A Picture Of Baptism Series

As we begin looking toward our mission conference next month, I want to share some thoughts with you from the book of Jonah – a prophet who ran from God to avoid carrying a divine warning to the people of Nineveh.

Jonah undoubtedly feared the bloodthirsty Ninevites, but in Jonah 4:2 he plainly tells God that he didn’t want to go because he didn’t want them to repent and find mercy – he wanted God to zap them and eliminate Israel’s enemies.

So he boarded a ship and fled in the opposite direction. But he didn’t get far before God sent a storm to intercept him. Jonah told the mariners they’d have to throw him overboard to stop the storm.

We left off last week with Jonah descending into the deep until a fish takes him on the world’s first submarine voyage!

As hard as it may be for some people to believe that this story literally happened, Christ Himself said that it did. In Matthew 12:40, He said, as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Some people say that the story should not be taken literally – that it was a parable or a symbol. But those same people tend to think that Christ’s resurrection wasn’t literal either.

Hey, you either believe in a God Who can work miracles, or you don’t. If you do, then congratulations – you have a God Who can raise you from the grave someday as well. But if you don’t, well then, sorry Charlie – life’s a bummer, then you die!

Some people say that this “fish story” falls apart because Jonah 1:17 calls it a great fish, but Matthew 12:40 calls it a whale. And according to modern taxonomy, whales aren’t fish, they’re mammals. So there – that discredits the whole tale right off the bat!

But then, of course, neither Jonah nor Jesus were speaking “modern taxonomy”. They were speaking Hebrew and Greek. The Hebrew word used by Jonah is found 18 times in the Old Testament, and every time it is translated fish. The Greek word used by Jesus in Matthew is more generic. It could mean “great fish” or any kind of a sea monster, including whales, sharks, seals, sea serpents or sea dragons. Any distinctions between whales and fish that taxonomists might make thousands of years in the future were irrelevant and beside the point of what Jonah and Jesus were describing – a “big animal that lived in the water” swallowed Jonah and got a bad case of indigestion for it!

You know, people who quibble over things like that are just fishing for an excuse to justify their unbelief. The point they’re really missing is that just as God miraculously delivered Jonah from the whale after three days and nights, so He delivered Jesus from the grave, and so He will miraculously raise all who follow Jesus someday.

So why wasn’t Jonah digested in the creature’s belly? Well, one might say because Jesus wasn’t decayed in the grave. Lamentations 3:22 says, it is of the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed. And that’s the same reason that any of us will not be lost in the grave. Have you cast yourself upon the mercy of God to deliver you yet?

Well, now we come to chapter 2, and the whole chapter is a prayer uttered by Jonah during his three day “fantastic voyage”.

1 Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish's belly,

2 And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice.

3 For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me.

4 Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again toward thy holy temple.

5 The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head.

6 I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O LORD my God.

7 When my soul fainted within me I remembered the LORD: and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple.

8 They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.

9 But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the LORD.

10 And the LORD spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.