G’day. Dave Whittingham here. Its great to have you with me for Stories of a Faithful God. If you haven’t jumped on the website yet, faithfulgod.net That’s faithfulgod.net… check it out. Send me a comment on the contact page. Let me know how you’re finding the show.

Over the last couple of months I’ve been speaking to a number of people who I haven’t seen in a while. Its been great to catch up. But I’ve been reminded of just how tough this world is. People are facing all sorts of pain… with finances… with relationships… in their job or losing their job…with sickness and death. This is a really hard… broken world.

Which is why we need to keep our eyes fixed on the faithful God. He never says this world will be easy. In fact… if you do put your trust in Jesus… in some ways it becomes harder. But God does promise to help his people through this world… and then… when Jesus returns… to take us to a perfect new creation. And because he’s faithful we know that he’ll do it. Knowing and trusting the trustworthy God is the greatest help and comfort possible in this life and the life to come.

In our first series we looked at the amazing things God did through the Prophet Elijah. God’s really obviously the hero in that story. God’s always the hero. But Elijah’s also a hero. He serves God faithfully… obeys his word. Sure he has a bit of a wobble… or crisis of faith… but he recovers.

In the next two episodes we’re going to look at what God does through the prophet Jonah. And Jonah could not be more unlike Elijah. There’s no way he’s a hero. In fact… at times… his disobedience towards God is almost comical. Its like God invites us to laugh at him.

Don’t laugh too hard, though. Because the more we stare at Jonah… the more we can see of ourselves staring right back.

The book of Jonah’s a funny book… its an amazing book… we’re going to see the astounding faithfulness of God… We’ll get to see his power and compassion… that’s what I’ve called this series… power and compassion… it’s a beautiful picture of God…

But Jonah’s also a dangerous book. You can’t walk away from it without having your own motives… your own prejudices challenged.

So let’s take the plunge… in episode 3 of Stories of a Faithful God.

MUSIC

The book of Jonah starts off sounding like a very normal prophetic book. In fact, it sounds like a normal prophetic book for the entire first… sentence. And then everything seems to go wrong.

To give some context, we’re somewhere between 800 and 750BC… remember the numbers go backwards in BC. It always throws me.

At the end of our time with Elijah in the last episode, God had pronounced judgement on Israel for their constant rejection of him. And over the last 80 years Israel’s been getting smaller and smaller and weaker and weaker… But now… under the reign of a new king… Jeroboam II… God’s had compassion on them. He gives them about 40 years where they’re relatively safe from their neighbours… they’re prosperous.

God hasn’t done it because they’ve all suddenly turned back to him. In fact… nothing’s changed at all. 2 Kings 14 tells us that Jeroboam was just as evil as everyone who came before him. So God has compassion… not because of Jereboam… but because of his own faithfulness and compassion. Listen to these words. I’m using the CSB… the Christian Standard Bible in this series… This is from 2 Kings 14 verse 23:

In the fifteenth year of Judah’s King Amaziah son of Joash, Jeroboam son of Jehoash became king of Israel in Samaria, and he reigned forty-one years. 24 He did what was evil in the LORD’s sight. He did not turn away from all the sins Jeroboam son of Nebat had caused Israel to commit.

Ok, so that’s the bad stuff. But listen to this change of tone:

He (that’s Jeroboam) restored Israel’s border from Lebo-hamath as far as the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word the LORD, the God of Israel, had spoken through his servant, the prophet Jonah son of Amittai from Gath-hepher.

Notice that it’s the Lord who’s giving Jereboam this success. Taking back their land… giving them security… And in the next verse we’re told why God does it. It says:

For the LORD saw that the affliction of Israel was very bitter for both slaves and free people. There was no one to help Israel. The LORD had not said he would blot out the name of Israel under heaven, so he delivered them by the hand of Jeroboam son of Jehoash.

God saved Israel… because of God. Because of his own promises… his own character. His own faithfulness in keeping his word. Israel’s unfaithfulness had them to suffering and the brink of destruction. Even though they’re unfaithful though, God is always faithful. His character never changes, and so he has compassion on them like he has countless times before.

You may have picked up there that Jonah even got a mention… faithfully proclaiming God’s word as a prophet should. And its quite a nice word to proclaim. “Hey Your Majesty, God says that you’re going to reconquer all those lands that’ve been taken from you”. That’d be an exciting message to take, wouldn’t it? A message of success and happiness? And if that was all we ever heard about Jonah, he’d have a very different reputation.

Its not all we hear about Jonah though.

In the book of Jonah, God has a new message for him to take. This one isn’t a message of victory and success. It’s a message of anger… and judgement.

God sends Jonah to the city of Nineveh.

Nineveh was one of the chief cities of the Assyrian empire. They were THE super power of this time. Egypt is way past its hay day… the big names like Babylon and Persia that come up later in the Bible haven’t really made their mark yet. Rome only gets founded as a tiny city halfway through this century. In this period… its all about Assyria. They’ve been steadily rising for a while now. In fact, Ahab, who we looked at in the last series… was involved in a huge battle as a part of a coalition against them.

They’ve been expanding and expanding… Israel was certainly one of the countries in their sights… And one of the key things about them…. Something they’re known for in history… is the way they publicly announced their violence and brutality. On city gates they’d have pictures of enemies being impaled… of severed limbs lying around on the ground. They put up pictures of ears and noses being ripped off. One Assyrian king after Jonah’s time… He had enemy nobles walk through the streets wearing necklaces of the severed heads of their fellow nobles. They’d flay people alive and hang their skins on city walls. They wanted you to know that if you try and fight against them… its gonna go reaaaaalllly badly for you.

The Lord God sees all this. He isn’t just the God of Israel. He’s the God of the whole earth. And so he sends Jonah to announce judgement.

This is verse 1 of Jonah 1:

The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: 2 “Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it because their evil has come up before me.”

That would seem like a reasonable request. Like God announcing judgement on the Nazis.

And Jonah does get up, just like the LORD tells him to… but not to do what God wants. Instead… he gets up… to run away. It’s a bit like an old cartoon where a leader says to his army “CHARGE”… but when he turns to look at his army… there’s just a cloud of dust hanging in the air.

That’s what its like here. Jonah flees.

He doesn’t run away from Nineveh. Perhaps we could understand that. It’d be scary to go to Nineveh where they seem to delight in pain and misery.

That’s not what he does though. If you’re ever teaching this passage to kids, PLEASE don’t say that he runs away because he’s scared. No… the passage tells us that Jonah runs away from the LORD.

He flees to a place call Tarshish. No-one knows exactly where that is… it was probably in Spain. But that’s not the point. Tarshish in the Bible is like the ends of the earth. An exotic place of wonder with gold and precious metals and jewels. Most importantly, its place so far away they’ve never even heard of God. When the prophet Isaiah talks about how the whole world will see God’s glory in the future… he says that they’ll even see it in Tarshish. So if you want to flee from God’s presence… Tarshish would seem like the place to go.

To get away, Jonah starts out on a descent. A downward spiral that isn’t going to end well. So in verse 3 of Jonah chapter 1 we’re told:

He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. He paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the LORD’s presence.

Of course… running away from God is a pretty ridiculous idea. Just think about the power of God we discussed in the first couple of episodes… where he stopped the rain, sent fire from the sky, commanded the ravens, raised the dead, started the rain. What’s Jonah thinking?

You see how silly it is by God’s response. He throws something at Jonah. It isn’t a ball or a rock or a fluffy toy. No. God throws a storm. I’ve never been able to do that, even when I’ve wanted to.

Verse 4 says:

But the LORD threw a great wind onto the sea, and such a great storm arose on the sea that the ship threatened to break apart.

You really shouldn’t mess around with this God.

The sailors are naturally terrified. They don’t know the one true God… they worship a whole variety of gods that aren’t real… They know they need divine help though, and so they all cry out to their own god. Maybe one of them’ll be able to do something. They also work desperately to throw the cargo overboard to lighten the ship. They’re doing what any sensible person would do in that situation. And that is… everything. They’re doing everything they possibly can to save their ship and their lives. What else could anyone possibly be doing in this terrifying, deadly emergency.

What about…having a bit of a sleep?

Jonah… the only one on the ship who knows the one true God… the only one who’s at the centre of all this… the one who’s put all their lives at risk… is having forty winks down below. As the passage describes it, we see he’s still heading downwards. He’s still on this downward spiral. Verse 5 describes the sailors fighting for their lives, and then it says:

Meanwhile, Jonah had gone down to the lowest part of the vessel and had stretched out and fallen into a deep sleep.

Even if Jonah doesn’t care about his own life… you’d think he could help the others survive. Especially when he knows this is all his fault. His lack of compassion or empathy is pretty astounding.

Can you imagine the anger of the captain when he finds Jonah there? Its so unbelievable that anyone would be doing that in this situation.

You can picture him screaming above the sound of the wind and the creaking timbers. He yells in verse 6:

“What are you doing sound asleep? Get up! Call to your god. Maybe this god will consider us, and we won’t perish.”

The captain doesn’t know that Jonah’s God actually is the God they need. He just thinks there are heaps of gods… who knows which one can help… lets just try them all.

He also doesn’t know, though, that Jonah and his God… aren’t really on speaking terms. The last thing Jonah wants to do is call out to his God. And so he doesn’t. And he continues to put the lives of everyone on board in danger.

Well after a while, the sailors realise nothing seems to be working, so they try another desperate strategy. They figure someone on board’s made some god really angry. They’d better find out who.

So they cast lots… a bit like throwing dice… to see who’s responsible. They believe that the god will control the lots as the fall to give them an answer. Which is exactly what the powerful God does. And the answer’s Jonah. Just imagine the spotlight of their gaze all turning on this foreigner who… instead of helping… has been sleeping in the bottom of the ship. They fire questions at him to try and work out what’s happening:

“Tell us who is to blame for this trouble we’re in. What is your business, and where are you from? What is your country, and what people are you from?”

Now… Jonah gives a type of answer that we’re going to see a few times from him in this book. Its an answer that’s so right… and so wrong at the same time. Let me read out his answer, and then we’ll think about it a little bit. In verse 9 he answers them:

“I’m a Hebrew. I worship the LORD, the God of the heavens, who made the sea and the dry land.”

What’s right about this answer?

Well his description of God is spot on. He uses God’s name… Yahweh… which our translations put as LORD in capital letters... And says he’s the God of the heavens. They’d understand that to be a title that means… the king of all the gods. The one in charge. The most powerful. It doesn’t mean Jonah’s saying all their gods are true… he’s just using words that they’ll understand.

He’s also right in saying God’s the creator God. He made the earth and the sea. In other words… he’s not some small god who’s in charge of a particular river, or city or country. He made it all.

Which shows just how wrong this answer is. If God made the earth and the sea… if he’s really the God of the heavens… then that’s everything right? He made everything, he’s in charge of everything…

So what on earth is Jonah thinking trying to run away from God. He knows who this God is. He knows this God made everything and owns everything and rules everything. That means there’s no-where you can go that God can’t find you. Not even Tarshish. Why did Jonah run?

There’s something else wrong in his answer. He says… I worship the LORD. Uhhh… no you don’t. I mean… you might’ve at some stage… but that’s hardly true in the things we’ve seen in THIS book. Other translations as “I fear the Lord”. He should fear the Lord. He should fear what God would do if he tried running from him. If he truly feared God, he wouldn’t have run. He would’ve done what God wanted. And then he’d have nothing to fear. He wouldn’t be trapped in this storm.

Did he fear God or worship God when he ran down to Joppa? Did he worship God when he went down into the boat bound for Tarshish… a place where they’ve never even heard of God? Did he fear God when God threw a storm at the ship… and Jonah just went down into the very bottom of the ship and went to sleep?

His words about who God is are accurate and true… but his actions have shown completely the wrong response to this truth.

It’s a good reminder that knowing things about God… is not the same thing as actually knowing God. Trusting God. Responding rightly to God.

The sailors, on the other hand, give exactly the right response. They freak out. They yell out… what’ve you done!? It’s like they’re saying… “wait a minute wait a minute. You mean to tell us that you worship the God who’s in charge of everything… and who made the entire world… and you’ve tried to run away from him? How stupid can you be?”

Meanwhile, the storms getting worse, so they ask Jonah,

“What should we do to you so that the sea will calm down for us?”

And again, Jonah gives an answer that’s both right and wrong. He says in verse 12:

“Pick me up and throw me into the sea so that it will calm down for you, for I know that I’m to blame for this great storm that is against you.”

That sounds so brave, doesn’t it? It sounds like he’s really owning his mistakes. I mean… he’s exactly right. It is all his fault. He has put all their lives at risk by his evil and stupidity. It feels like he’s accepted his guilt and is willing to take what he deserves.

But… couldn’t he have said something else?

Couldn’t he have said… “My God’s a forgiving God. I’ll pray and ask him for mercy. Then you can take me back to land and I’ll start obeying God’s command.”

You see… If Jonah drowns… he kind of wins. There’s no way he’s going to Nineveh. Being chucked overboard will help the sailors… but it also means Jonah doesn’t have to obey God.

What’s really weird… what’s totally unexpected… is that these foreign… idol worshiping pagans… are more keen to do what’s right than Jonah is. They’re not in to just chucking people overboard. What if he’s actually innocent? That’ll make God even more angry. And so they sit down at their oars and row as hard as they can… trying to get back to shore.

But the harder they row… the more the wind rages against them. And finally they accept that God’s not going to let this go. They’re going to have to get rid of Jonah.

Now, remember how Jonah said he worshipped the Lord… or he feared the Lord. It was a complete lie… even though he’s one of the people of God and he’s a prophet of God… he was happy to spit in God’s eye and run away.

Which… again… is what makes what happens next so bizarre. Because these pagan… idol worshipping sailors… who never seem to have heard of God before now… actually start to fear him in the right way. In the way that Jonah didn’t. They realise that this God is a God who cares about what’s good and right. They realise that if you go the way of evil… you’re in serious trouble.

And so just before they throw Jonah over the side… they pray. And listen to their prayer… listen to the understanding that’s built into it…. Of God’s goodness and justice and care for what’s right and wrong… and of his power over the wind and the waves…. In verse 14 they pray:

“Please, LORD, don’t let us perish because of this man’s life, and don’t charge us with innocent blood! For you, LORD, have done just as you pleased.”

And then they pick Jonah up… And they hurl him into the sea… And immediately… the sea stops raging.

Can you imagine that? I mean… I haven’t been in a raging storm like that but I’ve been on some rough water… and it doesn’t just stop. There’s so much power and force behind each and every wave…

But this sea just stops. Everything’s calm again.

Because there’s a greater power than the power of waves. It’s the power of the God who made the waves. He can start them… and he can stop them just like that.

That’s why Jesus’ disciples hundreds of years later… are terrified when Jesus, with a word… calms the wind and the waves. They’re like… who is this man? They hadn’t made the link yet that he really was God in the flesh.

The sailors in Jonah’s day respond with the same fear. If they were terrified before at the storm… its nothing compared to what they’re feeling now. They’ve just been confronted by the most powerful force… the most powerful God in the universe. There’s nothing that compares to his power. Its terrifying.

But of course… if you stick with this God… then you have nothing to fear from him. His power isn’t some wild… out of control power. It’s a power guided and directed by his good, righteous, faithful character.

And so these sailors… don’t pray to the idols they were praying to before. Their idols are as useless as Baal is, who we saw in the last series. Instead, they pray to the living God. Verse 16 says:

The men were seized by great fear of the LORD, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows.

These sailors have been brought from foolish worship of rocks and stones and bits of wood… to worshipping the real God who made them.

Meanwhile Jonah… the one who was meant to know this God… is continuing his downward spiral. He ran down to Joppa, then went down into the boat, then went down to the bottom of the boat to sleep. He thought he was in charge of all those decisions. But now he’s completely out of control as he heads down into the depths of the sea.

We’ll hear more of what happens to him… in the 2nd half of the show.

MUSIC

Welcome back.

In the first half, we’ve seen in Jonah a perfect model of sin. Of rebellion against God. God told Jonah to go to Nineveh… and Jonah said no. He refused and ran away from God. That’s what all sin is, right? When I covet… when I’m selfish… when I speak harshly I’m saying… “God. Your way is not best. I’m going my own way.” We try and get away from God. We try to be in control of our own life and our own destiny.

We’ve also seen in the first half how foolish that is. Could Jonah really stop God being in control of the universe? When Jonah flees, God hurls a wind at him. When the sailors try desperately to get back to land the wind just gets stronger. No-one can stand against God.

Now God does it again. Jonah seems to have got what he wanted. He’s been thrown into the sea. He seems to be out of ever having to go to Nineveh. But again, God shows his power over nature. Verse 1 reads:

The LORD appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

We’ve seen this power before in the last series where God commanded ravens to feed Elijah. When God speaks… the fish obeys.

Imagine the terror for Jonah,,, as he’s struggling… drowning in the water even… and then there’s this new terror. Huge lips come up from underneath… close in around him and shut him off from everything else. I can stand in a cupboard without getting claustrophobic… but the thought of what Jonah’s going through… that’d give me nightmares.

Here's a question though.

Is this fish there… to punish Jonah? Or to save him? Is this good for Jonah or bad? I’ve asked this in groups before and about half of the people tend towards it being a punishment… maybe they’re the more claustrophobic ones… and the other half say that this is salvation. God’s rescuing Jonah with the fish.

On the punishment side… well I guess I’ve already told you how I’d feel about being stuck inside a fish. It’d certainly feel like a punishment to me.

On the salvation side… people just say… “Look at what happens in the end”. The fish gets him back to dry land. It doesn’t matter how it feels at the time, the effect is salvation. Also… people say… look at the language of the song or prayer that Jonah says. He seems confident that he’s been saved.

I tell you what. How about we come back to that question of whether the fish is punishment or salvation.

Jonah’s inside the fish for three days and three nights… and then we’re told… in chapter 2 verse 1:

Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the belly of the fish.

Its easy to read over that… but you’ve got to remember… this is a massive turnaround for Jonah. When God told him to go to Nineveh, he didn’t stop to pray and ask God why… or suggest a different action… or ask not to go. He just ran away from God.

When he was on the boat, and everyone’s lives were at risk because of him… he didn’t pray to God. He didn’t say… please forgive me and save our lives… He didn’t even say to God, “take me and but save these people.”

But now… finally… inside the fish… Jonah turns back to God.

We’ve got to see this as a hero moment for God. If God had blasted Jonah with lightning as he ran down to Joppa… or sunk the boat with a single wave… or just let him drown in 30 seconds… Jonah wouldn’t have had time to come back and pray. God’s compassionately… generously given room for Jonah to come back to him. And now Jonah has.

And then the Bible tells us this prayer… or song… that Jonah sings.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say… I don’t think this is the prayer that he prays inside the fish. I think that it’s a song that he sings after he’s been vomited out of the fish. He sort of reflects back on his time in the fish.

I’ve got a few reasons for that, but I don’t want to interrupt our story to say them all. If you want to know my reasons… get on the website, faithfulgod.net, and send in a question or comment and I’ll respond on the show. Otherwise… I’ll just assume everyone agrees with me.

Jonah’s song starts with a wonderful announcement of God’s power and compassion.

In verse 2 he sings:

I called to the LORD in my distress,

and he answered me.

I cried out for help from deep inside Sheol (that’s the place where dead people go);

I cried out for help from deep inside Sheol

you heard my voice.

Can you see the power and compassion?

Jonah’s sunk down into the depths… and even there God can hear his cry and answer him. There’s nowhere that God’s power doesn’t reach.

Even more amazing is the compassion, though. Jonah says, I called to the LORD in my distress, and he answered me. What right does Jonah have to speak to God? He’s run from God, he’s disobeyed God… In a sense he’s shamed God… People could say… “how pathetic is that God if he tries to send a prophet… and the prophet just runs away.” Jonah should be in Sheol… he’s going where he deserves…

And yet God kindly… compassionately… answered him.

After that introduction Jonah describes the terrifying predicament he was in. As I read it… notice that Jonah’s fully aware that this is all God’s doing. God has all the power. God’s in charge. In verse 3 Jonah sings:

When you threw me into the depths,

into the heart of the seas,

the current overcame me.

All your breakers and your billows swept over me.

And I said, “I have been banished

from your sight,

Wait a minute. Isn’t that exactly what Jonah wanted? He wanted to get away from God. He fled from God. What’s the problem?

The problem is that now he’s been confronted by what that actually means.

You see… God’s the God of life… and goodness… and kindness. He protects his people and provides for his people and cares for his people.

That’s what God did back in the garden of Eden. He gave Adam and Eve every joy and blessing… and he protected them by saying… don’t eat from that tree or you’ll die.

And they’re like… No. We don’t need you God. And so God gave them what they asked for. And it was only then they realised how terrifying it is to be cut off from God’s protection… and kindness… and goodness… and life.

It’s the same with Jonah. God’s given him what he wants… and now he realises that what he wanted was stupid.

How many people are living today… thinking that they’re better off without God… and yet in reality they’re missing out on the true joy of life. And its only going to get worse if they keep trying to run.

In the middle of Jonah’s description he sings about a ray of hope… a blast of salvation before he goes back to describing his own personal hell. He says:

yet I will look once more

toward your holy temple.

He’d fled from God’s temple… God’s home on earth… he was getting what he deserved… but because of God’s compassion he’s going to get to go back to what he fled from. Back to who he fled from. Back to the protection… and kindness… and goodness… and life of God.

Then he describes his sinking again. And remember in the first half we talked about how Jonah was going through this downward spiral. He’d set the path himself by fleeing down to Joppa… but he has no control over where it’ll end. Now he realises God’s sent him down that path to its logical conclusion. He sings in verse 5:

The water engulfed me up to the neck;

the watery depths overcame me;

seaweed was wrapped around my head.

6 I sank to the foundations of the mountains,

the earth’s gates shut behind me forever!

(Pause)

Its so final, isn’t it?

Death is final. The gates are closed… never to be reopened.

Unless you’re dealing with the God powerful enough to save people from death.

Unless you’re dealing with the God… compassionate enough… to save his enemies from death.

And that’s what God does for Jonah. That useless… undeserving…arrogant prophet. Jonah says to God in verse 6:

Then you raised my life from the Pit, LORD my God!

7 As my life was fading away,

I remembered the LORD,

and my prayer came to you,

to your holy temple.

And then he finishes his song with this verse about the goodness of God… And about how he’s turned back to God. He sings in verse 8:

Those who cherish worthless idols

abandon their faithful love,

9 but as for me, I will sacrifice to you

with a voice of thanksgiving.

I will fulfill what I have vowed.

Salvation belongs to the LORD.

That’s everything we’ve been saying, isn’t it? God is the saving God. The powerful God who uses his power to save. He’s a faithful saviour. He loves doing it. His heart is filled with compassion.

If you abandon him… if you worship something or someone else… you’re abandoning his faithful love. Its nuts. So stick with the powerful.. compassionate… faithful saving God.

Hang on a second though. Just… step back and think about Jonah’s words again. When you look closely, there’s something just a little bit… off… about them.

I mean… they’re true. He’s passed his theology exam. But just like we saw back on the boat, Jonah’s perfectly able to say true things without fully being on board with them.

When he says, Those who cherish worthless idols

abandon their faithful love,

That’s true. But we’ve actually met some cherishers of worthless idols already in this book. The sailors. Remember they were running around like headless chooks… desperately praying to their gods who couldn’t help them…

And did God laugh and say… “you fools. I can’t wait for you guys to drown!” No… he kindly… powerfully… revealed himself to them… so that for the first time they’d know the true God at the heart of the universe.

So while its true that they’d be massively missing out on faithful love if they clung to their idols… that’s not what they did. They honoured the LORD.

In other words… don’t give up on them. Just because they’re worshipping idols now… doesn’t mean they can’t be saved. Have compassion on them… and tell them the good news about the true faithful God. Don’t just write them off as evil people who aren’t worth the time or effort.

So is Jonah saying… “ha ha idol worshippers are dumb but I’m going to do the smart thing and worship the Lord”? Does he have a nasty streak? Or is he just saying what’s true? I guess time will tell what his heart’s doing.

But the truth of what he’s saying is so good. Salvation comes from the LORD.

Can you imagine if God had all the power that we’ve seen so far… but he was nasty. And vindictive. If he really enjoyed causing pain. That’d be awful.

Or what if he was really compassionate… but didn’t have the power to do anything about it. That’d be a tragedy.

But because God has the power… and the compassion. Then he’s a God who saves.

Let’s come back to that question of the fish. What is it? Punishment or salvation?

Perhaps we can answer the question by jumping forward in history. A long way forward. Another 800 years, to the time of Jesus.

Jesus is obviously pretty great. And as he talks, you’d think that if he was going to associate with any of the people of the past… he’d choose the great ones, right?

He might say… I’m going to be like Moses… or I’m going to be like Elijah… or Isaiah or Jeremiah.

But you know the only one who he directly says he’s going to be like?

Its Jonah. Could you think of a worse example? One of the key things about Jesus is that he never… ever disobeys his Father in heaven. Never. Even the great ones like Moses and Elijah weren’t perfect like that.

But Jonah?! Of all people! His obedience seems non-existent so far. “Jonah, I want you to go over…. Where did he go?”

But listen to what Jesus says. He’s talking to a bunch of people who’ve asked him to show them a sign. “C’mon. Prove that you’re from God”. Its such a hard-hearted question because… Jesus had already done so many signs. If they didn’t believe the last 50 times they’re not going to believe now. We talked in the last episode about how seeing doesn’t necessarily equal believing.

But they ask Jesus for this sign. And he answers them… this is in Matthew 12:39… Matthew 12:39, he says:

“An evil and adulterous generation demands a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For as Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.

Why does Jesus compare what he’s going to do… with Jonah being in the fish?

Well I’d suggest its because it’s the perfect example of something that’s BOTH… punishment… and salvation. Both penalty… and rescue. Both death… and life.

Jonah was dying. He was being taken deeper and deeper into the depths of the earth. You do a quick word search for the word swallow in the Bible. Its always about victory over someone or punishment of someone. If you’re swallowed… your dead. And Jonah was swallowed by this great fish. It was God’s means of judgement on him for his foolish rebellion.

But it was also the way God saved him. God used the fish to bring him safely back to dry land. To transport him from the land of the dead to the land of the living.

What a wonderful sign for pointing to Jesus’ work in his death… burial and resurrection.

You see… although Jesus didn’t deserve death… he’d NEVER disobeyed God… he wasn’t any sort of Jonah… He did die. In fact, he willing stepped into death. And the New Testament makes it really clear that his death was a punishment. Not for Jesus’ sin… but for everyone else’s. Jesus offered himself to die in my place… to die in your place… to die in Jonah’s place… he swallowed down the full cup of God’s wrath at our sin… he’s swallowed up in death and laid in the grave. Jonah spoke metaphorically when he said:

I sank to the foundations of the mountains,

the earth’s gates shut behind me forever!

But Jesus actually was in the mountain. He really was shut in by a giant stone. He actually did die.

But in his death… even as Jesus is swallowed up BY death… he actually turns the tables and swallows up death itself.

You see… death had taken someone who wasn’t guilty. It had taken someone… who’d destroyed all the guilt of others. Death served no purpose anymore. How could it punish someone who’s been declared Not Guilty. And so, on that first Easter, Jesus burst out of the tomb never to die again… and everyone who trusts him is declared not guilty because he’s swallowed up their guilt… which means they’ve been saved for eternal life. The Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:

Death has been swallowed up in victory.

55 Where, death, is your victory?

Where, death, is your sting?

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!

He could just as easily have used Jonah’s words… “salvation comes from the LORD”.

Well Jonah’s exit from the fish isn’t quite as glorious as Christ’s from the tomb. Verse 10 says:

Then the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

What’s gonna happen now? We’ve seen the power of God and the compassion of God and the salvation of God… And Jonah seems to have repented and turned back to God… What’s God going to do with Jonah?

Well that’s a story… for next time.