Download Theme: The Lord teaches Jonah that salvation is of the Lord`s

JONAH.
#7 – The Lord teaches Jonah that salvation is of the Lord’s faithfulness.
Jonah 1: 17 – 3: 3a
Sermon by:
Rev. E. Moerdyk
PUBLISHED BY THE
PUBLICATIONS COMMITTEE
OF THE
FREE REFORMED CHURCHES OF NORTH AMERICA.
(April 2006)
(No 7 of a series of 10)
LITURGY:
Votum
Psalter 175
Confession of Faith
Psalter 134
Scripture Reading: Jonah 1: 17 – 3: 3a
Canons of Dort V.1-3
Congregational Prayer
Psalter 252
Sermon
Psalter 241: 1, 2, 4, 7
Thanksgiving Prayer
Psalter 381
Doxology: Psalter 266
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Beloved Congregation,
Is there anything God can’t do? We confess that God is omnipotent. Sometimes people define
that word like this: God can do anything. Is this really so? Children, there is a song written for
you that starts by asking this question: is there anyone who can ever do anything that he wants to
do – Yes God can, God can, do all His holy will. All his holy will – there is the key. When we
say God is omnipotent, we do not mean God can do anything, but that God can do all that He
wants to do, all His holy will. This means that there are things God cannot do. The sermon this
afternoon is about what God cannot do.
Scripture says there are three things God cannot do. First of all, Titus 1:2 says God
cannot lie. It is impossible for him to deceive anyone. What He says, He does. This is a
precious truth for the believer, and a truth to make the unconverted tremble. Second, God can not
ignore sin that has not been atoned for. Habakkuk 1:13 and other texts teach that God is of holier
eyes than to behold iniquity. God cannot see a sinner without judging and condemning that
sinner, unless that sin is fully paid for by someone else. Again, this is a rich encouragement to
the believer, but a terrifying message for the unconverted.
There is a third thing God cannot do, and this will be our focus this afternoon. 2 Timothy
2:13 says if we are faithless, he remains faithful. He cannot deny Himself. This means, God
cannot act in a way that is inconsistent with who He really is. In Jonah 1, Jonah has acted
faithlessly. He has acted in blatant contradiction to the new nature the Spirit of God has given
him. He has acted faithlessly towards his redeeming God, the heathen sailors on board the ship,
and the Ninevites on whom he turned his back. You and I do this all the time. Many of us have
been born again in Christ, and made new creatures in Christ, yet still on a daily basis we act
inconsistently with who we are in Christ. This is the great danger and scary possibility that faces
each child of God. God cannot do this. He says, I am the Lord, I change not – therefore ye sons
of Jacob are not consumed. God is faithful.
So as has so often been the case in our studies of the book of Jonah, the focus is squarely
on who God is. We cannot begin to discuss who we must be, or what we should or should not
do, until we have faced who God is. Jonah’s beautiful poetic prayer and the verses that follow
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make the faithfulness of God sparkle. God is faithful, therefore faithless sinners can be saved.
In saying salvation is of the Lord, Jonah is saying – salvation depends from start to finish on the
Lord’s faithfulness. That is why a sinner who carries within him a treacherous heart that is fully
capable of departing from the living God, can in spite of it all fight the good fight of faith in
hope, knowing that it is not in vain, because salvation is of the Lord.
Theme: The Lord teaches Jonah that salvation is of the Lord’s faithfulness
I.
His faithfulness to His own word
II.
His faithfulness to His own work
III.
His faithfulness to His own calling
Congregation, as we look again at Jonah’s prayer from the perspective of God’s
faithfulness, it has to strike you that this prayer is beautifully crafted. Jonah has a way with
words. This has of course led Liberal commentators to say this can’t be a prayer that came out
Jonah’s lips in the belly of the fish. They argue: no one prays like this when they are in trouble.
About all he could have said then is “help!” Jonah must have written this later behind his desk,
with all the time in the world to polish it up and make it sound good to our ears. They will even
say to you, why it sounds like a psalm.
Says Sinclair Ferguson in his sermon, have they never been to a prayer meeting where the
people of God used the psalms to express what lived in their hearts? Have they never in their
trials turned to the Psalms and found comfort and help in them, precisely because they so richly
express Christian experience, in all its variety? It is true Jonah’s prayer does sound like a psalm.
In fact, almost every line of Jonah’s prayer is borrowed from a Psalm. I cried out to the Lord
because of my affliction – you can think of a dozen Psalms that begin this way, can’t you? From
out of the depths – Psalm 130. Thy billows and waves passed over me – Psalm 42. Yet I will
look towards thy holy temple – how often David prays like this. I remembered the Lord – Psalm
77! I will sacrifice to the Lord with the voice of thanksgiving, and pay my vows – Psalm 116.
What does this tell us? That while Jonah was in the belly of the fish, the Spirit of God
started the work of bringing Jonah back to God by flooding Jonah’s heart with scripture. Isn’t
this always what happens when a backsliding sinner is being brought to repentance? Jonah’s
heart is fainting within him. He has been suppressing the word of God, ignoring it disobeying it.
Until the Spirit of God has him in the dark slimy dripping smelly muggy belly of the fish. Then
the Spirit of God takes the psalms Jonah has learned as a boy and studied as a prophet, and
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brings them back into his memory. These cries from the depths found in the Psalms, sometimes
also written by those who were experiencing the disciplining hand of the Lord, give Jonah hope.
They prompt him to take the burden of his sin, guilt, and misery to the Lord. How often has the
Lord not already heard such prayers, and responded to the penitential tears of his people? The
secret to Jonah’s repentance is that God has been faithful to His word in the past, and still is
today!
This has a number of applications for us. For one thing, it shows you the importance as
parents of teaching your children to sing the psalms. So that should they find themselves in the
depths, God can bring back the psalms learned at their mother’s knee, or on their father’s lap,
and use them as the pathway back to Him! That is why it is good that we continue to sing the
psalms as a congregation. Other songs, good and useful as they may be, are based on scripture.
The Psalms are scripture. They are proof of God’s faithfulness, and the tools God uses to
express his faithfulness to His backsliding people.
What is the key truth that Jonah pulls out of these Psalms, and clings to in his desperate
straights at the bottom of the sea? Surely the truth found in the opening words – then Jonah
prayed to the Lord HIS God. Jonah does not pray to God simply as the creator of all things, nor
even as Israel’s God, but as HIS God. Because the Holy Spirit is hanging onto Jonah, Jonah
clings to God and His word of promise. What else do the Psalms teach than this – that no matter
what happens, the Lord does not forsake His people? If you did not know the psalms, you would
be tempted to say – how can he still dare to say God is His God after all that he has done?
Because that is who God has said He is for His people. Jonah belongs to God by covenant, and
by faith in the Messiah who is to come. Therefore God cannot abandon Jonah. It is impossible.
Congregation, you are about to face the battlefield of temptation again. It is a minefield,
and you have to pass through it. It is a world in which the sparks are flying, and you are carrying
a heart that is as susceptible to sparks as a tank of gasoline. What you need to hear first of all,
more than anything else, is this: if you belong to God by covenant, as well as by faith in Jesus
Christ, God is your God. He will continue to be your God. No matter where you go, no matter
what you do, no matter if you like Jonah would blatantly disregard him and dishonor him. You
can earn his discipline, deeply wound your family circle by scandalous sin, and carry the
consequences of sin for the rest of your life. But the one thing you cannot do if you are a child
of God is get God to stop being your God. He cannot stop being your God anymore than He can
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stop being God.
The proof of this is very simple: salvation is of the Lord. Did you know that this is one
of the key proof texts that support what we call the 5 points of Calvinism, or the doctrines of
grace? That is why we read from our beloved Canons of Dort this afternoon. Salvation is earned
100% by grace. You do nothing to contribute to your salvation. Not the smallest fraction of your
salvation depends on what you do. God alone is your redeemer. If you had nothing to do with
establishing your saving relationship with God in the first place, then there is nothing you can do
to destroy it either.
Think of this example. I am the son of my parents. I was born without my own
involvement in any way. They are my father and mother, and I am their son. They cannot
change my birth certificate any more than they can stop the sun from shining. Once you are a
child of God, the same is true of you. You have a birth certificate signed by the Spirit of God,
and marked with the official seal of heaven, stored in the vaults of heaven, guarded by God’s
almighty power. Once God begins in your life with true conversion, you cannot stop God from
finishing what He started. You cannot stop God any more than you can blow a category 5
hurricane out of the way with the breath in your lungs. Once God has saved you, you are saved.
Once God redeems, you are redeemed.
Looking at Jonah and his sin, we say, praise be to God, it is a good thing that He is
faithful. Otherwise where would Jonah be? You may look at yourself and tremble – but
remember the verse from 2 Timothy, if we are faithless, he remains faithful, because he can not
deny himself. You can face a new week with this confidence. Not the confidence of
carelessness, but the confidence of hopefulness, driving you to holiness. Because salvation is of
the Lord, and God is faithful to His word. That is reason to sing the victor’s song, already on the
battlefield. In any other battlefield, that would be premature. It would be arrogant presumption.
But not in this case. Because God himself says so, it would be presumption not to do so.
Salvation is of the Lord – the work thou hast for me begun, shall by thy grace be fully done.
That is not the only thing God is faithful to in this chapter. God is not only faithful to his
own word to Jonah, but to His own work in Jonah.
II.
His faithfulness to his own work
The frightening thing when you look at Jonah in chapter 1 is that Jonah is so dreadfully
hardened. The sin and disobedience of this prophet of God is shocking. Jonah seems to want
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nothing to do with God any more. He turns his back on God. He does not pray, not even in the
face of the storm. Jonah does not care at all about the city of Nineveh, with all its hundreds of
thousands of people. Jonah is guilty of a coldness and hardness that makes you wonder – is
anything of God’s grace left in this man?
In chapter 2, we find a heart that is softened towards the things of God, and towards God
Himself. Now Jonah can grieve over his sins. Now Jonah turns his face towards God instead of
his back. Now Jonah says – I will look towards Thy holy temple. I will remember God. Now
He prays out of the depths, and yet by faith.
What is the reason for this? Not only is God faithful to His word to Jonah, but God is
faithful to his own work in Jonah. In spite of the season of sin that Jonah slid into, the change in
him was the work of the living God. Once your heart is renewed by the Spirit of God, God will
always bring you back to your spiritual senses after your sin. God may allow you to fall in the
gutter as you pursue your sin, but if you are His, God will not allow you to stay in the gutter. He
will renew you to prayer, to repentance, to loving his word, and to the desire for holiness.
Salvation is of the Lord – part of this salvation is a heart that loves God, and seeks to do his will.
The proof of it is all over this chapter. In verse 8, Jonah has been including himself
among those who regard worthless vanities [idols] – meaning as we have seen in connection with
the first commandment, those who put anything and anyone in a higher place than God. This
was Jonah. Now Jonah says it will no longer be this way with me. Verse 9 starts like this – but I
will sacrifice to thee with the voice of thanksgiving. Jonah is recommitted to worshiping God, to
letting God be God in His life. Now Jonah vows to the Lord. This is the same thing the heathen
sailors did, isn’t it? Jonah is resolved in his heart to serve God. Jonathan Edwards echoes these
same sentiments in his famous resolutions. Resolved, to glorify God in body and soul in all that
I do. Resolved, that there be something of kindness in all that I say. Resolved so to live that at
the end of my life I am not tortured by regrets, and the thought – I should have lived like that
instead of like this.
Have you reached this point? Has your heart been softened towards the living God? Has
it led you to prayer, and to the word of God? Has it led you to recommit your life to God? Has
it led you to hunger for holiness? Has it led you to want to grow in obedience, and to let God be
God in your life? You know what this will involve. If you are faithful in self-examination, you
will identify specific sins that you need to battle against. The test of how sincere you are in
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praying to the Lord, will be in how much effort you put into obedience to your God.
This has to be said, because we live in a spiritual climate in which people say – O yes, I
believe in eternal security. I believe once saved always saved. But they only quote half of the
equation. And sometimes a half-truth is a whole lie. I will never forget as a teenager in
Colorado, hearing one woman express these sentiments about her daughter. This girl had to use
the words of her mother accepted Jesus when she was 5. Yet she lived a life of open sin, without
showing any evidence of a work of grace in her life. The mother said to us – she is saved,
because once saved always saved. But to say this is to forget the other half of this truth: once
saved, repeatedly brought to repentance. You can read about this for yourself in 1 John. True
Christians can sin, but they cannot remain in their sin. When you fall into sin, that season of sin
must come to an end. You must be renewed to repentance. If not, you are not regenerate. This
means you may not claim this text salvation is of the Lord, as a hell insurance policy that lets you
enjoy your sin and expect heaven too. If you are like this, then you are on the broad road that
leads to destruction, not on the narrow road that leads to life.
I once spoke with a man in his 50’s who had had an affair. The man told me his story.
He said, I am just like David. However as I listened to him, it became clear that he had only read
half the story about David. David is as famous for his repentance as he is infamous for his sin.
Just read Psalm 51. I am evil, born in sin. Against thee, thee only have I sinned. The test of
whether you like David are a man after God’s own heart is not whether you can commit the same
sin David did, but whether your heart is as broken as David’s heart was, and whether your
confession is as honest and thorough as David’s was.
Jonah says, now that the Lord has heard my desperate prayer from the depths, I am
determined no longer to rebel against my God. Look at the last half of verse 9. Jonah says I
have vowed to the Lord, and I intend to pay my vows. I have vowed to serve God, and to live to
his glory. That is exactly what I will do. This is the evidence that the salvation of the Lord is
Jonah’s salvation. It is the evidence that God is faithful to His own work in Jonah. This is the
evidence that Jonah is not being presumptuous when he calls God His God. It is then and only
then that the Lord gives the command to the fish to spit Jonah out again on dry ground. Jonah
has said in verse 9 that he is thankful – the proof that his thankfulness is real is found not in the
words of his prayer, but in what happens after his prayer stops.
Is this your vow? Is it exactly what you will do? Test your heart now in the presence of
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God. The proof of whether you are thankful for God’s grace or not, the proof of whether you
have tasted God’s grace or not, is not whether you can say thank you with your eyes closed. It is
whether you can say thank you with your eyes open, in how you live. It lies here – in saying, I
vow to serve God as my Lord and king.
You can see the results of this in Jonah’s life. This is no mere human resolution that
evaporates as soon as the going gets tough. This is no foxhole promise – God, get me out of this,
and then I will serve thee. O yeah, I didn’t really mean it. I can’t. I was exaggerating. Jonah’s
vows are real, and the proof is in what happens next. God’s faithfulness to His own word to
Jonah and His own work in Jonah is also evident in
III.
His faithfulness to His own calling
That God commanded the fish to spit out Jonah on dry land is already an amazing mercy
on God’s part. God is not finished however. Chapter 3 begins with these marvelous words – and
the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying arise, go unto Nineveh, that great
city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid [tell] thee. What amazing mercy. God could
have said, Jonah, I will save your life, but you are through as a prophet. You can just march on
home, and find a new job. This is amazing grace!
It is more than grace – it is evidence that God is faithful to His own calling. God has
called Jonah to be a prophet. When God calls, He does not take no for an answer. God has
given the prophet Jonah the specific task of preaching His word in Nineveh. Jonah’s sin does not
cancel God’s plans. God is faithful to His calling to Jonah, even when Jonah is faithless in his
calling towards God. How far God’s faithfulness to this sinner extends!
Beloved, God is also faithful to his calling to each of his people. The Lord says to each
one – now go and be the man or woman I want you to be, in the place where I have put you. The
word of God comes to you, O backsliding sinner, restored by the mercy of God. The word of
God comes to you a second time, O saint who has resolved to be obedient. Serve the Lord as
husband, father, worker, boss, employee, mother, teacher, plumber, or whatever you are. Serve
the Lord as evangelist, as someone who has been sent into all the world with the great
commission. Go spread the good news of the kingdom of God to a poor perishing world that is
desperate for answers. The word of God comes to you again!
Then we read in the beginning of verse 3 the words we should have read way back in
chapter 1. So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. This does
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not mean the man was instantly perfect. We will see this in a few weeks. Jonah to the end of his
life has to battle the same sinful tendencies that led to his running away in the first place. But the
faithfulness of God is stronger than Jonah’s stubborn streak.
There goes Jonah, hiking inland towards Nineveh. Perhaps with a song in his heart, and a
smile on his lips. God has been gracious – God is giving him a second chance, and Jonah is
eager to take it. Or perhaps with a scowl on his face, and the thought, can you believe it. I
thought I told God I didn’t want to do this. What am I supposed to do in a big violent city like
that? Why me of all people? Here comes trouble. That is also possible if you know the rest of
the book. Maybe it is a little of both. Isn’t this so often true of a child of God – both saint and
sinner at the same time? The most important thing however is not the look on Jonah’s face, or
the thoughts mulling through Jonah’s brain, but the direction Jonah’s feet are traveling.
What will this week reveal about you? What direction will your feet be traveling in?
Will you respond to God’s calling with obedience? That is the test of where you are at
spiritually, isn’t it. Recently, my daughter has learned to eat her sandwich with her fork, and she
usually wants to do it herself. She also loves cheese. However, when she sees me cutting a slice
of cheese for my own bread, she does not want her sandwich anymore. She points to the cheese,
and pushes her plate away. So I cut a slice for her, cut it into pieces, and then make a deal. First
you take a bite of bread, and then I will give you a piece of cheese. You should have seen her
this week: there went the piece of bread into her mouth. Her lips closed on the fork. So I kept
my half of the bargain, and my hand started to move towards her tray with the cheese. As soon
as she saw this, out came the fork with the piece of bread still on it.
What about you? Is it not true that whenever the Lord renews you to repentance, and
restores you after sin, that He puts in your heart the desire to show thankfulness to Him, in your
whole life? Is this in your heart? Someone says, but my faith is so weak, and I stumble and fall.
That is not what you are being asked. This is the question – do you purpose to show
thankfulness, and do you intend to try. Our form for the Lord’s Supper includes these beautiful
words: I am sorry for my weaknesses and sin, and sincerely desire to fight against my sin, and
then listen to these words – and to live according to all the commandments of God. Don’t do
what my daughter did – don’t pull the fork back out of your mouth, and say, Lord, I changed my
mind. Now that I have tasted mercy, I will let it go at that and leave obedience for another day.
God is faithful to his own calling in the life of Jonah, by sending him a second time to do
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the work God calls him to do. Yet we need to dig a little deeper. God is faithful to his calling in
the life of Jonah not just on an outward level, but on the inside. To say it a little differently, the
remarkable grace that God has shown Jonah by putting him into the deep in the belly of the fish,
and then bringing him out again, supplies the power that enables Jonah to obey God’s call in his
life. Here is where what Jonah went through points us again to the work of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Remember now that Jonah underwent a symbolic death that lasted 3 days, and a
symbolic resurrection. He says – I was brought to the belly of hell. Yet, vs 6, thou hast brought
up my life from corruption, O Lord my God. Jonah stands on the dry ground as a new man. He
has a new life. His sin no longer stands between him and God. God’s grace would make him
feel like one raised from the dead. This wondrous grace would work on him from the inside,
with the pressure of love, to respond like this: Here am I Lord, send me.
Is this not symbolically what happens to the believer as well? Jesus Christ also
descended into the grave. He was there for 3 days and 3 nights. He rose from the grave in
newness of life, with resurrection power. If you sit here as a child of God, as a believer, then this
is true of you. You are united to Jesus Christ. Therefore what He has gone through, has power
in your life. Not just symbolically, but really. You have been buried with him into his death.
You have been raised with him in the likeness of his resurrection. You are seated with Him in
heavenly places. Therefore the apostle Paul can say to you, to use the words of Colossians 3: “If
ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right
hand of God. Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead,
and your life is hid with Christ in God.” This triumphant proclamation of God’s transforming
grace in Christ is followed by this command: therefore put to death your members which are on
the earth – and then follows a whole list of specific sins.
Perhaps this example can clarify it for you. If you were left to yourself, God’s command
to fulfill your calling to be holy in your daily life would be useless. Imagine a car with a dead
battery. You can tell the person behind the wheel, just turn the key. But nothing will happen.
Until you drive a car with a charged battery next to it, and connect the jumper cables. Even the
very act of hooking up the cables makes the sparks jump on the dead battery. People of God,
you are like that dead car. But Christ has come next to you. The power of His sin killing death,
and the power of his holiness producing resurrection have been hooked up to you. Therefore he
says to you – now live a holy life. Turn the key. Try – there is sufficient power available! So
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great is God’s faithfulness to His own calling, that He not only gives the command, but supplies
the power in Christ. So turn the key. Live a godly life. Pick up the boxing gloves and batter
your sins into submission. For God is faithful to His calling. God is faithful to supply the
renewed commission, and the sufficient power. This is what it means that salvation is of the
Lord!
There goes Jonah, trekking along the road towards Nineveh. God’s faithfulness has made
all the difference. God’s faithfulness guarantees Jonah’s salvation. In faithfulness to his own
word, God allows Jonah to continue to call him his God. In faithfulness to his own work, God
has melted Jonah’s heart and made him willing to obey. In faithfulness to his own calling, God
has repeated Jonah’s commission and given him the power to carry it out. Salvation is of the
Lord – it is of God’s faithfulness that Jonah is who He is!
Beloved in the Lord, people of God, the God of Jonah still lives. He is not just Jonah’s
God. He is your God. He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it, through
Jesus Christ. Can you not worship Him? Can you not sing his praises? Can you not go on your
way rejoicing, strengthened through all that He is to a poor stubborn sinner like you?
But maybe this sermon does not find you joined by faith to Jesus Christ, Jonah’s savior.
If you are honest, you say, my life is a mess. I fall into one sin after the other. All I can think of
is myself, and my own desires. My motives are one mass of selfish sinful corruption. What
should I do? You should obey the sign of Jonah, pointing to the Lord Jesus Christ. He died for
sinners! He rose again. Look to Him. If you would but just once exercise saving faith in Him,
you would be forever safe. Because His faithfulness will become the guarantee of your
salvation. The Lord Jesus Christ is present with us now through His Holy Spirit. He says to you
– believe in me. Submit to me. And my faithfulness will carry you through! Look at the proof
in this chapter – he is the God of Jonah! If he could save Jonah, then surely he can save you.
This is the wonder of the chapter, isn’t it? God is not ashamed to be called Jonah’s God.
This is amazing. He is still Jonah’s God. He has not changed. Only Jonah has forever changed.
The work God has by His grace begun in Jonah has now been fully completed. Jonah has been
saved to sin no more. God’s faithfulness has made it impossible for Jonah to be faithless. And
one day every child of God, from the least to the greatest, will be like Jonah. Or better said, like
Jesus Christ. Just like God can not deny himself, so the saints in heaven can not deny God’s
work in them either. Since God is who He is, soon, very soon, the weary fight of faith will be
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over, and the eternal rest of heaven will begin. You are almost there! Since God is faithful,
people of God, you will get there. Amen.
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