All right, today we're going to be preaching more in Jonah. We're going to be preaching on the prayer of Jonah, starting in chapter 1, verse 14. I'm going to read through verse 10 of chapter 2. It says, 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, has 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. Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly and said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me. Out of the belly of hell, cried I, and thou heardest my voice. For thou hast cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas, and the floods can pass me about. All thy billows and thy waves passed over me. Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight, yet I will look again toward thy holy temple. The waters can pass me about, even to the soul. The depth closed me round about. The weeds were wrapped about my head. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains. The earth with her bars was about me forever. Yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God. When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple. They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy, but I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord. And the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah. upon the dry land. Father God, Lord, we thank you for your blessed, holy word that you've preserved for us, God. We thank you for your son, Jesus, who died for us. And Lord, we thank you for your Holy Spirit that gives us understanding, God. We pray, Lord, that you would just open our ears to your word today, God, that you would help us to understand the things in your Bible, God. We thank you for everything you've done for us, God, and we just pray that you would be with us tonight. Be with those that are traveling, Lord, keep them safe. And Lord, we ask that you would bless our service tonight in Jesus' name. Amen. So 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. We don't really know exactly what kind of fish this was. The Bible is not explicit. In Matthew, the Lord says that Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly. A whale, as we know it today, is not the same thing as a fish, according to our modern scientific system of animal classification. Some people might try to argue that this is a contradiction in our Bible. But colloquially speaking, a whale could refer to a large fish. And a great fish could be speaking of a whale. We refer to all kinds of creatures in the water as fish that, taxonomically speaking, are not fish. Starfish, jellyfish, shellfish, refers to animals like lobsters and shrimp, and also mollusks like clams. Fish and whales were created on the fifth day of creation in Genesis 1. Verse 20 says, And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind, and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. And then on the sixth day God created all the land animals, and He also created man. And God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness. and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." The fish of the sea here refers to all the creatures in the waters that God created on the fifth day, including the whales. In Lamentations, the Bible describes a certain kind of creature that it calls sea monsters. Lamentations 4, verse 3 says, We recognize that this is talking about what we call whales proper, that whales are what we refer to as mammals. They are warm-blooded creatures. They nurse their young with milk secreted from mammary glands. So the Bible knows what a whale is. And a large fish could be called a whale. We can't make the mistake of trying to force the scriptures to conform with our modern vocabulary or what we consider to be scientific understanding. Now, the fact that Jonah got swallowed by a great fish or a whale, if you will, is not particularly shocking. I think that to most people, the oceans seem deep and terrifying and full of creatures that might attempt to make a snack of a sailor that happened to be thrown into the water. Sharks can be quite large and could certainly eat a man, but the way a shark eats doesn't usually leave its meal in one piece. But the largest creatures in the sea that we know of are, of course, whales. In 2021, you may recall there was a man who made the headlines in Cape Cod when he found himself inside the mouth of a humpback whale. A man named Michael Packard, who was diving for lobsters when the incident occurred, said he recounted the harrowing and painful moment he realized that he was in the closed mouth of one of the world's biggest creatures. Experts said the encounter was rare and likely a complete accident. Packard was in about 45 feet of water, When I just felt this truck hit me and everything just went dark," he said. At first, he thought he'd been eaten by a white shark. The feared sharks had become fixtures off the coast of Cape Cod in the summer. Then he realized it didn't have teeth. He said, oh my, I'm in the mouth of a whale. There are other reported incidents like this, so it was not unheard of. It's just very unlikely to happen. Of course, Mr. Packard was not actually swallowed by the whale. Skeptics would be quick to point out that a humpback whale couldn't actually swallow a man, that their esophagus would be too narrow. Humpback whales and several others are filter feeders called baleen whales. They open their mouths and draw in enormous quantities of water, which they then push out through these plates called baleen that strain out plankton and other small creatures that they then swallow. It's amazing that they can get so large eating prey that is so small, but a man would be too large to go down their throat. But there are other whales that could swallow a man, such as the sperm whale, also called the cachalot, which means big head. Sperm whales are toothed whales known for hunting giant squid. A sperm whale could certainly swallow a man like Jonah, no problem. But wait, says the skeptic. A sperm whale could swallow a man, but he couldn't live in the whale for three days. he'd drown or suffocate, and he'd be digested by the whale's stomach. That's kind of how swallowing things works. But we're not dealing with a natural encounter with a whale's digestive system. This is a situation where God is doing something outside the realm of what we normally experience in the natural world. This is a miraculous encounter with a whale's digestive system. So while it would normally be impossible for a man to survive inside the belly of a whale for three days and three nights. It is in the nature of God to do things that are impossible. With man it's impossible for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, but with God all things are possible. With God it's also possible for a man to die and then be made alive again. So then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly and said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord and he heard me. Out of the belly of hell, cried I, and thou heardest my voice. For thou hast cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas, and the floods can pass me about. All thy billows and thy waves passed over me. Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight, yet I will look again toward thy holy temple. The waters can pass me about, even to the soul. The depth closed me round about. The weeds were wrapped about my head. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains. The earth with her bars was about me forever. Yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God." There are those who believe that Jonah was alive for three days in the belly of a whale, and that he was figuratively saying that he cried out of hell. This has probably been the most common interpretation historically. But personally, I think it's very likely that Jonah was swallowed by a whale and was dead. and cried unto the Lord out of the belly of hell. He went down into the deep. The floods compassed him about, and the waves passed over him. And he said, I am cast out of thy sight, yet I will look again toward thy holy temple. When Jonah is praying out of the fish's belly, he's speaking in the past tense. I don't think it is figurative when he speaks of the waves passing over him, or the waters compassing him about, The weeds wrapping around his head. These things all happened when he was thrown into the deep. And then he was swallowed by a whale and went down, down to the bottoms of the mountains. The earth was about him forever. And he cried unto the Lord. Out of the belly of hell, he cried. And God heard him and God brought up his life from corruption. Some will surely argue that I'm not understanding Jonah properly. And I make no claim to have revelation on this matter outside of Scripture. I'm just telling you what I see when I read the text. Some people say that God kept Jonah alive, but when the whale spat him out, he was all bleached from the digestive juices in the whale's stomach and looked like a ghost or something. Would that make more sense than that God just brought him back to life? If God kept him alive in the belly of the whale, why wouldn't He preserve his body as well? When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were cast into the furnace, God preserved them from the fire. Even their clothes He preserved. It says when they came out, they didn't even have the smell of smoke on them. Of course, this is all just speculation, since the Bible doesn't even tell us anything about what Jonah looked like or smelled like when he came out of that fish. All I know for sure is that when Jonah was swallowed by that creature, he was a dead man in one sense. What kind of life could a man have in the intestines of a whale? But when God had mercy on him, he was given his life back, and the fish vomited him out onto dry land. There are several instances in the Bible where people who are dead are brought back to life. So I don't know why it should be thought strange that Jonah might have died and been brought back to life. Elijah raised the son of the widow that had fed him when she just had a little meal and oil, enough for her and her son. He got sick, and it said there was no breath left in him. And 1 Kings says, And he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried unto the Lord, and said, O Lord my God, I pray thee, let this child's soul come in unto him again. And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah, and the soul of the child came in unto him again, and he revived. And in 2 Kings, Elisha raised the son of the Shunammite woman. It says, And when Elisha was come into the house, behold, the child was dead, and laid upon his bed. He went in, therefore, and shut the door upon them, twain, and prayed unto the Lord. And he went up, and lay upon the child, and put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands. And he stretched himself upon the child, and the flesh of the child waxed warm. Then he returned, and walked in the house to and fro, and went up, and stretched himself upon him. And the child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes. There was a man that came back to life when his body touched the bones of Elisha. says, and Elisha died and they buried him and the bands of the Moabites invading the land at the coming end of the year. And it came to pass as they were burying a man that behold, they spied a band of men and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha. And when the man was let down and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived and stood up on his feet. When Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb, he had been dead for four days. Martha didn't even want to open the cave because she was afraid that he would stink by then. But Jesus called to him, Lazarus, come forth. And he came forth out of that grave, bound in the grave clothes, but whole. There was no sign that he had been four days dead just moments before. Our Lord himself, Jesus Christ, was nailed to a cross and died, and then was resurrected in his body. And we believe that not only was he resurrected, but that he never died again. His resurrection was the defeat of death itself. And we look forward to a day when all the dead will rise again, and those who by faith in Jesus Christ are redeemed by the blood he shed will also live again and never die, but will forever be with the Lord. In Matthew 12, the Pharisees had accused Jesus of having cast out a devil by Beelzebub, denying that he was the Messiah. Jesus rebuked that, saying that if Satan cast out Satan, how could his kingdom stand? And he warned of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. and says, Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee. 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 Jonas. For as Jonas 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 Jonas. And behold, a greater than Jonas is here." The sign was his death and resurrection, that he would spend three days and three nights in the grave, and then he would be brought back up, just as Jonah had spent three days and nights in the belly of the whale and was brought back up. The death and resurrection was foretold in the scriptures. If they had understood them, In Acts 2, Peter talks about David, prophesying in Psalm 16 about the resurrection. It says, For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved. Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad. Moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope, because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. It says, He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption. This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Paul also speaks of this in chapter 13 of Acts. And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David. Wherefore he saith also in another psalm, Thou shalt not suffer thine holy one to see corruption. For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption. But he whom God raised again saw no corruption. David, they reasoned, can't be talking about himself. but is speaking of the resurrection of Christ. Because when David died, he went into the grave, and his body is still there, decomposed. But when Jesus died, his body was not left in a grave to rot, nor was his soul left in hell. But he was brought again to life after three days, and his body was restored. And if it ever began to break down at all, I don't know. If Jesus' body was immune to the effects of death or not. He was human like we are. Hebrews 4 says, For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. I think Jesus' body experienced the same things that we do. I think he got tired. He maybe got sick on occasion. All the things that make us human, he was that, but without the sin. But when he was resurrected, his body was renewed, albeit he still bore the marks of his crucifixion. But he was whole and never will die again, unlike Lazarus or anyone else in the Scriptures who was brought back to life. They all went on to the grave, but Jesus Christ is the firstborn from the dead and lives eternally now and forevermore. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of the most attacked doctrines in the Bible. Muslims claim that Islam is a continuation of the religion founded in the scriptures, that the Koran, their book supposedly given by God to Muhammad, is in agreement with the Bible. It says, "...say we believe in God and in what was revealed to us," talking about the Koran, "...and in what was revealed to Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, Jacob, and the tribes, and in what was given to Moses and Jesus, and what was given to the prophets from their Lord, We make no distinction between any of them. The Qur'an is a book written by devils. The Bible and the Qur'an are not in agreement on many things. The leaders of Islam say that the reason for this is that the Bible has been corrupted by the Christians and Jews, not that Muhammad was wrong, and the Qur'an is explicitly against the doctrine of Jesus' death on the cross and his resurrection. Muslims do not believe that Allah would allow one of their prophets to be killed in the manner Jesus was killed. Instead of dying on the cross, he was protected from a death of crucifixion. The Qur'an says, And for their unbelief and their uttering against Mary a mighty calumny, and for their saying, We slew the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, the messenger of God. Yet they did not slay him, neither crucified him. Only a likeness of that was shown to them. Those who are at variance concerning Him surely are in doubt regarding Him. They have no knowledge of Him except the following of surmise, and they did not slay Him of certainty. No, indeed, God raised Him up to Him. God is almighty, all-wise. There is not one of the people of the book but will assuredly believe in Him before His death, and on the resurrection day He will be a witness against them." They say it was not Jesus that was crucified, but only a likeness of Him. According to Islam, it was Judas, or Simon the Cyrene, the man who carried Jesus' cross, which was actually crucified in his place. This is something that Islam insists upon. But it's not just Muslims that don't believe that Jesus died and was resurrected. People who claim to be Christians have a problem believing in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In an article from April last year in Premier Christianity, it says, And to those who think this is a statistical blip, a BBC survey from 2017 produced the same result. The survey also found 1 in 10 Brits consider Easter eggs to be more important than the resurrection when it comes to Easter, and only 36% of Christian participants believe the Bible to be entirely accurate when it comes to the Easter story. The article correctly points out that you cannot be a Christian and not believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most fundamental teaching of Christianity. Without this truth of God's Son coming into the world in a human body, living a perfect, sinless life, dying on the cross for the sins of the world, and then being raised up again after three days, our religion would be vain. 1 Corinthians 15 says, Now if Christ be preached that He rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen. And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God, that he raised up Christ, whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised. And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins. then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept." In one sense, the prayer of Jonah from inside the whale is the prayer of every man who realizes that he is dead in sin, that he's being dragged down by the weight of that sin into the depths, into hell, into judgment, But Jonah is really a picture of a believer who is outside the will of God and finds himself cast away and ready to be destroyed, but finds mercy when he remembers the Lord and prays to Him. In verse 8 it said, They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy, but I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that that I have vowed salvation is of the Lord. Jonah repents of his sin and says that he will go and do the thing that God has commanded him to do. It's a lying vanity to say that a believer can sin against God and not reap what he has sown. But when we sin against God, he is merciful to us if we confess our sin and repent. Matthew 21 verse 28 says, but what thank ye A certain man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, Son, go work today in my vineyard. And he answered and said, I will not. But afterward he repented and went. And he came to the second and said likewise, and he answered and said, I go, sir, and went not. Whither of them twain did the will of his father? They say unto him the first. Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, that the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not. But the publicans and harlots believed him. And ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward that ye might believe him. Jonah is like this first son, who when told to go to work, said he would not. But afterward he repented and did the will of the Father. He says that he will pay that that he has vowed. A believer who is not willing to go to the work that God has appointed may find himself cast away, in this life, in a sense. Similar to how Paul declined to take Mark with him in Acts after Mark left him and Barnabas at Perga, Paul and Barnabas parted ways over the matter. Paul probably didn't think it would be prudent to lean on Mark. if he wasn't committed to finishing the work that he started. The business that Paul was engaged in was serious. It wasn't a weekend mission trip. It was the work of establishing the church among the Gentiles, and he was sent by the Lord to do that. Barnabas may have thought that Paul was too hard on Mark, and we don't know the circumstance that led to his leaving back to Jerusalem, but we do know that afterwards Paul changed his mind about Mark. In 2 Timothy, he says, If we have been set on the sideline by God for some reason, He could put us back in the game if we repent of whatever it is that we've offended in and turn back toward God. As long as we still have breath in us, we can confess our sins, and God is faithful and just to forgive us. As for Jonah, whether he lived inside the whale or not. I don't mean to imply that the believer can repent after death. So don't get that idea. Hebrews 9 says, as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this, the judgment. We know that hell is not eternal. And after the millennium, everyone in hell will be brought up. And those that are written in the book of life will go into eternal life at that time. But there is the thousand year kingdom that we can lose. and we won't be able to cry our way out of hell. The time to repent of sin is before we find ourselves standing before the judge. If we find ourselves facing a whale, it may be too late. Let's go to God in prayer. Father God, Lord, we thank you again, Lord, for your word that you preserved for us, God. We thank you for the story of Jonah, Lord, and the testimony, Lord, what He went through, God. We pray, Lord, that we would learn from it, that we would understand that we're not playing a game with You, Lord, and You're not playing games with us, God. I know that You're serious about the things that You've asked us to do, God. We know, Lord, that You give us the strength and the power to do the things that You require of us, God, through Your Son. We thank You, Lord, for the blood cleanses us from sin and gives us the ability to do those things, God. And we just pray, Father, that you would help us as a church, help us to grow, help us to draw closer to you, Father. Pray that you would help us to evangelize, to reach out to the lost, God, to those who need you. And Lord, we just pray that you would be with us, God, be with our fellowship tonight as we sit and talk, God, that we would talk about things that are wholesome, Lord, We ask this in Jesus' name, amen.