Dear congregation, the book of Jonah is an intriguing little Old Testament prophecy. And as a prophecy, it speaks over the ages to us still today. Jonah didn't just prophesy in the past. God's word speaks to you and to me today. But what an intriguing story this is. A man, Jonah, an otherwise little-known prophet, ran from God's call, ended up in a storm, and then at the bottom of the sea. And after being given a second chance by the Lord, he does indeed go and preaches to Nineveh. But when a huge awakening breaks out, he's not happy, but angry. and complains as he watches the city endure God's gracious mercy, his matchless mercy. That's the theme of this book of Jonah, and we hope to see it over a few sermons over the next months, Lord willing. And it's this mercy that you and I need constantly. And we wish to look at this in the first chapter today, and we'll look at this whole chapter, but I will read at this time only verse six. These pointed words. So the shipmaster came to him and said unto him, what meanest thou, O sleeper? Arise, call upon thy God. If so, be that God will think upon us. that we perish not. Our theme with God's help this morning is the matchless mercy of God. We'll see first of all mercy that is wide, and that's especially verses 1 and 2. Secondly, mercy that is strong, verses 3 through 16. That'll be our largest point also. mercy that is strong verses 3 through 16 and thirdly and lastly mercy that is deep verse 17 the matchless mercy of God mercy that is wide mercy that is strong and mercy that is deep Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness is come before me. These opening verses tell us the commission that God gave to Jonah, the son of Amittai, And what we know about Jonah is really relatively little. His name means dove, of all things. Jonah did not have such a dove-like character, did he? In fact, he needed more of the love of the Holy Spirit, whom the Scriptures speak of as the dove, the great dove. But we do know this much, that Jonah was a true prophet of the Lord. He was not a false prophet. He was a true prophet of the Lord. As you can read in 2 Kings 14, verse 25, that verse tells us, in one verse, that's the only other reference we have to Jonah, 2 Kings 14, 25, that he prophesied in the northern kingdom, so among the 10 tribes in the north, during the reign of Jeroboam II, who reigned for 40 years, 793 to 753 BC. And this was a materially prosperous time for the northern kingdom. Jeroboam enlarged their territory as Jonah had prophesied. Because that's what it says there in 2nd Kings 14 verse 25. He restored, Jeroboam, the border of Israel from the entering of Manath unto the sea of the plain, according to the word of the Lord God of Israel, which he spake by the hand of his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai the prophet, which was from Gath-Hephur. So Jonah was a prophet to Israel in the north, and he prophesied about how the borders would be extended, how Israel would do well, at least materially. But we know from other prophets as well as from the Book of Kings, that this was a spiritually needy time in Israel, that this material prosperity, as can also happen in our time, is not for spiritual good. In fact, you can read from Amos, who prophesied around the same time, that the people used their wealth to oppress others, oppress the poor and needy, and idolize their prosperity. And we could say that Israel from the king on down did what was right in their own eyes. But all the while, Jonah was a true prophet. He may even have been trained in the school of the prophets, which was started by Elijah and then Elisha. Well, go to Nineveh was God's call. to Jonah. And Nineveh was about 500 miles from where Jonah would have lived. It was the greatest city In the world at this time, it was the capital city of Assyria, which had been garnering strength for many decades and centuries even. It was a large city in which even just the children, there were 120,000 children, as you can read in Jonah 4 verse 11. So there were many more inhabitants, hundreds of thousands probably of inhabitants in that city. Go to that city and preach. in that city. Now to Jonah this was the strangest thing probably that had happened to him. Nineveh, the Assyrians, they were a bloodthirsty nation intent on taking all the territories around them through conquest, bloodshed, and slavery. And Israel had gotten a brief reprieve because of some problems that Assyria had had within its kingdom. But Assyria was a huge threat, a huge enemy to Israel. Must I go there and preach to the enemy? That was God's call for Jonah. But Jonah disobeyed. He would none of it. And he turned around and went the opposite direction, as we will see. But here's a lesson for us. And it's this. Never think too narrowly about God's plan and God's purpose. and God's mercy. Jonah was loath to share his God with others. He wanted to be, he wanted God to be only Israel's God, and work for Israel's good Jonah, we would say today, had a superiority complex that we can have today, whereby we look down our noses at people around us, thinking that we are entitled to the Bible. We are entitled to God's favor. But others, especially enemies, and God's mercy to go to enemies, Now perhaps you're wondering at this point why I'm speaking about mercy, because it says there in verse 2, if you look, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before me. So what does that have to do with mercy? Well Jonah knew that it had to do with mercy. You can read that in chapter four when he sits there outside the city walls of Nineveh and he's angry and the Lord comes to him and speaks to him and he says, I knew that thou art a merciful God, full of compassion and easy to be entreated. That's why I didn't want to go to Nineveh in the first place. He didn't want to share the mercy of the Lord. Now here's something we need to learn, and that is that when God comes to us with what seems to be a dark message of repentance, of some preacher crying against us about our sin and about our iniquity, That is not something that is only aimed at our misery or destruction or that we would feel depressed about that. No, not at all. When God comes with the message of sin and repentance, he comes out of motives of mercy that lie deep within the heart of God. Jonah knew that. Let me prove that to you from other passages of scripture. On the night of his betrayal, the Lord Jesus Christ predicted and gave as a promise to his disciples that he would send the Holy Spirit into the world. And this Holy Spirit will reprove or convince the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. And you say, well, that sounds dark. but it's all for a purpose. He will guide into all truth. He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine and shall show it unto you. In other words, the Holy Spirit, when he comes, he's not gonna just say smooth things, nice things, happy things. He's gonna come into this lost world of ours, and he's going to speak honestly and truthfully about sin, about our sin, about the world's sin. and about righteousness, and about judgment to come. But he's doing that in order to draw sinners out of sin, to need the mercy of the Lord which is in Christ. That's what the Spirit does, and that's what the preaching does. That's what the preaching of the Apostles did, when the Apostles went out. When Paul, and Peter, and John, and the rest of them went out among the Gentiles, and also to the Jews, they would speak about sin and misery. Read Romans 1 through 3. The righteousness of God is revealed from heaven against all iniquity. of Gentiles, yes, all the sins that mark the Gentile world, but also all the sins that mark the religious world, the Jewish world, or whatever world there is that prides itself in being close to God. And that is that every mouth may be stopped, Romans says, verse 19. And all the world become guilty before God. And that's what God was after in Nineveh. That these people would hear about their sin. That they would hear there is a God with whom we have to do. That there is a day of reckoning coming. And that in time, in the day of grace, We would learn what we need to learn, and that is we need to run for mercy to the God of heaven who is full of mercy for sinners. Congregation, will you remember that? The message of repentance is God's mercy reaching into your lives, into your sin, and into your shame, and it comes out of a heart of mercy. whereby the Lord delights to show mercy to sinners, like you and like me. You know if it was just pure, unmitigated justice that the Lord wanted to show to Nineveh, He would have kept Jonah back home. He wouldn't have had any tidings go to them, just left them to themselves. No preacher, no gospel, no message of repentance, none of that at all. Just leave them in their sin. And then one day fire, brimstone, destroys all these people. But know when God sends the message of sin and of repentance, He has designs of mercy. Read sometime the canons of Dor which say it so well. Whenever there's a messenger sent from God, God, this is what it says, God mercifully sends the messengers of these most joyful tidings to whom he will and at what time he pleaseth, by whose ministry men are called to repentance and faith in Christ crucified. You see, congregation, there's nothing that so paves the way to run for mercy as a sense of our need before God. The more affected we are with our misery, Thomas Manton says, the fitter for Christ's mercy. And that's what these Ninevites needed. And the Lord is teaching Jonah here that there is a wideness to his mercy. that doesn't just limit itself to Israel, or even a remnant within Israel. No, Nineveh. You couldn't have worse back then, in a certain sense. At least on the surface, and how people would have thought. You couldn't have worse. And God says, go there. Go to Nineveh, Jonah, and preach the gospel there in Nineveh. My heart is so wide, so full of mercy, for sinners. And congregation, what a lesson this is for us also today. Now, in principle, in our doctrine, we know that none of us are deserving of God's mercy. And we would say that about ourselves and everyone sitting here. And we'd say that also about those around us. But a lot of times in our mind, how we think about people and how we live with respect to people around us shows our true thoughts about God's mercy. And we have views of mercy that are restrictive, so limited. Do we realize that if God called you to go to the streets of Mexico City, or among the peddlers in Bangkok, or how about the mafia bosses in Sicily, or the elite forces in Pyongyang, North Korea, what would your response be? Mercy to people like that? You see congregation how wide the mercy of the Lord is for sinners. That ought to be a huge encouragement to you as well who count yourself out, who don't think there is room in the heart of God for a sinner like you. Oh my friend, the first message of our passage is the mercy of God is so wide. so gloriously wide. And it's humbling because no one can look down his or her nose at anyone and think that somehow I am more deserving of mercy. The Bible says this, thinkest thou O man that judges them which do wicked things that thou shalt escape the judgment of God, or despises thou the riches of His goodness and forbearance and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee, leads you to repentance. And so it was such a dark sin. There's no other word for it. For Jonah the servant of the Lord who knew the character of his God, to refuse to go to Nineveh. How awful it is for Jonah, and for any of us to say or to think what Jonah says in chapter four, therefore I fled before unto Tarshish for I knew that thou art a gracious God and merciful. You see, congregation, Jonah had a narrow heart when God had a wide heart. Oh, may the wideness of God's mercy convict us, but also encourage us. There is a song that says there is a wideness in God's mercy like the wideness of the sea. And that mercy of God is not only wide, but it is also strong, as we see in our second point. It is strong. And that brings us to verse three. But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. Instead of going east, he goes west. as far west as he can go. God called him to go 500 miles to the east, and he goes 3,000 miles to the west, to what today is Spain. That's where he's headed. So it wasn't a problem of distance. It wasn't as if the Lord, as if Jonah said, you know, 500 miles, that's too much. No, he goes 3,000 miles the other way. So it wasn't distance at all. Now children, you might think, it says here that he rose up to flee from the presence of the Lord. And you say, can someone flee from the presence of the Lord? Can we hide from God? You know better, don't you? or do you? When you take something you aren't supposed to take. What do you do? You go hide in your room, don't you? You might even put blankets over you to hide because there's this innate, there's this sense deep in our hearts that because of our sin, we need to run. Isn't that what Adam and Eve did too? They hid behind bushes. They hid behind fig leaves. That's so in our conscience that sin separates us from our God. And so we try, even though we know we can't hide, we try to hide. We build layers around ourselves, walls around ourselves, armor whereby we think we can hide from God. Do you know that people try to hide from God even in church, even in pews like this? Someone said to me once that some of the people who are running from God the furthest, they hide in pews because they think, well, God won't see me here. I'm here in the mix, in the crowd of worshipers. And God will be so busy and so occupied with these people, I can kind of get lost in the number of people. We camouflage ourselves, don't we? We try to, at least. Jonah knew that he and God weren't right, and so he ran. It's very convicting to see how far and how deep Jonah can slide back from the Lord, because that's what he does. What we have here in this chapter is really a narrative of backsliding. It starts with disobedience to the call of God. You may have your reasons for it. You may excuse it in your own mind, but you disobey God's clear word. in the Bible. And because you can't go back to God, at least so you think in your mind, you go further, further, further. And it's always a deeper and deeper slide. Backsliding is something that all of us should know how that happens. There's a good book by Octavius Winslow called Personal Declension and Revival in the Soul. And he goes through all the steps that are commonly there in backsliding. And a lot of times we think that when we're backsliding, we're not backsliding until we fall into, you know, deep sin, to horrible sin. That puts us under church discipline, or something like that. No. Backsliding has started way, way, way before that. It happens in all of our hearts, people of God, very slowly, very subtly, very quickly, but very subtly. It starts when love for Christ cools, when faith grows dim, when the miracles of God's mercy and his care and his love become ordinary and common. And when the fire of our soul grows dim, not fervent, when we become weary in well-doing, fatigued, tired, the cost of following after the Lord. And it's after that, that world conformity becoming like the world around us, which is constantly wanting to shape us in its image. That's the result of that. That's not where it starts. That's where it goes. And we allow for sin, for little foxes that spoil the vine, as the Bible says. Little things we think. that creep around in our soul and in our lives. And we know that ideally they wouldn't be there, but we don't have what it takes to deal with them. And so on and on it goes. And finally, we fall asleep. And sleep is what Jonah does in our text. It's a deep sleep. It's a physical sleep in his case, but it symbolizes something that's happened in his soul. He has so put out the voice in his conscience that the only way for him to continue is to sleep. To sleep so deeply that even in the midst of a tempestuous storm that rough sailors are frightened by, Jonah is asleep. Jonah had gone down into the sides of the ship, and he lay and was fast asleep. But congregation, the Lord will not let his servant continue like this. First he sends the storm. his whole life, Jonah's whole life, even though he doesn't realize it at first, but is in commotion, is in upheaval, is in tumult. It doesn't say in our chapter that a storm arose, but the Lord sent a great wind into the sea. It's like this, Jonah has run from the Lord and the Lord calls the wind of the heavens and says, go after this backsliding child of mine. He needs to be stopped. And so the wind goes after him. The whole of creation is after this one man. The mercy of God is behind that and reaches through this storm. and seeks to convict Jonah of his sin and his back sliding. But that's not the only thing that shows the strength of the mercy of God, namely providence and this storm, this fierce storm. But secondly, the Lord has these sailors, these unconverted heathen sailors who wake Jonah up. They find Jonah in the midst of this storm, the ship master does, and he says here, he must have just grabbed him and made him stand on his feet, and he says, what meanest thou, O sleeper? In other words, how in the world can you sleep? We are about to die, and you are sleeping your last precious moments away It's something, isn't it? When the world has to shake the church awake. When the world, which most of the time has no use for the church, but down deep the world knows that if the church doesn't have the answers, then no one does. And in the midst of calamity, in the midst of storms, Many people will ask Christians in the church, what does this all mean? Hardened soldiers on the battlefield, when they stare death in the face, they'll ask people whom they despised days ago, you know, what does this mean? Who is God? Tell me. How do I prepare for the next thing? And here the world is coming after the church and shaking it away. And God is behind that. God, through these sailors, is taking hold of Jonah and saying, how in the world can you sleep? And not just with those words, but verse seven says they cast lots. Down deep in the heart of these sailors, they realize that something is going on here. Something needs to be dealt with here. They wouldn't have known about Achan, but there's an Achan in the camp. There is someone on this boat, and this is happening because of that person. And so they cast lots. And the lot fell upon Jonah. Book of Proverbs tells us that the Lord controls the lot. And certainly behind this lot God is pointing the finger right at Jonah. Jonah you are the man. This whole Mediterranean Sea is in chaos because of you. These men are about to die because of you. because of your disobedience, because of your defiance against Almighty God, because of your dislike for my mercy. Because that's really what it was in Jonah's case. And this is a lesson for us congregation. We might not realize this, but When we slide back from the Lord, believers, we are at war with not only God, but we are at war with God's mercy, which is beckoning us and calling us. And we need to learn to live from mercy and from mercy alone. But believers struggle with this, don't we? To come and acknowledge our sin, and to need mercy from the Lord again, and again, and again, is one of the hardest things in all of life. Even after we've experienced mercy in a first instance, sometimes it even becomes harder then, because then you say, you know, the Lord has showed me mercy once, but, you know, Look at me now, even after received mercy. I've strayed so far. How can the Lord have mercy on me again? And so we try other things besides the matchless mercy of the Lord. Have you ever looked at your back sliding that way, dear believer? that really you've been at war with God's mercy. God is there like the father of the prodigal with his arms stretched out wide, but the last thing you can do is go back. You'll try everything else before that. You'll even sell yourself into the bondage of pig owners, as in the case of the prodigal. because you don't want to lose the battle to mercy, to that merciful heart of God, which is so full of compassion to anyone who turns to him. And God calls in his word, come to me, my backsliding people, and I will receive you. Come again, come afresh. I will heal your backsliding from out of my merciful heart. I say it again congregation, the hardest thing in all of life is learning to bow under and to live out of mercy. And you can cover that up many different ways. You may have views of God. You may tell yourself that well God, God, God is a God. That if I'm not elect then there is no mercy for me. And you're throwing up all these things to somehow excuse the fact that God calls to men everywhere. to repent. And he calls sleepers to awake, awake you who sleep. That's the strength of mercy to call and to make us wake up through the Word of God, through providence, or people around us who come to us and convict us. And in Jonah's case, He didn't turn back to the Lord because of the storm. He didn't turn back to the Lord because of these frightened sailors. And he didn't turn back to the Lord even when God's mercy reached these sailors, when the Lord's converting mercy came there in evidence among these hardened sailors. You wonder why Jonah 1 spends so much time on these sailors. First they're all calling upon their God. They're throwing their goods overboard. They're trying human strategies to appease their conscience, to get some help, some human schemes to get out of the trouble that they're in. But when they realize that God, the God of heaven and earth, the sea and the dry land is behind this, And that he is a God who can't be trifled with. That even his servant, even a prophet of the Lord can't escape this God. The fear of God comes into their hearts. They're frightened. not just in a common way, not just in a general way, but the fear, it says in our text, the fear of God. Then feared they exceedingly, and they prayed not just to their gods, but they prayed to Jonah's God. They prayed to the Lord, the covenant God. So here's the picture. Jonah doesn't do a thing for their salvation. He He's not concerned about their eternal welfare at all. He's not concerned about himself. He's not concerned about them. He gives them some answers to their questions. But the Lord, by His Spirit, He takes even these glimmers of truth, and He so works them in their soul that these pagan sailors are converted, and they show true fruits of conversion in their life. They feared the Lord exceedingly. They worshipped the Lord, and they paid their vows. And in this all the Lord is, as it were, saying to Jonah, Jonah, you sinned against my mercy. You disobeyed my call that the mercy of God would go to Ninevites. I'm gonna save heathens right here, despite you, without you, and because of your sin. You know it's something when someone near to you gets saved and it doesn't touch you. It happens. People who spent all their life in the service of sin. God comes in miraculous ways. He intervenes and they're saved. They're truly saved and you scarcely take notice. Did you know that when God saves people, that is a calling to you, to turn to Him, to experience the same mercy that they have experienced. You can understand this, if a rain cloud comes by over your neighbor's field, and pours water upon their field, and you stay dry, your ground stays dry, What do you do? You say, Lord make that also come here. I need rain, I need Thy blessing, I need Thy mercy. And so when your father is converted, or your child is converted, or your brother, or a friend, or someone near to you is converted, that is a call to you to seek that same mercy from the Lord. My friends, the mercy of God is wide, but it is so very, very strong. God is after His own glory, and He magnifies His glory through His mercy. How many calls have there been to you straight from the throne room of God in Providence? through people asking you questions, through people being saved around you, and all the designs of God's mercy in your life. And you're still sleeping? You're still disobeying? You're still hardening yourself? Well, my friend, don't you hear the word of God? Sleeper. What do you mean? How in the world can you sleep, the sleep of death, when the mercy of God is wide and strong like this? And it is also, as we see finally, so very deep. When He said unto them, take me up, cast me forth into the sea, so shall the sea be calm unto you. For I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you.' Jonah has some self-knowledge here. He knows that God's finger is pointed at him. He knows that it is his fault, his sin, that has brought him and everyone else into this position. And there is a kind of self-knowledge congregation that sadly is not saving. Where you know you have sinned. You know you're on the wrong way. You know you've disobeyed. And yet in all this Jonah does not turn to God. He speaks to the sailors and he tells them what to do. But he never utters a word to God. And that while these sailors had said to him, call on your God, pray to your God, if so be that you might have mercy. You see congregation, even self-knowledge, a measure of it. that doesn't make us cry to God and beg for mercy, which God is so willing to give. None of that avails, none of it saves. In fact, when you look at Jonah here saying, throw me overboard, just cast me into the sea, you see a man whose heart is so hard that he would rather die than pray. He would rather go down to the depths of the ocean than to call one syllable heavenward. Lord have mercy upon me the sinner. That's how our heart is by nature, so bent on our own destruction. We would rather die by nature than to give up the fight against God and against His mercy. That's what the Word of God says. He says to Israel, which is destroying itself, why will you die? Why do you want death? Why do you choose death? We can dress that up a thousand ways and look so very religious. But the basic, basic reason, you, my unconverted friend here today, have never, ever lost the battle against mercy as you want to maintain yourself at all costs, even death itself. There's no other reason. And God is saying to you today, Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you life. Call upon your God, who is so full of mercy, a mercy so wide, so strong, and so deep, because congregation, this mercy of God is so matchless. that even bent on his own destruction, the Lord won't let Jonah die. Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. In other words, God saves Jonah from his own self-chosen death. And those jaws of that big fish, children, that open up and encircle Jonah, they're the jaws of mercy that won't let this Jonah go lost. And though Jonah will go into the depths, it is there from which he will cry to God, as we will see in the next chapter. But it is the Lord's mercy that reaches so deep. And notice how it says there that the Lord had prepared a fish, a great fish. The Lord knew it already. Nothing is hid from the Lord. And he had already ordered it long ago. And He had prepared this great fish for a self-destroying sinner like Jonah. And has not the Lord prepared something far greater for sinners? As the Lord Jesus Christ said in the fullness of time when He was here in the earth, He said, just like Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale. So the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the earth, in the grave, in the state of death for sinners. And the Lord prepared that long ago. Just like He prepared this salvation, this strange, peculiar, mysterious salvation for Jonah, He has prepared a salvation for sinners like you, and like me, from the never begun eternity. Because He knows how bent you are on your own destruction. And He has not withheld His Son, His only Son. He did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up. the fullness of time, three days, three nights, he took the place of Jonah, that disobedient, backslidden, awful servant of the Lord by himself. He takes the place of sinners, in order that the message of God's wide and strong and deep mercy can reach your ears today. Give up your fight against mercy. Do it now, before it's too late. Now is the day of salvation. Now is the accepted time. Sleeper, what meanest thou? Call upon He will save, for Christ's sake. Amen.