Latest / Bayside Davis Podcast / Jonah | Jonah 1:17 - Jonah 2:10

Transcript

Jonah | Jonah 1:17 - Jonah 2:10 · Bayside Davis Podcast

0:09
SPEAKER_00: Jonah, as we enter into this second chapter, was in a situation where he felt that all hope was lost.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: And there's situations that you and I get into in life or experience in life where we feel the same way that all hope is lost.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: There are moments that we enter into, whether anticipated or unanticipated, in life, that we look at that situation and that's all we can see, and we cannot see any positive future ahead for ourselves or life.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: In 2004, the Boston Red Sox felt the same way.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: They were playing the New York Yankees in the series before the World Series, and they were down three games to none.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: And never before in the history of baseball, and never since has a team come back three games to none in a seven-game series in the postseason in Major League Baseball.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: They were down three games to none.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: They thought this is a done deal.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: There's no hope for us.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: Statistically, this is impossible.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: But they came into game four and they won.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: And they came into game five and they won.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: And they came into game six and they won.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: And by the time they got to game seven, they thought maybe there's a chance.
1:57
SPEAKER_00: And they did what no other team has ever done before or since.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: They came back from three games to none, beat the New York Yankees, went on to the World Series, swept the St.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: Louis Cardinals, and they did something no one's done in baseball before.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: And you know what's interesting?
2:20
SPEAKER_00: We can be in situations in life where we're like, the statistics are impossible.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: There's no way that there's going to be any wins, any hope, any goodness for my life.
2:33
SPEAKER_00: And we might think all hope is lost, but we need to get to the next day to realize maybe not all hope is lost.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: In fact, there is always hope with Jesus.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: God is a God of hope, and God is a God of second chances.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: Listen to these words from Jeremiah chapter 29, verse 11.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah writes, quoting God, for I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: Plans for you to prosper and not to harm you.
3:07
SPEAKER_00: Plans to give you hope and a future.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: No doubt Jonah and his situation needed these truths, these words.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: But Jonah, in the midst of his situation, was feeling that all hope was lost, but it was not.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: Not with God.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: Look at Jonah chapter 1, verse 17.
3:35
SPEAKER_00: There's three movements in this story.
3:37
SPEAKER_00: Movement number one, Jonah chapter 1, verse 17, Jonah's protection.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: Just as a reminder, if you weren't here last week, Jonah was in a boat running away from the presence of the Lord, the Bible says, because he didn't want to do what God told him to do in going to the wicked, evil city of Nineveh to preach repentance, that God would be gracious to save them.
4:06
SPEAKER_00: Because they were an you got to catch up on our podcast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify Podcast, all the podcasts, catch up.
4:14
SPEAKER_00: But they were one of the most wicked cultures in human history, and they were enemies of the people of God.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: The Assyrians, Nineveh being a capital, a military city in Assyria.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: And so Jonah runs away from his calling and runs away from God.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: Literally, he thought he could run from God, but the truth is you can never run from God.
4:36
SPEAKER_00: Haven't you learned that in life?
4:38
SPEAKER_00: You can never run from God.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: So Jonah gets in this storm, an unusual storm.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: We talked about it last week in the ship, and it's his fault.
4:51
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says God hurled the wind.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: And the sea grew worse and worse and worse in this storm.
4:59
SPEAKER_00: And so finally Jonah's like, here's how to solve this problem.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: Just throw me overboard.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: So Jonah goes overboard.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: The sea's calmed.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: And now we pick up verse 17, Jonah's protection.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: So he's in the ocean.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: Verse 17.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah.
5:25
SPEAKER_00: And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: The Hebrew term for huge fish means a great fish.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: And in this context, it's a great fish in size.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: And when you think about the great fish swallowing Jonah, this pictures a number of things to consider.
5:47
SPEAKER_00: He was rebelling against God, he was doing something that God did not want him to do.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: He was running, so he thought, from the presence of the Lord.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: But God didn't let him drown in the ocean.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: The fish saved Jonah from drowning.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: The fish protected Jonah.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: It did not kill Jonah.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: This is a miracle from God.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: But it's also a miracle that shows us that even when we're running from God, he still seeks to protect us.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: There might be some people in here this morning.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: You've been running from God.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: And God is protecting you from things you don't even know to draw you back to Him.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: Jonah is running from God, and God uses a fish, a great fish in size, to protect him.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: And all the while, Jonah is inside of this fish, and this fish is moving Jonah as he's inside the fish back in the right direction that God has for his life.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: We so focus on the fish, but we don't focus on what God is doing in the midst of the story.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: The fish was a place that provided protection for Jonah, but also it provided introspection for Jonah.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: He was able to think.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if I was in the belly of a fish, I would start thinking about God.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: He was able to process, he was able to evaluate what was happening in his life.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: One writer wrote, The gracious gift of God is life.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: He does not abandon his servant to death, but snatches him from its clutches and the drowning man.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: To the thrill of the hearers, the key figure is saved at the last moment from a seemingly inescapable plight.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh, God, mounts a special rescue operation.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: An enormous fish plays the astounding part of a submarine to pick up Jonah from the murky sea with the bottom of the ocean and transport him safely to the mainland.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: The fish stands for the amazing grace of God, which came down to where he was lifted him, to where he was and lifted him to new life.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: The Lord of the sea is also the Lord of the creatures in the sea.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: And his providential control extends over both.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: Contrary to all expectations, Jonah does not die.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: Now, some people read this, verse 17, and they think, this is a whale of a tale.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: This can't be true.
8:42
SPEAKER_00: This seems a little fishy to me.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: There's no way this can be true.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: And yet, some critical scholars with their anti-supernatural bias have denied the authenticity of the book of Jonah for this reason.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: But scholars throughout history have demonstrated the validity of such an event.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you some examples.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: And I just want to remind us a story of somebody being swallowed by the large fish and being in its belly for three days and three nights is what the Bible would call a miracle.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: A miracle is something from our perspective.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: God can do anything, it's a miracle from our perspective living on earth, where God does something that defies the laws of nature or normalcy.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: That means that in this story, this could be a one-of-a-kind experience that no person has gone through in the same exact way.
9:45
SPEAKER_00: But there are accounts similar to this in history, but maybe not to the extent of Jonah.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: In 1771, there's the early account of Marshall Jenkins.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: He was a Boston postboy in October 1771.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: Reported that a whale, a sperm whale, bit his boat in two off of Nantucket voyage, took him into her mouth, the whale, went down with him, then rose and threw up him out.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: He was badly bruised and recovered in about a fortnight.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what a fortnight is, but I think that is a word that the great theologian singer, what's her name, uses?
10:30
SPEAKER_00: Fortnight.
10:32
SPEAKER_00: What's her name?
10:33
SPEAKER_00: Taylor Swift.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: There are other accounts.
10:40
SPEAKER_00: That's a joke, theologian, by the way.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: There are other accounts similar to this one.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: In 1847, Albert Wood, in 1860, Job, Job Sherman.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: Job, like the story of Job, but a different Job.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: And then in 1863, Peleg Nai, all being spit out after being swallowed by a whale.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: And then modern times, this is interesting.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: Rainer Schimf.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I'm pronouncing that name right, but it sounds good.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: February 2019 in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, while snorkeling and filming a sardine run, by the way, great protein sardines.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: He was taken headfirst into the mouth of a bride's whale.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: There was a photographer who caught it, so it's a real thing.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: It was actually validated.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: And this individual felt pressure around their waist, and the whale opened its mouth and washed out with a surge of water and spit it up.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: Spit Rayner up.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: So he lied, he survived.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: On November 22nd, 2020, in California, this is our state, Julie McSorley and Liz Cotriell, they were at a beach and a humpback lunge feeding on a bait ball breached under their kayaks and capsized them.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: Video made it look like they were swallowed.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: McSorley later says a second angle showed they were briefly inside the mouth before being expelled.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: Both were unharmed.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: In June 11, 2021.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: Do you guys want more of these?
12:37
SPEAKER_00: This is interesting.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna share them anyways.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: Michael Packard off of Provincetown, Massachusetts.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: The commercial lobster diver was about 45 feet down when a feeding humback engulfed him, swallowed him up.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: He described sudden darkness like being hit by a truck.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what that feels like, but maybe it feels like this.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: An estimated 30 to 40 seconds inside the mouth before the whale surfaced and threw him out.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: Crewmates pulled him aboard, he had a dislocated knee and severe bruising and recovered.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: That's not it.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: There's more.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: February 8th, 2025, off the Strait of Magellan in Chile.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: There was a Venezuelan pack rafter.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: He was briefly taken into a hump back's mouth, humpback whale.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: His father filmed it.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: He felt a slimy texture on his face.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: He saw blue and white, that's what he saw inside, and was spat out within seconds unharmed.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: So this is not something that has never happened in history.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: There's more, but I'm gonna read the rest of you.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: There have been many accounts where a large, great fish has swallowed a human being.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: But we're gonna take this account as a miracle.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: Because notice here in verse 17, Jonah is in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: Does that remind you of something?
14:14
SPEAKER_00: Three days and three nights?
14:17
SPEAKER_00: Death and resurrection, Jesus, three days and three nights.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: In fact, Jesus compares this miracle to his greatest miracle.
14:29
SPEAKER_00: Which means if Jesus validates Jonah, the story of Jonah and the miracle of Jonah, then it's probably true.
14:39
SPEAKER_00: Matthew chapter 12, verse 38 through 41.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, Teacher, we want to see a sign from you, as if Jesus hadn't already done a million signs.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: He answered, A wicked and adulterous generation asked for a sign.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: They weren't really asking in genuine intrigue and desiring to know.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: They were just continually trying to downplay Jesus.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: But he says this, but none will be given to you except for the sign of the prophet Jonah.
15:13
SPEAKER_00: For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now something greater than Jonah is here.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: This happened.
15:41
SPEAKER_00: Jesus validates it.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: Jesus validates the person, the historicity, and the actual miracle in our story.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: This is what God calls a miracle from our perspective, not from his perspective.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: And this miracle is associated with the death and resurrection of Jesus, the greatest event in human history.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: It's as though Jonah in his death and resurrection in the belly of the fish and his resurrection from the fish becomes a foreshadowing picture of the death and resurrection of Jesus on your behalf.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: All of the Bible tells one unified story pointing to Jesus.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus makes this connection.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: So we go from Jonah's protection in this great fish to Jonah's prayer in verses one through nine.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: Remember what I said that inside the belly there was protection, but also introspection.
16:49
SPEAKER_00: So he begins to process and think this through in verses one through nine.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: And this is what scholars call Jonah's Psalm.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: It reads like a psalm, it reads like a prayer, a praise, a worship song.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: And he prays this inside the fish and he writes it down later on.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: Verses 1 through 9.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: From inside the fish, Jonah prayed to the Lord his God.
17:15
SPEAKER_00: He said, In my distress I called to the Lord and he answered me.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: From deep in the realm of the dead, I called for help, and you listened to my cry.
17:28
SPEAKER_00: I want you to notice the first thing, the first element of this prayer in verse 2.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: Number one, God was near.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: Jonah is in distress.
17:39
SPEAKER_00: He's crying out to God.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: He realizes his life is in danger.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, he uses a term, I want you to circle this term, underline this term, from deep in the realm of the dead.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: The realm of the dead is one term in Hebrew, Sheol.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: And Sheol was literally the realm of the dead.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: One writer says, She'ol is one of numerous terms used in this passage to evoke images of death.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: Remember death, resurrection?
18:08
SPEAKER_00: The term Sheol refers to the abode of the dead.
18:12
SPEAKER_00: It is not a place of torment, but a place that is cut off from God's life-giving presence.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: The phrase womb of Sheol heightens the threat since it implies the psalmist has gone deep into the recesses of the place of the dead.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: Jonah is inside this fish and he thinks he's dead or he's about to die.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: And he cries out to God.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: I want you to catch this.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says Jonah ran from the presence of the Lord, but the Lord was always present with Jonah.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: You can run from the presence of God, so you think, but the Lord is always present with you.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: You could be doing your own thing and living your own life and doing things contrary to God, but the Lord, He hasn't left you.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: And Jonah cries out for help and God answers him.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: You are never too far from God.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: You are never too far from God.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: And the moment you turn to him like Jonah, you'll realize that God was always pursuing you.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: You might be here this morning because you think you're too far for God, but somebody invited you, or your friends convinced you, or they manipulated you to come to church, or you felt guilty, and you think you're far from God, but you're not too far from God.
19:48
SPEAKER_00: And God wants to remind you this morning that truth is real in your life.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing you've done, there's nowhere you've gone, there's no bad thing that you've been present in the situation or being involved in.
20:02
SPEAKER_00: There's no sin, no evil, no wickedness that puts you too far from the saving power of Jesus Christ.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: God was near to Jonah.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: Jonah ran from the presence of the Lord, but the Lord was always present with Jonah.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: Notice what he says next, verse 3.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: You hurled me into the depths, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: All your waves and breakers swept over me.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: It's like the ocean, you know, like the surfer who gets just bombarded by a huge wave.
20:39
SPEAKER_00: I said, I've been banished from your sight, yet I will look again toward your holy temple.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: The engulfing waters threatened me.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: They deep surrounded me.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: Seaweed was wrapped around my head.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: Notice the second thing we see in this prayer.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: Number two, write this down.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: Jonah faced death.
20:58
SPEAKER_00: He thought he was dying.
21:01
SPEAKER_00: There's some great waves in the world.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: There's one in Portugal that gets up to 80 to 100 feet high.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: And only the greatest big wave surfers in the world surf this wave, and they surf it with the entire team, and they have this vest on that is inflated.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: So if they get plummeted by this massive wave in Portugal, that somehow the life vest will save their life, although they get hit and they go down into the water and they get beat up by this wave.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: I used to live in Hawaii, by the way, so I can tell these stories.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: So if you've seen an 80 to 100 foot wave, this is like so big, you're like, why would anybody ever do this?
21:59
SPEAKER_00: Well, Jonah.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Is like that surfer without the life vest that is getting plummeted in the ocean and he thinks he's about to die.
22:10
SPEAKER_00: He's feeling the experience of drowning in the ocean, and he conveys this in a poetic manner, and which is beautiful, but he's in this state that, like, my life is ebbing away quickly, and I'm drowning.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: You ever felt like you were drowning in life?
22:32
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever experienced moments in life that it felt like one thing after the other, and you were drowning?
22:40
SPEAKER_00: It's like one wave of experience, and one wave of suffering, and one wave of heartbreak, and all of a sudden you're drowning in the throes of suffering.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: This was Jonah.
22:52
SPEAKER_00: He felt like he was about to die, and the waves were sweeping over him one after the other after the other.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: But I want you to notice what we see next, verse six.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: To the roots of the mountains I sank down, the earth beneath barred me in forever.
23:08
SPEAKER_00: But you, Lord my God, brought my life up from the pit.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, and my prayers rose to you to your holy temple.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God's love for them, but I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: What I vowed I will make good.
23:29
SPEAKER_00: I will say, salvation comes from the Lord.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: So Jonah, he's he's drowning, and then he gets swallowed up by a fish, and he's in the fish, and he thought he was in the realm of the dead.
23:42
SPEAKER_00: He thought he had been given a death sentence in his rebellion, dying in the ocean, and then in the fish.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: And then something interesting happens in Jonah.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: He's sitting in this fish three days and three nights, the fish that it protected him, the fish that provided introspection.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: And number three, write this down in verses four, six, and nine.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: Hope remained alive.
24:14
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't hopeless.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: For some reason, there was this essence of hope in him.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: And Jonah, he describes the entire situation in poetic and vivid detail.
24:25
SPEAKER_00: Listen to these words.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: The waters of the sea surrounded me.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: Seaweed was wrapped around my head.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever experienced that?
24:33
SPEAKER_00: That must be a weird feeling.
24:35
SPEAKER_00: He was drowning to the depths of the ocean.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: The earth is pictured as a fortress or castle with bars shutting Jonah out forever.
24:44
SPEAKER_00: And his life was quickly ebbing away.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: He was in a dark situation.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: Some of you in life, you felt like there's been moments where it's just like one thing after the other, and you're drowning in the throes of suffering.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: And some of you, you might have walked in here this morning and you would say, I'm kind of in a dark situation.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: My circumstances are dark.
25:15
SPEAKER_00: My emotional health is dark.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: My spirit feels dark.
25:21
SPEAKER_00: I feel entrapped.
25:22
SPEAKER_00: I feel like there's no way out.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: I feel like things are ebbing away.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: But in the midst of this, I'm sure Jonah thought, I wonder if there's hope for me.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: In the midst of this, he realized that even in the throes of darkness, there was hope for him.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: In chapters 1 and 2, there's this picture of Jonah going down, down, down, down, and down.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: And it begins in chapter 1, verse 3, where he goes down to Joppa, and then chapter 1, verse 4, he goes down onto the ship, and then chapter 1, verse 5, he goes down to the bottom of the ship, and then chapter 2, verses 6 and 7, he goes down into the ocean, and now he is inside the belly of the fish.
26:22
SPEAKER_00: He has literally hit rock bottom.
26:31
SPEAKER_00: Many of us know that feeling in life.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: Where everything is descending, everything is going downhill.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: We feel like we've hit rock bottom.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: And some of you are out of that, but you know in your own story that story that you have of hitting rock bottom.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: And some of you, it's not a past story, it's a present reality.
26:59
SPEAKER_00: You've hit rock bottom.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: Do you know the beautiful thing about hitting rock bottom?
27:07
SPEAKER_00: Is the only way to go now is up.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes when we hit rock bottom, we're down, down, down, down, down, and there's nowhere left but up to God.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: And we realize that in my situation, in my circumstances, in my depression, in my darkness, in my hopelessness, in the face of death, the only person who can save me is not me, it's God.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: It's not my money, it's not my job, it's not my friends, it's not my family members, it's not my intellectual abilities.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: You come to a point where you're like so down and so low, there's nowhere else to go because you've hit rock bottom.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: And the only place to look is to God.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: And that's a good thing.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: That's a humbling place, especially with so many brilliant, talented people like you.
28:17
SPEAKER_00: It's actually a good thing when we come to the realization that all of our ingenuity and all of our skill and all of our intellectual comprehension of the greatest things on earth, that will not save you, only God will.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we got to hit the bottom to go up, to cry out to God.
28:42
SPEAKER_00: And despite this dire situation, Jonah still had hope.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: Notice what he says in these verses, verse 6, 7, and 9.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: He says, I will look again to God's holy temple.
28:55
SPEAKER_00: God will deliver my life from the pit.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: And then he says in verse 9, salvation comes from the Lord.
29:03
SPEAKER_00: He never lost hope, even though he was in the darkest, most dire situation he would ever be in in his life.
29:14
SPEAKER_00: Tim Keller, the great theologian and pastor, wrote these words Salvation belongs to God alone, to no one else.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: If someone is saved, it is wholly God's doing.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: It is not a matter of God saves you partly and you save yourself partly.
29:33
SPEAKER_00: Jonah wasn't like, oh, look at me, I'm gonna crawl out of the belly of the fish.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: No, God saves us.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: We do not and cannot save ourselves.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: That's the gospel.
29:52
SPEAKER_00: God's son would have died on the cross, suffering, taking upon all the shame and human guilt of sin upon himself, and this divine transaction, this imputation of Jesus gets my sin, my worst decisions, my life lived apart from him, my darkest days, all of my shame.
30:16
SPEAKER_00: He says, I'll take that, and I'll impute to you my righteousness, my grace, my goodness, my transformative power, my love, my patience.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: I give Jesus my worst, he gives me his best.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: That alone only God can do.
30:39
SPEAKER_00: And then notice what happens next.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: There's a glimmer of hope.
30:44
SPEAKER_00: And then verse 8, Jonah turned back.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 8.
30:50
SPEAKER_00: Those who cling to worthless idols, Jonah's thinking of himself, turn away from God's love for them.
30:58
SPEAKER_00: When you cling to things that you know are contrary to God, when you cling to things that take the place of God in your life, you are turning away from God's love for you.
31:12
SPEAKER_00: I want you to notice in your Bible, I wish I had like a board up here and a big screen.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: I could circle things like they do at Granite Bay, but someday, someday.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: Right, Ken?
31:23
SPEAKER_00: Someday, amen.
31:24
SPEAKER_00: Ken, amen.
31:24
SPEAKER_00: We're working on something.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: We've we're gonna have we're gonna have some news for you in maybe three weeks.
31:31
SPEAKER_00: We're working on something.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: Umtice, notice in verse 8, it says, turn away from, uh, circle this, God's love.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: God's love.
31:43
SPEAKER_00: This is a Hebrew word, Hasid.
31:45
SPEAKER_00: It's the most consistently used term for God's love in the Old Testament.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: And it means loyal love or faithful love.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: Think of this in terms of Jonah.
32:01
SPEAKER_00: God is loyal to Jonah even when Jonah is not loyal to God.
32:08
SPEAKER_00: God is faithful to you in your life even when you're unfaithful to God.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: Your unfaithfulness, your lack of loyalty, my unfaithfulness, my lack of loyalty to God does not change who God is.
32:24
SPEAKER_00: He is faithful even when we are not.
32:30
SPEAKER_00: And this is a beautiful picture of God because Jonah is like, I turned away from God's love, but God never turned away from me.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: God was still has said, he was loyal, he was faithful, he was gracious, he was kind, he was steadfast in his love for me, even when I was not steadfast in my faithfulness to him.
32:54
SPEAKER_00: So he turns back to God, and then notice verse 9: the fifth thing that we see in this prayer, Jonah offered worship.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: He goes from distress in verse 1, crying out to God, hurled into the sea, feeling like he was drowning, swallowed up by a great fish, thought he was engulfed in the realm of the dead.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: Then he has hope.
33:20
SPEAKER_00: Then he turns back to God, and then in verse 9, he begins to worship God.
33:27
SPEAKER_00: This is amazing.
33:29
SPEAKER_00: He says, But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you what I have vowed, I will make good.
33:36
SPEAKER_00: I will say, salvation comes from the Lord.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: He begins to worship God.
33:43
SPEAKER_00: Jonah's worship here might be restitution, like, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna vow to go to Nineveh, I'm gonna be faithful to you, or he could be talking about returning to the temple and sacrificing in worship to God.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: Either way, he's getting back on the right track.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: One writer said, This is the new Jonah, and this could be the new you today.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: He is soon to demonstrate a willing spirit by accepting the commission he had formerly rejected.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: In line with his change of heart, even now, this testimony to God's grace, he looks forward to seeking the special presence of God to offer his praise.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: I love how one writer said, he said, deliverance creates the obligation of worship.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: Can I take you on a journey for a quick minute?
34:35
SPEAKER_00: You good?
34:35
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
34:36
SPEAKER_00: Look with me at Psalm 30.
34:38
SPEAKER_00: Just check this out.
34:39
SPEAKER_00: Deliverance creates the obligation of worship.
34:42
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 30.
34:46
SPEAKER_00: That's to the left of Jonah.
34:48
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 30.
34:49
SPEAKER_00: I will exalt you, Lord, for you lifted me out of the depths and did not let my enemies gloat over me.
34:58
SPEAKER_00: Lord my God, I called you, called to you for help, and you healed me.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: You, Lord, brought me up from the, notice, the realm of the dead.
35:10
SPEAKER_00: You spared me from going down to the pit.
35:13
SPEAKER_00: Then the psalmist says, Sing praises to the Lord.
35:17
SPEAKER_00: You, his faithful people, praise his holy name.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime.
35:25
SPEAKER_00: Weeping may stay for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: When I felt secure, I said, I will never be shaken.
35:33
SPEAKER_00: Lord, when you favored me, you made my royal mountain stand firm, but when you hid your face, I was dismayed.
35:41
SPEAKER_00: To you, Lord, I called.
35:43
SPEAKER_00: To the Lord, I cried for mercy.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: This is almost like what we just read in Jonah.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: What is gained, if I am silenced, I will go down to the pit.
35:52
SPEAKER_00: Will the dust praise you?
35:54
SPEAKER_00: Will it proclaim your faithfulness?
35:55
SPEAKER_00: Here, Lord, and be merciful to me.
35:58
SPEAKER_00: Lord, be my help.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: Some of you need that prayer today.
36:03
SPEAKER_00: Lord, be my help.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: You turn my wailing into dancing.
36:10
SPEAKER_00: You remove my sackcloth and clothe me with joy, that my heart may sing praises and not be silent.
36:20
SPEAKER_00: Lord my God, I will praise you forever.
36:24
SPEAKER_00: Can I just show you one more?
36:26
SPEAKER_00: This is just so amazing.
36:27
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 118, verse 13.
36:30
SPEAKER_00: Just turn to the right in your Bible real quick.
36:32
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 118, verse 13.
36:34
SPEAKER_00: Just one more.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: This is too good to pass up.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: I can't discard this today.
36:41
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you're preaching, you're like, well, we'll cut that out and that out and that out.
36:45
SPEAKER_00: Not today.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: Listen to this.
36:53
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 118.
36:58
SPEAKER_00: And we'll pick up in verse 13.
37:03
SPEAKER_00: I was pushed back and about to fall, but the Lord helped me.
37:07
SPEAKER_00: The Lord is my strength and my defense.
37:10
SPEAKER_00: He has become my salvation.
37:13
SPEAKER_00: Shouts of joy and victory resent, resound in the tents of the righteous.
37:18
SPEAKER_00: The Lord's right hand has done mighty things.
37:21
SPEAKER_00: The Lord's right hand has done.
37:24
SPEAKER_00: Right hand is lifted high.
37:26
SPEAKER_00: The Lord's right hand has done mighty things.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: I will not die but live and will proclaim what the Lord has done.
37:34
SPEAKER_00: The Lord has chased me severely, but he has not given me over to death.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: This resembles so much the story of Jonah.
37:41
SPEAKER_00: Open for me the gates of the righteous.
37:44
SPEAKER_00: I will enter and give thanks to the Lord.
37:48
SPEAKER_00: This is the gate of the Lord through which the righteous may enter.
37:51
SPEAKER_00: I will give you thanks, for you answered me.
37:54
SPEAKER_00: You have become my salvation.
38:00
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has saved you.
38:03
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has saved me.
38:07
SPEAKER_00: God rescued Jonah.
38:09
SPEAKER_00: God rescues us.
38:12
SPEAKER_00: Now you have the opportunity to joyfully worship him.
38:18
SPEAKER_00: Can I suggest you worship God in two ways?
38:22
SPEAKER_00: As the psalmists proclaim in Psalm 30 and Psalm 118, and then Jonah chapter 2, as Jonah wrote the Psalm of Jonah, can I suggest you worship God in two ways?
38:33
SPEAKER_00: First, that you worship God in glad obedience.
38:38
SPEAKER_00: That as God rescues you, you have this joyful spirit of, I want to follow Jesus.
38:46
SPEAKER_00: There's no greater choice and decision in my life than to follow Jesus who has rescued me.
38:55
SPEAKER_00: And that you also joyfully worship him in songs of praise.
39:02
SPEAKER_00: Why do we come in and sing songs?
39:06
SPEAKER_00: Because God has done such great things for us.
39:10
SPEAKER_00: We have hearts that resonate internally, and we sing with our mouths this external proclamation of praise because of what God has done internally in our heart.
39:23
SPEAKER_00: That we as followers of Jesus would lean into a life of worship in glad obedience, in songs of praise, because of all that God has done for us.
39:35
SPEAKER_00: This is the essence of baptism.
39:39
SPEAKER_00: Baptism is an external proclamation of something that God has already done in your heart.
39:47
SPEAKER_00: That you have chosen to put your faith in Jesus Christ, God's Son, who died on a cross for you 2,000 years ago and rose again from the grave to give you forgiveness of sin, past, present, and future, to give you spiritual life.
40:03
SPEAKER_00: You've been made alive in Christ, and to give you his grace and love for all of eternity.
40:10
SPEAKER_00: You are forgiven, you are freed, and you are in a relationship with him for all of eternity.
40:15
SPEAKER_00: And now you simply get to reflect that as you go into the waters of baptism, as Jesus said, in obedience to me, that you would be baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that your old life is left behind as you go into the waters.
40:32
SPEAKER_00: And that as you come out of the waters, it's an external proclamation of an internal reality in your heart.
40:39
SPEAKER_00: As you come out of the waters, it's a picture of new life that God has given you through Jesus Christ his Son.
40:52
SPEAKER_00: And this is what a beautiful.
40:54
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if anybody, I don't know, I've been sick.
40:56
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if anybody signed up to get baptized.
40:58
SPEAKER_00: I know this 50 plus people have given their heart to the Lord in three weeks here at church.
41:08
SPEAKER_00: If you've given your heart to Jesus or you have in the past and you've never been baptized, today is the day in glad obedience to Jesus to get baptized as a public declaration of the internal reality that God has saved you in Christ Jesus.
41:29
SPEAKER_00: And finally, and yes, finally, verse 10.
41:32
SPEAKER_00: We can't miss verse 10, Jonah's deliverance.
41:36
SPEAKER_00: Notice what it says.
41:37
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.
41:44
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever had food poisoning?
41:49
SPEAKER_00: I have many times.
41:51
SPEAKER_00: It's not a pretty picture.
41:54
SPEAKER_00: That is the picture of this Hebrew term.
41:58
SPEAKER_00: Here's Jonah in the fish.
42:00
SPEAKER_00: The fish is moving back in the right direction.
42:04
SPEAKER_00: And it gets to near the land and it vomits Jonah up.
42:11
SPEAKER_00: Jonah crawls out in the midst of vomit, and he's on dry land again.
42:19
SPEAKER_00: God, yes, pretty gross, but that's the real story.
42:25
SPEAKER_00: God uses this fish as a means of salvation for Jonah's life.
42:32
SPEAKER_00: And God uses this fish to return Jonah to land and continue the mission he called Jonah to originally.
42:42
SPEAKER_00: I led uh sermon prep for all of our lead pastors at Bayside for this sermon.
42:48
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know I was doing it until like five in the morning that morning.
42:52
SPEAKER_00: Woke up really early, wrote a bunch of notes.
42:55
SPEAKER_00: I've taught Jonah probably three or four times.
42:58
SPEAKER_00: Wrote a bunch of notes fresh, because you want to keep things fresh.
43:02
SPEAKER_00: And I wrote these words.
43:05
SPEAKER_00: This was a fish of protection and a fish of ministry redemption.
43:11
SPEAKER_00: And I said those words in our sermon prep meeting, and all the pastors started cracking up.
43:17
SPEAKER_00: They'd never heard anything like it.
43:19
SPEAKER_00: One of them laughed for 20 minutes straight.
43:24
SPEAKER_00: We won't name names.
43:28
SPEAKER_00: But let's just assume they'll never forget this the rest of their life.
43:32
SPEAKER_00: That God used a fish to protect Jonah, and God used a fish to redeem him back to his calling.
43:42
SPEAKER_00: What is God using in your life to turn you back to Jesus?
43:47
SPEAKER_00: What is God using in your life to redeem you back to the calling that he has for your life?
43:55
SPEAKER_00: I actually thought I didn't have enough for the sermon today, but I've got more than enough.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: This is the longest sermon in a while.
44:03
SPEAKER_00: Listen to these words as I close.
44:05
SPEAKER_00: Romans 8 28.
44:08
SPEAKER_00: And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.