Jonah 2Bible Study Verse By Verse - God's Salvation Comes to Jonah

Transcript

But last stream, like I said, we talked about Jonah chapter 1. And just as a summary of chapter 1, we these are our notes that we went over together. The Lord came to Jonah and said, "Go to this great nation of Israel and speak out against it. Jonah does not say a single word to God, but instead he sets in his heart to go to Tarses."

And it says three times Tarsish. Anytime you see in the Bible when it says the same city or the same phrase three times, it's saying like, "No, this really happened." It's extremely important. It should be like a red flashing alarm telling us to pay attention. And why that's so important is because let's say Jerusalem is here. And then we have Nineveh would have been about right here.

Tarsish was all the way off screen here. Tarsish was in relevance to Jerusalem. You had here it was all the way in Spain. Now, why that's significant is it is the ends of the world. So, when I pull up Jonah chapter 1 here and it says Jonah got up to flee to Tarses from the Lord's presence. He went down to Japa and found a ship in Tarses.

He went down, skipping ahead here, them to Tarses from the Lord's presence. He is trying to run away to the ends of the world to get away from the presence of the Lord. And I talked about how you we look at that and we think it's kind of silly, but no one had ever tried that before. I mean, Jonah was the first prophet to say, "I don't want to do what you have for me to Well, shouldn't he's the first prophet that didn't want to do what God said and actually acted on it."

There are other prophets who would say, "Lord, I don't know how I'm going to be able to do this." But all the other prophets, there's five other prophets that I've looked at in detail. Elijah, Samuel, Moses. When you look at these other prophets, when God calls them, they say, "Here I am, Lord," or, "Lord, use me." But Jonah doesn't say a word. And he just runs the complete other direction away from the God from God's calling as far away as he can.

In some background, just as a reminder, Nineveh was not nobody's to Jonah. Nineveh was the capital of the city of Assyria. The city of Assyria the nation of Assyria was in war against Israel. They were known for their ability to torture, to capture people. Their God was their own strength. Jonah would have hated these people more than anyone in the world. Not only Jonah, but Israel as a whole.

These would have been people that would have captured Jonah's kinsmen, his family, people that he would have known. And they were just a ruthless people. And here God is saying, "Go and call out against them." He knows that God may save them. Later on in chapter 4, Jonah even says, "Lord, is this not why I ran away from you? Because I knew you may save them." And Jonah didn't want that.

He hated Nineveh more than he loved God. And so we have the a recap of who Nineveh what Nineveh was there. And then Jonah runs away. A storm is hurled towards the sailors and Jonah since he's running away from the Lord. And we get this scene where the sailors are just crying out each to their own god. They've been calling out to the fish god, to the ocean god, to ba.

They were calling out to all these gods hoping that maybe one of these gods would hear what they say and have mercy and compassion and just not let them die. Well, Jonah is asleep during this time. And how poetic is that? A prophet who is on the run from the presence of the Lord is physically asleep when spiritually he's also asleep. And the sailors wake him up and say, "Who is your God?"

Well, they ask, "Who are your people? What do you do for a living? What nation do you come from? Where were you born? Who are your people?" And Jonah has this beautiful answer when asked all these questions. He says, "Let me pull it up here. I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord the God of heavens. What a beautiful answer there when I asked what do you do for a living who you are?

I'm a Hebrew. So he specified that because those are people who were supposed to serve Yahweh. But as we'll talk about in just a second as a reminder, Israel is not serving God. So then he specifies and I fear God. And that answers all of their other questions. That's his occupation. That's who he is. What a beautiful answer that we as Christians should be able to model today.

And as a reminder, Jonah, we saw in Kings, seeing if I put it in the notes here. I didn't put it in the notes, but in 2 Kings 14, we see that Jonah was a prophet sent to Jeroboam II. Jeroboam II did evil what was in the sight of the Lord. He continued on the sins of his father who was idolatry was rampant. Everybody had their own household idols.

They were not serving God. It gets so bad that the word of God almost gets lost and they have to find scripture when they're cleaning out the temple later on with Hezekiah and other kings that come after. So, Israel is in a state of apostasy and this is the background of what's going on because as you'll remember if you if you've studied Jonah in detail, Jonah is not about Jonah.

Prophets when they are made examples of, it's not about the prophet specifically. It's usually a discourse on Israel and what God is doing on the redeeming nation of Israel. The last thing I want to draw attention to before we just jump into the end of chapter one and continue in chapter 2 is the sign of Jonah. One reason why Jonah is such a beautiful story is because we get a typology which is just a fancy of ways of saying it's a shadow of Jesus Christ in what he does in his ministry.

God does something in Jonah's day that's pointing to the savior Jesus Christ. And so, we have Jonah comes, he prophesizes to Israel, Israel rejects, and the Gentiles are saved. Jesus comes, he preaches, Israel rejects, the Gentiles are saved on the day of Pentecost as it continues on in the book of Acts. So, let's jump into Jonah chapter 2. So, in Jonah chapter 2, well, we're going to go to the end of verse one here.

So the Lord, this is Jonah 1:17, the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Jonah prayed to God to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish. So something really interesting, the first thing we're going to take note of in chapter 2 is the word for w fish. Two words for fish.

Outside of the fish, the fish is defined as a male fish. While Jonah is inside the fish, it is referred to as a female fish. I mean, if you don't know, you know, the Hebrew language and you want to know how did I come up with that? When you go to blue letter Bible and you actually click tools here, I'll zoom in so we can see it a little better.

So, you click tools, you go down to fish. So, there's the dga that I was talking about. But what does that mean? How do I know that's feminine? When I open it up and I look at the word and its usage, it's a feminine noun. When if I were to do that same thing with the word fish in chapter one, it's d a g. It's the masculine noun.

Okay. So then, why did Jonah when he was writing the book of Jonah decide to do different genders of fish? And I want to ask this question here. What can women do that men can't? What can women do that men can't? And so if you're just thinking for a second, it's pretty obvious. Women can give birth to life. So what Jonah is doing just with this one simple and this is poetry with this one simple poetic choice of choosing male fish and female fish is he's saying new life in the fish.

Jonah is reborn. He receives salvation. He's made into something new inside of the fish. So, it's a commentary on the entire chapter. So, right away, just in these two verses, we know what we should be getting out of chapter 2 of Jonah, which is we're about to see Jonah receive salvation. And I'll go ahead and tell you, usually Bible studies are not that you don't have to have such a nuanced understanding of language.

This is kind of an exception. Jonah chapter 2 is a little is the densest chapter in the book of Jonah. So, let's read it here. I'mma wait just a second for the live stream to catch up with me because it's a little delayed right now. I want to make sure that you all can see what we're looking at here. Okay, good. That's I want to make sure my face wasn't blocking the scripture.

So, it looks like the live stream has finally caught up. So, we're going to go ahead and read chapter 2 here of Jonah. You know what? For fun, we're going to do New Living Translation. Why I like New Living Translation sometimes is it's just an easier translation to read when you're reading a lot of the poetry section. So, then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from inside the fish.

He said, "I cried out to the Lord in my great trouble, and he answered me. I called to you from the land of the dead. And Lord, you heard me. You threw me into the ocean depths, and I sank down to the heart of the sea. The mighty waters engulf me. I was buried beneath your wild and stormy waves. Then I said, "Oh Lord, you have driven me from your presence.

Yet I will look once more toward your holy temple." So we have going on here. Chapter 2 verse two. Jonah has finally decided to talk to God. And this is extremely important to note. So we had in chapter one, Jonah never talked to God. In fact, pagan sailors are the ones who called out to the name of Yahweh. Once Jonah told them about Yahweh, Jonah never did.

The sailors even asked Jonah, "Cry out to the Lord, maybe he will relieve of this storm that's going on." But Jonah doesn't. Instead, Jonah says, "No, throw me overboard." He would have rather been thrown overboard than what? He would have rather been thrown overboard than to cry out to God because he's mad. In cha and the reason I can say this at the end of chapter four he's angry with God and we're going to get there in a second but even more when we go to chapter one Jonah doesn't like what God is wanting him to do because because God says go out and preach out against that mighty city of Nineveh the great city of Nineveh excuse me but Jonah got up and went the opposite direction to his hoping to escape from the Lord.

So when God says, "Go and do this," Jonah doesn't say, "Lord, why?" Jonah doesn't say, "Um, Lord, send someone else." He just completely turns the other direction and says, "God, I'm not going to talk to you. I'm just going to go do what I want to do and try to escape your will for my life." And we see it doesn't work. God pursues him. He relentlessly pursues.

God is a jealous God. He wants Jonah and he's going to have his will be done. But what's really interesting about what happens in chapter 2, so God relentlessly pursues Jonah, he sends a storm to try to wake Jonah up. And instead of repenting in that moment, Jonah would rather die. Or at least he thinks. And finally, when God gives him over to what he wants, he finally cries out to God.

Jonah Jonah is effectually saying, "God, I'd rather die than serve you." And God is is allowing that to happen. Okay, fine. I'm giving you over to the desires of your heart. And I and then Jonah finally has this moment where he realizes, I've made a great and dear mistake because we see here he cried out to the Lord in this great trouble. He called out to him from the land of the dead and the Lord called him.

He sank and engulfed in the sea. He was Jonah was drowning. And even potentially worse than that, he then gets swallowed by a fish. And I think so often when people think of Jonah sitting in the belly of the whale, they think of him, you know, with a campfire nestled. That's how they used to show it in Sunday school. And that's not what it would have been like at all.

He was being digested. He It would have been pitch black. The darkness of like a cave where you can't even see your hand in front of your face. There would have been the acid from the stomach of the fish burning him alive, digesting him. It would have been squeezing all around him tightly, compressing him as peristtoysis would be digesting him. It would have been hell on earth, which is the language that Jonah uses.

He says, "I was in shades," the Jewish word for hell. It's it's something that's unfathomable. And not only that, if he if that wasn't enough to kill him, he would have suffocated because there would have been no room for him. Jonah is dying in this fish. And yet in this moment when Jonah realizes he's experiencing the discipline and the wrath of God, he cries out this.

Yet I will look once more to your holy temple. What that communicates to us right away is Jonah is a man who knew the word of God, which makes sense. He was a prophet. He had the anointing of the Holy Spirit. In Solomon's benediction of the temple, it says when anybody looks towards the temple, God will hear their cry. What this is effectually communicating is Jonah is looking towards his temple wanting to be restored back with God.

More than that, he knows that God's not going to let him die. So, it's a moment of repentance for Jonah. Yet, I will look towards the holy temple. Lord, let me put this in simpler words. He's saying, "Lord, I'm going to quit looking at what I want to do and I'm going to look towards you and what you want me to do." And that's what repenting of sin is.

It's saying, "Lord, I'm not going to try to do it my way anymore. I'm not going to try to flee to Tarses anymore. I'm not going to try to do ABCD in our own life, but instead, Lord, I'm going to look to you, your decrees, and what you would have me to do." And so, he says he will look towards towards his holy temple. Verse 5, Jonah 2:5, I sank beneath the waves, and the waters closed over me.

Seaweed wrapped itself around my head. I sank down to the very roots of the mountains. I was imprisoned in the earth whose gates lock shut forever. But you, oh Lord, my God, snatched me from the jaws of death. As my life was slipping away, I remembered the Lord and my earnest prayer went out to you in your holy temple. All right, so what's going on here? Jonah verses 5-7, he's doing a repeat.

If you look at him, he's really just reiterating verses 2 through 4, the same concept. I'm dying. I'm drowning. But God, I'm going to look towards your temple. I'm going to repent. I'm dying. I'm drowning. I've gone to the place where it shut. It's more poetic language. It's even stronger language. Saying Jonah is dying if he is not already dead. And then he says in verse 7, "As my earnest prayer went out to you in your holy temple."

It's just speaking to that repentance. Again, what is even more beautiful of what's going on here is Jonah's just rapidfiring psalms. Nothing he says here are his own original prayers. These are all psalms of the Old Testament that he has strung together in this one beautiful psalm. And then we get to kind of the application part of Jonah's salvation. So he's saying, "And my earnest prayer went out to you in your holy temple." in verse 7, essentially saying, "You've heard it.

I've repented." And then he goes on to look at the wisdom that comes from salvation. Those who worship false gods turn their backs on all God's mercies. But I will offer sacrifices to you with songs of praise, and I will fulfill my vows, for my salvation comes from the Lord alone. He here, see here, Jonah even uses the word salvation. Then the Lord ordered the fish to spit Jonah out on the beach.

Let's look at the notes here. We already discussed this. Jonah was given over to the deeds of his heart. So I want to ask this question here. Was Jonah's repentance sincere? So he went from not talking to God. He talks to God. He repents. He says, "Salvation belongs to God." And then he says, "I will fulfill the vows of my thanksgiving offering." We're going to talk about the thanksgiving offering in just a second, but I'll go ahead and give you what he's meaning.

He's he's saying, "I am going I will now go to Nineveh and I'm going to share with them salvation." But at the end of the book, Jonah is very angry that God ends up saving salvation. So, some people think that Jonah's repentance is just an intermediary thing, that it's not the not the real thing. So, I just want you to think for a second. Is this sincere repentance as you were thinking there and you can disagree with me, but I will go ahead and tell you my two cents on it.

And I feel very and I believe this to be what the scripture is saying. Yeah, it was sincere. God saves Jonah. Now, salvation doesn't mean you're going to understand every single thing. In fact, in the book of James as he's writing to believers, he says, "If any of you lack wisdom, if any of you astric, you know, the people who have been saved astric lack wisdom, let him ask God and God will give it to you."

And so, knowledge has nothing to do a lack of the heavenly perspective. It does not mean a disqualification of heaven. As long as you understand the truth of God's salvation, the rest will come in time as God sanctifies you and makes you grow. But what's going on with the Thanksgiving offering and why this is so important. So, we need to spend some time talking about the Thanksgiving offering for this to make sense.

So, I'm going to put up here in my notes, what is the Thanksgiving offering? So, the thanks offering, thanksgiving offering was a free will offering is a peace offering. Type of a wave offering. You may be wondering, okay, what does that what does that mean? Because we're not Jews, we don't have the temple anymore. We don't get to see these offerings. And so, I'm going to instead of going through, it would take you about 3 to four hours to go through the five main branches of sacrifices.

And then there's sacrifices within sacrifices that it then branches. Think of a tree. So all of the sacrifices that God gave Israel to do was to show that every area of life was God's and it belonged to him. And so there were times in which Israel would pause in be forced to be reminded of who God is and how God deserves everything in their life. And so that's the main trunk of it.

That's the main think of a tree. That's the main branch of it. Well, then you have all these branches because it gets nuanced. Okay. Well, how is God gonna get our entire lives with our work? How is God going to get our entire lives when I mess up and need forgiveness? How's God going to give glory when whatever it is? There's pretty much a sacrifice that that is associated with it.

The free will offering, the peace offering ultimately the thanksgiving offering, which is what this is. Is the thanksgiving offering is a type of this was one of is the only offering to my knowledge in scripture that was not mandated by God in the Old Testament. So the guilt offering, the burnt offering, the grain offering, all of those sacrifices had specific times they had to be done. The thanksgiving offering is the only one that did not have to be done.

And there were three time there were three reasons to why you would do the thanksgiving offering. One of them was you didn't have to have a reason. One of the reasons for the thanksgiving offering is I just love God and I just want to thank God for who he is. One of the times for the thanksgiving offering is if you were just rescued from dire straits, meaning like you went to war and you're returning from war victorious because God's hand of favor was on you.

That'd be a time for the Thanksgiving offering. And the third time for the thanksgiving offering is when you have received salvation and you know that you're right with God, that you're heaven bound. And you if you were to look at Jonah's reason for the thanksgiving offering, actually all three of those reasons fit. But Jonah doesn't have a lamb to sacrifice. Jonah doesn't have the temple to be able to do this thanksgiving offering.

So how can he do the thanksgiving offering when he's going to Nineveh? Because the offerings were never about the animals. Let me pull up. This is a section. I did a sermon on Jonah 2 3 years ago. Here we go. And this gives us the heart of what God is really wanting in the offerings. This is 1st Samuel 15:22-23. Then Samuel said, "Does the Lord take pleasure in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord?

Look, to obey is better than sacrifice, to pay attention is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and defiance is like wickedness and idolatry." And there's other scripture in Isaiah. There's other scripture in the other prophets where God says, "I don't delight in your sacrifices." He says, "I already own." God says, "I already own all of the animals. They're all mine.

You don't have to bring that to me. Even if I wanted them, I wouldn't ask you for them." No. What he says, "The sacrifice that is pleasing to me is a broken and contrite heart." so the sacrifices were never just about burning an animal, just about slaughtering a ram. The sacrifices had to do with serving and obeying God. So Jonah is living out the thanksgiving offering.

So what would normally happen with the thanksgiving offering is I would bring a lamb for instance before the priest. The priest would slaughter it and it's the only sacrifice that the person who brought the lamb gets to participate in the liturgy. The priest would actually take the hands of the person offering the sacrifice and they would do the ceremonial outward appearance of what they were supposed to do. Together.

Such a beautiful picture of a priest working with leoty in the same way that Christ is now working in us. And then the other beautiful thing about the Thanksgiving offering is you would share the meal with everyone. It's the only sacrifice that other people participated it in. So you didn't burn the lamb. Instead, you shared it as a fellowship meal. So all of the people in attendance, as many people in Israel as they could fit in it, would get to enjoy this delicious food together.

And so everyone would be sitting around and saying, "How come we're getting to eat this lamb?" Like, "Well, did you not hear that Matthew offered this lamb to the Lord as a thanksgiving offering because he provided salvation to him today?" And then it would get into a testimony to the people of how the Lord has saved someone, has been faithful to one of his servants. So what Jonah is saying is, I'm going to do that, but he's not going to do it with a sacrifice.

He's going to do it with his lips and his heart. He's going to share his salvation with the people of Nineveh. Before Jonah could share the salvation with the Ninevites that God was offering to them, Jonah first had to be saved himself. And God does it in chapter 2. And then in chapter 3 and chapter 4, we see Jonah fulfilling his vows. Now, at the end, he's not happy about it, but he is obedient because now he loves God more than he hates Nineveh because he's truly experienced salvation.

And that's where we're going to stop tonight. Next week, we're going to jump into chapter 3. Oh, sweet. We actually made it. I was hoping to do 30 minutes when we got there. So anyways, thank you all for tuning in. If you have any questions, put them in the chat. I'll I'll leave about 30 seconds here. If you have any questions about the thanksgiving offering or the prayer, you really would have to look into each psalm that Jonah's praying.

That would take about an hour. And so I just wanted to just briefly go over chapter 2. But any questions on chapter 2? All right. Well, thank you all and I hope you have a good night.

Transcript from YouTube's automatic captions, lightly tidied. Watch the full video on YouTube.