Immanuel Sermon Audio
Jonah (32:66)
If you listen to her story and compare it to what you read in the book of Jonah, she's off a little bit. In fact, on several things, she puts a few extra things in, she leaves a few things out, she misses a few of the details. She gets the big idea. I think what she has actually done is she's watched the Veggie Tales Jonah about a thousand times and has it memorized. And I bet, I haven't seen it, but I bet if you turned on Veggie Tales Jonah, it would be exactly like that. So tonight, we're going to talk about Jonah, okay? Our Wednesday night series is called 66. 66 books in the Bible, we're looking at one book each week. And tonight, Jonah, I think is number 32, is that correct? Is that what it says on your sheet? So we're almost halfway through. We started this last year, we will finish it this year. There's a couple of nights this year that we're going to combine some shorter books, but we're going to get through the entire Bible this year, all 66 books. So there you go, Jonah, where it falls in the minor prophets. You know, if you were here last year that in the Hebrew scriptures, the minor prophets are one book and it's called the 12 and it just sort of goes from one minor prophet to the next and it's all just sort of crammed into one book. Our translations split them up into 12 minor prophets. And if you were here last year, you remembered that they are minor, not because they're less important than the major prophets, but because their books are just shorter. So the major prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Imitations, Ezekiel, Daniel, and then the minor prophets tend to be shorter than the five major prophets. One of the things we've talked about when we've looked at the minor prophets, they can get confusing because it's not just in perfect chronological order. And so sometimes when you read, you're going back and forth in the storyline and you sort of lose your place. So here are some breakdowns. Hosea, Amos, Micah, Jonah, those four guys all preaching about the same time as prophets preaching before the fall of Samaria, Samaria is the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel and so they're around the 8th century B.C. Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, after the fall of Samaria, but before the fall of Jerusalem in about the 6th century B.C. And then the other guys, Joel and Obadiah, after the fall of Jerusalem, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, after the exile. So we'll get to some of those other guys in future weeks. Here's a timeline. I think I put the timeline up there. So you can just see where they fall. And Jonah, you see, is over there in the black on the far left, right before Israel is sent into exile by Assyria. And for our purposes tonight, you understand that Nineveh is the capital city of Assyria. And so Nineveh plays into this timeline in a very, very important way. So that's where Jonah falls. Without a doubt, Jonah is the best known of all 12 minor prophets. I bet if you sat down most pastors, and I would even include myself in this, and you just said to them, give me off the top of your head a summary of each of the minor prophets to all 12 of them right in a row. Jose and Joel, Amos, Obadiah, I could take them off to you. And I could probably get close on them. But a lot of these guys, they just sort of run together, and we don't know them really well, and we're confused about the dates and the timeline. But we know Jonah, and we know Jonah because it's a story. When you read all the other minor prophets, it's sort of like a preacher preaching, which can be very boring sometimes. When you read Jonah, it's a story, and it's an entertaining story at that, and so it's definitely a well-known book. Here's where Jonah fits in the history of Israel as a whole. We've done this all the way through the Old Testament. If you were here last year, you remember this. The history of Israel. First, there's the conquest. Joshua leads them into the Promised Land, then the period of the Judges, then the monarchy. And the monarchy would include first Saul, then David, then Solomon. And then there's the division of the kingdom. Rebaum and Jeroboam split the kingdom in half. And the northern kingdom is Israel. The southern kingdom is Judah. Then there's a period of rebellion where both of those kingdoms Israel and Judah end differing stages, but they both just completely turn away from the Lord. They rebel against the Lord. So just like he said he would, God sends them into exile. And then just like he said he would, he brings them back from exile, and so Jonah falls into this period of the rebellion. We're going to look at Jonah. So I hope you have your spot in Jonah. Before we do that, I want you to flip back to the left to Second Kings, going back to the history books. And there's a little detail you need to know about Jonah before you read his book. Second Kings 12, and this is on your outline, I believe. Second Kings 1245 tells us that the prophet Jonah was a zealous patriot. Now, I'll be honest with you, we're going to read this verse and you're going to look at it and you're going to say, how do you get that from this verse? But when you take this verse and then you read the story and you think about the story of Jonah in the book that we're going to look at, I think it's undeniable that he was a zealous patriot. He loved his country. He was proud of his country. And so look what we read in Second Kings 12 in 14. I don't know where that reference came from. That's not even remotely close. Second Kings 1245. Look at Second Kings 14. And look at verse, we'll just start in verse 23. I apologize for the misreference, that's not even close. Second Kings 14, verse 23. In the 15th year of Amaziah's son of Josiah, King of Judah, Jeroboam, this is not Jeroboam the first, but this is Jeroboam the second. In Jeroboam the second, the son of Joash, King of Israel, Northern Kingdom, began to reign in Samaria. And he reigned 41 years. And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. He did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nabat, that's Jeroboam the first, which he made Israel to sin. So he's a bad king. Verse 25, he restored, this is where I want you to see, he restored the border of Israel from Lebo Hamath, as far as the sea of Araba, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he spoke, here it comes, by his servant Jonah, the son of Amatai, the prophet, who was from Gath Heifer. Now, I know that you guys know where Gath Heifer is and who Amatai was and where the border of Lehomath to the sea of Jeroboam, I know you know all that, but I'm just going to review it in case you don't know it, okay? Here's what's happening in this passage. There's a wicked king, Jeroboam the second. And because of his wickedness and some of the evil deeds of the previous kings, God had allowed all the nations around the Northern Kingdom of Israel to sort of chip away at the border. And there would be little battles and skirmishes and they would take some of the promised lands, some of Israel. And Israel just kept shrinking, and shrinking, and shrinking. And the area of land that they controlled got smaller and smaller and smaller. And then here's this wicked king, Jeroboam the second. Says he's wicked right here. And it also says that God sends Jonah to tell the king, this is the word of the Lord, spoken by his servant Jonah, the prophet. Jonah says to him, you need to go out and fight and God is going to bless you and you're going to restore the borders. We're going to get the land back. It's not because the king was a good king, it's just because God wanted to do it. And he used Jonah to be the messenger who went to this wicked king and he says to Jeroboam the second, look, you need to go fight, you're an idiot, you're a wicked person. But God's going to do something great anyways. You're going to win these battles and we're going to extend the border back out to the sea. We're going to take back this land that God originally gave to Israel. Jonah liked that job because he liked his country. It'd be like if Canada starts fighting in Montana and they just start taking a little bit more and a little bit more, a little bit more. And then you get to be the one, proud patriotic American. You get to be the one who goes to Washington DC and says, hey, I think it's time to fight those Canadians and we're going to take back that land. It's time to take what is rightfully ours. And you go up there and you take the land back and you restore the border and you say, that's great. I got to be the one that God used to bring this blessing to my country. Here's something that's interesting. You can look at Hosea and Amos. Remember, I showed you earlier where these minor prophets fall. Hosea and Amos live at the same time Jonah lives. They're also prophets. They're also sent to Israel. But their message to the king has nothing to do with fighting and taking back the border. Hosea and Amos are sent to King Jeroboam II to say, you need to repent right now. God is not amused with your rebellion. Repent, repent, repent. You're wicked, you're wicked, you're wicked. That was their message. Jonah didn't have to go say that to the king. That's not a popular message. To go tell a king that he's wicked and he needs to repent. Kings don't like to hear that kind of thing. Jonah didn't have to do that. Hosea and Amos did. Jonah got to go and say, hey, let's go fight. Let's go win some battles. Let's go take back what's rightfully ours. God's going to do it. This is going to be a great thing. He loved his country. Now, go back to Jonah and look what we read in Jonah, chapter 1, verse 1 and verse 2. We already know the word of the Lord came to him and he went to Jeroboam II. Says, now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amatized, saying, arise and go to Nineveh, the capital city of the world superpower that is wanting to destroy you. Go to Nineveh, that great city, and pay very careful attention to this verse. Go to Nineveh, the great city, and call out against it for their evil has come before me. God says, you go to Nineveh, call out against Nineveh because their wickedness is great and it has come before me. Jonah really doesn't like this. This would be more like God coming to you and instead of saying you go fight the Canadians and take back Montana, God comes to you and he says, I want you to go to Afghanistan or I want you to go to Syria to your enemies and I want you to preach to ISIS. I want you to go to Syria. Ironically, this is the exact same part of the world that Jonah is sent to. I want you to go to Syria and I want you to say to them that they are wicked people and they were wicked people. They were very, very similar. We'll talk about this in some of the other minor prophets. Very similar to the things you see ISIS doing today, Assyria was doing back then. Go to them and call out against their wickedness. Jonah hears that from God and look what we read in verse three. Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Japa and he found a ship going to Tarshish so he paid the fare and went on board to go down with them to Tarshish away from the presence of the Lord. OK, look at this map. He lives in Gath Heffer over there on the right. God says, go to Nineveh, a pretty decent journey when you don't have a car or a train or an airplane, but manageable. And instead, he goes straight south to Japa, who knows what his original plan was, but he goes do south to Japa and then he decides to catch a boat and he heads all the way to the opposite end of the known world, clearly running away from God. And the text says, trying to get away from the presence of God. So here's my first question in the book of Jonah. Why did Jonah run away from Nineveh? Or you could say from God, maybe a couple of reasons. Maybe he was afraid of failure or death. So cute little girl telling you the story of Jonah and her version says Jonah said, oh, they're going to laugh at me. I don't want to go because they're going to laugh at me. Maybe that was his concern. Or maybe he wasn't so concerned that they would laugh at him and he would be a failure, but that they would kill him and he would be dead. Because this is very similar to if I said to you, I want you to go preach to ISIS. You would say, well, can I take some Marines with me? No, you can't take any Marines with you. I just want you to go. Jonah says, this is not a good deal. So maybe he's afraid that he's going to die. Another possibility. Maybe Jonah was just a patriot or taking it a little bit further. Maybe he was racist. We don't know for certain. So maybe he was patriot. He just said, you know what? I really liked my job when I was telling the king to go back and take the land from these other nations. I like that job. That's good for my country. I like being a part of that. But I don't know if I want to be part of preaching to another nation that hates us and wants to destroy us. Or maybe mixed in with that, he sort of had this idea that Jews were somehow morally superior to the Ninevites. That they were just better people morally and ethically. And so maybe there was a little tinge of racism. Or very closely related to that, maybe he was prideful and arrogant, assuming that somehow he had earned God's favor whereas the Ninevites had earned God's anger. You can take your pick of the three or the six or any combination thereof. The reality is we have no idea. But it's probably people are never simple. People are always complex. So it's probably a mixture of things going on in Jonah's head. And he runs away. He gets on the boat. Then comes the storm. They toss him over. Everything's calm. This big fish or whale. The Hebrew language does not have a word for whale. It's just this big animal that lives in the sea, comes along. Whatever you want to call it, swallows him. And look at Jonah chapter two, verse one to ten. He's in the fish. Jonah prayed to the Lord, his God, from the belly of the fish sang. Called out to the Lord in my distress and he answered me. Out of the belly of she, all 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 waves and your billows passed over me. Then I said I'm driven from your sight. Yet I shall look again upon your holy temple. The waters closed in over me to take my life. The deep surrounding 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. 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 in your holy temple. Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love. And I think maybe when Jonah says vain idols, maybe just maybe, and I'm reading between the lines, but maybe he realizes that his patriotism is a little bit idolatrous. Because you understand Jonah is a self-respecting Jew, would not worship an idol. So maybe as he's dying and then he's in the fish, he realizes, man, I've got a problem. I have this idol in my life of something that's so important. Maybe it's his own comfort, maybe it's his own safety, whatever. 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. When you read those verses, I would love to say to you that he's in the belly of the fish and the light bulb goes off and he now sees everything clearly. But it's not really like the light bulb goes off. It's more like a flicker, like from a horror movie, you know, the hallway and it's dim and the light's on and then it's off and then it's on and then it's off again. And Jonah's in the fish and he's seeing some things very clearly. I was about to die and you saved me. Salvation belongs to the Lord. And it's a bad idea to worship idols. But when you read the last chapter, you realize that light bulb is not shining all the way bright. There's still some confusion in Jonah's life and some things that he's not certain of. So says the Lord spoke to the fish. It vomited Jonah up on the dry land. Jonah 3, the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time saying a rise, go to Nineveh, that great city. And what does he want him to do? Pay attention. Call out against it the message that I tell you. You go say, only what I tell you to say. So he arose and he went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. It was an exceedingly great city, three days journey and breath. He began to go into the city of day's journey. He called out yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. Notice in verse four that the quotations begin with the word yet and they end with the word overthrown. That's all he said. 40 days, you guys are dead. Right, the little girl in her story and in our little Sunday school classes with our kids, we add to it and we say, Jonah went and Jonah told them to repent. Jonah told them they should stop doing this and they said, no, he didn't. Jonah walked into the city and he said, okay, God, you want me to go to Nineveh? I'll go to Nineveh. 40 days and you're all dead. God's going to blow you up. Adam, bomb. You're all dead. It's going to be fantastic. 40 days, clock is ticking, 39, 38, 37, every day counting it off. God's going to blow you up. God's going to destroy you, okay? Now let me show you some pictures because let's zoom in on where Nineveh is. You see Iraq in the white, you see Syria on the left, you see Iran on the right and you see up in the red circle the city of Mosul. That is roughly Nineveh, okay? Nineveh is right up there close to this area. In fact, in Mosul there is a Muslim mosque and I think I have a picture of it. It is called, if you can see up at the top, your eyes are really good. It's called Nebbyunus which in Arabic means the tomb of Jonah. So Muslims believe that Jonah was a prophet, okay? They believe a lot of bits and pieces from our scriptures and they believe that in this place kind of interesting, right? In Nineveh, Muslims believe that there was apparently a guy named Jonah and he's buried there and they have a mosque there which we obviously wouldn't approve of but there used to be a church there before there was a mosque there and so there's this place called Nebbyunus. Wouldn't it be cool to go see that? Bad news, ISIS blew it up last summer. They go around, they don't like Muslim or Christian or Jewish shrines of any kind so they go and they blow them up and this is one of the places they blew up. So you can only see it in pictures, it's not there anymore. So Nineveh's the capital, it was a great city, we know from excavations around this area that it is approximately 1,850 acres or right at three square miles. So I got on Wikipedia, the most trusted resource for research and information on the web and I looked up University of Texas of the Permian Basin and the campus at UTPB is 644 acres so if you take that campus times three, that's the size of ancient Nineveh, okay? You may not seem like a huge city but they lived just very much on top of each other crammed in there, packed in there, okay? So a pretty big city, about three times the size of UTPB down the street, about three square miles, and King Sennacherib, they've excavated his palace, these are just some of the ruins that you can go see of Nineveh, just some gates and I think there's one more picture of a gate, neat stuff you can go look at, there's a drawing, okay? You have no idea if that's what Nineveh looked like but let me tell you some things that we know they had as you look at that picture, okay? In Nineveh they had gardens, they had dams, they had parks, they had aqueducts, they had roads, there was a double wall around the edge of the city and they could actually race chariots around the top of this wall, it was like their NASCAR going around the city, they could race around the edge, they had a library and so this is a pretty impressive city, in King Sennacherib, one of the kings of Assyria, you can read about him in the Bible, he had a palace there and in his palace, this blows my mind, I've read it several places so I'm pretty sure it's true, he had 12 square miles of carved stone and that's some of it that we've recovered, you can go see in a museum, but he had 12 square miles of carved stone, so you take those pieces and you fit them all together and you lay them all down on the ground and it's 12 square miles that he had these guys carve out and that's basically their history books, these stones tell the stories of battles and kings and history and wars and wealth and all this kind of stuff, so impressive things, here's another interesting thing we know about Assyria, in Nineveh, in Assyria they worshiped a god called Dagen and they believed he was a fish god, half fish, half man and he lived in the sea and they believed, I know you think I'm making this up, I'm not making this up, they believed that from time to time the fish god in the sea would send messengers from the sea to speak to them, to tell them you need to do this, you need to do that, to give them wisdom about different things and they worshiped, we find these inscriptions and pictures and all this stuff, they worshiped this god named Dagen, here's something really really cool, you ready for this? In later dates they quit calling him Dagen and they called him Oanes, which in Arabic means Jonah, maybe it's a coincidence, or maybe Jonah was real and there really was a guy who came out of the sea and told them that they were in big, big trouble and that God was about to blow them up and somewhere in their sort of collective memory as a society this shift happened from Dagen to Oanes and they remember this messenger from the sea. So look at Jonah 3, 4, read this again, Jonah began to go into the city going a day's journey and he called out, "Yet forty days in Nineveh shall be overthrown." God's going to blow it up, God's going to destroy you. Look at verse five, "The people of Nineveh believed God, they called for a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least of them." Understand that when it says they believed God, that is not the same as John 3, 16, God's all of the world he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him has eternal life, that is not saying they believed God in a salvific sense. What it means is, Jonah says, "God told me he's going to blow this place up in forty days and they believed him in forty days, we're going to get blown up." And that's all Jonah told them, but together they put their heads together and they come up with this plan, a fast and sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least. Just keep reading a few more verses, the word reached the king of Nineveh, he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, satin ashes, he issued a proclamation published through Nineveh, "By decree of the king and his nobles, let neither man nor beast nor herd nor flock taste anything, let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth and let them call out mightily to God, let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands." Who knows? Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we may not perish. You remember, Jonah didn't tell him that there was this out of repentance. He just said, "40 days and God's going to blow you up," and they put their heads together and say, "Hey, it's worth a shot, right? If it doesn't work, we're dead. If it does work, then we're not dead." So let's at least give it a shot. And so this is not a revival, but this is big time repentance, okay? Now look at Jonah 4, verse 5. Jonah went out of the city and he sat to the east of the city and he made a booth for himself there. And he sat under it in the shade until he should see what would become of the city, okay? Jonah's mad because God's not going to blow the city up. And he goes out and he sits down and he decides, "I'm going to wait and see what happens." And look at the first couple of verses in verse 4, just so we don't miss them, okay? God relents, 40 days come and nothing happens. He displeased Jonah exceedingly and he was angry and he prayed to the Lord and he said, "Lord, is this not what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to tarshish, for I knew that you were a gracious God and merciful and slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster. I knew that. Therefore now, Lord, look what he says, "Please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live." And the Lord said, "Do you do well to be angry?" So here's a question, why was Jonah angry? He says, "It's because I knew you were going to do this, but digging a little deeper. Why was he angry?" One possibility is that he was worried about his reputation. God did not do what Jonah said he would do and he's worried about what people will think about him. So from the very beginning, God has been saying, "Call out against the city. Call out against the city. Say only what I tell you to say. You take my message." And he goes and the message is, "God's going to blow you up. God's going to blow you up. God's going to blow you up." And all along in his mind, he knows the Lord and he says he's slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love. He forgives people when they repent. If they repent, he's not going to do it. And I just said he's going to do it and I'm going to look stupid. Maybe that's why he feels like he looks like an idiot or another possibility. He's angry that God did not destroy the Ninevites and they continue to threaten the security of Israel. So maybe he says, "I just don't want any part of those people being let off the hook. They're wicked. They're immoral. They're depraved. Think ISIS today. They're the worst of the worst on planet earth. I don't want them to be forgiven. They want to kill us and I want them dead. I want the threat removed because I love my country." So he's angry. When he goes out, verse 5, he already knows God relented and he sits down and he makes a little tent and he's in the shade and he's waiting to see what will become of the city. Meaning, he's hoping against hope that God will explode a bomb in this city, that God will slaughter all of the people that live in Nineveh. He's hoping and he's praying and he's wishing that it would happen. And then, if that's not weird enough, you can read the rest of it. It just gets bizarre because he's sitting there. And if it's not weird enough that a fish would swallow a guy and spit him out three days later, he's sitting there and this vine just pops up, grows real quick and covers him up and Jonah says, "Ah, that's nice. It's hot out here." And then a little while later, the vine dies and Jonah says, "I hate life. I hate everything. I hate. I'm angry. I'm mad. I don't like anybody. I want everybody to die. I'm angry at the end. I'm angry at God. I don't like anything." And you look at that and you say, "How does a prophet of God, somebody whose job it is, to speak for God, how does he end up sitting and whining and complaining about a vine that God caused to grow and then it didn't grow? It makes no sense." And I remember reading this for a long time as a young person, as a teenager, thinking, "That's a really weird end to the book." That's how the story ends with Jonah just sitting there pouting and there's no resolution. God didn't blow the city up and you don't know how long Jonah sat there, but he's just sitting there pouting about a plant and it's just a really weird end to the story. Here's what I think is going on. I think Jonah, at this point in the story, has totally, yes, the light bulb is flickering but it's not on and he's just giving himself over to anger and bitterness and hatred and maybe pride and maybe racism and this combination of all sorts of things. And I can promise you, think about people you know in your life that give themselves over to sin unrepentantly. They think stupid things and they say stupid things and they do stupid things and you look at their life sometimes and you think, "Why would you think that? Why would you say something like that? Why would you do that? That's how life works." If you give yourself over to sin unrepentantly and you just harden your heart towards God and you refuse to listen to him, you're going to end up saying and thinking and doing really stupid things and you'll be as big of a fool as Jonah is, sitting on a hill whining and complaining and griping about a plant that grew over his head and then withered up and died. So that's how it ends. It's a nice ending to a strange story. Here's the lessons. Three of them. Number one, God is patient. He is patient, patient, patient. He's certainly patient with Jonah, right? Would have been nothing for God to say Jonah, these dudes are going to throw you in the sea and you're going to drown and I'm going to send Hosea. I'm going to send Amos. They were just right there. They were already doing God's bidding and talking to the king. God could have easily sent one of these guys but he's patient with Jonah and certainly he's patient with the Ninevites. Like I said, we're going to talk about some of the sins of the Ninevites in coming weeks and I'll show you some pictures, some ancient carvings that you'll say, "Oh, Isis is really not very creative. They're just doing what has been done for thousands of years by this very same people." And they're wicked, wicked, wicked people but God was patient with them. Number two, our love for others ought to be like God's love for us. And clearly in this story, Jonah didn't get that like he should have. He did not understand that God has been gracious to me. He has saved me from myself. He's patient with me and I should extend those same things to other people in my life. And you know he didn't because all throughout the story he's running away from God, he's complaining about God, he's mad at life in general, he's angry, hateful towards the people of Nineveh, he's just a grouch from beginning to end in the book of Jonah. And it makes you wonder, look at number two, our love for others ought to be like God's love for us. Makes you wonder, did Jonah ever get it? Did the light bulb ever quit flickering and just come on full blast? If all you read is the story and you just stop right there, you've got to say at the end of this story he didn't get it, he didn't understand. But then you take it one step further and you say, but wait a minute, how did this story get here? Who is the one person who would have known all of these things? Jonah, he wrote it. And when he wrote this story, it's really clear that he is not the hero. Sometimes we try to make Jonah into some kind of missionary hero. Jonah is a total loser from beginning to end in this book. So think about that. Jonah sits down at some point in his life and he says, "Okay, I'm going to write an autobiography and I'm going to make myself look like the biggest jerk on planet Earth." The only person who does that is the person who realizes that they're a total jerk. And when you leave in Jonah 4 verse 11, he doesn't get it. He's still blind to his own foolishness. But at some point, the light bulb went off and Jonah says, "Ah, God has loved me and I need to love other people in the exact same way." And he writes this story. And in a very interesting literary way, he makes his point and he makes his point by making himself the villain in the story. Okay. Lastly, number three, the book of Jonah points us to Jesus. Probably the most important thing about Jonah. Jonah, we know from chapter 4, was worried about maybe whether or not people would listen to him or whether they would kill him. Jesus knew without any doubt in his mind that people would not listen to him and that they would kill him. Different from Jonah. Jonah gets thrown into this great storm at sea and it's this picture of God's wrath and anger towards him. Jesus we see in a much greater way gets thrown into this storm of God's wrath at the cross. Much more serious. Jonah spins, Jesus brings this point out, three days in the belly of the whale, Jesus spins three days in the belly of the earth. And Jonah prays, here's the best part of Jonah is Jonah 2-9. The last thing he says in the belly of the fish, salvation belongs to the Lord and it's capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, salvation belongs to Yahweh. And Jesus means what? Salvation is from Yahweh, salvation is from the Lord. So the most important thing you see from Jonah is that it is a pointer towards Christ. And Jesus saw that. And Jesus told people before he died and before he rose from the dead, just as Jonah was in the belly of the fish, three days and three nights so the son of man will be and he's making this point that Jonah is pointing you towards me. So there you go. That's Jonah in all his glory and all his foolishness and hopefully we can learn from him. So let's pray. Father, we're grateful for the book of Jonah. We're grateful that at some point in his life he got it and he wrote down these words and he wrote down this story being honest and confessing his own stubbornness and his own heart-heartedness and his own callousness and his own pride and he makes himself the villain. And Father, we pray that we would see you, not Jonah, as the hero of this story. We would see your patience on display. We would see your love for your creation on display, that we would understand that salvation is from you, that it was you and you alone that could save Jonah from death. It was you and you alone that had the right to spare the Ninevites and it's you and you alone that can forgive us through your son Jesus Christ. Thank you that Jesus looked at this story and saw it pointing to himself and thank you that we can look backwards and put the pieces together a little bit more clearly than some of our Old Testament brothers and sisters. We're grateful for your word, continue, we pray, continue to guide us as we study these books of the Bible, the stories and the prophets that maybe we're not very familiar with. Give us a heart for your word and a desire to understand it and apply it to our lives. We love you and we pray all of these things in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. There's Jonah, next week we plug along and we'll just take one book a week. Here's what we're going to do for just a short time of prayer tonight.