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Book: Jonah
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Jonah 2:8 The Mercies of God
I. The authenticity of the story.
A. Bible critics have had a field day with the book of Jonah. They
claim the story is too hard to swallow.
1. They speak of the impossibility of a man being
swallowed by a whale and surviving.
a. The story here declares that God prepared a
great fish. Not necessarily a whale.
b. Do you believe that man is able to make a fish
like object in which over 100 men can submerge
under the water and remain for several days,
and then be deposited at a dock?
c. If you can accept man's capacity to make such a
vessel, why do you have problems with God doing
it?
d. The difficulty is with the limited concept of
God. If He created the whole universe, and all
of the life forms within it, surely He would
have no difficulty making such a fish to serve
His purposes.
e. Would you be more comfortable if the story
read, and a submarine surfaced and the captain
ordered the crew to take Jonah on board, and
they returned to shore where they let Jonah
out.
2. But then there are other miracles in the story that
you would have to contend with.
a. The miracle of the storm.
b. The miracle of Jonah being able to sleep in
such a storm.
c. The miracle of the lot falling on Jonah.
d. The miracle of the great calm after Jonah is
tossed over.
B. There is only one piece of evidence that I am going to present
to prove the authenticity of the story and that is Jesus
believed it.
1. As far as I am concerned Jesus is smarter than all of
the critics.
2. When Jesus was asked for a sign, He told them that the
only sign they would receive was the sign of the
prophet Jonah who was three days and three nights in
the belly of the whale, so He would be three days and
three nights in the heart of the earth.
3. He also spoke of the men of Nineveh rising in the day
of judgment with that generation and condemning it
for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and
behold a greater than Jonah is here.
II. The story: Jonah was a Jewish patriot who was called by God to go and
warn the Ninevites that they had 40 days until the judgment of God
would fall upon them.
A. Nineveh was the capitol city of Assyria, and the Assyrians were
a cruel and heartless people who were conquering the nations
and brutally mutilating their captives. They were a threat to
the nations of Israel and Judah, in fact they are the ones
that conquered Israel and were defeated by God as they were
laying siege to Jerusalem.
1. Jonah knew the mercy of God and was afraid that they
might take his message to heart and repent, and thus
not be destroyed. He was afraid of success in his
preaching.
2. As far as Jonah was concerned, nothing was better
than that Nineveh should be destroyed.
B. Jonah tried to run from the call of God.
1. Went to Joppa and found a ship sailing to Tarshish.
That was the opposite way from Nineveh, and as far
as you could go.
2. Three times it is mentioned that he was seeking to
escape from the presence of God.
3. Had he read the psalm that we read this morning, he
would have realized that there is no escape from
God. "Where can I escape from Your presence, if I
ascend to heaven, You are there, if I descend into
hell, You are there, if I take the wings of the
morning, and flee to the uttermost parts of the
sea, even there You will surround me."
C. Jonah felt that his plan for his life was superior to the plan
of God. He was determined to run from the call of God, he would
stubbornly resist the call of God.
1. First he tried to go in the opposite direction.
2. Next he told the sailors to throw him overboard. He
figured that if he drowned in the sea he could escape
the call of God.
As far as he was concerned, it was better to drown,
than obey.
3. He sat their in misery in the belly of the fish for
three days and three nights, before he prayed. Talk
about being stubborn.
4. He describes the misery of his accommodations.
a. The floods compassed me about, and the waves
passed over me. The depth enclosed me, and
weeds were wrapped around my head.
b. He said, "Out of belly of hell I cried." If it
were a whale, and I personally have no problem
with that, being a mammal the temperature would
have been 98 degrees and the humidity must have
been horrendous. No wonder he thought he was in
hell.
5. For three days and three nights he endured this misery
saying "No way will I go to Nineveh."
6. It should be noted that he brought all of this misery
upon himself by disobedience.
D. I have mentioned before some of the old songs from the Stamps
Baxter hymnals that they used to use in the South. "Tell them
Now, They can't read their tombstones when they are dead."
"I'm under the spout where the glory comes out." another one
I remember "He won't compel you to go against your will,
He'll just make you willing to go." One of the verses of that
song deals with Jonah.
III. The truth that Jonah discovered in this appalling situation, "They
that observe lying vanities, forsake their own mercies." What were
the lying vanities?
A. That he could run from the call of God.
1. You are mistaken if you think that you can run from the
call of God upon your life.
2. The gifts and the callings of God are without
repentance.
B. That he could escape from the presence of God.
1. That he could find a place which was forsaken by God, a
place where God wasn't.
2. We sometimes hear of a place described as the most God
forsaken place in the world. Maybe he had heard
mariners describe Tarshish that way. If he could only
reach Tarshish he felt he could escape the presence of
God.
C. That his way was better than God's way.
1. God said, "Go to Nineveh." tis better I go to Tarshish.
2. God said, "Cry against it." tis better I never preach
there.
D. These are the lying vanities that brought upon him all of the
misery, and discomfort.
E. They that observe these lying vanities forsake their own
mercies.
1. God is merciful, and God's ways are best.
2. Gods will for your life is the best thing that could
ever happen to you.
a. You will never be content or satisfied with
anything less.
b. To try to run from the call of God is only to
invite calamity into your life.
D. There are important truths that we must learn, and God is
determined that we should learn them, one way or another.
1. There is the easy way to learn and the hard way to
learn.
2. You will learn the truth of God the easy way or the
hard way. Jonah chose the hard way.
3. Some of you have also chosen the hard way.
a. You are still insisting on doing things your
way.
b. Your lives have become a disaster area. But you
continue on, declaring "I am the master of my
fate, I am the captain of my soul, my head is
bloody but unbowed." Fool.
4. The misery you have encountered is a sign of God's
mercy.
God will not let you go on to destroy yourself. He
loves you and is using this present calamity to speak
to you and teach you that you need to listen to Him
and submit to His ways.
E. In Jeremiah God said to the people, "I know my thoughts
concerning you, they are peace and not evil, to bring you to
an expected end."
or a desirable end. The people had chosen a path that would
bring them war and destruction by the Babylonians, God's
designs for them were of peace.
F. God's designs for you are good, they are for peace not evil.
For you to observe a lying vanity, is to forsake your own
mercy.
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