Sermon Cloud

1. Reverse Engineering Jonah's Prayer

   1. Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. (NASB)

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    • lipnê – literally at the face of - the sense is “in full view of”.

    • Now I am sure Jonah knew Psalm 139:7-8 “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.” God is present everywhere.

    • Its not like he thought: If I put enough distance between us...I won't be able to hear him

    • No - when Jonah fled the presence of the Lord – he was essentially quitting his job.

    • He was trying to make obedience to the mission nearly impossible – if I put enough distance...then maybe he will send Hosea or Amos.

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   1. When he fled from the presence of the Lord he began a progressive descent.

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    • Jonah’s flight from God was not merely “horizontal” to another part of the world (Tarshish), but actually a “descent” into sin and disobedience away from God.

    • Throughout Jonah there are several Hebrew words that are repeated one of them is yarad – can mean to “sink” or “descend” or go down.

    • Jonah 1:3: he “went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarshish, paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.”

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    • During the storm at sea, all of the deckhands are running around throwing cargo in the water to lighten the ship -= they're all praying to their gods – where's Jonah?

    • “Jonah had gone below into the hold of the ship, lain down and fallen sound asleep.

    • Jonah uses this word yarad in 2:6 – “I descended to the roots of the mountains.”

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    • So Jonah began his descent when he made a conscious decision to flee from the Lord.

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    • When he was in the hold of the ship, what was he doing (other than the obvious)?

    • He was hiding, trying to remain anonymous.

    • The sailors probably knew his name – but they knew nothing about him.

    • When we live anonymous lives its either because we have been hurt in the past OR...

    • It might be that we have something sinful to hide.

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    • But when the storm came, the sailors know – someone down here made their god mad!

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    • Jonah doesn't say anything – so they cast lots to find out and it falls on Jonah.

    • One of the signs of an unrepentant heart is an unwillingness to admit sin even when it is clear the truth will be discovered.

    • Our human tendency is to hide when we sin – Adam and Eve for example hid in the bushes when God came calling after they ate from the forbidden tree.

    • And once they were found what did they do? They passed the blame!

    • “That woman you gave me” - “The Serpent deceived me!”

3. Compare this with the content of Jonah's prayer

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    • Who caused Jonah to go down? Jonah – his choices – attitude – he was responsible.

    • But look in 2:3: “You had cast me into the deep.” This might be true to an extent.

    • God is in control of everything and it seemed being thrown overboard was the only choice God allowed, BUT ultimately Jonah is the one responsible for his being cast into the deep.

    • Jonah said in 2:4: ‘I have been expelled from Your sight.” Implying God himself had put this distance between them.

    • The distance between Jonah and the Lord started with Jonah – he ran away.

    • Perhaps, he is saying God put more distance between the two of them BECAUSE Jonah ran away? This is possible.

    • Often God gives us over to our sin so that we might taste its foulness and smell its stench with the intention that we will hate it and turn from it in repentance.

    • And that is precisely what repentance is - a turning away from sin to God.

    • It is ownership of ones sin – full acknowledgement that there is a big ugly monster living within that only Jesus can deal with.

    • WSC – repentance is when “a sinner out of a true sense of his sin and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ does with grief and hatred of his sin turn from it unto God with full purpose of and endeavor after new obedience.

    • Jonah has yet to experience a true sense of his sin because he is living in denial of it.

ILLUSTRATION: Parents often tell their children not to do this or that because they might get hurt. When they disobey and get hurt as we often predict – they cry out to mom and dad with tears – kiss my boo-boo. And we say – now I told you not to do that and this is why. But sure enough there they are doing it again 10 minutes later. Was there repentance? No. Children often cry out because they are sorry they got hurt. Catch a child in a lie and they will often cry - not because they feel bad for lying but because they got caught.

4. Jonah's prayer here is similar – he is sorry he had to face the consequences.

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    • He is thankful for being saved and sorry how things turned out – but he has yet to get real with those things in his heart that caused him to run.

    • And what is in his heart? Hatred. Self-righteousness. Jealousy.

    • He tried to hide the hatred and bitterness in his heart with pious words and vows.

    • He says in 2:9 – That which I have vowed I will pay.

    • We cannot know for sure the details of this vow, but based on 3:1-2 it is not likely this vow involved a trip to Nineveh – if it had why would God need to repeat himself?

    • It is possible his intention here was to return to Jerusalem and make the appropriate pious gesture in gratitude for being saved. (Anchor Bible Dictionary)

    • And kids do something like this too – often there is a sacrifice of tears offered and a desire for hugs and kisses as if they are an oblation to mommy or daddy's wrath.

    • But when we dig deeper into whats really going on inside we often nothing has changed

    • This is why I believe there is enough evidence here to convince us that Jonah's prayer, while its not insincere, fails to get to the heart of his problem.

    • This is further implied in vs. 10 when we get this ironic twist at the end of Jonah's prayer: The Lord commands the fish to vomit Jonah out onto dry land.

       

II. Analyzing God's Response

1. The Fish Vomits out Jonah

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    • (You have to use your imagination a bit to appreciate it) Here is Jonah praying this eloquent, pious prayer and he closes saying:

    • But I will sacrifice to You With the voice of thanksgiving. That which I have vowed I will pay. Salvation is from the Lord.” (Insert vomiting sound)

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    • There is intentional irony here - It is meant to be somewhat comical but at the same time it is serving as a signal as to what God thought about Jonah's piety.

    • In fact it is a signal of judgment – now I want to be careful - this is not eternal judgment.

    • God is trying to get through to Jonah that what is in his heart is condemnable.

    • In Leviticus, God declares that the Promised Land vomited up the Canaanites because of their wickedness (Lev 18:25).

    • Likewise in Revelation – Jesus says to the Laodicean Church – because you are lukewarm I will spit you out of my mouth.

    • There are other examples in the Bible – but the main point I want to make here is:

    • It signals God's disapproval of the meditations of Jonah's heart as well as Jonah's attempt to cover it up with piety - BUT it also signals God's grace toward Jonah.

    • If the vomiting was meant to communicate what Jonah deserved then it also shows us what he is being spared from – Jonah is not ultimately condemned.

    • And we see this later in Chapter 4 when Jonah is waiting to see what would happen to Nineveh – hoping that God would not accept their repentance and destroy them.

    • We are told the scorching east wind blew on Jonah – this wind was also a sign of judgment aimed at Jonah – God's way of again showing Jonah what he deserved.

    • God was leading Jonah to repent and he is calling each one of us to repent as well.

2. A call to repentance

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    • And really the whole story of Jonah is about repentance.

    • The irony of the story is it is occurring where we would not expect it and not occurring where we normally would expect it.

    • The sailors offer sacrifices to the Lord when the storm subsides, and later the Ninevites put on sackcloth and ashes– and they are being contrasted with Jonah's hard heart.

    • See Jonah is like those Christians who thought it impossible for someone like Jefferey Dahmer to be forgiven and to have true faith.

    • How could God show HIM mercy after all he did! His crimes are just way too evil.

    • Jonah struggled to get excited about the idea of HIS God showing mercy to THEM.

    • God is trying to beat into Jonah's head that he is also comparable to Jefferey Dahmer.

    • And God wans us all to understand this is true about all of us.

       

III. The truth about us all

• Jonah's problem was that he did not recognize his rebellious actions and his disdain for the Ninevites were just as damnable as anything the Ninevites had done.

• And when God called him to go to Nineveh God was essentially putting his finger right on that sin and was saying – THIS NEEDS TO CHANGE.

• We all have this tendency in our human nature to to run and hide when our sin is in view

• And God is not impressed with our pious deeds – he's not impressed that we're here.

• He is not fooled by our fascade of goodness that allows us to live in denial of the corruption that is really going on inside of us.

• Often there is a favorite sin that we have that we cannot let go of and so we protect it.

• In such a case this sin is defining us – it has become the thing we delight in the most.

• Essentially – it controls us because it rules over us – it is an idol.

   

ILLUSTRATION: It's like the Ring of power in LOTR – when Gandalf is challenging Bilbo to leave it behind before he departs, Gandalf asks - “Is that so hard” to which Bilbo responds, “Well, no...and YES!” The Ring which consumed Bilbo had a grip on him – he was the Ring's prisoner.

• Jonah was a prisoner to his own sin and refused to admit it. It had a grip on his heart.

• There is no one here today who is exempt from hearing this message.

• Yet each of us are in different places:

• There is always a boat waiting to take us to Tarshish. Some of us might be thinking about getting on that boat – some of us are in line to buy a ticket right now.

• Some of us are already be on the boat – the storm hasn't hit yet.

• Some are experiencing the storm but have not been thrown overboard yet.

• Some are sinking to the depths but have not cried out to be saved yet.

• Where ever you are – repentance is near and its time.

QUOTE: After the Tsunami of Dec. 2004 – John Piper reflected on what this meant: was it a sign? What was the point of it all? “The point of every deadly calamity is this: Repent. Let our hearts be broken that God means so little to us. Jesus said that the minutest event in nature is under the control of God. This means there is design in this suffering. And all his designs are wise and just and good. One of his designs is my repentance. Therefore I will not put God on trial. I am on trial. Only because of Christ will the waves that one day carry me away bring me safely to his side. Come. Repentance is a good place to be.

CLOSER: Friends, it is time to get real with ourselves and with God. Its time for us to cry out: “Father I have idols in my life! Jesus, I am a slave to sin and I need deliverance! I am a mess and I need to be cleaned up. I am broken and I need fixing. My heart is desperately wicked and deceitful – will you pour out your grace on my life and renovate my heart? Topple my idols and reign supreme over my heart.” If you have to heard anything I have said- listen to this: Repentance is not something you do once in your life at the moment when you look unto Jesus for salvation – repentance is how you live your life! Jonah says something in his prayer that is so right on – its almost like he is prophecying to himself without realizing it. He says in 2:8 - “Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.” He is right! If you are clinging to an idol this morning – if there is some sin in your life you have not dealt with – you are forsaking the grace that could be yours. Be honest with yourself and with God. And talk to someone about it if it is too big for you to handle. Grace awaits those who get real about their sin and repent. Come. Repentance is a good place to be.