A Pastor was walking past a pet shop one day when he noticed
a sign in the window:
"Christian Horse for Sale." The Pastor was immediately interested,
and went into the shop.
The owner took the Pastor out to the back, where he saw a beautiful Arabian
stallion.
He agreed to allow the Pastor to take a "test run."
The Pastor grabbed the reins. "giddyap." The horse ignored him.
"No, no," counseled the owner.
This is a Christian horse. If you want him to move, you must say, "Praise
the Lord!"
The Pastor did as he was told, and the horse started off on a leisurely walk.
However, he soon found
that the horse would not stop. "He won't answer to 'Whoa', said the owner.
It's "Amen."
The Pastor decided that he liked the horse, so he bought him and decided to
ride him home. "Praise the Lord," he said, and went riding into the
countryside.
Suddenly, the horse saw a rattlesnake crossing the path. Frightened, he reared
and bolted straight for a cliff.
The Pastor cried "whoa!" but the horse only ran faster. In vain, he
tried one word after another.
Finally, he remembered the correct command and screamed "AMEN!!!!!"
just as the horse approached the edge of the cliff.
The Pastor was so thrilled that his life had been saved that he raised his
hands
to the sky and shouted, "PRAISE THE LORD!"
We’re talking about God’s salvation as we study the book of Jonah. This can be applied to a lot of different kinds of salvation, including:
And when God does deliver us, we need to be sure to Praise the Lord for it! Hopefully it won’t lead to a horse ride off a cliff!
the Big“fish”
· Here’s a photo from the Discovery Channel website of a man swimming next to a whale shark in the Indian Ocean.
· According to the ReefQuest Center for Shark Research, Whale sharks are certainly big enough to swallow a man – the largest on record being 45 ft. long (6’ diameter mouth with 1/8” teeth). The shark lives off of digesting plankton that it sucks in through its mouth in vast quantities as it swims. It also eats small schooling fishes, squids, mackerels, and even small tunas (approaching the size of a man). There are also reports of phytoplankton, algae, and kelps (seaweed) among Whale Shark stomach contents..
· Presence in Mediterranean apparently not scientifically verified, but plausible. (Son Josh found a fishing site that claims a 21 foot whale shark was caught in the Mediterranean, and another one that said they can be found in “all tropical and warm temperate seas, except in the Mediterranean.” )
· Hebrew word “dag” and Greek word khtouV is the generic word for any kind of fish (though not of whales or sea monsters), so that doesn’t help us much with identifying exactly what sort of fish swallowed Jonah.
· Unger: the fish was of the shark species, Lami canis carcharias, or ‘sea dog.’ Entire human bodies have been found in some fish of this kind.”
· Keil says whales are rare in the Mediterranean and opts for one of the common species of large sharks. “Squalus carcharias... reaches... the length of 25 feet..., and has about 400 lance-shaped teeth in its jaw, arranged in six rows, which the animal can either elevate or depress... It is common in the Mediterranean, where it generally remains in deep water, and is very voracious, swallowing everything that comes in its way... it sometimes gets into the fishermen’s net on the coast of Sardinia, and is caught. As many as a dozen undigested tunny-fish have been found in a shark weighing three or four hundredweight; in one a whole horse was found, and its weight was estimated at 1500 hundredweight... [I]n the year 1758, a sailor fell overboard from a frigate, in very stormy weather, into the Mediterranean Sea, and was immediately taken in to the jaws of a sea-dog (carcharias), and disappeared. The captain, however, ordered a gun, which was standing on the deck, to be discharged at the shark, and the cannon-ball struck it, so that it vomited up again the sailor that it had swallowed, who was then taken up alive, and very little hurt, into the boat...” (K&D 398).
God’s sovereignty
· God “appointed” this fish.
· It is an intense verb which seems more proactive than “prepare” or “provide,” in the sense of God’s sovereignty over this fish to choose it and use it.
· God had worked to get it ready for just this occasion (Soncino 142).
· A lot of time could be taken up discussing this fish, but that would only distract us from the point that whatever this fish was, it was an instrument under God’s sovereign control to accomplish His perfect will. God could have used a piece of driftwood to transport Jonah back to land, but He used this great fish to further show His sovereignty over all things in the sea – even the dreaded sea monsters! “God is more powerful than all of the forces of evil in the world, and he can use even the forces of evil to fulfill His purposes” (Urban 36).
· APPLICATION: God has plans for us. If He appointed a fish for Jonah, can you even imagine what He has prepared for us?
“Three days and three nights”
· Jesus focuses in on the "three days and three nights" theme in Matthew 12:40. He says that just as Jonah was in the belly of the fish, so the son of man would be in the earth three days and three nights. This prophecy was fulfilled when Jesus was crucified and buried. His stay in the tomb spanned three calendar days. (I’m not sure how to explain the three nights unless you count from the Thursday night of Passover, when he was arrested, to the Sunday of the resurrection.)
Hebrew poetry of Jonah’s prayer
· Parallel statements
o Jonah uses two parallel statements in this verse to describe the situation he’s in. First, he calls it “my pinch.” The Hebrew word here literally has to do with crying out, being tied or bound up, tightness, squeezing, or being in a tight spot, the meanings of “adversity,” “distress,” or “anguish” are derived from this. If you think of what it would be like to be squeezed inside the intestines of an animal, Jonah is in a tight spot both figuratively and literally.
o Jonah goes on to describe his predicament in the second line literally as the “belly of Sheol.” Sheol is the Biblical word for the place of the dead. It is not necessarily indicating whether the dead are in heaven or hell – more that they are in the “unseen/nether” world. Modern English translators use the word “death” rather than the transliteration “Sheol.” The word for “belly” is not the same one used in the previous verses, but means close to the same thing: Jonah is not in the mouth – half-in-half-out – no, he’s right in the middle, totally engulfed in this place of death. O.K., maybe Jonah is exaggerating a little bit, since he’s not actually dead, but, given the circumstances, it was reasonable for him to think he was going to die!
· Alliteration: The three main words in the second line of this couplet all start with “sh” in Hebrew, followed by a glottal stop [“uh”]. This appears to be a definite case of alliteration, so I tried to get a repetition of fricative blends and diphthongs in my translation “paunch... Sheol... shout.”
· Allusion: In the first couplet, Jonah quotes from Psalm 18:6 and 120:1 “In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me” (K&D 381).
God’s response is active
· Both of the words used for God’s response are ACTIVE. God didn’t just passively “hear;” rather He “answered” and “heeded,” taking an active response to Jonah’s prayer!
· When we pray to God, His response is not passivity (“Oh yes, I hear Johnny praying over there.”); it is ACTION! Our physical eyes cannot see Him moving heaven and earth in answer to our prayers, so we are often deceived into thinking that God does not hear us or that He is not responsive. Perhaps we’ve prayed for something He does not want to give us. But believe it, Christian, God hears us whenever we pray, and He actively responds to our prayers.
Deliverance is certain
· Rabbi Ibn Ezra argued for Perfect verbs to be understood as “prophetic perfects” - vivid anticipation of future deliverance (Son. 142).
· Perhaps Jonah saw God’s deliverance in being taken by the fish rather than being left to drown.
· God uses down times to change our attitude
· The waves and trials are God’s tools, we remain in His hands
· The way we make sense of our down times is by looking to God - remembering His word and praying to Him.
· Singing and making memorials of God’s salvation are what the saints throughout history have done
· Reassuring ourselves that our prayers really do reach God’s ears is a Biblical pattern
· I stated all this pretty glibly last Sunday, then God decided to see how well I could take my own advice. Immediately after the service, I plunged into depression for no good reason, and it was a battle to do these things. Please forgive me if I made it sound like there was something wrong with you if you didn’t find it easy!
• Word play: “seaweed” v.6 and “extremities” v.7 share same root word.
• Images of deep places – “the roots of the mountains,” “the bars of the earth.”
• Hebrew word for “bars” - lit. “straight” as a spear:
– Ribs in a city wall or cross-bars in a gate, so structural girding of the earth deep at the bottom of the sea.
– Water pressure that holds land and sea apart?
– Job 38:8ff "Or who enclosed the sea with doors When, bursting forth, it went out from the womb… And I placed boundaries on it And set a bolt and doors, And I said, 'Thus far you shall come, but no farther; And here shall your proud waves stop'? … Have you entered into the springs of the sea Or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been revealed to you, Or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?
– “Outside gates” - shut out from life on earth.
• Jonah down to the bottom of the earth and locked out of the land of the living, facing certain “destruction/ corruption/the pit/the grave”
• Jonah as “type” of Christ, raised before His body saw “corruption.”
– Mat 12:40 NASB for just as JONAH WAS THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS IN THE BELLY OF THE SEA MONSTER, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
– Act 2:31 [David] looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that HE WAS NEITHER ABANDONED TO HADES, NOR DID His flesh SUFFER DECAY.”
– Act 13:37 NASB but He whom God raised did not undergo decay.
• God rescued Jonah from a watery death, and He brought Jesus alive from the dead, so He is certainly powerful enough to save you, too! It doesn’t matter how deep in sin or faraway from God you are.
Parallel - Contrast: Those who pay regard to the vanities of evil are in stark contrast to those in the next verse who pray to the true God. God will save the latter, but not the former.
Allusion: Jonah pulls again from Psalm 31, this time from v6 “I hate those who cling to worthless idols; But I trust in Jehovah.”
There are a wide range of synonyms with which the words in this verse can be translated, so it is understandable that translators have come up with a wide variety of translations. It could be amplified as “Those who are paying regard to [clinging to/intensively keeping] breaths [vanities/vapors/idols] of a lie [evil/ wickedness/ destruction/ vanity], they shall forsake [leave/forfeit] their kindness [mercy/grace].”
I realize that this verse could be taken to mean that inasmuch as people pay attention to falsehood, they make themselves uncouth and lose their inherent goodness (and I suppose there is a grain of truth in this),
· but the Bible makes such a strong connection between grace/ lovingkindness (“chesed”) and God, that I think it is best to view the consequences in terms of distancing yourself from the grace of God.
· “Those who follow the emptiness and impotency of idolatry do so at the price of their only source of mercy and kindness” (Homer Hailey)
· David, in Ps. 144:2, calls God “my lovingkindness” (Cohen)
· When we cling to that which is false and fleeting – no matter how fascinating or popular or lucrative it is – we distract ourselves from the true source of goodness and grace: Jehovah God.
Perhaps Jonah was thinking back to the sailors on the boat and how they were frantically praying to all their idols. By clinging to the vanities of their idols, the sailors almost drowned – they turned away from the grace that could have been theirs when they looked to vain deceptions instead of to the true and living God. All their idols were false gods – like a mist that disappears when the sun of truth rises.
The sailors, however weren’t the only ones to cling to vanities like this, everyone today pays regard to something or other which is false and fleeting.
· I think of the fashions of clothes that we pay so much attention to and spend so much money on, but which go out of style so quickly.
· I think of philosophies and scientific theories and sporting events which make headlines in the magazines and consume people’s thoughts... and then are forgotten a year later.
Whatever time and money we spend on these sorts of things is WASTED time and money. Whatever regard we pay to these sorts of things impoverishes us of the Grace of the true and unchanging God.
APPLICATION: Are there any vain things that you are clinging to? Do you realize that they suppress the grace of God in your life?
· The fact that God hears prayer and saves brings thanksgiving and praise to Jonah’s lips – just as it should do to ours!
· Give thanks when you don’t feel like it:
o Not always a giddy excitement, but rather a decision made with the will to praise God.
o Often we don’t feel like worshipping God, but if we discipline our will to worship Him, the joyful emotions come in line.
o Jonah probably didn’t feel too great when he offered this prayer from the belly of the fish, but he offered it anyway because he knew the realities of God’s grace and salvation!
· Corporate worship:
o Jonah commits himself – unlike the pagans who follow fleeting falsehoods – to follow the Biblical guidelines for worshiping Jehovah, the true God.
o The acts of worshipping God mentioned in this verse imply formal worship at the temple. The word for “thanksgiving” is generally used in the context of temple worship in the O.T., as are “sacrifices” and “vows.”
o Private worship and prayer is good, but it must be complimented by public worship with the rest of the church.
· Making good on whatever promises you make to the Lord
o (cf. Ecc 5:1-7 Guard your steps as you go to the house of God and draw near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools; for they do not know they are doing evil. (2) Do not be hasty in word or impulsive in thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God. For God is in heaven and you are on the earth; therefore let your words be few. (3) For the dream comes through much effort and the voice of a fool through many words. (4) When you make a vow to God, do not be late in paying it; for He takes no delight in fools. Pay what you vow! (5) It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. (6) Do not let your speech cause you to sin and do not say in the presence of the messenger of God that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry on account of your voice and destroy the work of your hands? (7) For in many dreams and in many words there is emptiness. Rather, fear God.
o The word for “pay” carries more than the concept of transferring money; it means to make complete, whole, or good – that’s why I added the word “fully” to my translation, and it also explains the NIV’s translation “make good.”
o Jonah was not just going to make a show of goodwill by putting a little money down; he was going to be sure to pay in FULL. Jonah says, in effect, “I know I’ve made promises to You, Lord; I’m going to remember them and make sure every one of them is completely fulfilled.”
· Thanks Offerings:
o Because of the poetic structure of this passage, this concept of paying what was vowed is probably synonymous in meaning to the parallel phrase about sacrificing with thanksgiving in the first half of this verse.
o Perhaps Jonah’s vow was to offer God a Thanks Offering as per Leviticus 3:1-17 – a perfect male or female from the herd (livestock) or flock (sheep), plus unleavened bread given to the priest in the temple – as a “Thank You” note to God for saving him!
o We don’t offer animal sacrifices anymore, but it is perfectly legitimate to sacrifice something of value (time, food, money, supplies, labour), giving it to a church or Christian ministry out of thanks to God for His salvation.
o In Psalm 50:23, God says, “Whoever offers the sacrifice of thanksgiving glorifies me; And to the one who charts a course I will show the salvation of God.”
· Jonah ends his prayer with the exclamation, “Salvation to Jehovah!”
o God specializes in saving us.
o Salvation is entirely His possession, because there’s nothing we can do to save ourselves.
o Technically the wording of this phrase doesn’t emphasize so much the fact that God saves US, but that salvation is a specialty of HIS. The focus is not on who was saved, but on who is the Savior.
o Jesus is our Savior (His very name is derived from the Hebrew word here meaning “salvation!”)
• According to a Discovery Channel article on the Whale shark, it will swim “into a school of fish with its mouth open. As it swims, it bobs its head back and forth to sweep in the greatest number of fish. The shark winds up swallowing everything that flows in, including old boots and other human garbage. To expel such undesirables, the shark can later evert its stomach through its mouth to eliminate the debris.” http://dsc.discovery.com/sharks/whale-shark.html
• Jonah could have said simply that the fish vomited him onto the beach and that he went back to Nineveh, but no, Jonah continues to emphasize God’s sovereignty in this story by saying that the fish spit Jonah toward land as a result of a word from God.
• APPLICATION: God is in control. He has perfect command of all the scary things that are beyond your control, just as He was over Jonah’s fish!
• Also note: God’s deliverance is for a purpose. Not just to deliver you but to increase His glory as you tell about your deliverance to others.
– His sovereign power over circumstances.
– His active response to our prayers.
– His resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
– Stop trusting vain falsehoods; receive the lovingkindness of God in Christ.
– In private and in church.
– Whether you feel like it or not.
– Fulfilling all your promises to God.
– Emphasize that Jesus is your Savior.