As we come again to God’s Word, I remind my heart and yours that there is one principle of Bible study absolutely indispensable. Many principles are helpful; only one is indispensable, and that is total reliance on God’s Holy Spirit.
How we need the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit, all that I will share, or anybody shares, is just theory. We do not want theory; we want life. And without the Holy Spirit, there is no life. So we need the Holy Spirit.
Before I share a verse, I just want to make this comment. You know, we are in the book of Jonah. Jonah is in the Old Testament. The difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament is not the message. It is the same message.
The difference is that the Old Testament gives the truth in seed form, in story form. The New Testament gives the truth in fully developed form. It is exactly the same truth. The book of Jonah is Romans 6–8. That is the book of Jonah.
As we look at this, I am just asking for your patience, because we are going to be looking at the seed, and I am going to be giving more of the fully developed form. But you will see it in the seed. So we just want the Lord to help us there.
Romans 7:4:
Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the law through the body of Christ,
so that you might be joined to another,
to Him who was raised from the dead,
in order that we might bear fruit for God.
We are going to be talking this morning about Jonah’s death. And why would he die? That he might be married to another—to the One who is risen from the dead. And why united to Him? That we might bring forth fruit to God.
We die to be married, for marriage to produce.
Let us pray together.
Heavenly Father, thank You for gathering us together again. And, Lord, we just ask that by Your indwelling Holy Spirit, we might be able to see the Lord Jesus in a fresh, living way.
We know someday down the road, when we see Him, we will be like Him. We know that is true right now: when we see Him, we will be like Him. So just open our eyes, open our hearts. Unveil Yourself.
We thank You in advance that You are doing it and You are going to do it, because we claim it in the all-prevailing name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
All right then, welcome again to our look at the Lord Jesus in the book of Jonah. When you come to any book in the Bible, you do not study any book to know the book. I hope you will know Jonah a little better when we are finished, but we study Jonah to know Christ.
That is why you study Genesis and Psalms and Romans. Every book is designed to turn your eyes to the Lord Jesus. And so, in the book of Jonah, we are going to see the Lord Jesus.
I suggested that the full explanation of the message of Jonah was in the New Testament and from the lips of our Lord Jesus. I just want to read those verses again.
Matthew 12:38-41:
Some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.”
But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign;
yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet.
For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster,
so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment, and will condemn it,
because they repented at the preaching of Jonah;
and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.”
And then a sister passage from Luke 11. There are a few differences.
Luke 11:29-32:
As the crowds were increasing, He began to say, “This generation is a wicked generation;
it seeks for a sign, and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah.
For just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites,
so will the Son of Man be to this generation.
The Queen of the South will rise up with the men of this generation at the judgment and condemn them,
because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon;
and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.
The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment and condemn it,
because they repented at the preaching of Jonah;
and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.”
The Lord worked a mighty work of redemption through Jonah when he became a sign. There is a good chance that maybe half a million people were saved in one day because God used Jonah as a sign.
And He said that is the only sign He will ever give to the wicked generation, and that applies to our generation. If God is going to reach this generation, He is going to have to have a sign. And that sign will have to be Jonah.
God wants to work in us exactly what He worked in Jonah, and in the same way. When the book of Jonah begins—this is just a review—Jonah is not a sign. Second Kings calls him a servant of the Lord. Second Kings calls him a prophet of the Lord.
He is a servant; he is a prophet; but he is not a sign. This book is a testimony. I am almost trying not to call it a book anymore, because it is the testimony of Jonah.
It is very precious to me, because it is my testimony as well. As I go through and watch Jonah testify, and I see him tell how God brought him, I reflect back on my life. It is a precious, precious book.
The testimony of Jonah was written by Jonah. It is a precious testimony. I actually read somebody who said that probably Jonah did not write it. I think chapter 2 is a first-person testimony. Well, he is down in the fish, you know what I am saying?
Anyway, in this testimony Jonah is blatantly honest. He pours out his heart and tells exactly who God discovered him to be, how he had to face that, and then how he had to be replaced.
The crisis of this book is that Jonah did not have a problem. Many think he did. His problem was Nineveh; his problem was, “I am a prophet”; his problem was an incorrect view of God; his problem was that he was a patriot and Israel was in trouble.
He did not have a problem. He was the problem. And God had to solve him. God had to solve the person. That is part of his testimony.
For that to happen, we saw in our introduction that it would take a mighty miracle of God to turn someone like Jonah, who had a non-missionary heart and an anti-missionary heart, into someone who could become a sign and lead thousands to Christ. What a mighty miracle that took.
We saw how the book is full of miracles—physical miracles: God’s power over the weather and God’s power over the sea creature. God talks to a plant, and He talks to a worm, and He talks to the east wind, and He commands the sun to shine hot. He controls the superstition, the lot that they cast in order to identify Jonah.
So many miracles. And then the great moral miracle: so many saved in one day. The marvelous miracle.
The book shows all those miracles because Jonah is testifying, saying, “God brought me to the place where I became a sign.” That is the mighty miracle in the book of Jonah.
Wonderful as those other miracles are, they are just turning us in the direction that God must work a mighty miracle in me and in you. You might surprise yourself when you fail, but God never expected anything from you except failure. That is all God ever expects from me: failure.
I need a miracle. You need a miracle. Jonah needed a miracle. And Jonah said, “What God did for me was so great, I want to write it down.”
Now Jonah is writing a testimony. God is writing a Bible. Jonah never thought that he would be part of the Bible and that his testimony would live on through the ages. He was just a man on whom God had tremendous mercy, and he became a sign.
As I said, when the book opens, Jonah is the servant of the Lord and the prophet of the Lord. It is not enough to be a servant of the Lord. It is not enough to be a Christian. It is not enough to be a prophet, a teacher, an elder, or a Bible student.
You have got to be a sign. You have got to be a sign. Because God said no other sign will be given to this generation.
The only hope for Nineveh was that Jonah would become a sign. And the only hope for this generation—look at all the signs sitting here—that is the hope for the world. That is the hope for the world. May God help us.
When I closed, I suggested this little outline. This morning, I would like to look at how God brought Jonah to the end of the Jonah life. How did God bring Jonah to the end of the Jonah life, to raise him up by a life not his own and turn that man into a sign?
That is what we will look at this morning. Lord willing, this evening we are going to look at what that means. What is the sign exactly? Nail it down. Tell me. I want to know exactly what that sign is. God assisting, we will look at that this evening.
Jonah’s testimony is in two parts. This is what God did to me before I became a sign. But I had not arrived. This is what God did for me after I became a sign. That is chapter 4, the great clincher of his testimony.
In our present study, I want to show the process by which God makes His child a sign, and it is laid out in chapters 1 and 2. This morning we would like to look at the heart of those chapters.
God brings Jonah to the end of Jonah. While Jonah lives the Jonah life, he will never be a sign. While Ed Miller lives the Ed Miller life, he will never be a sign. As I suggested last evening, put your name in there. Well, the Lord is going to pursue you.
We cannot be a sign in our natural life.
Now I want to begin with a very important truth that is sometimes misunderstood and often resisted. That is, the death of Jonah—or dying to self, however you want to say it; the death of Ed Miller—the principle is this: the death of the self-life is a work of God.
You cannot surrender yourself to death. Many Christians think that is the way. They are constantly surrendering, dedicating, rededicating, consecrating, starting over; and they say, “Finally, I have died to self.”
It is a mighty work of God. That is why we emphasized in the first lesson that the whole book is nothing but miracle after miracle after miracle. It takes a miracle of God. If God is ever going to bring you to the end of self, it is going to be by a miracle of the Lord.
The crisis, as I suggested, is Jonah—not what Jonah is thinking and rationalizing, not what Jonah is feeling about Nineveh or about Israel, not what Jonah is not doing, the will of God, disobeying, or what he is doing.
The message of this book is not how God brought a disobedient prophet to be an obedient prophet. That is not the message. It is how God put Jonah to death so that He could have His life lived.
Jonah 1:1-2:
The word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying,
“Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and cry against it,
for their wickedness has come up before Me.”
Now, in a graphic way, the Holy Spirit spells out the problem. Jonah 1:3:
But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.
So he went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarshish,
paid the fare, and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.
Do not get sidetracked, as many of the commentaries seem to, with Tarshish. Now, the important thing is, where is Tarshish? Some say it is the Rock of Gibraltar, off the coast of Spain. Some say it is somewhere in England. Some say it is the same place as Saul—Paul’s hometown.
The word Nineveh and the word Tarshish can become a distraction. I will tell you clearly where Tarshish is: it is in the opposite direction of Nineveh. That is where it is, because that is the point.
It is in the opposite direction of God’s will. He could not go further from God’s will. That is the natural heart of you and me: get out of the presence of the Lord; go my own way.
There are many roads, many routes to Tarshish. Some go to Tarshish on the business route. Some go to Tarshish on the educational route. Some go to Tarshish on the pleasure route. Some take the domestic route. Some go to Tarshish on the religious route. Many do.
But resisting the will of God and going in the opposite direction—once again, that is the symptom. That is not the problem. That is not the problem. God is not going to correct that.
The problem is not that he fled to Tarshish, or that he fled from God’s commission, or that he was running away from God’s will. Verse 3 says twice, “from the presence of the Lord.” That is the issue.
Not only once in verse 3, but twice: “from the presence of the Lord.” Then later, on the boat with the mariners, Jonah 1:10 says:
Then the men became extremely frightened and they said to him, “How could you do this?”
For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them.
Even when he was in the fish, the presence of the Lord became the issue. Jonah 2:4:
So I said, “I have been expelled from Your sight.”
Now it bothers him. He was trying to run from the presence of the Lord. Now he is getting a taste of what that means—to be separated.
I am sure if you interviewed Jonah during his flight, he could have given you a lot of religious answers on why he was running. I do not think he understood at that time the real issue.
Would he have confessed, “I just do not want to be in the presence of the Lord”? I do not think he would have said that. He would have attempted, I think, to explain something less than, “I want my way.”
He would have said, “I am a patriot. I am fighting for my people. I think God is making a mistake here. I think these people need to be judged. I hate these people. They are wicked. They need to be judged. I do not want to be regarded as a false prophet.”
He would have given a lot of reasons, I think. Before I began to know—I am still starting to know—the indwelling life of the Lord, if you had interviewed me along the way, I would not have said, “I just do not want to be in the presence of God.”
I would have thought that my decisions were taking me closer to the Lord, and that I was getting more into the presence of the Lord.
There is an expression in verse 3 on which I want to focus: “He paid the fare.” It is literal, but it is also spiritual. He paid the fare.
You run from the presence of the Lord, you are going to pay the fare. It is a lot like the expression in John 13:30 about Judas:
After receiving the morsel, he went out immediately; and it was night.
I know it was night; the sun went down. But I will tell you, he went out into a night—a terrible moral night. He paid the fare.
There is a recurring word in the testimony of Jonah, and I do not think it is an accident. I think it is deliberate that he put it there.
Verse 3: he went down to Joppa. He went down to the ship. Verse 5: he went down into the hold of the ship. Verse 12: thrown into the sea. Verse 17: swallowed by the fish, down into the stomach of the fish.
Chapter 2, verse 2: down to the depths of Sheol. Verse 3: cast into the deep. Verse 6: descended to the roots of the mountains.
Dear friends in Christ, I am not good at directions. I get lost—like I always say—going through a revolving door. I cannot find my way.
There are only two directions on my map, and on your map: it is my life or His life. That is all that is on the map—my life or His life.
If I choose my life, as I did, I will pay the fare. If you choose your life, you will pay the fare. You say, “What is the fare?”
Down, down, down, down, down, down. It is a full course. That is the fare.
The bottom is not the same for everybody. I am amazed at some people. They just seem like they are at the bottom, and they are not.
I remember one time I was in Chicago, witnessing to a man on the street—a drunkard, sitting in the Windy City in the winter with just a T-shirt. He was drenched in his own vomit.
I tried to share the gospel with him, and he said, “I am a drunkard. I know I am a drunkard, but at least I know it. The other drunkards do not know it. I am a drunkard, but I admit it.”
But there he was, sitting in his own vomit, and he had not hit the bottom. The bottom is different for everybody. But God says, “You are going to go down if you choose your life.”
So the issue is that Jonah is running from the presence of the Lord, and he is paying a fare, and he is going down, down, down.
Now I want to show you the process that God used in his life to bring him to the end of the Jonah experience, the Jonah life.
The first step in the process—and may God underline it in your heart—is this: God is a God of grace. In Jonah’s testimony, he cannot stop talking about the fact that when he was running, when he was running from the Lord, God was pursuing.
He pursued before he was a sign, and He pursued after he was a sign. The Lord is after Jonah. He is going to put an end to the Jonah life, and a big part of that is that God is going to work a miracle.
All through chapters 1 and 2, we see the pursuing heart of the Lord.
Let me just give you this little advice—especially you young guys. Well, no, not especially you young guys; especially all of us. If you try to run from the Lord, Someone is pursuing you. Do not even dream that you are going to escape. You are not.
When God pursues, He gets His prey. He gets His prey.
All through this testimony of Jonah, behind the scenes, Jonah points out that God was engineering, God was controlling, God was providentially guiding and arranging and commanding and ruling and reigning and overruling. He keeps calling attention to that.
I know I would not be standing before you today if God was not a God who pursued His child to make a sign. My guess is you would not be here today either.
If you think you are a Christian and you are still on the run, I promise you, God is coming after you. He is coming after you. You are born again; you are a Christian. You are going to be made a sign—someday, some way, somehow, whatever it takes. He is pursuing you, as He pursued me and Jonah.
Now, in God’s desire to capture us, it is easy to get deceived. For example, circumstances are not a reliable guide to know the will of God.
Sometimes we just say, “Well, I am not running from the Lord. God gave all these circumstances.” You know, sometimes when you are fleeing the presence of the Lord, circumstances become very favorable.
For Jonah, the ship was ready to depart. It was right there. He got there just in time. He had enough money. There was room on the boat. There was room in the cabin. Circumstances.
And he is running from the Lord. Sounds like the will of God. Everything worked out.
“I know it must be the will of God because I was accepted. It must be the will of God because I was invited. It must be the will of God because I got promoted. It must be the will of God because I met just the right people at just the right time, and it opened that door. The door was opened. It must be the will of God.”
We know the circumstances worked out for Jonah, and it was not the will of God. God is not going to force your will ever. He is not going to force my will.
He will certainly overrule it, and He will overrule the circumstances, and praise God, He does that. But following circumstances as proof that this is God’s will is like letting your conscience be your guide. It is not reliable. It has been seared. It has been ruined.
Jonah spells out the weapons God used, and I would like to call attention to the two main weapons God used in him, and usually for us—certainly in my life.
Jonah has a lot to say about the storm. You will want to read Psalm 29. I am not going to share it, but you will want to read Psalm 29: God’s voice in the storm. It is a wonderful chapter. Take close attention to the deer when you read that chapter.
The storm is a mighty factor to bring Jonah to the place where he will be at the end of Jonah. Jonah 1:4:
The Lord hurled a great wind on the sea,
and there was a great storm on the sea
so that the ship was about to break up.
There is a storm out there, but I am telling you, there is a storm in here—in Jonah’s life. It is the way of God as He pursues me, as He pursues you, anybody who needs to come to the end of themselves.
I like the expression too: He hurled the storm. How do you picture that? He hurled the storm at him. There are many ways to say it, but I promise you this: He will rock your boat.
He certainly did that there. He will break things. It will disturb your rest. Storms are a great part of God’s means to bring a person to the end of themselves.
I have heard testimony about literal storms. I know a person who came to the Lord through a flood—as a literal storm. Hurricanes. Accidents.
I was close friends, until the Lord took him to heaven, with a man who had one of the most amazing testimonies I ever heard. He was a pastor up in Vermont. He had heard the gospel, but he loved his liquor. He was drinking and drinking and did not want to get saved. He said, “I am going to get saved in old age.”
He heard the gospel many times over, many times over. One day, in a drunken state, he went flying, speeding down the highway, went off the road, hit a tree, and the car burst into flames.
He was in and out of consciousness. He saw the flames. He thought he was in hell. He cried out, “Save…” and went unconscious.
He woke up in the recovery room saved. I know the man. Marvelous. We had great fellowship together. That was his testimony.
God is pursuing, and He will use any means. He will use a storm.
In Jonah’s case, that storm was unusually severe. I am assuming that these Phoenician mariners on whose boat Jonah was, were accustomed to the sea and accustomed to storms.
Yet we read in Jonah 1:10, “The men became extremely frightened.” They said, “How could you do that?” You get people who are professionals on the sea, and they are extremely frightened.
Jonah 1:4 says, “The Lord hurled a great wind on the sea. There was a great storm on the sea. The ship was about to break up.” Just use your imagination and picture that: the storm, the wind, the waves, the boat rocking. It is coming apart; it is groaning, it is creaking, it is quivering.
In his testimony, he speaks of the storm in Jonah 1:11:
The sea was becoming increasingly stormy.
God is chasing you. If He sends a storm and you do not respond, the storm gets stormier. Then look at verse 13:
The sea was becoming even stormier.
If you respond to a storm and then it gets exceedingly stormy, and then it gets even stormier, He is going for you. He wants your attention. He uses a storm.
God authored that storm. God controlled that storm. God knows when to put it to an end. He also caused the storm to cease.
May I suggest, brothers, in God’s desire to turn you into a sign, He may hurl a storm into your life.
It might be a health storm. It might be a financial storm. It might be a family storm, a relationship storm. It might be a church storm. It might be a mental storm: confusion, anxiety, depression, frustration.
What a commentary on Proverbs 13:15:
The way of the transgressor is hard.
Psalm 107:27 asks why God brings a storm:
They rose up to the heavens,
they went down to the depths;
their soul melted away in their misery.
They reeled and staggered like a drunken man,
and were at their wits’ end.
You know why God brings the storm? To bring you to your wits’ end. Your wit—you cannot handle it. You do not know what to do. You are frustrated. Everything is collapsing.
Jonah mentions another thing God used as He was pursuing Jonah. I am referring to the back and forth between Jonah and the mariners, the Phoenician mariners.
It was that association, that connection with the heathen, that finally exposed Jonah for the person he really was. God used the heathen. God used those mariners.
The storm that was sent to reach Jonah also affected the mariners. Jonah 1:4 says that the ship began to break up. That was not his ship. Now he is bringing grief to other people—grief to these mariners.
Jonah 1:5 says:
Then the sailors became afraid and every man cried to his god,
and they threw the cargo which was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them.
That was not his stuff. That was not his cargo. Now, I know God is dealing with the mariners as much as He is dealing with Jonah. Everyone deserves to be drowned in the sea. Those mariners were heathens; they were idolaters. They deserved to be drowned.
But his interaction with them had a ministry of exposing him for the hypocrite he really was. That is part of coming to the end of yourself. It is discovering yourself. It is learning who you are.
We always say, “You know, the flesh—and God, deliver me from the flesh.” The flesh is something inside that rises once in a while and gives you trouble. It is not.
Romans 7—you know the verse:
Nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.
The flesh is you. All that is in me—that is, the flesh. It is not something that rises in you now and then and gives you trouble. It is you. It is me. It is Jonah.
It is painful to see that they are throwing all their stuff overboard. It is not going to stop until they throw Jonah overboard. That is the problem. It is Jonah.
It is painful to see how selfish lives can cause such pain to others.
A lot of the testimony that you will hear is, “I hurt my family. I hurt my wife. I hurt my kids. I hurt my parents. I hurt my friends. I caused them grief. I caused them pain. I hurt the church. I ruined my testimony. I was exposed.”
We are the problem.
It is amazing how we throw everything else overboard, trying to think we are getting right. “Quit the ministry. We will throw it overboard. We will move. We will go to another place, another location, take a different job. I will get rid of those friends. Everything—I will start all over again.”
“My problem is laziness. All right, so I will solve laziness. I will get busy. My problem is selfishness. All right, I will start being generous. Neglect? Okay, I will get up early. I will get some spiritual disciplines, and I will follow the disciplines.”
We throw everything overboard, and we become busy, and we think that we are genuine. But we are not. We are involved, and we are focusing on other things, and the storm rages on. It rages on.
Because we are still in the boat. It is not going to stop until we get out of the boat. That is the way of God.
Jonah was to blame for a lot of the hardship that others went through. Jonah 1:10:
Then the men became extremely frightened and they said to him, “How could you do this?”
For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them.
Have you ever been—do not answer, just think—have you ever been rebuked by the heathen? That is embarrassing. I have, by the unsaved.
“I thought you were a Christian. How could you do that? I never thought I would hear a word like that coming out of the mouth of a believer. I thought you were a Christian. How could you treat them that way? How could you cheat? How could you lie? Why did you exaggerate?”
Meanwhile, Jonah—they are bailing, they are rowing, they are trying to survive, they are throwing their stuff overboard. Where is Jonah? He is down sleeping.
The Hebrew word for sleep there includes the word snore. That is where he was: snoring, unconscious to all the spiritual things that were taking place all around him.
Now, it is possible that those mariners were foxhole Christians. When they stopped praying to their gods and trusted the Lord, it says they offered sacrifices, and the Hebrew word is animal sacrifices.
They did not have animals on that boat. That happened later when they got to shore. This was genuine, just like the repentance of Nineveh was genuine. You say, “How do you know?” Jesus told me.
He said in the New Testament that they repented at the preaching of Jonah. It is real.
When you read the record, Jonah is supposed to be the spiritual one. They look more spiritual than him. They are praying; they are calling on their gods. He is down there sleeping.
I wonder how much property Jonah would have sacrificed for them. They are throwing all their stuff overboard.
Jonah 1:11-12:
Then they said to him, “What should we do to you that the sea may become calm for us?”
For the sea was becoming increasingly stormy.
He said to them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea.
Then the sea will become calm for you,
for I know that on account of me this great storm has come upon you.”
When they discovered all of their fear, the loss of their stuff, the threatening loss of their boat, and that their lives were now in jeopardy, would you not think they would have said, “You scoundrel! You claim that you are a servant of the One who made the land and the sea, who is in charge of everything. You cost us our goods. You cost us our boat. You are threatening our lives. You better believe we are going to throw you in this sea.”
But what do we read? Jonah 1:13:
However, the men rowed desperately to return to land, but they could not,
for the sea was becoming even stormier against them.
Do you see in this broad testimony? It begins with Jonah saying, “No mercy for the heathen.” Now the heathen are having mercy on Jonah. They are trying desperately to get him to the land.
I wonder what went through his mind when he saw this. He does not want the heathen to have mercy, and now the heathen are showing mercy to him.
I am not going to develop it here, but the Lord is not only dealing with Jonah—you know that. He is dealing with them as well.
The storm not only affected their little craft. I have an idea there were other ships on the sea as well at that time, and that storm would have affected them as well. God is always dealing with everyone at the same time.
I do not want to underestimate God using Jonah in the lives of the mariners before he became a sign. He was just not using him powerfully in the purpose and redemption of God.
So God uses the storm to bring me low, and He uses the heathen to expose me, to bring out the hypocrite in me. Jonah said to them in verse 9:
I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord God of heaven
who made the sea and the dry land.
It is a large crisis in the life of anyone, and it was for Jonah, when God pursues him with a storm—hurls a storm into their life—and when they finally realize all the damage they have done all around them, how they have hurt their family.
I remember when God began to open up the way of life to me. I thought I had to get a divorce. It was a hard time. I hurt my family so much.
It is a big crisis. He is almost in despair. So he has got to do something. He has got to do something. He has been found out. He has been exposed. He has been discovered. He is Jonah. He has got to do something.
The Lord had pursued him with a storm and had used the heathen—used the ones he had hurt so desperately. As we come to the end of chapter 1 in Jonah, it looks to these eyes—not to these eyes, but looks to these eyes—like Jonah has finally come to the end of himself.
Do not be deceived. It only appears so.
Jonah 1:12:
He said to them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea.
Then the sea will become calm for you.”
It looks like a positive change in Jonah—the end of self. “Pick me up. I cannot do anything now. I have messed up so bad, hurt so many people. All I can do is surrender.”
But it is self surrendering. There is no humility here. There is no repentance here. There is no trust in the Lord. He is still Jonah. He still has a non-missionary heart. He still has an anti-missionary heart. He is still not a sign.
It looks good. “I will save you. You do not have to die. Then throw me into the sea. I will give my life for the heathen.” It sounds so good. It sounds noble.
But it is an appeal for the flesh to die to the flesh. The flesh can never die to the flesh. You cannot surrender yourself dead. You cannot dedicate yourself dead. You cannot rededicate yourself dead. You cannot consecrate yourself dead. It is impossible.
It needs a work of God. Throw your life overboard.
Many testimonies are made up of this experience, when self surrendered self so that we could come to the end of self. You hear testimonies: “I could have been a doctor. I could have been a lawyer. I could have been a businessman or an entrepreneur.”
“But I was encouraged one day. I heard a message: ‘Throw your life overboard. Save the heathen.’ So I gave my life to become a missionary,” whatever.
Jonah’s surrender, I think, is wonderfully described in 1 Corinthians 13:3:
If I give all my possessions to feed the poor,
and if I surrender my body to be burned,
but do not have love, it profits me nothing.
How could you give more than everything and your body to be burned? Yet if you have not love, which is the fruit of the Spirit, the work of God—if I give everything and my body to be burned, if I throw myself into the sea or have someone throw me into the sea—it profits nothing.
This surrender that looks like surrender in chapter 1 is just Saul falling on his own sword in order to save his reputation. It is just proud self going out in a blaze of glory.
Self-denial is not denial of self. Self cannot deny. This is just a suicide bomber. That is all Jonah is. He is just blowing himself up. It is the last stand of the flesh.
I suffered much in my own life when I learned that I was the problem. God used the storms, and He used other people and how I hurt them.
I think it is a great hindrance to the message of victory in Christ. The more the storm rages, the more we think we have to surrender. So we surrender, but it is just self-surrender.
It does not work, and it will never work. I have thrown more sticks in the fire, signed more cards, raised more hands, came forward, and stepped over more lines—and it never worked. It never worked.
Every time I screwed up, every time I went down, somebody said, “You are not surrendered. You are holding something back.” So I would surrender more.
There was a season in my life, brothers, when I surrendered my guts out. I started with my body, and I surrendered my brain. Then I went down and I surrendered my eyes. I surrendered whatever went into my mouth and whatever came out of my mouth. I surrendered my ears. I surrendered my hands, surrendered my feet, surrendered my heart.
I did not know what else to surrender. Then I thought about my family, so I surrendered all my kids and my grandkids, my wife, aunts, uncles. I surrendered a great-aunt that I had not seen in years.
Then I did not know what else to surrender. The Lord has given me a huge library. I went through each book, and I surrendered one at a time: “Give You this book, give You this. I surrender.”
I got up, and you cannot believe the foul thoughts that went through my mind. I could not believe the thoughts that were going through my mind. Then I got angry. Then I got impatient.
Did it work? We say surrender is the cure. Surrender is a great enemy for what God wants to do in my life.
We need to be careful because that is an appeal especially made to young people: “Surrender. Surrender. Surrender your life.” Better make sure it is not self trying to surrender.
Surrender has a place, but not before I become a sign. After I become a sign, we continually give the Lord, “Lord, I am all messed up, and here are all the pieces. Take me. I have ruined this, and I have ruined that.”
What does He want with that junk? He does not want that.
Romans 6:13 says:
Yield yourselves unto God,
as those that are alive from the dead.
Now surrender that. That is a different story altogether.
Anyway, back to this. Jonah 1:15 ends:
So they picked up Jonah, threw him into the sea,
and the sea stopped its raging.
It is over. Jonah dies—except we know the testimony; we know the record. Jonah still lives.
God has to do—pun intended—a deeper work. A deeper work. God has to do a work in order that he be raised a sign. God has to do a work that is secret and beneath the surface, beyond human vision.
God has to do a work in Jonah. Jonah 1:17:
And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah,
and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights.
God is still pursuing. God is still chasing him down. He used circumstances. He used the storm. He used the heathen. He used the lot. He used the conviction of all the people he had hurt. God still pursues.
God loves Jonah. That fish is not chastening. That fish is his salvation. That is his deliverance. God is using that fish. He is still pursuing Jonah.
I want to describe the reality of what God is doing. I remind you again: we are in the Old Testament seed-form pictures. There is a New Testament fully developed form. My heart is filled with the fully developed, but I want to express it in terms of the picture.
Jonah 1:17 again: “The Lord appointed a great fish.” Jonah is placed by God where he will experience identification with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.
How do I know that? Jesus told me in the fully developed form:
For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster,
so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
In the experience of Jonah, God is picturing how God miraculously brings a person to the end of self. It is necessary, absolutely necessary, to identify with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.
I am sure Jonah at that time did not understand at all. All he knows is, “I am being swallowed by a fish.” He does not know that God is going to allow him the privilege to picture forever identification with the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
Symbolically, that is where he was placed—in the fish, in the message of identification with Christ. You have got to remember, that is small quarters. He is surrounded with that message. That is all he has now. He has lost everything else.
All he has is the message of identification with Christ: dead, buried, resurrection.
Well, I will add a little bit of my testimony to that. The Lord saved me in 1958, and there was so much Ed Miller life for the next seven years. I struggled my head off trying to be the best Christian that He ever saved.
Anyway, I was exposed as the hypocrite I was in 1965. I did what Jonah did. I said, “It is over. Throw me overboard. I want to die. I do not want to lose my wife. I do not want to lose my family. I have already lost my testimony.”
I had already been exposed as a hypocrite. I did not feel like I was in a fish, but I look back now and feel like I was in a fish, because my life stunk.
It was dark. I did not see anything. It was cramped. Tremendous pressure. That is Jonah. That is what he is going through.
Everywhere I turned at that time, in 1965, all I could hear was the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ—identification with Christ.
Every song I sang seemed to say that. Every message I heard seemed to say that. Every person I met seemed to know that. I did not know it; they seemed to know it.
Every book that was handed to me was one of those books. I was introduced to Andrew Murray, to Maxwell, to Stanford, to Smith, to Kongs, and all I could get. I was surrounded by the message: identification with Jesus Christ. I was engulfed by that message.
There is a second part. In the fish, God put Jonah into the shoes of the heathen—those that he was sent to rescue.
God was bringing Jonah to utter despair. Jonah 2:3, down to the heart of the sea; Jonah 1:17, down to the belly of the sea monster; Jonah 2:2, down to the depths of Sheol; Jonah 2:6, down to the roots of the mountains.
Boy, I recall in my experience that unbelievable pressure. As Jonah looks back and recalls his experience, he said, “You know, all of that finally brought me to prayer.”
Jonah 2:1:
Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the stomach of the fish.
You see, the heathen did not deserve any mercy. Now Jonah sees himself in a place where he does not deserve any mercy. There was not one shred of difference between Jonah and the Ninevites. They deserved to be condemned, and so did he.
When a missionary looks into the eye of a cannibal, he is not the hero who has come to save the cannibal. He deserves exactly the same judgment as that cannibal deserves. He is just somebody on whom God has had a lot of mercy and whom He has led to that place.
I told you God put Jonah in the place of the heathen, but he is identifying with the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. Christ was also put into the place of the heathen. He became sin for us.
The descriptions that Jonah gives of his experience in the fish—Jonah, being a prophet, describes his own experience in hyperbole. He uses graphic language to describe what he was experiencing.
Jonah, being a prophet, described his own experience in hyperbole. Christ, being Messiah, fulfilled the hyperbole. It was literal for Him. It was actual for Him.
Jonah 2:2:
I called out of my distress to the Lord,
and He answered me.
I cried for help from the depth of Sheol;
You heard my voice.
Sheol is the place of departed spirits. For Jonah, that is figurative speech. For Christ, that is literal.
Jonah 2:4:
I said, “I have been expelled from Your sight.”
That agony for Jonah was figurative speech. For the Lord Jesus, He was expelled from the Father’s sight.
Jonah 2:5:
Water encompassed me to the point of death.
The great deep engulfed me.
The King James says, “The waters compassed me about, even to the soul.” That is the Hebrew—literally penetrating. That is figurative speech for Jonah. For our Lord Jesus, it is literal. He is identifying with Christ.
Jonah 2:5 says:
Weeds were wrapped around my head.
For Jonah, he is tangled in seaweed down there, and every time he tries to escape, it gets tighter and tighter. The Lord Jesus had thorns around His head.
Jonah 2:6:
I descended to the roots of the mountains.
The earth with its bars was around me forever.
That is a figure of speech for Jonah, but not for Jesus. All that you would have suffered if you went to hell forever, He compressed into three hours on the cross.
All that I would have suffered forever—every person in the world—He was able to compress eternity. The bars were around Him forever. It is literal for Jesus.
Jonah was identifying with Jesus. God makes a picture. What was happening literally to Jesus was also happening to Jonah at the same time. That is the deeper work that was needed.
He finally sees himself in the shoes of the heathen, identifying with the Lord Jesus, and he finally cries out in Jonah 2:9:
I will sacrifice to You with the voice of thanksgiving.
That which I have vowed I will pay.
Salvation is from the Lord.
It is all by grace. I do not deserve anything. Salvation is of the Lord.
That began hope in Jonah. In the darkness, in the cramped conditions, in that smelly place, in that helpless situation, as he identified with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, as he saw himself experiencing what Christ experienced, he began to have hope.
Jonah 2:4 says:
I have been expelled from Your sight.
Nevertheless I will look again toward Your holy temple.
Look again. He is in darkness—not these eyes.
Jonah 2:7 says:
While I was fainting away, I remembered the Lord,
and my prayer came to You,
into Your holy temple.
Verse 9: “Salvation is from the Lord.” He looks again. He remembers. He believes. He hopes. He has faith now.
I told you he identified with the death and resurrection of Christ. As soon as he said, “Salvation is of the Lord,” what is the next verse?
Jonah 2:10:
Then the Lord commanded the fish,
and it vomited Jonah up onto the dry land.
He identified with the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord. He was raised by a life not his own.
I am going to try to answer a question the commentators discuss: Did Jonah actually die? I mean, literally, and then did God raise him from the dead?
There are many arguments going on. I personally do not think that he actually died. Once again, you will see the New Testament, but God brought him to the place where he had to reckon himself dead.
You put all that together—you know what I am talking about. He had to reckon himself dead. He was as good as dead. He died to the Jonah life, and he was raised by a life not his own.
Jonah did not die to Jonah at the end of chapter 1. He died to Jonah at the end of chapter 2, when he identified with Christ.
We die by faith, not by surrender.
Identification with Christ took place, brothers, two thousand years ago. That is when you died to self.
It is heartbreaking to watch Christians continually trying to die to self. It is done. It is over. It is finished.
I know it sounds spiritual: “I need to die to self. There is so much of me in me, it is unbelievable.” To some people, it is never finished. They think victory is progressively dying every day: “I have got to die more to myself.”
But they think dying is surrender, so they try to surrender more and more, and it never works. It cannot work.
Day by day, we reckon. That is how we die day by day: we reckon. It is by faith; it is not by surrender.
Surrender is a work of the flesh unless you have been made a sign. Then it is a work of God.
When He died, you died. You know the message. I do not have to tell you guys this. You know the message.
When He died, you died. When He rose, you rose. When He ascended, you ascended. When He sat down, you are in session now with Him. You are seated with Him in heavenly places.
What is it going to take, brothers? I do not know where you are in the Lord. I do not want to judge your heart. I know where I was.
Is it going to take a storm? How many people do you have to hurt before you know who you are?
You have got to get out of the way. You do not need consecrated self. You have got to be crucified. It has got to go. That took place two thousand years ago.
We leave Jonah on the shore. We will pick it up, Lord willing, there tonight. There he is. He never expected again to ever stand on God’s earth.
Now he is a sign. What does that mean? Well, we will close there for now.
Let us pray.
Father, thank You for Your Word. Again, what we guess or think it means is not what You know it means. You inspired it. We are asking You to work that in our hearts.
Lord, thank You for this picture of Jonah and how You brought him to the end of his Jonah life by identification with the death, burial, and resurrection.
When You opened his heart to see that salvation is of the Lord, immediately it was done. He was on the shore, ready to be used by You.
Oh, Lord, work this in our hearts, we pray. In Jesus’ name.