JONAH'S SALVATION
JONAH’S SALVATION
I do not intend to confine myself to these verses, for I hope to refer to the first chapter, and perhaps the third. What I wish that we may be led on to is the evidence of salvation in a believer. The book of Jonah is evangelical from the beginning to the end; it works out the principle of salvation in the preacher, that is, in Jonah himself. If it is to be set out in anyone, certainly it should be in the preacher. The divine thought is that what is presented in the preaching is exemplified in the preacher; that at least in one man the idea of salvation is exemplified, and if in one man, in a hundred — in a million men. God would indeed set out this great principle in the preachers, that it might spread abroad and be laid hold of by needy sinners, for all need salvation. The divine thought is not simply that there is such a thing as that, or that it should be spoken of, but that it should be exemplified, especially in those who herald it.
Hence the twelve the Lord commissioned to preach were characterised as saved men. Indeed Peter, the leading apostle, corresponds peculiarly with Jonah. He is seen in this very town of Joppa (Acts 10), but although he needed some adjustment in regard to the gentiles, to whom he was to open the door of the kingdom of God, yet he was not like Jonah. In Jonah at Joppa you have a man going down, down, down, and no saved man is marked by that. Not that he is not like Jesus; He went down into the lowest parts of the earth, but it was to ascend up again. He did not go down to stay. But many do; they take a moral descent. Certainly Tarshish, to which Jonah took ship, conveyed no idea of ascent, of moral elevation. We read here of Jonah that he went down to Joppa, and being in Joppa he went down to the ship, and being in the ship he went down to the sides of the ship. There are three descents; whereas in Peter [p. 464] you have in the same town a man going up. He was a saved man, a preacher; indeed, the first preacher of the gospel after the Holy Spirit came. He was the first to announce Christ in heaven — a wonderful honour! He announced that “God hath made that same Jesus both Lord and Christ”, (Acts 2:36).
Now he is in the town of Joppa, and instead of going down, he goes up. He went up, we are told, to the housetop to pray (Acts 10:9). It does not say that Jonah went down to the ship to pray, or that he went to Tarshish to pray. No! Not that he did not pray later, as I hope to shew, but Peter went up. Joppa was a port town, and this house in which Peter was was “by the sea”. No doubt he would look out on the Mediterranean. He went up to pray, we are told, and as he prayed he became in an ecstasy. That is a saved person; and as he preached his next sermon, those who heard him were all saved, as far as we can see. Peter had brought in a great draught of fishes at one haul of the net; now he brings in a house full of gentiles — Cornelius and his company.
As praying on the housetop heaven acknowledges him; the sheet is let down containing the different creatures of the earth, and, as he tells Cornelius, God shewed him in this to call no man common or unclean. He is a saved man — saved from nationalism. We have to be saved from that; we are all very prone to be patriotic, but Peter was saved from the narrowness of national feeling. Then, too, he was saved from himself, for as he reached the house of the centurion the latter fell down and worshipped him. He worshipped the preacher. Alas, there are many preachers who like to be made much of! They like, indeed, to preach themselves, if not in word, yet in effect. Paul says, “We preach not ourselves” (he was converted and saved from his own importance) “but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake”, (2 Corinthians 4:5). There are those who command the bended knee and the doffed hat, because of ‘the cloth’ — thousands and thousands of them; they expect it. But Peter refuses it absolutely. It says, he “took him up, saying, Stand up; I myself also am a man”. That is the preacher; he is saved from himself.
Peter is thinking of Cornelius, that he might be saved; and entering into his house he finds there a fine congregation, not a vast one, but one of quality. Cornelius says, “we are all here present before God, to hear all things that are commanded thee of God”, (Acts 10:33). They were not there out of curiosity, but to hear what Peter had to say. And what did he have to say? He spoke about Jesus, that God had anointed Him — not that God had anointed Peter, or made an apostle of him, but that He had anointed Jesus, and that He had gone about doing good, for God was with Him. That is the kind of preaching. And so, as Peter preached, the Holy Spirit fell on all those that heard the word. Those who heard the word, not who heard Peter simply; the true preacher preaches the word. Those who hear the word are taken possession of by the Holy Spirit; that is the idea of salvation. You cannot be saved in the true sense without the Holy Spirit. You cannot be saved without the death of Christ surely, but you cannot be saved without the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the great power of salvation in this world; we need that power. As Christ is up in heaven, so the Holy Spirit is here, sent down by Him to effect salvation.
So you see that Peter went up, but Jonah went down. He was not a saved man, although a preacher. There are many like him, many preachers who are not really saved. He was actually commissioned by God to go to Nineveh, but instead of that he would go to Tarshish; he is full of national feelings, of national prejudices. He would not have the gentiles saved; he would not go to Nineveh. He was unsaved in that sense. Salvation is not simply from hell to come; it is that, thank God! He is our Deliverer from the coming wrath, but [p. 466] salvation is from this world, from myself, from national feeling and many other things of that kind. And Jonah was not saved from these things, so he has to go the way of salvation. Indeed that term ‘way’ became a synonym of christianity in the beginning; there were those who spoke evil of ‘the way’, that is to say, the way of salvation, the way out of the world, the way to God.
And Jonah has to go that way, and so God gives him latitude; He allows him to go to a point, but not beyond it. You see, in verse 8 he speaks of his own mercy — “they that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy” — he is now coming into it; he is coming into the great fact that there is such a thing as mercy. How many there are who observe lying vanities and consequently forsake their own mercy! These lying vanities are prevalent abroad today, and those that listen to them forsake their own mercy. The mercy of God is made ours, for it is according to His rich mercy He hath saved us (Ephesians 2). Jonah had forsaken that by observing lying vanities, and God allowed him to go down to Joppa. He allows us to go to a point, for He has salvation in view for us. It is not that He withdraws His commission, for “the gifts and calling of God are without repentance”, (Romans 11:29). Jonah was a prophet; the Lord Jesus Himself calls him that later. So God allows him to go to a point, for he must experience the way of salvation, and, as I said, he went down. Now let every one here challenge his own heart as to whether he is on the down-grade, or the up-grade. As we have seen, Peter was going up, and heaven greeted him, but Jonah is on the down-grade. We are on either one or the other. One often challenges one’s own heart in a practical way as to which grade one is on, the ascending or the descending one.
Now Joppa was a port town, an outlet. It was the port of Jerusalem. You can understand therefore, what it would be in the mind of a man like Jonah; it was a [p. 467] way out, but a way out from what? From his ‘own mercy’; that was the thing. Many have sought a way out, and Jonah sees this way to the distant place Tarshish. So he went down. The Holy Spirit does not employ that word for nothing; it denoted the state of Jonah’s soul. He was disobedient. Paul says, “I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision” (Acts 26:19), but Jonah was. Disobedience is the very expression of sin; it marks the entering in of sin into this world, and Jonah is marked by it; he goes down. Disobedience is moral degradation. Adam and Eve fell; it was moral degradation. And “Judas by transgression fell”, (Acts 1:25). Jonah went down to Joppa; then the Holy Spirit says he went down into the ship.
There can be no doubt that Jonah wrote this book. What would he think as each time he wrote this word ‘down’? He would say, How foolish of me! The best evidence that we can have of Jonah’s recovery is that he writes down for everybody to read that he was angry with God. Jonah’s last word about himself is that he did well to be angry with God! Can we have better evidence that he judged himself than that he put it down for everybody to read? He has confessed his error, for in writing it, it shews that he judged it thoroughly. He would never be angry with God again. He gives God the last word in the book. And what is the last word in the book? If you look you will see that the last word is ‘cattle’. You say, What has ‘cattle’ to do with the gospel? A great deal; cattle belong to the “living creatures” of God, so do fish. This fish here was of great interest to God; he did what God told him to do. God had prepared him.
Mark 16:15 tells us that the Lord said to His disciples, “Go into all the world, and preach the glad tidings to all the creation”. That is the God we preach — a God who is to save not only men, but the whole realm of creation. Would you have it [p. 468] otherwise? I would not. The creation itself, we are told, is to be delivered, and God is to have a universe resonant with praise from a redeemed and living creation. So Jonah finishes his book with the word out of the mouth of God — “cattle”. Would you not like to meet Jonah after he wrote that book? You would meet, I am sure, a thoroughly restored man, a saved man. That is the man who says here, “Salvation is of the Lord”, (Jonah 2:9).
Well now, I want to come to all this more fully. It says he went down to Joppa, then he went down to the ship. There he paid his fare to go with them. It was not simply that he paid his fare to go to Tarshish, but it says, to go “with them”. Now, you see, we have got a moral touch; he is going with certain company. What kind of people is he going with? Will they have dances on board? games of tennis, cards, and what not? Will they have a good time on board? That is what the tourists think about. They do not cross the sea for seasickness! Well, Jonah paid his fare, but he had in his mind not only that he would go to Tarshish, but that he would go “with them”. That is, he had company in view. A man on the down-grade seeks the society of this world. He is forsaking his own mercy; he is forsaking the temple at Jerusalem, and all the mind of God centring there, and he is going off with worldly company.
Those of us who travel by sea know what this means; the boat is the world in a condensed form, and the flesh likes it. Young people think of the time they are going to have on board ship; the company, the music, the dancing, for all these things mark modern ships. You say, Jonah was not travelling on a modern liner. No, but I am not preaching to Jonah, I am preaching to you. On the down-grade that is precisely what you go after — Jonah goes with them to Tarshish. You see, he is not saved from bad company. Many of us need that salvation. One of the most vicious things you can be in touch with is bad company. “Evil communications”, we are told, “corrupt good manners”, (1 Corinthians 15:33). Many young men and young women brought up in christian manners have taken on others in bad company. On a ship all are in close company, it is difficult to keep clear of those of the world; you do not wish to if you are on the down-grade; but to some of us it is a most trying ordeal.
The next thing is that Jonah went down into the sides of the ship. It is mentioned, I believe, to emphasise this course of degradation. There is nothing elevated in his soul. If in a path like that my thoughts are degraded, my heart is in the world. That is, I have returned to what I am naturally. We can picture Jonah on board. And who were there on board? Well, there were mariners and there was a ship-master. We can thank God for these; they are like “the powers that be”, that we can pray for. God can use them; His angels, who are here as ministering spirits for them who shall be heirs of salvation, employ such. Jonah was one of those heirs of salvation. It is a fine thing to get the light of the heirship, but you want the thing you are heir to. So God uses the mariners; He has sent out His angels to look after you in your wayward course. He orders things to help you; the wind comes up, the sea rolls, and seeing that the ship is likely to be wrecked, the mariners are afraid. Well they may be! God intended that. And the ship-master too, for he had much under his hand.
These are agencies that are not to be despised; God uses them in a providential way. So the ship-master makes his round — God uses him in this. It may be a policeman or a magistrate; it may be an employer, or a father — any one that God may use providentially; he finds you at the depths of moral degradation and challenges you. The ship-master says, “What meanest thou, O sleeper?” That is the word; it is a word from God. You say, What did the ship-master know about God? Very little, but God knew about him; God could [p. 470] use him as he used the ass of Balaam. So he says, “What meanest thou, O sleeper?” What meanest thou, away from God, going down, down, down? Why are you here? You ought to know better. Why should you forsake your own mercy? All this enters into that question.
Then they began to inquire more of him; I do not go into details — the passage is well known — but they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah. That was of God. They say, “Tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us; what is thine occupation? and whence comest thou? what is thy country? and of what people art thou?” Now he has to give an account of himself. You see, God has pointed His finger to him. It may be so here tonight, that God is pointing His finger to some of you; your conscience has come into action.
So the lot fell upon Jonah; there can be no escape, for God was in this matter. Who can flee from the presence of God? “Whither shall I flee from thy presence?” says one, (Psalm 139:7). You cannot. Jonah is detected and exposed, but what for? That he may be saved. That is the thing. All this is that he might be saved, and that he might exemplify salvation. So Jonah has to say, This is on my account; he has to answer for himself. So he says, “I am an Hebrew”. Well, there is a lot said in Scripture about Hebrews. Who was the first Hebrew? The father of all believers — Abraham. They might have said, You have a wonderful ancestry, why should you be here? If you belong to that family — that family that has ever been under reproach in this world, but under the favour of God; it is wonderfully favoured by God, for God is the God of the Hebrews — why should you be here? He acknowledges his relation with Abraham; in other words, he is a true believer. There is a work of God in him, but his will has been at work. He has observed lying vanities and forsaken his own mercy, and God will not let him go. He is after him.
[p. 471] If he paid his fare and went down to the ship, God followed him. The lot falls upon him, and he says, “I am an Hebrew”. But then he says more than that; he says, “I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land”.
We are coming now to the turning-point. He has far more intelligence than any of those mariners. “Jehovah”, he says, “who hath made the sea”, the very thing they were suffering from. He was no idolater; he knew better, but he was in moral degradation, his will was working. I can imagine a man like this speaking the truth of God in the most unholy circumstances, in a theatre, in a saloon, in the very worst company. But his conscience is reached; he confesses that he is an Hebrew, and that he fears God. He is now on the ascent. And who is this God he fears? Jehovah, the covenant God of Israel; the God that led them out of the land of Egypt; who made the sea and the dry land. He quotes Moses. Then he tells them what to do. May God grant that someone here who has been on the down-grade may be aroused! Let your conscience work. You know you have the truth; God would reach you and cause it to act on you, so that you may say, “I am an Hebrew”; that you may say, ‘I am a christian, I fear God, but I have got into this plight through my own will’. God says, ‘I am here to help you’.
So Jonah knows what to do. The passage says the men were “exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, Why hast thou done this? ... And he said unto them, Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you: for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you”. He is confessing now. I do urge you to take that way, as the light reaches you, acknowledging that it is on your account that calamities have happened. Jonah is taking the blame of the storm on himself. A sure sign of the work of God in young men and young women is when they begin to blame themselves.
[p. 472] While one is saying to his parents, ‘You did it’, or to his brothers or sisters, ‘You were unkind’, he is not with God. But as soon as he begins to take things to himself and say, ‘I am to blame for all this’, deliverance is in sight, salvation is in view for him. So Jonah says, “Cast me forth into the sea”. Then it says that the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. He is to be enclosed in a living being, as I may say; taken away from the mariners and from the ship-master and cast into the sea.
Apparently all is hopeless now, but no, this is the beginning of positive salvation. So he is in the belly of the great fish. It must have been the most extraordinary fish that ever swam; it was divinely prepared. You will perhaps remember that the fish is the first living creature made, according to Genesis. The fish are called “living souls”. This fish is prepared by God. Can we doubt that Jonah’s experiences in that place are the experiences of Christ? He goes the road of the sufferings of Christ. It is not now moral descent; it is the descent of love. He goes down to the bottom of the mountains; it is the descent of Christ. The Lord Jesus went the whole way — “that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?” (Ephesians 4:9). Nobody can go lower, but it is in love, that He might come up again and take us up and have us in heaven. That is the gospel in Ephesians; it is the gospel of ascent. “By grace are ye saved through faith”; that is in a passage that tells us that God has raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places (chapter 2:5,6). He has taken us away altogether from the earth; that is the full thought of God, and to secure it the Lord Jesus goes down to the bottom of the mountains.
Now I wanted to finish with the verses I read, so that we may all — christians as well as those that are not — come to see what saved people are like. Questions often [p. 473] arise, and the great difficulty is because we have not an exemplification of the thing we are questioning about. Hence, if we have a question about salvation, let us see a saved person. A preacher should certainly be that. So here Jonah begins to pray. That is the first great mark of one saved. As with Saul, the word was, “behold, he prayeth”, (Acts 9:11). As soon as you are made to feel spiritual need you begin to pray. Where did he pray from? Not from the bottom of the ship, but from the fish’s belly; it became a temple. It says, “Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish’s belly, 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”. You see how the utterance of need ascends from the very depths of the sea. Well, that is what Jonah experiences, but he is not yet saved literally, although morally so, as in the divinely prepared fish.
The answer to the prayer is that the fish is directed to dry land. Every inch taken in that sea towards the dry land spoke of obedience to the will of God. That fish was wholly subservient to the will of God. The word came to him, and he vomited up Jonah. Jonah had already said, “Salvation is of Jehovah”. That is to say, God had taken him up, as all of us, for His own pleasure. If Jonah is a saved man, it is for Himself. So he says, “I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving”. Think of that! Did not that reach the ears of God? Was there ever a fish (a “living creature”) more living than this one? Within him was a praying man, a sacrificing man, a praising man, and a worshipping man. What a scene — a veritable temple right down in the depths of the Mediterranean, by the mighty power of God! That is salvation; that is what God can effect. You may not believe it, but there is here a marvellous testimony to the power of God in the gospel. What He did for Jonah He is ready to do for any sinner here [p. 474] tonight. Think of God preparing that great fish, which carried Jonah through from death into life, and vomited him up on dry land!
Well, God takes him up and sends him again to Nineveh. Jonah says, “I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that which I have vowed”. If we do not pay our vows it is worse than if we had not made them. We are told that these mariners made vows, as if that were the point, but it does not say that they paid them. It does say that Jonah would pay his. One saved man is paying his vows. “When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed”, (Ecclesiastes. 5:4).