Sermon Tone Analysis

Jonah’s Repentance and God’s Deliverance

Jonah 2

Introduction

Frederick Charrington was a member of the wealthy family in England which owned the Charrington Brewery.

His personal fortune, derived solely from his brewing enterprise, exceeded $66 million.

One night, Charrington was walking along a London street with a few friends.

Suddenly the door of a pub flew open just a few steps ahead of the group, and a man staggered out into the street with a woman clinging desperately to him.

The man, obviously very drunk, was swearing at the woman and trying to push her away.

The woman was gaunt and clad in rags.

She sobbed and pleaded with the drunken man, who was her husband.

“Please, dear, please!” she cried as Charrington and his friends watched.

“The children haven’t eaten in two days!

And I’ve not eaten in a week!

For the love of God, please come home!

Or if you must stay, just give me a few coins so I can buy the children some…”

Her pleas were brutally cut off as her husband struck her a savage blow.

She collapsed to the stone pavement like a rag doll.

The man stood over her with his fists clenched, poised as if to strike her again.

Charrington leaped forward and grasped him.

The man struggled, swearing violently, but Charrington pinned the man’s arms securely behind his back.

Charrington’s companions rushed to the woman’s side and began ministering to her wounds.

A short time later a policeman led the drunken man away and the woman was taken to a nearby hospital.

As Charrington brushed himself off, he noticed a lighted sign in the window of the pub: “Drink Chrarrington Ale.”

The multi-millionaire brewer was suddenly shaken to the core of his being.

He realized that his confrontation with the violent husband would not have happened if the man’s brain had not been awash with the Charrington family’s product.

“When I saw that sign,” he later wrote, “I was stricken just as surely as Paul on the Damascus Road.

Here was the source of my family wealth, and it was producing untold human misery before my own eyes.

Then and there I pledged to God that not another penny of that money should come to me.”

History records that Frederick Charrington became one of the most well-known temperance activists in England.

He renounced his share of the family fortune and devoted the rest of his life to the ministry of freeing men and women from the curse of alcoholism.

• This is a story of repentance.

• It is a story that should typify our lives.

• But if I reflect upon our world outside these doors and how the world has crept into our lives many people have no problem disassociating their actions from the outcomes of those actions.

• We can sin against God or others and not take personal responsibility for them.

• If we were to ask a stranger if they felt they had done something wrong many would with conviction declare their innocence.

• We can justify our culpability of actions and deny what we have done.

• Jonah sailed on that ship and to a certain point denied his responsibility to God.

• God took action and Jonah’s fate was certain death for his actions.

• But what about repentance and second chances?

• The man in the story was given a second chance to make right the wrongs he had caused.

• As we will see today Jonah was given a second chance as well but it came in a unique way.

• The journey to second chances is not always a smooth road-it is meant to have us make changes and reflect on our responsibility.

• God I think has provided a condition for second chances and we will see that in God’s deliverance of Jonah.

Jonah’s Dilemma (1:17)

1:17 (2:1) The Lord sent a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights.

• When we leave off at 1:15-16 we are given the distinct impression that the story has come to a tragic end but like any good story true or not the plot has some twists and turns that take the reader on a journey of discovery.

• When we move to verse 17 we do not see Jonah dying in the sea but a Jonah saved from death.

• What is interesting is that we could think of many means by which God could have saved Jonah.

• It is not out of God’s control to do what he likes and he could allowed Jonah the ability to breath under water

• He could have instantly transferred him to dry land or even to Nineveh for that matter.

• One of the last things the ancient reader or even we would expect is that a giant fish would come along to save Jonah from death-it goes to show God’s flair for the dramatic at times.

• There is a story told about a young girl sitting in a park reading the story of Jonah from her Bible when a man sat beside her and asked her what she was reading.

She stopped to explain that she was reading how Jonah was swallowed by a big fish and saved from death.

• The Man responded that this was surely not true for what kind of fish could swallow a person and they could survive.

• The girl responded that she did not know but that she would ask Jonah when she went to Heaven.

• The man said what if Jonah was not in Heaven but in Hell and she said well then you can ask him.

• The issue of what kind of fish or whale as it has often been postulated would be in the Mediterranean Sea and be capable of housing a person.

• Further was it even possible to live inside a person for that long?

• I took some time to do some research and many have tried to figure it out but the fact of the matter whether naturally possible or not that is not the point of the story.

• As believers in the Word of God we need to realize that this story is true simply because God is capable of anything.

• So whether God created a special type of fish or whale or had a species appear there out of its natural habitat should be left in the realm of distracting speculation.

• The point that God is trying to demonstrate is that he saved Jonah from death in a way that no person could ever take credit.

• If Jonah had been thrown in and clung to a piece of discarded cargo and drifted back to land he may have been able to make a claim to his fortunate circumstances

• But no one could take any credit for being saved by living for three days in the stomach of a fish.

• The verse is very specific as to how long Jonah spent in the stomach of that fish-three days and three nights.

• The phrasing of three days and nights was used to emphasize that it was three full 24 hour days-so a full 72 hours in the stomach of that fish.

• The phrasing also was used to demonstrate a journey away from the land of the living for it has been thought that the journey from living to death or Sheol was three days.

• So the emphasis being made by the author of Jonah is that for the duration of the journey that it would have theoretically taken to enter death Jonah was kept safe from it.

• But it also has greater significance of we allow our Christianity to enlighten the text.

• Matt.

12:39-40 says: 12:39 But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.

12:40 For just as Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish for three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights.

•

Jesus confirms the validity of the Jonah account as true but more importantly we see that Jesus was explaining part of God’s plan for redemption-which required a sort of death.

• Jonah received redemption by means of God’s sovereign control in keeping him alive and Jesus would bring redemption available to all people through God sending him to the same duration of death before his ressurection

• Further as we will see, Jesus’ death was the way to reconcile other and Jonah’s experience in the fish was the means that God would take reconciliation to the people of Nineveh.

• So here is Jonah thinking that he had surely died and yet he is miraculously saved by being in the stomach of large fish.

• It may have seemed a cruel fate because he was in this foul prison with no means of escape unless God would deliver him from what had saved him from death.

• Imagine the smells and tastes-the complete darkness and utter despair.

• But there is a lesson here in that Jonah’s dilemma was also going to be his means of reconciliation.

• It is no different for any of us-when we run away and God will not let us go he can bring things in our lives that yell at us to take notice.

• God is saying to us that he has placed us in this mess so that we can see again how desperately we need him.

Jonah’s Despair (2:1-6)

2:1 Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the stomach of the fish 2:2 and said, “I called out to the Lord from my distress, and he answered me; from the belly of Sheol I cried out for help, and you heard my prayer.

2:3 You threw me into the deep waters, into the middle of the sea;

the ocean current engulfed me;

all the mighty waves you sent swept over me.

2:4 I thought I had been banished from your sight, that I would never again see your holy temple!

2:5 Water engulfed me up to my neck;

the deep ocean surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head.

2:6 I went down to the very bottoms of the mountains; the gates of the netherworld barred me in forever; but you brought me up from the Pit, O Lord, my God.

• The bulk of verses 1-6 comprise a psalm of unknown origin.

• We are not sure whether Jonah was reciting a psalm that he was familiar with or whether he composed one for the occasion.

• As we look at verse we should pause a moment to see that Jonah prayed to God.

• We might think that fairly insignificant or that we would take that for granted but it is significant.

• It shows that despite all that has happened Jonah still sees Yahweh as his God-of all the action or deities he could of prayed to he understands the supremacy of Yahweh.

• Jonah has gone through a dramatic experience-has suddenly been woken up, thrust into frantic circumstances and decisions and thrown over board to his death only to feel life drained away and then restored.

• We are not sure whether Jonah realized where he was-if he knew he was in a fish or not.

• He may have suspected something of the sort from the smells and sounds but the darkness would not have revealed anything.

• What he will have known is that he thought he was going to die and now he had not.

• God had again displayed his ability to control every circumstance and display his power in places no person could provide.