Jonah 1:7–16

0:00 A few years ago when my wife and I and our family were regularly making driving trips up to the frozen tundra of Maine to visit her mom at Christmastime, we would throw in audiobooks and listen to them, download them on the phone, plug it into the car and listen to audiobooks. One of the ones that I remember most vividly, though, is the story of Ernest Shackleton and the Voyage of the Endurance, which if you've never read that story, I'm going to try not to give too many spoilers, but I have to give you just a little bit in order to make my point here, and you know, you're here to listen to me talk for a few minutes, and so that's just tough. What happens in the Voyage of the Endurance is that Ernest Shackleton and his crew are going to try to make a trip across the continent of Antarctica. They're on a ship called the Endurance, which is one of these, this is early 20th century, it's made out of wood, and as the ice closes in, as they make their way down to Antarctica, and the ice closes in around the ship, the ship gets stuck in the ice. And so enormous are the pressures of the ice pushing on that ship that eventually the

1:05 whole ship implodes with the pressure of the ice and Ernest Shackleton and his crew are left alone on the ice. And thereupon begins this most amazing adventure where Ernest Shackleton and his crew are trying to fight their way through the Antarctic ice to make their way back to civilization and back to safety. I'm not going to tell you whether they make it or not, but some of the things that they have to endure are just ridiculous. So for example, storms and blizzards and all the rest of it. So for example, did you know that icebergs don't actually sit still in the water? What happens with an iceberg is that, you know, part of it's out of the water and part of it is down here, and what happens is that the currents down in the seawater, and it's warmer than the air usually, right?

1:56 The currents and the water and the friction and all the rest of it will melt the bottom of the iceberg in certain ways so that the center of gravity shifts and the iceberg will sometimes flip over entirely in the water so that the top becomes the bottom and the bottom becomes the top. Did you know that? Well, imagine what happens if you're a sailor who's stranded in Antarctica, and you think you're camping for the night on a solid piece of ice, and it starts to flip over. What do you do? Well, you gather up all your stuff, and you run the opposite way of the way it's flipping. It's just an incredibly harrowing thing. Terrifying place to be. You ever been in a terrifying place like that? I don't think I ever have. Nothing like that.

2:48 I've had a few times in my life where I was, you know, slightly afraid for my life. Like I got stuck out in the middle of a lake one time in a speedboat when a storm came in. And we had to make our way from the middle of the lake back to the shore, which we could not see anymore. And if you've ever seen the movie Their Finest Hour, about the Coast Guard who go out into the storm in order to save the ship and it's blown in the face. Well, that was basically me, right? We made it. I was a little scared about how things were going to work out. I got myself caught in the desert with my two boys lost and four miles from where we were supposed to be without any water.

3:22 That was a pretty harrowing event. But I also had my phone, right? And if push came to shove, all it was going to amount to was probably, if everything worked right, a little bit of embarrassment as I had to call 911 and say, send the helicopter out for us, you know. I've been in a few scrapes, but I don't know that I've ever really been in a truly terrifying place. Have you? well whatever you might be thinking of or whether you're like me and you're saying no not really i've i've lived a pretty comfortable life what i want to try to convince you of today is that there is no more terrifying place to be not a storm not the top of the iceberg not lost in the middle of antarctica there is no more terrifying place to be than in conflict with the god of heaven That's where Jonah found himself, and that's what we're going to be studying today.

4:15 Take a Bible and turn it over to Jonah. We're going to be in chapter 1 today, looking at sort of the second two-thirds of that, second half of it, something like that, verses 7 through 16. If you're not familiar with the Bible, or just, you know, the minor prophets can get a little difficult to find, especially if you're using one of these Red Pew Bibles, you'll be able to find Jonah on page 774. That's where we're going to be today. Like we said last week, this book of Jonah is one of the 12 minor prophets, as they're called, that are collected at the end of the Old Testament.

4:49 It's a 2,800-year-old book. All of these events happened probably around the year 760 B.C. They were probably written shortly thereafter, maybe by Jonah, maybe by somebody else. We don't exactly know. But it's a very old, almost 3,000-year-old book that tells the story of a prophet named Jonah, which just translates to dove. There's no particular meaning in that. It's just that names were often given for animals in the ancient world. And so Jonah happened to be named after the dove. It was named after this prophet named Jonah.

5:20 And it's a fascinating book, I think, for a number of reasons. Like, you can say that about every book of the Bible in its own way. But there are certain unique features of Jonah that have always drawn attention from people. I mean, first of all, one of the things that makes it fascinating is that this prophetic book is unlike any other prophetic book in the Bible. Bible because it focuses far more on what happens to the prophet than what the prophet says. I mean, you've read other prophets, right? All of those other prophets. You might have a little bit of narrative stuck in about what happens to Isaiah or Jeremiah. There's a little bit more of it in Ezekiel. But for the most part, prophetic books, especially the minor prophets, are all about what the prophet said. It's about the prophet's message, and we have to kind of fill in from historical sources, the prophet's story. Well, it is exactly the opposite here in the book of Jonah. There is so little said about the prophet's message that it actually boils down to just three Hebrew words

6:20 that we'll talk about in a couple of weeks. The whole message of Jonah, the prophet, boils down to three Hebrew words. The whole rest of the book is about what happens to him. That makes it fascinating. Here's another thing that makes this book fascinating. With the other prophets, it's very easy, like all of them, it's very easy to see the other prophets as heroes. They do big things, they obey God, they're happy to do it most of the time. They stand up in front of hostile crowds and they speak unpopular messages and for the most part they do so without flinching. The prophets do what God tells them to do no matter the cost. Jonah is a different sort of character. He starts the book off by disobeying God straight up, and he ends the book by being angry at God for showing mercy. And that problem, that weirdness in Jonah's story, never really gets resolved. And people try to resolve it in various ways. Commentators and interpreters will read the book, and they'll say,

7:24 yeah, but there's this, and this is pretty good, and maybe that's a sign that Jonah repented, and Maybe that thing that happens at the end tells us that Jonah really was a good guy. But the problem is you've got to read all of that into it. You've got to take little flashes and extrapolate them a very long way to get to the idea that Jonah is a good guy. If you just read the book and take it at face value from start to finish, Jonah is just kind of a punk. And that doesn't change a whole lot as the book goes on. He doesn't have much of a character arc at all.

7:56 Here's another thing. This book is just chock full of ambiguity. It is just chock full of things that leave you kind of scratching your head and saying, now what exactly am I supposed to make of that? And a lot of that ambiguity in the book is about exactly that question. What are we supposed to make of Jonah himself? So are we supposed to look at chapter 2, this beautiful song that we're going to talk about next week that's got this wonderful structure to it and says all these beautiful things about God and even has Jonah talking about how righteous and humble he is?

8:36 Are we supposed to look at that song in chapter 2 and think, well, good, Jonah's repented. The whale thing finally got to him. It finally broke through. Getting swallowed by a giant fish finally broke through Jonah's hardness of heart. And he sings this song and everything's fine. And by the end of chapter 2, you're thinking, maybe? But then you get chapter 3. And even worse, you get chapter 4. And you're left scratching your head going, it doesn't look like it worked. All that stuff about Jonah being submitted to God. All that stuff about God being the great ruler and Jonah being so humble and contrite.

9:07 It doesn't seem to have taken. I mean, even the decision to go ahead and go on to Nineveh, right? Are we supposed to take that as a sign of repentance? good. Jonah's heart has changed. He's obeying God. Now he's going to go to Nineveh. Or is Jonah just worried that it's not going to be a whale next time, but like a lion that eats him? That happens in the Bible, you know. I mean, even the thing he preaches to Nineveh is so interesting because what God, and Jonah knows it, what God wants him to preach is a message that will lead the Ninevites to repentance. What Jonah goes around doing throughout the entire city is saying 40 days and Nineveh is going to fall. 40 days and Nineveh is going to fall. 40 days and Nineveh is going to fall. He doesn't say anything about repentance. He doesn't say anything about the possibility of mercy. It's essentially just a hard-hearted preacher who's standing in the pulpit and just going, you're all going to hell. You're all going to hell. You're all going to hell and that's all

10:08 I've got to say about it. It's not exactly the message of the God of the Bible that Jonah ends up preaching. What are we supposed to make of that? Even our story today, where Jonah gets thrown overboard to stop the storm. How are we supposed to think about that? I mean, is Jonah the hero in that story? Is Jonah a hero for recognizing that the storm is his fault and saying pick me up and throw me overboard and the storm will stop? Does that make him this kind of brave Jesus-like figure who gives himself for the lives of other people or is Jonah something else in that story? And then there are these other questions too. I mean why is throw me overboard Jonah's solution to the problem in the first place? Why did the sailors not want to do it after he suggests it and for that matter if Jonah is so convinced that that's the solution

11:11 why doesn't he just jump off the boat why does he insist that the sailors do it so many questions and we're going to explore all of those together today first though let me just get you kind of up to speed on the story so far that's not going to take long probably sometime in the late 760s BC a prophet named Jonah of the northern kingdom of Israel was called by God to go and preach against the wicked city of Nineveh. Nineveh, at the time, was the capital of the Assyrian Empire, which during the 8th century B.C. was on the rise as a world power.

11:45 It wasn't quite there yet, but it was getting there. And within about a half a century, it was going to be the most powerful empire in the world. It was also already famous for being just scandalously violent and evil in its dealings with its enemies. You can go read things online about what the Ninevites, the Assyrians, would do to their enemies once they conquered them, and that wickedness and evil is why God says that it's evil had risen to his attention. Well, at any rate, instead of obeying God and going to Nineveh to preach, Jonah hops a ship that's headed in exactly the opposite direction toward a city called Tarshish on the far western coast of Spain. It's like as far as you could go. It's kind of what Jesus was talking about when he said, go to the ends of the earth. That's what Jonah was doing. He was going to the ends of the earth as far as he thought he could possibly go in order to get away from God. Well as soon as the ship sets sail though this storm whips up and threatens to destroy the ship and kill everybody on board the sailors recognize somehow that this is not a normal storm and so they start to pray to

12:47 all their different gods and the captain realizes that Jonah is down in the hold of the ship fast asleep. He goes down wakes him up and says Jonah cry out to your own God as well because maybe just maybe one of these many gods that we're all praying to here will hear us and take notice of us and save us. Maybe. And that's where we pick up the story. Look with me at Jonah chapter 1 starting in verse 7. So the captain has just said arise call out to your God and perhaps that God will give a thought to us so that we won't perish. So verse 7 the sailors said to one another come Let us cast lots that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us.

13:29 So they cast lots. And the lot fell on Jonah. Then they said to him, tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? What people are you? He said to them, I am a Hebrew. And I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. And then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, what is this that you have done? For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord because he had told them. And they said to him, What shall we do to you that the sea may quiet down for us?

14:02 For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. He said to them, Pick me up and hurl me into the sea, and then the sea will quiet down for you. For I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you. Nevertheless, the men rode hard to get back to dry land, but they could not. For the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them. Therefore they called out to the Lord, O Lord, let us not perish for this man's life. And lay not on us innocent blood. For you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you. So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea. And the sea ceased from its raging.

14:34 And then the men feared the Lord exceedingly. And they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. Now, my guess is every single one of you in this room, whether you're a Christian or not, have probably heard some version of the story of Jonah, the guy who gets swallowed by the fish. And so you know this part of the story. Maybe not all of its details, but you do know that Jonah disobeyed God. They go onto a ship, there's a storm, and he gets thrown overboard. You probably know that story. So probably as we're reading that, you're just like, yep, yep, yep, this is what happens, this is what happens. But if you were to read that with brand new eyes, if you had never heard this story before, this is just a gobsmacking narrative, isn't it?

15:14 It is just ridiculous. So many things happen here that you're just not expecting that it leaves your head spinning. I mean, the lot falling on Jonah, right, the way to figure out who the bad guy is, the lot falling on Jonah, that's as predictable as the sunrise. I mean, you and I know that Jonah is the one at fault. The sailors don't know it yet. We know it. And as soon as they say, let's cast lots to figure out who it is that's causing all this trouble, we know that lot is going to fall on Jonah. That's predictable. But then his suggestion that they throw him overboard is just out of the blue.

15:45 Like, who would think of that? You would think that Jonah would say something very different than that, and you would not think that a normal, functioning, thinking man would say, you know what, the solution to this whole problem, chuck me in the ocean. You just would not expect that. And then you've got the sailors' reluctance to do so. That's also surprising. Like, are these super morally upstanding men that we're dealing with here? They're so reluctant to throw him into the sea, even though he's insisting on it. So there are lots of mysteries to think about here. But even at the beginning of the story, as we start to kind of unfold it and look at it, I think it's already teaching us lessons.

16:20 The most important of which is the main idea of this particular part of the story. And that is, it is a terrifying thing to be in conflict with the God of heaven. And you don't want to be there. It is a terrifying thing to be in conflict with the God of heaven. And you don't want to be there. Now I know that might seem simple, and you're right, it is. It's one of those lessons that's taught over and over again. in the Bible in 25 different ways. And it's a truth that we know from the bottom of our hearts.

16:53 You do not want to be in conflict with the God of heaven. I mean, truth in advertising, too, that is not the message of the book of Jonah as a whole, at least not the main one. It's the message, I think, of this beginning part of it. But Jonah is going to start, the book of Jonah, is going to start delving into some very, very deep and big questions. But those big, deep questions about justice and mercy and how we're supposed to respond to that as God's people, those bigger questions don't really come up in any focus at all until the later chapters of the book. I mean, if you're just reading this book for the first time, you don't even know yet in the story why Jonah is fleeing.

17:28 Like, why does he not want to go preach to the Ninevites? You're still kind of laboring as a reader under the confusion of thinking a prophet of Israel ought to want to go call out against Nineveh. He ought to want to go call out judgment against this wicked city that's oppressing his people. And yet he's running because he doesn't want to. Is he a traitor to his own nation? What's going on? And we're not told until the end of the story when those bigger questions come up. We're going to get to those. But for now, it's important enough for us to see just the bare truth that Jonah is trying to get away from God.

18:03 He is in conflict with God, and that is failing. And the predicament that Jonah finds himself in by putting himself into conflict with God is the same kind of predicament that you and I often put ourselves into. It is a terrifying thing to be in conflict with the God of heaven. And we don't want to be there. That's what I want to press into your heart today. I think one of the most fascinating tensions in this part of the story is the contrast that's drawn between Jonah himself and the sailors.

18:40 Have you noticed that as you've read it? It's the sailors, actually, who are the ones who recognize the danger they're in and start to try to do something about it. First they pray, then they cast lots, then they ask Jonah, what are we supposed to do with you? They're acting, right? Meanwhile, Jonah's just dead to the world. He's down asleep in the boat, and then when push comes to shove, he just sort of, you know, yeah, throw me off into the sea. I'm done. Jonah wants them to throw him overboard. They struggle to find an alternative in so many ways.

19:11 It's the sailors, really, who seem more alive, both physically and spiritually, than the prophet of Yahweh does. Jonah just kind of seems dead through this story. So a hugely important part of understanding this text is teasing out that contrast between the way Jonah's presented and the way the sailors are presented. The one who's dead to the world and the others who are energetically trying to find a way out of this predicament. So two points to the sermon, looking at that contrast. First, we're going to look at Jonah. Right words, wrong actions.

19:45 Right words, wrong actions. That's Jonah. And then in the second point, we're going to look at the sailors. Wrong gods, but right direction. Wrong gods, right direction. That's what we're going to do. So point number one, Jonah. Right words, wrong actions. So at the point where we left off last week, the captain of the ship, Interestingly enough, the word captain, if you break it down into its Hebrew components, it's literally head rope puller, which is funny, right? I mean, it's strange to take one of the most insignificant things that a captain of a ship does.

20:19 He pulls the ropes occasionally and say that basically what you are, dude, is the head rope puller. I mean, imagine if the Hebrews got to name your job. Like, would they look at my job as a pastor and say, you are the chief typer of words? I mean, it's a crazy word, but I think it's kind of funny. Anyway, this head rope puller, the captain, had gone down into the belly of the ship to wake Jonah up, get him to join this ecumenical interfaith prayer meeting that was going on up on deck. And the prayer meeting is interesting in itself, right?

20:50 The sailors have gotten together, and they're all praying to their various gods. There would have been Phoenicians there. They were praying to Baal. There would have been, you know, all kinds of people praying to all of these different kinds of gods. And it's interesting because that's not the normal thing that sailors did when a storm blew up. Sailors were not normally, even in ancient days, helpless in the face of a storm. What you would do is not gather together for a deckside or decktop prayer meeting when a storm blew up. You would do the things that sailors do when a storm blows up on your ship, right?

21:24 You would batten down the hatches or shiver the timbers or whatever it is that they do. You would do those things. But you didn't just call a prayer meeting. But something about this storm scared them. It wasn't a normal storm. I mean, what exactly clued them in that this was not a normal storm is not clear. Maybe it was the intensity of it. Maybe it was the fact that storms were pretty rare during the sailing season. But whatever it was that clued them in, they were terrified.

21:54 And so all the normal sailor techniques had failed, and the ship was about to fall apart. And so they decide they're going to pray. Okay, so if this storm was of that kind of nature, if that's the case, then what's going on with Jonah? I mean, in a situation like that, when the boat's about to be torn apart and everyone else who are like hard-bitten sailors who know what to do, if they're all terrified, how are you down in the hold of the ship fast asleep?

22:26 And the captain even wants to know that, right? Joppa, what are you doing, you sleeper? Well, lots of potential answers have been given to that question. Some people have said maybe he was just exceptionally tired from his journey. But it's not that far from where he was down to Joppa and a little bit out into the ocean. He's not any more tired than the sailors are. I think the best explanation is that by this time, in his rebellion against God, Jonah has fallen so far into sin and so far into spiritual deadness that he just doesn't care anymore.

23:04 I mean, think about it. Jonah's a prophet of God. He's mentioned in 2 Kings as having made prophecies to the kings of the northern kingdom of Israel. He certainly knew enough about God to know that he was in trouble now. You don't, and he would have known this as a prophet, you don't just sin against God. You don't just rebel against God and run the other way and try to escape God and expect to get away with it. And Jonah knew that. He knew he was a fugitive of the God of the universe. And worse, he was a rebel against that God. You know, the Bible talks about sometimes accidental sins or sins that you weren't even aware that you sinned, inadvertent sins.

23:42 It'll talk about those sometimes. That's not what this is. This is high-handed rebellion against the God of the universe. And Jonah would have known as a prophet of that God that the penalty for that kind of thing was death. He knows he's a dead man. Which is probably why he's so quick to tell the sailors to throw him overboard. But even though he knew that, he was also at the point of just not caring. Not even wanting to get out of the problem. So hard was his heart against God.

24:14 And so hard was his heart set against God's purposes that Jonah had basically decided by this time that he'd rather die than do what God was calling him to do. I mean, he actually says as much a few times at the end of the book. I'd rather be dead than do what you've told me to do, God. He was a man that was condemned to death, and in his mind, that was a better alternative than repenting. So what was some ship-breaking, ship-shattering storm to him? Nothing. So he slept the sleep of the dead.

24:45 If he wakes up, fine, the death will come later. If he doesn't wake up, fine, the death has come now. The other sailors, though, on the ship didn't have such a death wish. So in verse 7, it starts our text today, they decide to try something else. They've already tried throwing the cargo overboard. They've been doing the things that sailors would have done in a storm. None of it's working. So they decide to try something else, something more spiritual. They're going to find out who's responsible for this mess. So they decide to gather on the deck and cast lots to see who's to blame.

25:16 Now it's interesting here that by this time, Jonah at least seems to be awake. He seems to be awake and up on the deck with him. The text, if you look at it very carefully, it doesn't say anything about whether he actually did what the captain asked him to in verse 6. It doesn't say whether Jonah prayed to God for deliverance. Presumably, just given the rest of the story, he didn't. But at least he's here, up on the deck, doing whatever he can do to try to save the situation. So the soldiers decide they're going to cast lots.

25:48 Casting lots, just to give you a little background on that, is a common way of trying to discern the will of the gods. And they used it in, ancient peoples used it in all kinds of religions, including ancient Judaism. The Jewish worship of God included casting lots. The Urim and the Tumim, if you remember that from Exodus and Leviticus. Those were lots. The way it worked normally was that you would have two stones and each one of them would have a black side and a light side. So they would take a white stone and paint one side of it black. And so you had two identical stones like that.

26:19 And what you would do is, you know, whatever question you were asking, you know, Joseph might have asked, should I marry Mary, right? And you throw the stones. If they both come up black, that's a no. If they both come up white, that's a yes. And if, you know, if it's split, it's like the old magic eight ball, you know, indications are not clear, right? So throw the stones again. That's how they worked. So what would have happened on this ship is it was bucking. I don't exactly know how that happened, but the ship's bucking and rolling on the waves and threatening to break up. The soldiers would have been standing around in a circle, and they would have taken those two stones, however they managed to do it, and cast the lot on each one of the people in the circle.

26:58 And what happened against all odds, like with that many people, don't know exactly how many, but it would have been some, with that many people, odds are you're going to get a split decision somewhere, right? You're going to have the stones show up white, white on more than one person. Or you're going to have some sort of mess with the answer that comes from the stones. Not here. What happens is that they throw it on the first guy. It's two blacks, two blacks, two blacks, two blacks, two blacks. They get to Jonah, two whites. The lot fell on Jonah.

27:30 Well, that sets off a round of questioning in verse 8. If you look at verse 8, the first question that they ask him seems a bit confusing because that question, tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us, that was the question they were cast in the lot for, right? So why do they ask that question again? They know now who is responsible for this. So why do they ask again? Well, there's a couple of potential answers, a couple of potential solutions here. One is just that everyone knew that the gods could be tricksy sometimes. Everybody knew that.

28:01 The reason they knew it, except for the God of Israel, was because there was no God behind the lots, right? You're literally casting dice to try to figure out what the will of the gods is. It's only God in Proverbs who says, I control where the lot lands, right? But for them, the reason they thought their gods were tricksy is because there was no God. But they knew they could be sometimes. And so what happens is that they're thinking, hmm, the gods may be trying to trick us. Maybe when we cast the lot, the gods didn't give us the guilty one. Maybe they just showed us the person who could show us who the guilty one was.

28:32 That may be what's going on. There's also the possibility in the particular way this is said in the Hebrew that we ought to read it like this. So maybe, maybe, it may be that it's not supposed to be. They said to him, tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation? It may not supposed to be read like that. It might supposed to be read, tell us, oh you, on whose account this evil has come upon us, what is your occupation? You see how that works?

29:02 It's participial. So that whole phrase, on whose account this evil has come upon us, it might be a kind of name or title that's being applied to Jonah. So you, oh one, on whose account this has come upon us, You now tell us what your occupation is. That's a possibility. Well, either way, the point is that they want information. They're searching for answers. And so they ask him there what his occupation is. Literally, that question is, what is your business? That's what that means.

29:34 So it might mean, the way it seems to mean in the ESV, it might mean, what's your job? Right? And it's interesting that when Jonah finally speaks in verse 9, when he answers, he actually does answer in terms of occupation. So the way you would talk about your occupation. If somebody asked you in the ancient world, what is your occupation? What is your job? You would say something like, I am a builder of houses. I am a builder of ships. I am a seller of wares. You would use a participial form. That's how Jonah answers. He actually says, I am a fearer of the Lord.

30:08 So he may be answering that question like that and saying, my occupation is to be a worshiper of God. He may be saying that. It's also possible they're just asking him, what is your business on this ship? Like, what are you doing here? Anyway, they pepper him with other questions. Who are you? What people do you come from? I think it's interesting, if you look at verse 8, that they do not ask Jonah who his God is. I mean, you would think that in the middle of a divine storm that they all recognize to be divine. That would be one of the first things they'd want to know, but they don't ask it. And yet, that's exactly how Jonah starts his answer.

30:41 So either they did ask it and it didn't get recorded, or Jonah just knows that that's the real question. Who are you, and what do you have to do with your God who has sent this storm against us? He knows he's caught, and he knows that the root of this entire issue, the white hot core of this entire mess, is the fact that he is in conflict with God. So he answers them in verse 9. He said to them, I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord. I am a fearer of the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.

31:14 Now, once he says that, verse 10, these sailors become more terrified than ever. The men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, what is this that you have done? For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord because he had told them. We don't know when he told them. It doesn't seem to me like he told them sort of before the storm or something like that when they were in port. It looks to me like what it's saying there is just that in this conversation that is happening, they question him. He told them what was going on and they say, what have you done? Because he's told them now that he's fleeing from the presence of this God that he worships.

31:48 But you notice there in verse 10, they're more terrified than ever. Well, why? And they're terrified enough of the storm, but now this is a new level of terror. They feared a great fear, is what that exceedingly word means. They feared a great fear. Well, the reason they're so scared is that it has to do first with what Jonah himself is claiming about his God here. It has to do with what Jonah himself is claiming about his God. So look at the way he names God there. First he uses the covenant name Yahweh.

32:20 That's Lord, right, in all caps. Then he calls him God of heaven. Now to you and me, that's not remotely interesting, right? It's not an unusual thing at all for us to call God the God of heaven. But that actually was not a common way for Israelites to refer to God at this time. In the early 8th century BC, that's just not how you talked about God. It just kind of wasn't a thing. But Jonah uses it here because at least some, if not most, of these Phoenician sailors from Joppa would have been worshipers of a god called Baal Shammain, whose name translated to God of heaven.

33:03 So they call their god the God of heaven. And Jonah, by saying, I worship Yahweh, is actually saying, I worship the true God of heaven. He's making the claim to them that at least he believes, whether they believe it or not, he believes his own God to be more powerful even than Baal Shaman. And then he makes that point even sharper when he says that Yahweh is the one who made the sea and the dry land. So you start to think about that. You start to think that Jonah is claiming this awesome sovereignty for his God.

33:38 And you can see the problem here even in the sailor's eyes. Here's a guy sitting in front of us in the middle of this storm who claims that his God is the most powerful of all gods who made the heavens and the earth. He's the ruler of heaven and earth, the sovereign one. That's what he thinks about his God. And now he's trying to run away from that God he says he believes in? No wonder we're in trouble. You know, it's interesting for millennia now, like almost the 3,000 years since this book has existed, both Jews and Christians have recognized that the section that runs from verse 4 all the way down through verse 16 has a literary form that's known as a chiasm.

34:22 If you were here when we talked about the book of Isaiah, you've learned a lot about chiasms. But it's basically a structure that works like this. It's conceptual. So you say something that you might label A, right? Then you move to another theme, B. Then you move to another theme, C. Then you go back to theme B and then back to theme A, right? It's a chiasm. I'm not going to explain why it is. People have recognized that 4 through 16 form a chiasm. And it would be a hugely fun exercise for you to see if you can figure it out.

34:52 I'll give you some hints real quick, but I'm not going to give you the whole thing. It's just not worth it. So if you look at verse 4, what happens in verse 4? God hurls wind and the storm starts. Look at 15 and 16. What happens? The sailors hurl Jonah and the storm stops. Okay, now look just inside that. Verse 5. The sailors cry out to their own gods. But now look at 14. The sailors cry out to Yahweh. Anyway, it keeps going like that.

35:23 The theme's matching up as it makes its way toward a bullseye in the center. In a chiasm, what happens when you make your way finally to the bullseye in the center, the whole point of it is that you are at the most important thing in the whole literary structure, right? And the thing is, the really interesting thing, is that in this story, the bullseye is right here. It's on Jonah's confession of the God he serves. And in verse 10, the sailor's realization of the danger that that confession has now put them all in.

35:58 That's the bullseye of the whole thing. Your attention is supposed to be right there. But why? Why is your attention supposed to be on Jonah's confession and the danger that has put them all in? Why is that the bullseye? I mean, is it just because you get this kind of beautiful proclamation of who God is? He is the Lord. He is the God of heaven, the one who made the sea and made the dry land. Is that all it is, just a beautiful confession? No, that's not why. And if you follow along with me, you're probably already getting it.

36:28 the reason that's the bullseye and the reason you're supposed to focus on it is the ripping irony of Jonah's words here. The awful contrast between his words and his actions. Do you see that? What Jonah proclaims here about God is all true. These are right words that he says in verse nine. Yahweh is the God of heaven. He is the one who made and who rules over the cosmos, both the sea and the dry land. Everything Jonah says here is correct.

37:01 But friend, when he says there, I fear this God, I worship Yahweh, the irony is so thick that it threatens to rip the fabric of the universe apart. The very last thing that we have seen from Jonah through this whole story is worship of Yahweh or fear of Yahweh. All Jonah's done with regard to Yahweh is run and sleep and probably refuse to pray to him when the captain asked him to. Well, the sailors see that. They see the irony at the center of that, and it chills them to the core, and that's why they're terrified.

37:34 Jonah is in big trouble. And either he doesn't see it, or more probably, I think he just doesn't care. So, if that's what we're supposed to reflect on, according to that chiasm, let's reflect on it. Is there any part of your life that has this same character to it? Any part of your actions, your heart, your emotions, your feelings or opinions toward other Christians that is so at odds with your confession that any clear-thinking, sharp-minded person who became aware of it would probably take a step back from you for fear of lightning bolts?

38:24 see I think part of what the book of Jonah is teaching us and calling us to do especially since it puts the bullseye right here on these verses it's calling us to examine our lives and make sure that this kind of right words wrong actions hypocrisy that marked Jonah doesn't mark us in some way and if it does to do something about it friend it would be a good thing for you to do to take some time today or maybe this week to do that kind of self-examination Jonah should have done that, right? He should have seen it. He should have seen the just blindingly bright irony between his right words and his wrong actions. But he doesn't. Look with me at 11 and 12 what happens here. Then they said to him, what shall we do to you that the sea may quiet down for us? For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. He said to them, pick me up and hurl me into the sea, and then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great storm

39:25 has come upon you. I mean, 11 is pretty simple. The sailors don't know Yahweh. They don't know anything about him, so they ask Jonah for instruction. What should I do? And then he gives this just staggering, completely unexpected answer. Pick me up and hurl me into the sea, and the storm will stop. What on earth is going on there? Why is that the first thing that comes to Jonah's mind? I mean, it just seems so out of the blue.

39:55 It just seems like he could have said just about anything in the place of that. Pick up that plank and let's give me a good beating and the storm will stop. Or just let's mix together the blood of two fish and make a concoction and drink it and the storm will stop. It just seems so out of the blue. And he seems so sure of it. Pick me up and hurl me in the sea and the storm will stop. What is going on? Well, as I've thought about it, I think there are multiple layers of stuff happening here. I mean, for one thing, as weird as it seems in the context of this story, we've got to recognize that this sort of thing is not entirely unheard of in the Jewish religion.

40:32 You realize that, right? When an individual sins and puts the nation at risk, the penalty for that sin is for the person who committed the sin to die and for the nation, therefore, to not die. So you think about Achan and Joshua or the sons of Korah in Numbers. Jonah knows he's guilty of sin. He knows those stories. He knows the penalty of death is hanging over him. And he knows that that penalty is for him to die. I mean, incidentally, that's probably why he insists throughout this whole story that the sailors throw him overboard instead of just jumping.

41:09 I mean, jumping would have had this self-sacrificing character to it, right? I mean, it would have been a hero stepping up onto the side of the ship and jumping, giving himself up to save others. It would have made Jonah a hero saving lives, but Jonah knew he wasn't a hero like that. What he deserved, and he knew it, was for death to happen to him. The penalty of the curse of death was to be executed against him, and so he insists that the sailors throw him over. It's a punishment for sin, executed on him so they would live.

41:43 There are shadows in that, aren't there? And they're vague. They're unclear. But there are shadows in that of another sacrificial death. Is that deliberate? I don't know. There are dissimilarities too. If we compare ourselves to Jesus dying for us, like Jonah died for the sailors, there are similarities, of course, but there are shadowy dissimilarities too.

42:17 I mean, the sailors are innocent. We're not. Jonah was guilty. Jesus was not. Jesus did jump. But still, and even if that's in the Lord's providence deliberate, I'm going to give you a very shadowy, very incomplete picture of salvation by the death of one for the many. Did it have to happen that way? I mean, not Jesus. I'm talking about Jonah. Did it have to happen this way?

42:49 I mean, Jonah's got enough theology to know that he's in trouble. He's got enough theology to know that he deserves to die. But was that his only recourse? He just seems to have this morbid fixation on being thrown overboard. He's given up. It's just like, I'm not going to Nineveh. I know I'm going to die, and that's fine, so just throw me overboard. He seems to have this morbid fixation on being thrown overboard, and yet I can't help but think that there was another option on the table.

43:20 There was another thing that he could have told the sailors to do. Friends, if you want the storm to stop, you're asking me, what do we do to stop this storm and save our lives? let me tell you what you should do to stop the storm. Turn the ship around. Go back to Joppa. I'll go to Nineveh. I repent. I'm not supposed to be running from God. I'm supposed to be obeying him. So turn the ship around. Jonah did not have just one option. The only option on the table was not hurl me into the sea.

43:51 He could have repented. He could have seen this fatal, gross disconnect between his words and his actions he could have woken up spiritually and he could have repented and saved them all which of course brings us back full circle to what you and I ought to do when we do self-examination and find this kind of fatal disconnect between our confession and our lives brother sister when you see that that is not an invitation for you to just morbidly say well throw me overboard i'm done that's not what that is when the lord shows you that it's also friend and hear me when i say this not an invitation for you to say well it doesn't matter because jesus jumped overboard for me you hear what i'm saying there is not an invitation for you to see that kind of disconnect between your life and your confession and say it doesn't matter because jesus jumped overboard no what it is is an invitation for you to say turn this ship around yes Jesus jumped

45:00 overboard and I'm forgiven because he did jump overboard but Jesus jumping overboard to take the penalty of death for me doesn't make me think that this disconnect doesn't matter it makes me it makes me hate the disconnect even more and love Jesus more and now I'm going to Nineveh baby that's what it invites you to do Jonah was all right words and wrong actions he was in conflict with the God of the universe and that's a terrifying place to be examine your life friend and if you find that kind of hypocrisy in it don't give up don't ignore it turn the ship around here's the second point if Jonah was right words and wrong actions the sailors around him had the wrong gods but they seem to be going in the right direction at least in some good ways I think the sailors in the story are

46:01 fascinating, they're just a total contrast to Jonah himself they're not really important players in the story, they don't show up again the only thing that they do is throw him throw him overboard and then continue on their their way we get a little more information about them but their purpose in the story seems to be to stand in total contrast to Jonah himself that they're meant to highlight for you just how deep Jonah's rebellion and apathy and heart deadness had gone I mean think about it while he's sleeping in the hold completely oblivious to the danger he's in or more likely just not caring these pagan sailors are spiritually sensitive enough even having worshiped false gods all their lives they're spiritually sense enough sensitive enough to realize that this is not just a meteorological problem that they're facing it's a spiritual one this is not just some waves and rain and wind that they're wrestling with it's an offended

47:01 god they recognize that they don't know who the god is they don't know why the god is offended but they know they're dealing with an offended God. And notice their energy through this story too. Notice how they're quick to act. They're trying to solve the problem. Once they realize that they're in trouble, they do everything they can as quickly as they can to try to get out of it. They throw the cargo overboard. They take action through the lots to try to find out who the culprit is. They ask questions. They interrogate Jonah to try to learn what he's done that's put him in this danger.

47:34 And when Jonah really kind of makes it clear to them, the pickle that they're in, In verses 9 and 10, they immediately start trying to get educated about this God they're dealing with. What do we need to do to you now, Jonah, to make this God whom you've offended stop killing us? This is your God. Tell us what we have to do now. They're energetic in their fight to save their own lives. You know, a whole lot of us are far more like Jonah than these sailors.

48:06 When we realize that we are in spiritual trouble. We treat spiritual trouble in our lives with just this kind of ho-hum, lazy, passive, just throw me away, there's nothing I can do, woe is me attitude that looks far more like Jonah than it does these sailors. You know what we ought to be like though? When we see ourselves in spiritual danger, we ought to be like these sailors. When you find yourself in spiritual danger, your eyes ought to focus, your jaw ought to set, your face ought to set like Flint, and we ought to be rocketed into action immediately to solve the problem.

48:45 Friends, that's true if you're a Christian and you notice that you're being dragged away by sin. If you even notice that some little baby sin has taken up residence in your heart, you ought to be like these sailors, get this thing out of here. I mean, imagine if you went home today and you walked into your living room and there's a cobra coiled up in your living room. You're not going to go back out to your family and you're like, there's a cobra. You're going to be running out of the house. Snake, get out of here!

49:18 And then you're going to probably call somebody to come get the cobra. You're going to take action immediately. You're not going to say, let's go get lunch and then I'll call the pest people. You're going to take action immediately because that thing is dangerous. friends sin is dangerous it's a cobra in your house get it out and get it out now and that's true if you're not a Christian too maybe for the first time in your life even this morning you have realized that you have been in conflict with the God of the universe and you didn't even know it well the question for you is what do you do now There's urgency in that if you've realized that.

50:05 If you've realized that you've been in conflict with the God of the universe for your entire life and you didn't even know it, if that's just dawning on you this morning, you don't just go to lunch. You say, what do I need to do to be saved? And I'll tell you what you need to do. You need to look to Jesus who jumped off the boat so that you wouldn't die. Getting rid of the metaphors, what you need to do is put your faith, your trust, your reliance on Jesus who died in the place of sinners like you, who took the penalty of death when he died on the cross and exhausted it completely all the way down into his eternal person so that there is no wrath left for those who put their faith in him.

50:48 And faith isn't some weird thing. It's just, you know what faith is. It's just saying, yeah, trust you. I've heard what you, you've said that you can get cobras out of my living room, right? I've checked out your credentials and your Google reviews and you seem to be able to do that. So I'm going to trust you with my house to get the cobra out of my house. You know what that's like. It's the same thing with Jesus. Jesus, I see what you claim you can do. I see who you claim that you are. I've checked you out in the Bible. I've read the Gospels. I've talked to other Christians.

51:18 And I believe it. I really believe that you can save sinners. I really believe that you're the eternal Son of God. Become man. Now I'm going to trust you to save me. Some of you need to do that, and you need to do it with energy and urgency and with emergency this morning. Look how this thing ends. Verse 13. So in 12, he says, pick me up, hurl me into the sea. 13, nevertheless, the men rode hard to get back to dry land, but they couldn't.

51:50 For the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them. And therefore they called out to the Lord, O Lord, let us not perish. For this man's life lay not on us innocent blood. For you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you. So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. And then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. And the sailors seemed to realize at first there in 13 that there's just got to be another way, right, than throwing Jonah overboard. I mean, in fact, they kind of try to do what Jonah should have done in the first place, which is repent.

52:22 They try to abandon the voyage and get back to land. Why do they not want to throw him overboard? Well, because in any culture that would be seen as murder. Unless it's obviously sanctioned by the God of the universe, it's murder. And it's obvious in their prayer in verse 14 that that's exactly what they're afraid of. They're afraid that they don't have sanction to throw this guy overboard and murder him. And they're afraid of what this new God of heaven that they're suddenly aware of might do to them because they kill his prophet by throwing him in the ocean.

52:54 And just by the way, that phrase there when they call him innocent, you know, lay not innocent blood on us, They're not, that's not a judgment on the rightness or wrongness of what he's done. They're not saying, this man is innocent for rebelling against you, God. It's not what they're doing. It just means he hasn't been convicted in a court of law. So legally speaking, he's innocent. Spiritually speaking, they seem pretty convinced that he's in trouble, right? It's obvious in verse 10. What is this thing that you have done in running away from this God who you say rules the entire universe? So they don't want to do it. Eventually, though, they realize that it's not, rowing is not going to work.

53:25 They're not going to be able to get there. And so they finally do, with a prayer to his God, they do what Jonah says. They hurl him in the sea, and immediately the water and winds and waves go quiet. Look how the sailor's story ends. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. It's not entirely clear what happened here. I mean, when did they make the sacrifices, right?

53:55 because the sacrifices of Yahweh are generally burnt offerings, right? So A, they don't have any animals on the ship, in all likelihood. B, not very smart to set a big fire on a wooden ship. So they probably didn't make the sacrifices to Yahweh on the ship, at least not in any biblical sense. Now, they may have taken some old sacrifice that they made to Baal that didn't involve fire, may have made that kind of sacrifice to Yahweh, but the text doesn't really treat it like that, right? It doesn't treat it like a golden calf sort of incident. It treats it as they made genuine sacrifices. So maybe they did it when they got back to land.

54:28 Maybe they went back to Joppa and made their way eventually to Jerusalem. It just doesn't say. And the text also leaves it a complete mystery. Just how deep and real and lasting was this new fear of Yahweh. I mean, were these guys at the end of this story full converts to the God of the Bible? or were they just kind of good polytheists who just incorporated Yahweh now into their pantheon? I mean, basically, that's what polytheists do, right?

54:59 That's why there are millions and millions of people in Hindu nations, for instance, who will name the name of Jesus and say all kinds of big things about Jesus, but what they mean is Jesus is one more God in our pantheon of three million. Maybe that's what they were doing. The text just doesn't tell us. What it does seem to be at pains to tell us, though, is that these sailors were at least moving in a good direction. They were moving toward Yahweh and not away from him.

55:32 And at the very least, they had seen his power over the storm. They'd seen his unassailable authority and sovereignty. I mean, you might even say that they had at least moved to a kind of Romans 1 understanding of God that we read earlier in the service, right? What can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them. His invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made and so they are without excuse. These sailors are now there at the very least.

56:04 Look, everybody in the universe, everybody on the planet is moving either toward God or away from God. Nobody is standing still. Praise God, these sailors seem to be moving toward God. Which way are you moving? And whether you're a Christian or not, which way are you moving? If you're a Christian, are you moving toward God in your relationship with him, or are you drifting away from him? If you're not a Christian, are you moving toward faith in Jesus, or are you moving away?

56:45 And we noticed last week the trajectory, the words that are used in the story to show how Jonah is going down, down, down. He goes down to Joppa. He goes down into the hold of the ship. Well, here at the end of chapter 1, he's gone down again into the heart of the sea. Terrifying, terrifying place to be. in conflict with the living God.

57:18 Let's pray. Our Lord God, we acknowledge you this morning as the great and glorious and even in ways terrifying God of the universe. You are the one who made the sea and the dry land and who rules over them both. You are the one who reigns and rules over us as human beings. And we tremble to know that we are ultimately accountable to you.

57:53 Oh, our Father, we pray that you would cause each and every one of us to understand and feel that accountability. And then, God, we pray that you would cause us to act by repenting and turning in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ and being saved. We pray all of that in the name of Jesus and all for his honor and glory. Amen. Thank you.