city of Nineveh, how much greater will our judgment be if we reject the one who's testified by resurrection from the dead? See what I'm saying? Not if you know what's going on here. I just want to make sure I'm making myself clear. Now to really close this up, here's my application, and there are three points that I'd like to make just as far as we apply this. Perhaps you're here this morning and you are not a Christian. You don't profess to be a follower of Christ. That's fine. We're glad you're here. But in response to what we have seen, I exhort you with all I have, please repent from your sins and trust Jesus this morning. If Nineveh was going to be obliterated because of their sins, how much greater will our judgment be if we reject God's Messiah testified by resurrection from the dead? Therefore, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ this morning. As Jonah cried out in the belly of that fish, just beg for mercy. God save me. And if your faith is in Christ, He will save you. Well, perhaps you're here this morning and you're skeptical about all of this. You've been brought up to think that the resurrection is kind of a legend, didn't really happen, kind of like Athena jumping out of Zeus' head. Well, if that's the case, I would challenge you, explore this event. You owe it to yourself. If Jesus did indeed rise from the dead, that means some enormous things for your life. So commit this morning, I will consider this event carefully. Maybe begin by reading the Gospel of John. If you're interested, I could direct you towards some other resources, or I'd even be glad to sit down and study this with you. But if Jesus did rise from the dead, that means some enormous things for your life, and you need to settle this. And then lastly, for those of us who are Christians, let us rejoice that we serve a living Savior. The one who spoke salvation to us is so much greater than Jonah. And not only is he a living Savior, he is a Savior whose ministry and life is powerfully verified by God the Father through raising him from the dead. Therefore we can be certain that we are not following a legend, we are not deceived, and therefore we can be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. To close, I'll leave you with these words from Philippians 2, 6 and following. And as I read, try to imagine how the resurrection fits into this account and what its significance is. Philippians 2, 6. Though he was in the form of God, Christ Jesus did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Pray with me. Our Father, thank you so much for raising the Lord Jesus from the dead. Lord, give us greater faith that this event actually happened. Give us greater assurance that because he has been raised, you will raise us as well. Lord, I pray for those in this room in various categories, unbelievers, those who are skeptical Christians, encourage us by your word. And we do pray that this gathering would be a place where Jesus Christ is confessed to be Lord, to the glory of God the Father. In his name we pray. Amen.