Man Overboard
(Jonah 1:11-16)
Intro.
We have seen how Jonah ran from his call to preach to the people at Nineveh. He had found a boat going to Tarshish and boarded it. But God sent a strong wind to intercept Jonah. Here we see the futility of man’s free will when God calls him.
They had awakened Jonah and asked why he did not cry out to his God for deliverance. He said he was a Hebrew and he feared God, sounds like some of the people we have all met. They finally find out that this runaway prophet is the cause of God’s fury, something the liberals today would deny.
I. The Mariner’s Inquiry: “What shall we do?”
They knew by now the storm was not an ordinary storm but the hand of God bared against his prophet. But who should they ask for the solution? The prophet of God, God’s man here upon this earth!
1. They asked Jonah:
They knew he was the cause but they also knew he was God’s man and the answer to their dilemma. He was flesh and bone the same as they were, but he was more than that he was God’s man, anointed and ordained to do the work that God had for him to do.
People so often think that God leaves it up to them to see if the man of God is doing his duty. What they really want to see is whether he is living up to their standards. Phariseeism is still alive and well on planet earth. My friend, God set the standards for his man and he’ll handle the disposing of him if he isn’t doing, as he should.
Obedient or disobedient he is still the man of God. Whether he be a Pastor or an Evangelists God has him under his watchcare. If he is a phony as many probably are God will take care of it. John spoke of all the false prophets in his day and we could multiply the number by hundreds or thousands today. There are many today that are mama called and papa sent but God will deal with them we don’t need to.
2. The Question: “What shall we do?”
The same question men asked Peter after his sermon at Pentecost. Peter said, “Repent and be baptized.” The Phillipian Jailor when the earthquake had freed Paul and Silas from their cell cried, “What must I do to be saved?”
God sent the answer to all of these questions through his man. The problem was with God so the solution must come from him. When men are perishing they need to seek God for the answer to their problems. These men asked the prophet what must we do?
They had rebuked this prophet earlier with, “Why hast thou done this?” and though they may have felt anger at Jonah, this great and mighty God of Jonah’s overwhelmed them. “What shall we do?” Lost men do not have the answer and must seek it from God’s people when convicted.
II. Jonah’s Strange Proposal: “Take me up and cast me into the sea.”
1. Jonah’s Strange Attitude: Was he so dejected that he felt suicide was the answer? No! I believe Jonah was getting a new and revived view of God’s grace. After all he had professed, “I am a Hebrew and I fear the Lord.”
The chastisement of God is hard, but it says you belong to God. Nothing testifies more or stronger to our hearts.
Jonah began to realize again that he was a chosen vessel of God’s. He was not his own but he belonged to God. If God wanted him at the bottom of the sea he knew there was nothing he could do to prevent it.
There is also that principle of dying to one’s self, Jonah had sought to satisfy his own desires in rebelling against God. Self must die; we are to love God more than our own life. Jesus said in Mark 8:35, “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it.” God is the giver of life and the keeper of life, without him we cease to exist.
2. He Prophesied: Jesus said to the Jews in his day, “Search the scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.” Remember when Jesus said this the only scriptures were the Old Testament, so he is saying in the O.T. you will find prophecies, types, and shadows to point to me.
He was prophesying of the death of Jesus although he probably did not realize it. That one man should die that the others might live.
For they all would die if something did not change.
He was a type and shadow of our Lord, our flesh shouts no way, but Jesus said he was. Look at; Matt 12:39-40
“But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: For 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.”
Just as the death of Jesus appeased the wrath of God against the church, Jonah was saying, “my death will appease God’s wrath.”
“Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.” Rom 5:9
The church is no longer under God’s wrath for our Lord and Savior have made reconciliation for us. We are now the friends of God as well as the sons of God.
III. The Sailors Response: “Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring it to the land;”
Man does not see the need of a Savior until he sees that he is doomed and cannot save himself. That the death of Jonah was needful to furnish their salvation they did not want to accept.
Here we see these men as the world in type, they sought to save themselves by working harder but to no avail. God will accept nothing less than a sacrifice or a substitute to take their place. Here again how this prefigures the Lord and his death that men might live. But the world will not accept it they think they can labor hard enough to impress God.
They, like the world refused to believe that the death of this man, would save them from the awful fate they thought was ahead of them. Their salvation lay in the death of Jonah.
Lost men will look for ways to get God to accept them in works, and in moral reformation. A friend once came under heavy convictions but when I talked to him about the Lord, all he wanted to tell me was he had quit drinking, and trying hard to give up cigarettes.
I told him I thought it was a shame that he would deprive himself of those things he enjoyed, and still go to hell. The answer is not in what you quit doing, although, I believe God will cause you to give up these things. But the answer is in the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight:” Rom 3:20
Some believe if they quit their sinning, and by that they mean, drinking, stealing cussing and fussing they’ll then join the church, be baptized and everything will be all right between them and God. But Jesus said to Nicodemus, “You must be born again.” the reason he told Nicodemus that is because his religion meant nothing to God. There is no way around it, you can turn over a new leaf clean up your lifestyle go to church, then die and lift up your eyes in torment.
“But they could not.” They were digging their oars deep trying to save themselves but they could not. Men try so hard to save themselves but they cannot. If man could save himself it would not be salvation by grace but by the works of man. He would earn his salvation, but that is not possible.
There has to be a God given change inside of you. We are born in sin and we choose to sin, we need a Savior; he bore our sins and gave to the church his righteousness. But also God changes us by a new birth he takes away our heart of stone and replaces it with a heart of flesh.
There are two beliefs about salvation, either we are saved by grace as God’s word says, or else we are saved by the will of man, in works, or turning over a new leaf. I happen to believe the bible that we are saved by grace through faith.
The Bible tells us that without Christ we are spiritually dead, (Eph. 2:1-3) and what we need is not to change our life but to be resurrected by God to spiritual life. A dead person only needs one thing and that is life. You must be born again.
IV. Their Prayer To God:
These men came to receive the plan of God for their salvation, “let us not perish for this man’s life.” The world hated our Lord and crucified him for my sins, “Lord let me not perish for Jesus death.” Recently we have heard the question of who was responsible for the death of Jesus. It is the church, he died for our sins, not accidentally, but he went to Calvary for the sole purpose of dying for our sins.
We live because the Lord was willing to die in our place, and the world will perish because it crucified the Lord. The crucifixion was life for the believer and death for those who hate our Lord or for the world.
1. These Men Cried For Mercy: The publican prayed Lord have mercy on me a sinner. Was this not what these men were indeed saying. Please Lord have mercy on us and charge us not with the death of this thy prophet.
No man is saved who thinks he has earned his salvation; it is only they that cry out for God to have mercy upon them. Mercy speaks of grace, they had absolutely nothing to offer, unlike those today who believe God must save them because of something they have done.
2. They Acknowledged God’s Sovereignty:
There are no free will prayers, we have to acknowledge that it is in God’s hand and we have no control. These men had just a glimpse of the depths of God’s sovereign council. God had appointed Jonah for the deep, it is his purpose, and they acknowledge this.
It is only when we see God in his sovereignty that the bible starts to make sense. Then and only then do we realize that a sovereign and holy God holds all of our tomorrows in his hand? We may not understand it all but we must come to believe it all.
V. Jonah Overboard:
As the waters came up over Jonah’s head the sea became calm. Jonah is dead, at least to these sailors. The wrath of the Holy Omnipotent God has been appeased. There is now peace all around.
“Then the men feared the LORD exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice unto the LORD, and made vows.” Jonah 1:16
Jesus died upon Calvary and appeased the wrath of God for the church. It was at Calvary where, “Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” Psalms 85:10
In man’s fall he had incurred the wrath of God he is disobedient and self-willed. Man is doomed he is by nature a sinner, and willfully a sinner, by birth and by choice he is a sinner. Can there be any hope for him? Only in the death of One, the christened one of God, that is Jesus the Christ.
It is by the death of Jesus that we are saved. It was on Calvary that God’s wrath was appeased; it was on rugged Golgotha where we were reconciled to God.
Rom 5:9 “Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.”
