Salvation Comes Through Sacrifice

Jonah 1:7-17

I. Fear on the Top Deck

II. Intense Fear

III. Fear of the Lord

Transcript

And they said to one another, Come, let us cast lots that we may know on whose
account this evil has come upon us. 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? And
of what people are you? And he said to them, I am a Hebrew, I fear the Lord, the
God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. 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. 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 tempentuous. He said to them, Pick me up and hurl
me into the sea. 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
tempentuous 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 at Jonah and hurled him
into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. Then the men feared the Lord
exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. And the
Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of
the fish for three days and three nights. So this is week two in our five-week
sermon series through the book of Jonah. Jonah was an Israelite prophet in the
eighth century BC. He was a man on the run, called by God to travel to Assyria
and to preach to the Ninevites. Jonah disobeyed God's word because he was afraid
that God might show mercy to the Ninevites who were enemies of his people. So
Jonah boards a ship going the opposite direction of where God told him and went
down into the bottom of the ship. He's on a journey to Tarshish, modern-day
Spain, trying to escape the presence of the Lord. At the same time, God is still
pursuing Jonah, the Ninevites whom Jonah hates, and the sailors as well on board
the ship to Tarshish. God's grace extends to all of those people. So let's
follow this narrative through the perspective of the sailors, the ones who are
called the mariners in this text. It's not just Jonah that gets rescued, it's
the mariners too. And I want you to think as we go through, how are they
rescued? How are they saved? As we move through the text, you'll see a
progression of this word fear. And we'll begin with our first scene, fear on top
of the deck of the ship. The storm's bearing down and we read in verse five,
then the mariners were afraid and each cried out to his God and they hurled the
cargo that was in the ship to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down into
the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep. So I don't
know how many of you have done much sailing before, but we can picture the
commotion going on above board while meanwhile Jonah is sound asleep down below.
I don't particularly like flying on airplanes. And when I'm flying, I
particularly do not like turbulence. But if you're ever feeling tense on an
airplane and there's a little bit of bumpiness, you can usually be sure that the
captain's voice will come over the loudspeaker and he'll speak in that super
bored nonchalant captain's voice. And you remember they do this all the time.
This is no big deal. What you do not want to see is any sign of tension from the
pilot or the crew. If they look concerned, if they sound concerned, if it seems
like they think that something unusual is happening, then you might know you
might have a problem. And that's what's happening now. The mariners were afraid
because of the power of the storm. Even these experienced sailors, they are
afraid because of the power of the storm. It says they feared that the ship
might break apart. We can see the grave danger of the situation. Even the
professionals, even the experienced sailors are afraid. Everyone is crying out
to their God. And the sailors and the captain, they're polytheists, meaning they
worship many gods. They're trying to cry out, figure out who is the correct
deity who will be able to save them. People of this time period had personal
gods that they would call to that they thought might be involved in their
personal concerns. They had family gods that maybe everyone in the clan would
worship or pay tribute to. And then there were national gods who supposedly were
looking out for the nation. The idea is almost as though they are experimenting.
Which is the right deity to cry out to in this particular situation? It's not
totally unlike nowadays when a person has a crisis and they're trying to figure
out who to pray to where they can match their situation with the proper patron
saint. So if you have a need or a special circumstance, you figure out who might
match that. By the way, someone might be like, I have a hopeless cause. Who is
that? Let's see. Oh, it's St. Jude. The sailors are afraid. They're crying out.
Nothing's working. And then it seems they remembered there was that one strange
man who went straight below deck when we got on board and he immediately went
down there. Where's he? It's not normal. Most people would stay above deck, at
least see the ship leave the port. And you might wonder, how could Jonah be
sleeping in the middle of a shipwreck? Is that really plausible? Had to be loud
up there. Well, trying to run from God is exhausting. It's also just depressing
to try to find happiness outside of God's will. You sleep a lot when you're
depressed. It's exhausting to run from the Lord and Jonah's asleep. When you're
in Jonah's condition, you're totally unaware of the needs of the people around
you. He's asleep below deck while the people above deck need help. They actually
need a prophet. They need someone to point them to the one true creator God. And
isn't that true for us? Secret sin or compromise in our lives? It always affects
our witness. Our sin is never isolated to just us. It's always going to have
horizontal effects on the people around us. Others are affected by what we do
and the ways in which we compromise. Others are affected by our own spiritual
slumber. But in Jonah's case, the captain comes to him. He says, verse six, what
do you mean you sleeper? Arise, call out to your God. Perhaps the God will give
a thought to us that we may not perish. Back in verse two, when Jonah was
commissioned, the word of the Lord came to him and said, Arise, go to Nineveh.
He ignores it. He goes the opposite direction. And then now, almost like this
foghorn breaking into his dreams comes the captain's voice. It's that same word
arise. It's going to be harder to run from God than Jonah thought. So Jonah gets
woken up and taken above deck, and the mariners are up there casting lots. Verse
seven, they said to one another, come, let us cast lots that we may know on
whose account this evil has come upon us. Casting lots was a method in the
ancient world of trying to discern the divine will. There were stones, as I
understand it, with like a dark side and a light side that you could cast, and
you could use these stones by process of elimination to figure out the divine
will, or in this case, who is to blame for this situation. You see several times
in the Old Testament where that method gets used of casting lots. And then once
actually in Acts one in the New Testament, when the disciples are replacing
Judas. After that, lot casting, after the revelation of scripture, we don't see
lot casting practiced in the New Testament church. But the Bible teaches us that
God is sovereign over something as seemingly random as the casting of lots.
Proverbs 16 33 says the lot is cast into the lap, but it's every decision is
from the Lord. God is absolutely sovereign in this moment of the casting of
lots. Also the natural events that take place in this book. If you follow the
story, he appoints the storm, he appoints the fish, he appoints the plant, he
appoints the wind. But once Jonah was woken up and dragged upstairs and he saw
the sailors casting lots, my guess is he knew exactly what was going to happen.
I think Jonah knew exactly how this was going to play out. The text tells us, so
they cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. And the mariner sees that the lot has
identified this strange man who up until now has been sleeping. It's kind of
like kids playing hide and seek. They know they're getting warm and now they
become detectives and they start peppering him with questions. Then they said to
him, tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What's your
occupation? Where do you come from? What's your country? What people are you?
Jonah's response is very interesting, what he says and what he doesn't say. He
doesn't answer the question about his occupation because he can't say, I'm a
prophet. He's forfeited that ministry. He's left his old ministry life behind
when he got on that boat. Instead he tells them about his ethnicity, which is
still very much part of his identity. And 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. Jonah says,
I fear God without any seeming sense of irony about what he's saying. He says,
I'm someone who honors and worships Yahweh, the creator God. He doesn't
apologize and say, I know it doesn't look like I fear God. He doesn't say, yeah,
I'm the one who got us into this mess. He doesn't say, let me tell you about
this God who's slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and maybe we can
all cry out to him for mercy. And yet he is still used inadvertently, it seems
to introduce these mariners to the creator God. He's still functioning as God's
mouthpiece, even in this strange way, as he tells the mariners about a God who
is far different than the deities that they'd been crying out to. And then once
he does that, the fear escalates. Before they were afraid of shipwreck, now
Jonah's told them about the creator God. And now that fear becomes intense. It
moves from a general fear, fear up on deck, we might get shipwrecked, what's
going to happen to us? Our lives in danger to an intense fear. The text now
says, then the men were exceedingly afraid. And they said to him, what is this
that you've done? For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the
Lord because he told them. So in verse five, we read the mariners were afraid.
They were afraid that the ship would break apart and that they would die or be
stranded from shipwreck, that they would drown. And those fears are not
unfounded. They're not irrational. They fully recognized how bad this storm was.
It's pretty bad. So how could we might ask, like, how could their fears escalate
to a point where they're exceedingly afraid? In other words, what I get, what's
a whole lot worse than drowning? Well, think about it like this. We all have a
variety of fears for ourselves, for our families, for our loved ones, for our
country, for our future. And some of those are not unfounded. I've recently I
noticed I've recently entered the age bracket where every so often I can look in
the mirror and see some new spot or discoloration and just think, huh. I wonder
what that is. Our minds can very quickly go to the worst possible scenario. We
all have fears like that. And each of these mariners had a legitimate reason to
think this might be the last day of my life. Well, what's worse than that?
What's more fearful than that? And then by accident, without any apparent loving
intention, it seems Jonah introduces these Gentiles, these idol worshippers to
the creator God, and then their fears intensify. Not only are they now afraid
they might die, now they recognize there's something beyond even that. This man
says there's a God who made the sea and the dry land and that this is the God
who caused the storm. In the New Testament, we read in Hebrews, it's a fearful
thing to fall into the hands of a living God. And it tells us there are actually
worse things than sickness or disaster or financial ruin or even death. We all
fear those things. It's even worse, it's much worse to meet the God who created
you and be unprepared. Then they said to him, verse 11, what shall we do to you
that the sea may quiet down for us, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous.
You can picture these mariners kind of shouting as the waves intensify, as
there's all this tumult above board. The storm's getting worse. Before they'd
asked Jonah, what do you do? Now they ask, what should we do to you? And he said
to them, pick me up and hurl me into the sea. Then the sea will quiet down for
you. For I know it's because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.
Jonah could have given the mariners the message that he was supposed to give to
the Ninevites. In other words, repent. And who knows? God may be gracious to you
and to us and forgive your sins. He could say, let's pray. We've all been
running from this God. Instead Jonah just says, just throw me over. He's a
despairing man at this point. He's run from God. He knows that he's the one to
blame for the storm. But this is not some like noble act of self-sacrifice. He
just wants to die. He sees no future for himself. It's very interesting to see
the response of the mariners. They are not of the same ethnicity as Jonah. So
they don't share that common Hebrew heritage. They just met him. They have no
loyalty to him. He's done nothing for them. According to the lot casting and
then according to Jonah himself, he's the one to blame for all the trouble. So
what good had he ever done for them? Or we could say like, what do they owe him?
You would think that at this moment they would say, okay buddy, your word's not
ours and just chuck him overboard. Instead, the pagan mariners behave towards
Jonah with much more compassion than he's ever showed to them or to the
Ninevites. There's an irony here that Jonah has no compassion to the people God
sent him to, the Ninevites. But the mariners have compassion on someone who they
just found in the bottom of the boat. The way we understand that is through
what's called common grace. Christians I think often have a hard time when they
come, they run face to face with the reality that their non-believing friends
and neighbors may be much kinder and more compassionate than they are. It's
called common grace. Common grace means that God is at work in the world and his
work is not only restricted to salvation. The mariners show a respect and
compassion for human life. That's common grace. They probably never heard or
read the 10 commandments, but they don't want to throw a man overboard. That's
common grace. Your neighbor who would not want to come to church with you may
still shovel your sidewalk. That's common grace. The world is full of sin and at
the same time it's not as bad as it could be. That's through God's restraining
common grace poured out on all people. These mariners would probably be the type
of people you would love to have for your neighbors. They're kind and instead of
tossing Jonah, they try as hard as they can to avoid hurling him overboard.
Nevertheless, text says, 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.
Rowing a boat is not easy now. Rowing a boat in the 8th century BC is no easy
job. These mariners are straining with every muscle in their body. Think about
the last time you watched Ben Hur trying to fight against the storm. They're
rowing as hard as they can, trying to avoid the plan of rescue that Jonah's
offered. And I want us to notice in this chapter we see two different attempts
at salvation and rescue. And yes, this may have been 2800 years ago, but they
correspond very precisely to our day and our own attempts at salvation and
rescue. In verse 5, we see the mariners crying out for rescue and they do it by
crying out to their own gods. It's a picture of pluralism. It doesn't matter. We
all believe in different things, but they mean essentially the same thing. And
all roads lead to heaven in the end and we're just, we're hoping for the best.
It doesn't actually work. In verse 13, we see the mariners have seen the failure
of crying out to their deities, but they try a different way of achieving
rescue. And this time it's hard work. It's strenuous effort. They've realized
there really is a problem. So the answer is to try harder than ever before. Most
people in our culture do not, do not really believe in sin. They believe that
some people are bad, but most of us are basically good. And they believe that
most people are kind and well intentioned and that God sees those good
intentions and sees our hearts and he accepts that. But sometimes we see
ourselves clearly like these mariners do. And we realize this situation is
pretty grim. It's dire. It might be when you have a habit or an addiction that
you can't break. It might be when you do something that surprises you. It might
be when you realize how selfish you are. It might be when you see that you
actually see for clearly for a little bit, the evil in your own heart and you
realize there's a problem. And then you say, I will do better. I will change. I
will work harder. Well that's kind of what the mariners are doing. They realize
the situation is bad. So they say, I will try harder. We will try harder. We
will row even harder than ever before. That's salvation through effort. It's
salvation through doing better the next time. And what we see from the men in
the boat is it's not enough. Eventually they get exhausted. The sea grew more
and more tempestuous and they could not appease the storm that they were under.
There's only one way that rescue will come. There's only one way that salvation
will come. And it's through the sacrifice of another. Jonah's right. He's going
to have to be thrown overboard. So I want to be clear when we look at this
passage. This is an example where an event in the Old Testament foreshadows the
ultimate sacrifice of Jesus. It's prefiguring an event that is to come, although
Jonah is not a hero here. So the mariners on the boat finally come to a place
where they have to throw themselves on the mercy of God. Their gods aren't going
to help them. Their rowing isn't going to help them. Their efforts aren't going
to do it. They recognize that God is sovereign. They cry out to him for mercy.
Therefore they called out to the Lord. Oh, Lord, let us not perish for this
man's life and lay not on us innocent blood for you, 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. They've prayed before to their own deities, but they
have never prayed to the Lord. And they don't try in this moment to convince the
Lord that they're great people or that they deserve rescue. They just submit
themselves to his mercy and to his sovereignty. So when we track the mariners in
the shipwreck in this story, we see this general fear of shipwreck move to this
intense fear, but it culminates in a different kind of fear. It's the fear of
God. Look at what the text says after the after the sea comes down. Then the men
feared the Lord exceedingly and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and they
made vows. The fear of the Lord is to worship God in reverence and humility.
It's to let God be God. It's to bow down before him. And these mariners are
saved from a physical storm and from the judgment of God through the sacrifice
of another. They changed their allegiances before they worshiped many gods. Now
they worship the creator God and they make vows to him. God's been using this
storm to save the mariners. He's showing his relentless grace through the storm
and salvation comes through sacrifice. Now we read the story of Jonah as
Christian scripture in light of the person and work of Jesus. He's the one that
the Old Testament anticipates. And then we see Jesus is the one who was thrown
into the storm of God's wrath and his death on the cross. Salvation does not
come from moral improvement or trying harder. Salvation does not come from
whatever belief code or rule of life that we might choose. Salvation comes
through sacrifice. It's the sacrifice of Jesus himself. First John says it like
this, that he is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also
for the sins of the whole world. Jesus is the one who bore the wrath of God and
in his sinless sacrifice bore our sins and the sins of the whole world. His
sacrifice turned away the wrath of God, which would otherwise be directed on us.
And that means everyone who believes in him can find forgiveness and new life in
a restored relationship with God. For those of us who have come to believe that
we read Jonah and we rejoice and we also think I find great hope that God gets
his message across regardless of the messenger here. But we also think, is there
anything in me that is silencing or compromising my witness? For those of us
that have never believed, I just want you to look at this and say, do you do you
realize, like there's nothing that you can do to atone for your sins? Absolutely
nothing. There's no change of direction. There's no new religion. There's no
there's no personal 180 that you can do. What we see here is that salvation
comes simply through the sacrifice and God's provided that sacrifice. It's Jesus
Christ who is the propitiation, meaning the sacrifice who bears our sin, not for
ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. Have you ever trusted in
that? That's the fear that we need to come to this great fear and worship of God
who gave his son in our place and for our sins. Let's take a minute and pray.
Lord God, we thank you for your your word. We ask for your Holy Spirit's work,
applying it to our heart. Lord, I pray that we would not simply fear earthly
things, but that we would fear you who created the world and have made us. And I
pray that we would trust in the work of your son who bore the sins of the world
on the cross. Lord, I pray for each one of us that we might find trust in that.
We pray in Jesus name. Amen.