Mighty Mercy

Jonah 2:1-10

Transcript

Jonah chapter 2. Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the
fish saying, I called out to the Lord out of my distress and he answered me. Out
of the belly of Sheol I cried and you heard my voice. For you cast me into the
deep, into the heart of the seas and the flood surrounded me. All your breakers
and your waves passed over me. Then I said, I am driven away from your sight.
Yet again, yet I shall again look upon your holy temple. The waters closed in
over me to take my life. The deep surrounded me. Weeds were wrapped about my
head. To the roots of the mountains I went down. To the land whose bars closed
upon me forever. Yet you brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God. When my
life was fainting away, I remembered the Lord and my prayer came to you into
your holy temple. Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of
steadfast love. But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you. What
I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord. And the Lord spoke to
the fish and it vomited Jonah up, up upon the dry land. Would you pray with me
this morning? Father, we thank you for your word. That your word is life. And we
pray that as your word goes forward, that you would minister to our hearts.
Lord, that we would see your mighty mercy. Father, I pray this in Christ's name,
amen. There are two things that almost everybody loves. Number one, ranch on
spaghetti and meatballs. My wife disagrees with me, but that's okay. But number
two, I think we can all agree on this one. Everybody loves a great story. And as
far as stories go, there really aren't many that are better than the story of
Jonah. It's a story about the unexpected. There's satire. You've got plot
twists. You've got unresolved tension. You've got strange things happening, like
cows repenting in sackcloth, like literally holy cow. And of course, you have a
man swallowed by a whale. And you think of the story, and there's all these
strange things going on, and you're thinking, well, what is this really all
about? And what's the big takeaway for us who hopefully will never be swallowed
by a whale? What is this story about Jonah? So let's dive in. Now, the story of
Jonah, as we've learned, does not actually begin with Jonah 1-1. It begins in 2
Kings 14. And this is where we're introduced to our main character, Jonah. He's
a real historical person. He's a prophet sent from God. And as we read his
story, we see that he is a very unlikely messenger of mercy. And the message of
mercy begins with a very unlikely message in his proclamation to the people of
Israel. So in 2 Kings 14, God sends Jonah to deliver a message to his wayward
people. He prophesies during the reign of a king named Jeroboam II. And this was
not a particularly great time in Israel's history. This was a time of moral
bankruptcy, institutional idolatry. The people of God were forbidden to worship
the Lord at the temple. Jeroboam I establishes his own priesthood that offers
sacrifices to their own gods, Baal, and strangely enough, even golden cows.
There is rampant bribery. We've got the poor being exploited by the rich. Things
have gotten so bad that within 30 years of Jeroboam's death, the northern
kingdom would eventually fall to their enemies, the Assyrians. So God calls
Jonah to preach to these people. And you would think that his message would be a
message of judgment. But it wasn't. It was actually a message of mercy. God
would give his people rest and actually enlarge their borders. In 2 Kings 14, we
read that the Lord saw the affliction of Israel, and it was very bitter. For
there was none left, bond or free, and there was no help for Israel. But the
Lord intervened. Despite their rebellion, despite their debauchery, God shows
his people mercy, and he gives them an opportunity to repent once again and turn
back to the Lord. Now you can imagine how relieved and happy Jonah must have
felt at this good news. Because when we think of the prophets, typically their
message is one of repentance and judgment. But he delivers this great news that
God's gonna bless, God's gonna expand their borders. And this news was
especially joyful because there was a nation, the Assyrians, that continued to
expand. And it seemed as though the threat of Assyrian invasion was inevitable.
Now these weren't your typical enemies. These were a barbaric, brutal people. If
you look in historical documents, the kings of Assyria would boast of flaying
their enemies alive, impaling their captors, piling up heads of their conquered
victims as they went about terrorizing nations into submission. There is like no
regard whatsoever for human life. The best comparison we could probably think of
is the orcs. And so God now shows mercy to Israel, but he's not done with just
the people of Israel. Because in Jonah chapter one, the word of the Lord comes
back to Jonah again. And he's going to deliver a message of mercy to Nineveh,
the capital city of the Assyrians. So God calls Jonah and he says, arise, go to
Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up
before me. Now I want you to put yourself in Jonah's shoes for a moment. Here's
a man who's proud of his heritage. And no doubt because of his message of mercy,
he's regarded well by the people of Israel. And God says, go. Go to those
savage, violent, bloody people, your enemies, your biggest threat. Go preach to
those people and urge them to repent because I am a God who is mighty in mercy.
So what does Jonah do? Jonah flees. The very thought that God could show mercy
on those people was just simply too much for him to bear. And so he flees from
God. He flees from the presence of the Lord. He leaves everything behind, his
home, his people, his nation, his calling. He leaves the Lord himself. And in
Jonah one, as we see Jonah running from the presence of the Lord, we begin to
see Jonah in a downward spiral of defiance and disobedience. He goes down to
Joppa where he finds a ship that's heading in the opposite direction of Nineveh.
He goes then down into the boat. He goes then down into the inner part of the
boat. Exhausted as a man on the run, he fell fast asleep. We have a man who has
thoroughly turned his back on God. And yet God had not turned his back on him.
And nor had God abandoned his sovereign plan to pour out mercy to the people of
Nineveh. And so what does God do? God sends a storm, a storm that threatens to
destroy the ship. And so in the midst of the storm, we see that God now begins
to show mercy to the sailors. We have mercy to the people of Israel, mercy to
the Ninevites, and now mercy to these pagan sailors who are simply on their way
to Tarshish. They experience this great storm. They're terrified. And they begin
to call out to their various gods, these gods who have no power to actually do
anything. And meanwhile, the one guy on the boat who knows the one true God who
has power over all things, well, he's fast asleep. So the captain wakes him up.
What are you doing? And then Jonah gives a statement. I fear the Lord who made
the heavens and the sea. Don't miss the irony of that statement. You can imagine
the captain being like, whoa, hold up. You just told us earlier that you were
running from your God. And now you're telling me that you serve the God, the God
who controls all of this. What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do? Now in
that moment, think about this, this was a great opportunity for Jonah. In that
moment, he could have repented, seeing everything that was going on around him.
These people are desperate. They are ready for an answer. And here's the man who
has the answer. He could have repented. He could have called the sailors to
repentance. Turn from your idols, turn from your gods, and come to the living
God for he's merciful. Of all people, Jonah knows this. But what does Jonah do?
Instead of crying out to God for mercy, Jonah decides, let me just go the path
of suicide. Let me die. I'd rather die than see mercy being extended to these
people. So he says, hey, throw me overboard. If you throw me overboard, this
storm's gonna subside. Doesn't get much worse than this, friends. You have Jonah
who goes from the height of proclaiming God's blessings on his nation to now
getting to this place of rock bottom despair. Just let me die. And the sailors,
ironically, show mercy to Jonah. They try hard, rowing harder and harder to get
to the shore. They don't wanna throw this man overboard. But eventually, they
realize there's no other option. And then crying out to the mercy of God, they
cast Jonah into the sea. And in the process, they experience God's mighty mercy.
They see what the Lord has done. And they turn from their gods and they serve
the Lord. So Jonah being cast into the sea, this now completes, or at least
that's what maybe Jonah thought, this downward spiral away from God. He would
sink to his watery grave. But in the lowest of the lows, from one of the hard-
hearted prophets, God shows mercy once again. This is our God. Jonah 1, verse
17. And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in
the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Here's the irony of this
whole story. The one who never really understood mercy was actually the one who
needed it the most. And so we read in verse 17, God appoints a great fish. Was
it a whale? Maybe. Was it some kind of a cryptid creature? I mean, I would be
down for that. We don't know. But it's some big old fish that swallows him
whole. That's not normal, okay? Nor is it random. It's a powerful demonstration
that God, the one God, rules over and intervenes in creation to accomplish his
saving purposes. And so God has appointed this fish to swallow up Jonah. Now
that word appointed is gonna be a key word in the book of Jonah, as we'll see
later on. So think about this. Jonah is appointed by God to preach to the
Ninevites. He disobeys. This fish is appointed by God to swallow up this man,
and the fish obeys God. Throughout the whole book, we see that everyone and
everything obeys God except the man of God. So Jonah's in the belly of this fish
three days and three nights only to come out alive in the end. Clearly, this is
a powerful demonstration of God's mercy. But it's also a vivid sign pointing
forward to a greater messenger of mercy who descended into the grave three days
and three nights, but he would not be held down. It points to the greater
messenger of mercy who rose alive in triumph over death so that all who call
upon him might receive God's mighty mercy. And so with Jonah, in the belly of
the whale, chapter two, finally prays to the Lord his God from the belly of the
fish. Two, one begins with this phrase, then Jonah prayed. Finally, not when God
called him to Nineveh, not when the storm came but nearly killed him and the
sailors, not even when the pagan sailors asked him to call out to his God. None
of those things had gotten through to Jonah. He was a hard-hearted man who was
unfazed and unmoved by the plight of his fellow man. But now that Jonah finds
himself in distress at his lowest point, and if you think about it, at the
lowest physical geographical point that any man up until that time had ever
been, he finally turns to the Lord. In one through nine, we read of Jonah's
prayer. And it begins in verse two with this declaration. God answered my cry. I
called out to the Lord out of my distress and he answered me. Out of the belly
of Sheol, or the grave, I cried and you heard my voice. Up until this time,
Jonah had been running from God. But here's the wonderful truth. In the belly of
a fish, in the depths of the ocean, Jonah remembers the Lord his God. He cries
out for mercy and the Lord hears this hard-hearted, rebellious prophet's cry.
And he answers, not because Jonah deserved it, not because Jonah was worthy of
it, he answered simply to magnify his mighty mercy. A mercy that is far greater
than any situation that we could ever face. So in verse two, he says, look, this
is my story. This is my declaration. I cried out to God and he delivered me from
my distress. In verses three through six, we see more of an elaboration of his
distress. In the belly of the fish, he thought he was done. Verse three, for you
cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me.
All your waves and your billows passed over me. Then I said, I am driven away
from your sight, yet I shall again look upon your holy temple. The waters closed
in over me to take my life. The deep surrounded me. Weeds were wrapped around my
head. At the roots of the mountains, I went down to the land whose bars closed
upon me forever. What a vivid picture of Jonah's dire situation. Humanly
speaking, all hope for deliverance was gone. He was barred in or trapped by this
watery grave. And yet, in the midst of all of this, he recognizes that it is God
who has done this, both as a judgment, but also as a mercy. Verse three says,
you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, the floods surrounded me.
Your waves, your billows passed over me. Clearly, Jonah sees his distress as
from the Lord. Now, the way this is written, this is not a declaration of Jonah
blaming God, but rather it's the idea here that God has brought this upon me
because of my own sinful choice, because I refused to obey God's command. So he
sees God's judgment as right and just, but he also notices that this judgment is
also a form of mercy. God's not only punishing him, but the fact that he's
alive, he's also preserving him. And this is what gave Jonah confidence that God
wasn't quite done with him yet. In verse four, he says, I am driven away from
your sight, yet, here was the hope, I shall again look upon your holy temple.
God had heard his cry, and even though his situation was dire, God was not done
with this wayward prophet. And so then we read about his deliverance in verses
six and seven. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever, yet,
yet you brought up my life from the pit, oh Lord my God. All throughout the
Bible, we read about man in distress because of his own sinful choices. He's
dead in trespasses and sins without hope and without God, but God intervenes.
That's the game changer right there. Now don't miss this, because this phrase,
yet, you brought up my life from the pit, oh Lord my God, is not just the
testimony of Jonah and his story, it's really the testimony and story of
everyone here who's been delivered from the distress of their sin by the mighty
mercy of Christ. If you know the Lord, you can look at your life and you can see
your sin and you can see your rebellion and you can see your fallenness and you
can look and consider what you deserve, and yet, you're here. And yet, you have
salvation, and yet, you have every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in
Christ. This is our story. If you know the Lord, it's because God intervened.
It's not because you somehow loved God first, no, he loved you. And when you
were dead in your sin, he shined forth the light and he saved your soul. And
that's your story, that's my story, that's our identity. You might be here and
you think, you know, Micah, I've known the truth, I grew up in church, but
honestly, I've just gone so far away, away, away. I've gone too far for God,
I've blown it. You don't know what I've done, you don't know how far I've gone.
The New Testament tells us this is a faithful saying and worthy of all
acceptance that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. I don't know
the greatness of your sin, but I do know the greatness of a savior and he's
mighty in mercy. And regardless of what you've done or where you've gone or how
far you've strayed, you can turn to him and you can experience what the prophet
experienced, deliverance from the pit, deliverance by God's mercy. So when Jonah
says, yet you brought my life from the pit, all of God's people say, that's me,
that's me. I'm this man right here. I was a stray, I was far from God and he
saved me. He showed me his mercy. Don't forget that. Don't move on from that,
move deeper into it. Verse seven, he elaborates on exactly what happened. When
my life was fainting away, on the brink of death, I remembered the Lord and my
prayer came to you into your holy temple. He didn't simply say I remembered God
in a general sense. I remembered Yahweh, the Lord, the one who keeps his
covenant the one who is bound to his people. The Lord, his name emphasizes that
he is slow to anger, he is abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness and as
he remembers the saving character and work of his God, he turns to the Lord and
God heard his name. Cry. And so then in verses eight through nine, we see his
determination. I will give thanks and obey. Verse eight through nine, those who
regard or pay regard to vain idols, they forsake their hope of steadfast love.
But I, with the voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed,
I will pay. And then he concludes with this awesome, glorious truth. Salvation
belongs to the Lord. Now incidentally, there's an odd contrast here. He
remembers the Lord, he cries out to the Lord, the Lord rescues him, but then he
remembers the sailors who are crying out to their various gods. He says those
who pay regard to these vain idols, they forfeit or forsake their hope for
steadfast love. Incidentally, it was those sailors who had cried out to their
false gods who experienced the steadfast love of the one true God who actually
found mercy. But Jonah, as for me, he says I will pay what I vow. Undoubtedly,
here is a commitment to obey where he had previously disobeyed and he said I
will do it in a spirit of thanksgiving. Finally, Jonah is resolved that he will
obey God's command. It's interesting because when a person hardens their heart
to the wisdom and the goodness of God's word, often the Lord sends discipline to
get through to them. And that's exactly what happened with Jonah. He concludes
his prayer with this wonderful statement, salvation belongs to the Lord. It is
God's right to save whoever he chooses to save. It is God's right, he is saying,
to show mercy even if, as the book continues, that truth hasn't really sunk in
yet. So we read this prayer and then verse 10 comes on the scene. The Lord once
again speaks to the fish and it barfs them up on the shore. And we use the word
barf because it's gross. This is a Hebrew word that is disgusting. I have four
children, I'm very familiar with vomiting. It's a nasty thing. I've never been
vomited, but Jonah was. Barfed out on the shore. Now that's not exactly the
happy ending that we envisioned to this story. And in fact, even as we read this
prayer, there's beautiful things about it, but there's still some kind of
unresolved questions we would have. Like, did Jonah actually repent? We read the
prayer, there's no mention of sin. Did he repent? How do we reconcile this
prayer that ends with this magnificent statement, salvation is of the Lord, with
Jonah's attitude in chapters three and four? I don't know. But here's what we do
know from this text, and don't miss this. No sinner and no situation is beyond
the mighty mercy of God. That's what Jonah two is all about. No sinner and no
situation is beyond the mighty mercy of God. Friend, do you believe that? I
believe, but help my unbelief. If we believe that, two implications. Number one,
pray. Pray. In his distress, Jonah finally turned to the Lord. And the truth is,
in your distress, God calls you to turn to him in prayer. And when we turn to
the Lord, we turn to the Lord who is merciful and gracious, who is full of
compassion and power. The prophet Isaiah says, regarding God, he dwells in the
high and holy place with him, who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, so that he
might revive the spirit of the lowly, to revive the heart of the contrite. In
Isaiah 66 two, we read that he looks on favor with the one who is humble and
contrite in spirit, who trembles at his word. In our distress, we can go to the
God who rules over all things, and yet who is profoundly interested and moved
with pity by our plight. So maybe you're here, and like Jonah, you're in
distress because of your own sinful choices. Maybe you feel like you've gone too
far, that God is almost forever going to hold you at arm's length. You've known
the mercy of God, you've known the word of God, you've chosen a path of
disobedience, and you feel like, I know I'm saved, but my life as it once was is
over. I'll never experience that intimacy with God that I once had before. I'll
never experience the favor of God as I once had before. I'm like Jonah, I'm this
man who's been on the run, but now it's too late. Friend, it's not too late. If
that's you in your distress, pray, because no sinner is beyond the mighty mercy
of God. Maybe you're here, and you find yourself in a situation that feels too
overwhelming. Like Jonah, you feel like your circumstances and situations have
barred you in. It's as if you're drowning and there is no hope. If that's you,
pray, because no situation is beyond the mighty mercy of God. Knowing this is
true, we pray. But secondly, knowing that this is true, we obey, we obey. When
we really grasp the depths of our sinful condition and the heights of God's
mighty mercy, we will gladly obey. All throughout the New Testament, we see that
it is mercy that motivates us to love the unlovely, to persevere in faith when
it seems like nothing is going to happen. To even proclaim the gospel to those
who seem beyond God's mercy. When we get a sense of the mercies of God, we pray
and we obey. Why? Because Jonah shows us that no sinner and no situation is
beyond the mighty mercy of God. So let's pray together. Father, with grateful
hearts, we come into your presence knowing that salvation belongs to our God. We
thank you for your mighty mercy that rescued us from the depths of our sinful
despair, bringing us from death to life. Lord, I pray that we would not lose
sight that our story, our testimony, our declaration is one of dependence upon
your mighty mercy. Lord, help us to remember and to truly believe and be gripped
by the reality that there is no sinner or situation that is beyond your mighty
mercy. Help us to believe and to live in the light of your truth. To pray and
obey for your glory and for the sake of your kingdom. In Jesus' name we pray,
amen.