This morning we looked at the mariners and how God worked in their life. They were deeply disturbed by the unnatural, natural element of the hurling wind and the tempest. And when it was revealed to them that they were in the midst of an action that had been commenced and was sustained by the one true living God, that awareness of God made them exceedingly afraid. An inability to escape dawned upon them. And then when they heard and they saw the reality of God's coming, of the sea when they threw Jonah overboard. Then they exceedingly were afraid of God himself. I want to back pad a little bit. Back just simply to look at Jonah's response to the five questions that they ask him. In particular, when they ask him what they should do. So tonight I want to look at how Jonah responds I want to look at how he then recognizes the Lord's hand in these events, how he remembers the Lord in the midst of all that is going on, and then how God rescues and restores him. The questions come hard and fast to Jonah once the lot is cast upon his name. When he speaks to them and reveals to them who he is, he's a Hebrew, he says in verse nine, he fears the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. They then ask him, verse 11, what shall we do that the sea may quieten down for us? They've made the link between Jonah and the issue of the hurling wind and the tempest blowing ever stronger. As we considered this morning, the harder they rode, the more difficult it became. You cannot outwork God in trying to solve the problems in your life. It doesn't much matter how much physical, emotional, psychological effort you invest. It doesn't matter how many friends you gather around you and say, let us all join in this activity together. Stand with me in this. If the Lord's hand is against you, you'll not move one millimeter. Of course, it's wonderful when the opposite is true. And you think we'll never succeed. And the Lord's hand is with you. And he carries you into a place of blessing that is unimaginable. And so when they ask Jonah, what are they to do? Jonah responds that they are to hurl him over the side. And that's a disturbing statement in many ways. Where does it come from? What is going on in Jonah's mind? Well, he tells us something of what is going on in his mind. He speaks in verse 12 and he says, pick me up and hurl me into the sea that the sea will quiet down for you. For I know that it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you. Now I want you to actually think about what this man is saying. This man is saying, you take me, throw me over the side into this hurling tempest of a sea. And he knows, and they know, that that's his imminent death. There is no prospect in which he will live. He has no sense of being kept alive. They have no belief that he is going to survive. What is going on in his head? Well, he knows that this matter has arisen because of his disobedience against God. We know this because of what he says. He's told them he's fleeing from the presence of God. We also know that he wants to preserve their lives. So isn't it in a sense in which he wants to atone, and by the sacrifice of his own life, he wants to preserve them. If they will throw him over the side, then that will mean that the sea will become quiet and therefore their lives will be spared. But it still takes a lot in someone's head to say, pick me up and throw me over the side. The very fact that they rode hard Having received that instruction from Noah shows that they are reluctant to do it. They don't just suddenly say, well, okay, that's fine. If that sorts our problem, here you go. Let's get them boys and get them over the side. They know what they're taking on and throwing him over the side. And they're not jumping up and down with great excitement at the idea of it. There is grave reluctance as is manifest by their rowing hard against the Lord. And I say against the Lord in terms of the Lord's presence in the Tempest. So what is going on? I mean, can we actually get inside? Some commentators believe that this is just a continued Thran-ness, a continued rebellion on Jonah's part against God. He has fleed from the presence of God, having been given the command of God to go to Nineveh and to cry out against that great city because of its evil. He has fled from Gathhefer to Joppa. He's got into the boat. He's rebelled by going into the bottom of the boat. He has not spoken with God. He has not sought God. And now when it eventually has been dragged out of him who he is, and what his role in this whole scenario is about, now he is reluctantly admitting to the reality of his responsibility, and he, in thrallness and difficultness, is just saying, throw me over because I don't really care anymore. There are those who would advocate that. I think there's something slightly more to it than that. I don't think he's just being obstructive. In Hebrews chapter 12, that great passage in which we're told about the suffering that we experience, in particular in relation to the chastisement of the Lord's hand upon us. The writer of the Hebrews says in verse three, consider him, speaking of Christ, who endured from sinners such as Silithae against himself, so that you may not grow weary or faint-hearted. In your struggle against sin you may not have resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses your sons? My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him for the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every one whom he receives. So was Jonah just simply acting out of complete and utter rebellion? continual saying to God, no, I am not going to submit to your ways anymore, or is it the case that he has grown faint and weary under the chastisement of God? Is it the case that he has got to that point where he is no longer able to cope with the mental reality of having fled from God and experienced the chastising hand of God? Because you see, it is possible to grow weary in the things of God and under the hand of God. It is possible to get to that point where you just feel, I can't do this anymore. How is that the case? Well, that's the case because God says to us, do not grow weary. And God commands that because God knows us. And he knows the struggles in our hearts, and they're real and they're difficult at times. And he knows our capacity to grow weary, even under the chastising of his hand. That's why he says it is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons, for what son is there whom the father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. He goes on to speak about how human fathers discipline us even though they don't discipline us perfectly. But God disciplines us. Therefore lift up your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees and make straight paths for your feet. On that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. So it is possible for us under the chastising hand of God, and that chastising hand of God is to draw us into a deeper relationship with himself, it is possible for us to grow mentally and spiritually weary. And for us just to say, I cannot cope any longer. And I wonder if that's where Jonah reached. Reached the point where he said, I can't cope any longer. And he was faced with the reality of the impending death of all the people on that ship, including himself. He knows that he is the person who is responsible for the peril that they're under. And so he says, I will give up my life, not in a great fanfare of celebration that I am going to be your hero. I'm going to be your saving sacrifice. But rather he's just admitting that he is the one who's responsible. And under the pressure of the situation, he says, throw me over the side. If you feel as if you need to be thrown over the side tonight, don't ask us to do it. We will be here to help you. And if God wants to throw you over the side, he'll take you over the side by some means. But don't throw yourself over the side. Don't hurl yourself into the waves. This was not a suicidal act on the part of Jonah. This was Jonah committing himself indirectly into the hands of God, as we'll see in a moment. And then something astonishing happens. What is it? It's not that the fish is appointed by God to swallow Jonah up, although that is an astonishing thing when you think about how God ordained that creature to be in that place at that moment in time. The more astonishing reality is that Jonah recognizes the Lord's hand in his life. And for that, we turn to this prayer that we have in chapter two. And it's interesting that God tells us that this prayer is prayed from the belly of the fish. And yet, if you read the prayer and you read what is said, it's really a recounting of Jonah's experience the moment he hits the water and begins to descend into the water. It's not a prayer that is being offered up, as it were, in the belly of the fish, pertaining to the particulars of the situation of being in the fish. You cannot read this prayer and all it's being drawn from the Psalms and get that conclusion. Verse 2, Jonah recognizes that the Lord's hand is in all that's going on. He says, verse 2, you cast me into the deep. Well, we've just seen that he asked the sailors to throw him over the side. We've just seen that the sailors picked him up and hurled him over the side. But here you have, you see, the correlation between man's responsibility and the sovereign purposes of God. And here, once again, Jonah is beginning to think as a believer. He's not just thinking any longer as a man. He had fled from the presence of God. He'd fled from Gathhefer. He'd fled into Joppa. He'd fled into the boat. He'd fled into the belly of the boat. He'd fled from God. He had stopped thinking about God. They asked him many questions about who he was. And they emphasized, what's your profession? What's your occupation? He wouldn't give them a response because he wasn't going to have dealings with God. He'd stopped thinking. He'd stopped feeling. He'd stopped behaving as a believer in God. He was in a slough of despond. He was in spiritual sleep. That's why he was sleeping such a deep sleep in the boat. And now he is revived. As he hits the water, he's revived. It's as though the water splashes on his face, and suddenly he becomes aware of the reality of God again. Yes, he had spoken as a believer. Yes, he had spoken as one who has feared God. Yes, he spoke as one who knew God, who was a sovereign ruler over all creation. Yes, he had spoken as one who was receiving the chastisement of judgment of God. But now he speaks out of his spiritual sleep aroused, and he's thinking again as a believer. God. You God. You cast me into the depths. Into the perilous boundless ocean. Into the heart of the sea. And the flood surrounded me. And here he is quoting from the Psalms. This is quoting from Psalm twenty-four verse two. All your waves and your billows passed over me. That's Psalm forty-two verse seven. The The deep surrounded me, the weeds wrapped about my head. Psalm 18, at the roots of the mountains I went down to the land whose bars closed in on me forever. Again, Psalm 18. Here's this man descending into the water, God's water. God's created waters, God stirred the waters. And he's being brought to the remembrance of the Psalms that he's been taught. You see the importance of knowing the Psalms. Really, really important. Really important that we know the Psalms. If we would know the Psalms and understand the Psalms, and I mean know them and understand them, there's much that God would speak to us through those songs. It's not a coincidence that God has given those songs for us to sing and to ingrain them into the heart. Because what is it you remember in a time of need? It's what you've learned and committed to your heart, isn't it? And how easy it is to remember something that you sing and have sung and ingrained into your heart. It's no wonder that this man going into the depths of the sea as he's cast down and down and down, deeper and deeper into the waves and into the billows and into the waters crossing over him and closing in on his life and the deep surrounding him and the weeds wrapping around him. He's going down into the very roots of the mountains itself in the depths of the ocean. It's no coincidence that as he's traveling down, floating in this water, traveling down and deeper and deeper and deeper and it's getting darker and darker and darker, That it's the Psalms that are coming to his mind and his heart. How bereft we are of spiritual counsel to our own souls by virtue of our ignorance of the songs that God has given us to know and to sing. Utterly hopeless. The judgment of God is upon him. He's in the belly of Sheol. The place of death. without hope and without God. And as he recognizes the work of God in the midst of all of this, then he remembers. He remembers. As his life is fainting away, he says, I remembered. Verse 7. Who does he remember? His friends, his family, the men who have thrown him overboard. He says, I remembered the Lord. How does he remember the Lord? He had told the men, the sailors, that he feared the Lord. Does he remember the Lord in the sense of fearing him? He has spoken of his knowledge of God as the God of heaven and earth. Does he remember God in the sense of the knowledge? He'd spoken of the fact that he was fleeing from the presence of God. Does he remember the fact of being in the presence of God and the instruction to go to Nineveh and cry out against it because of the evil that's come up before the Lord? Is that what he remembers as he says, as he's descending into the depths of the sea and these Psalms are coming to him and they're speaking to him of the reality of the consequences of the judgment of God upon his life. And it's like every hundred meters that he's going down, he remembers another portion of the psalm about the enclosing and the weeds and the roots of the mountains. And it's as if he's going deeper and deeper and deeper. He's recognizing the work of God in his life. It is God who has cast him into this perilous situation. It's God's judgment upon his life. And then he remembers. He comes to the point where he remembers. What does he remember? He remembers that he can have communion with God. He remembers that he can pray. You see, when the sailors, when they were on the ship, were praying to their gods, he was sleeping. And when the captain of the ship went down and said to him, arise you sleeper, come and pray. Perhaps your God can do something for us. We don't read that Jonah responded to that encouragement. We find that Jonah speaks with God in prayer, now in the depths of the ocean. You see how far God needs to take us sometime? to get us to the point where we will not just talk about God, not talk about our fear of God, not talk about our knowledge of God as the creator of heaven and earth, but where we'll actually open up our hearts to commune with God. Because you see, those are two very different things. We can have lots of knowledge about God. The reality is, that if we were probably to sit down and write down all that we know about God on pages of paper, we may think we may not know a lot, but if we were to do that, the guarantee is we would know quite a bit compared with people around us in this community. And yet, you can have all the knowledge you want of God. You can have a knowledge of the power of God. You can have a knowledge of the creative majesty of God. You can know the attributes of God as they are defined in the Westminster Confession of Faith. And you can understand the reality of God. And you can worship God. And yet, and yet, not be in communion with God. It's a staggering truth. It's a phenomenal truth. that you can have all this information in your head, all this truth in your mind, and yet not be in the place of actually communing with God himself in your heart with him. And here God has taken this man who has fled from his presence, and he has taken him, he has allowed him to have this journey. And he has not interrupted that journey. He's allowed that journey to flow according to this man's desire. And now as this man is ending this journey, because this is him dying. You know, the sailors have moved on. They believe that he has died. They will reach Tarsus with joy in their hearts at the salvation they have received. But they will know as they get off that ship that there's a man who drowned. As far as their understanding and comprehension goes, a man has drowned off their ship during that journey. And here is this man going into the depths, and he then recognizes by the grace of God that God is still at work in his life. And God, by his grace, brings this remembrance to him. When my life was fainting away, when I am dying, when I'm taking my last breaths, I remembered the Lord. And I called out to the Lord out of my distress. And this is where the remembering turns to the returning. You see, because when he begins to pray, he's taken back into the presence of God. You don't need to be in dry land to be in the presence of God. You don't need to be in the house of mercy to be in the presence of God. You can be anywhere in the heavens or in the earth beneath or in the depths of Sheol and be in the presence of God. How is that possible? It's possible because God is present everywhere. And he's not only present everywhere, he's personally present with you when you're seeking him. So if you're in the slough of despondent and you're fainting upon the chastisement of God this evening, and you think, I would rather just be hurled over the side of the boat in my life, then know that you must be brought to that point where you recognize that God is having dealings with you, and he's having dealings with you because he loves you. He's not enemy. He's not your enemy. He's not Satan. He's not seeking to destroy you. He's seeking to bring you back into that relationship. Because He wants you to take that knowledge that you know of Him. He wants you to take that understanding that you have of Him. That comprehension that you know that He is God. But He wants you to come to Him and He wants you to say to Him, Father, I'm crying out to you from your heart. He wants you to come to Him. and cry out, out of your distress, and bring your prayer to Him. You see, when a man prays, then a man is back in his relationship with God. You remember what happened whenever Saul was on the road to Damascus, and Jesus appeared to him? And Saul falls down at the light, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And we're told that Saul then begins to pray and when Ananias comes along and God says to Ananias, go and meet Saul and speak with Saul for I have much for Saul to do. And Ananias says, but Lord, do you know who he is? It's because Saul has opened up communion with God. Then he's ready to return into the presence of God. Return for the first time as a believer. And how many of us tonight need to return into the presence of God. Need to come back into the presence of God. How much we need the Lord's presence in our lives. There's no substitute for it. I have been extraordinarily blessed in my three years ministering here. I've seen how you've responded to the Word of God. I've seen your delight for biblical instruction. It's a joy to see so many of you back at the Bible class on a Sabbath morning. It's tremendous. But you see, that's not the goal. The goal is not the communication of knowledge. The goal is not the instruction of truth, although that's very, very important. But the goal is to have us all dwelling in communion with God. And to have your heart come to God. And how God has to deal with us on occasions to get our attention, sometimes he has to bring us into the depths to strip away, as it were, the various pillars that we place our security in. And he takes those pillars away and he humbles us. And he wants to bring us to that point where we will come to him like he brought Jonah to, where Jonah was brought to the end of himself, brought to the end of his senses. And Jonah cries out to God, not to teach him more doctrine, not to teach him more knowledge, but to be with him, to be with him, to have heart communion with God. And how does God respond? Will we read that God rescues and restores him? Verse seven, his prayer to God is heard. My prayer came to you. Verse two, God hears his voice and God answers him. Out of the belly of Sheol I cried and you heard my voice. Verse six, God brings him up from the pit of his life. Yet you brought me up my life from the pit, O Lord my God. Out of the grave he is saved. You see, as Jonah recognizes the hand of God, as Jonah remembers the presence of God, as Jonah returns to the presence of God, then God raises him up. What an astonishing thing it was. For this moment, man, gasping of his last breath, crying out to God in his distress for deliverance, that the Lord answers him and that the Lord saves him. The story is not of the fish engulfing Jonah. The story is of the rescue of Jonah by God's grace as he's drowning. The appointed fish is an astonishing event in itself. But the real story is the fact that God brought him to the point where he prayed, Lord, save me. And God heard him and God delivered him. It's no wonder he responds with thanksgiving. It's no wonder that he responds with a declaration of consecration. He says in verse 9, I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you. What I avowed, I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord. I would say to you tonight, if you're in spiritual sleep and the Lord arouses you, and you feel as if you want to hurl yourself over the side, remember that the Lord is there. And in repentance, return to him. Return to the Lord. Return to the Lord. But what I mean by returning to the Lord is I mean submit your heart to God. Cry out to God and say to him, I have done many things well, but I've forgotten to commune with you. I have believed in you, I have feared you, I have professed you, I have believed in your creative power, but I have failed to commune with you. I have walked out of your presence. Are you dwelling, brother or sister of Christ, are you dwelling in the presence of God? Have you been in the presence of God this past week? Have you spoken with God? Have you individually communed with God? Have you taken up his word for your own soul? Have you spoken with him in prayer for yourself? Or have you been gradually moving out of his presence? I don't condemn you. I'm not here to declare judgment upon you. I'm here to tell you that restoration and salvation is from the Lord. And you can return, you can return by the grace of God to him again. And you can cry out to him in your distress of your soul. For you don't need to be going down into the depths to be in distress of your soul. You can be quite at ease and yet be in distress of your soul. And you need to come and you need to thank God and consecrate yourself afresh. And by God's grace declare, salvation belongs to the Lord. This is the story of Jonah. This is the mercy and grace of Jonah. Jonah had to taste this before he could go back to Nineveh. He had to taste the grace of God before he would accept the task that God would give him again to go back to Nineveh. And you and I must taste afresh the grace of God daily in our lives if we are going to go into this world that is dying and communicate that grace to those around us. You see, we can't just tell them they're wrong. We have to look into their eyes and say, I know what it is to be wrong. And we have to stand with them. And we have to speak to them from a heart that is standing in the presence of God and say, I'm speaking out of love for you. And I'm calling you to come and stand with me in the presence of God. I'm not declaring and denouncing judgment upon you. I'm not condemning you. I'm calling you as one who is sinking into the miry clay, into the depths of the spawn, into the depths of the sea. I'm calling you because I have been there. And I'm calling you because I've stood in the presence of God today, and I know the grace of God to my own heart. I know the grace of God to my own soul. I know the love of God to my own being. And so I come to you, Son, who has tasted of that love and that grace and that mercy, and I'm pleading with you to come and stand with me and be in the presence of God through faith in Jesus Christ. See, we can't go out and declare it. unless we're fresh in it every day. Because it just sounds stale, and it sounds lifeless, and it lacks integrity. But when we stand in His presence, that grace comes with power, comes with life, and in Christ's voice, it comes with salvation. Amen. Let's pray.