Conversion of the Pagan Sailors

The Purpose of the Book of Jonah and the Subplot of the Sailors' Conversion

0:04 We return this evening to our study in this very fascinating portion of the Word of God, the book of the prophet Jonah. This is our sixth exposition or study in this portion of the Word of God. It's been five weeks since we studied the book together. I would remind you very briefly as we return to our study of what is assumed in all of our handling of this book as we come to the book of Jonah, we must constantly keep before us the fact that the nature of this book is one of unadorned history.

0:46 We are not dealing with myth or saga or parable. We are dealing with actual events that occurred in space and time. And the great purpose of the book, unlike most of the prophetic books in which the purpose is found in the verbal understanding, utterances, the oracles, the burden of the various prophets, here the message of the book and its purpose is found primarily in the strange events which surround this strange man, Jonah. And I've said before you that the essential purpose of the book can be understood in terms of a demonstration of the largeness of God's heart as God in the spirit. As God in the spirit. As God in the spirit. The sweep of history is to move the gospel from the Jewish nation, ultimately send it to the Gentiles, and even now he's about to bring judgment upon that nation for its sins.

1:48 God is demonstrating something of the largeness of his heart with respect to the nations beyond the boundaries of Israel. And so he sends this prophet to a Gentile city, which is the very citadel of the existing Gentiles, a Gentile power at that time, in the seat of paganism. And God sends a prophet to them and in terms of his mighty working demonstrates the largeness of his own heart. In so doing he rebukes what I have entitled or called carnal Hebrew narrowness, this spirit of exclusivism, that because they were God's favored ones they began to think they were his favorites and that he had concern for no other. And in so doing God would yet extend overtures of mercy to the nation of Israel by provoking them to jealousy as Jonah would come back with the report of the repentance of the Ninevites and the mercy shown that God might thereby provoke that nation, his own covenant people, to jealousy. Well, in the unfolding then of those great purposes, we have studied the commission of the prophet, his disobedience to that commission, his restoration in general, and then the prayer of the returning backslider in chapter 2.

3:13 Now I suggested when we were going through chapter 1, considering the elements of Jonah's disobedience and restoration, that there was a subplot set before us in that part of the narrative. The major plot was God's dealings with his disobedient prophet and his disobedience to the prophet. The major plot was God's design and the execution of that design to restore him to obedience. But there was a subplot, and that subplot was the conversion of these pagan sailors.

3:45 Well, it's that part of the narrative to which we address ourselves this evening. The conversion of these pagan sailors. Now I use the term conversion in the title of our study and throughout our exposition tonight in its classic usage, as a word to describe the turning from sin unto God in repentance and faith which is essential to the obtaining of salvation. I'm using it in terms of the New Testament descriptions of conversion found in such passages as Acts 26.18 in which the Lord says to Paul, I send thee to the Gentiles to open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God in order that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith that is in me. In that statement we have all the elements of Christian conversion. There is to be the opening of the eyes, spiritual illumination, a turning from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God in order to the remission of sin and the inheritance of the believing ones.

5:11 Or we could take 1 Thessalonians 1.9 in which the apostle says they themselves report of us what manner of entering in we had unto you how that ye turn to God from your idols to serve the living and the true God. Well I set before you then that this passage that has been read in your hearing is the remission of sin unto God and the record of that kind of conversion as it came to pass in these pagan sailors. The narrative begins with a graphic picture of the confusion and the frenzy of paganism in the raw.

From Pagan Frenzy to Pure Religion: The Sailors' Journey

5:51 Look at the language of verse 5. Then the mariners were afraid and they cried every man to his God and they cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea to lighten it unto them. Here you have them. Each one praying to his own God while someone is throwing over cargo into the sea.

6:13 Here is paganism in the raw. The confusion of their false views of God. They're struck with fear in the face of their impending death. They are as far from the living God as men can be.

6:27 The narrative begins then with this graphic picture of the frenzy of paganism. In the raw. And yet the narrative concludes with one of the most beautiful descriptions of pure religion in action. Look at the language of verse 16.

6:44 Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly. The fear of God being the essence of true religion. The narrative says they had it in an exceeding measure and they offered a sacrifice unto the Lord. And?

7:02 made vows. So from the frenzy of raw paganism in verse 5, to the manifestation of the fear of God in the expressions of pure religion in verse 16, we have the mighty work of God turning these sailors from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God, that they might receive forgiveness and an inheritance that is appointed for all who receive the benefits of Christ the Savior. Now, how did God bring them from one state to the other? Well, that's the essence of our study tonight, and I would suggest that there are at least four groupings of thought. I don't want to use the term steps, lest anyone sitting here think, well, I must go through four steps. Perceive. Precisely as this, or I have no hopes of being converted. No, I don't want to suggest

Awakened to Desperate Need

8:01 that, so though I originally had the word steps in my notes, I've crossed it out, and I don't have a good substitute, so we'll simply say there are four groupings of thought in the text with respect to the work of God in bringing these sailors to true conversion. First of all, we read in the record that they were awakened to their desperate conversion. They were awakened to their desperate need. Perhaps all was well when they left that port city to make their way to Tarshish. The winds were favorable. No doubt the skies were clear.

8:40 And perhaps as sailors who are known to be full of superstition, perhaps they chanted one of the prayers to their gods. Perhaps they stroked a little chain around their neck, some kind of a superstitious icon. But after they had, as it were, done their thing with respect to the religious elements of their lives, no doubt like most sailors, once they set the sails and were on their way, their minds were filled with the things that most sailors' minds are filled with. And their mouths belched forth the profanities and the ugly verbiage for which sailors are noted. And all is well until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, until, sea and there was a mighty tempest on the sea so that the ship was like to be broken then and not until then were the mariners afraid God hurls this tempest upon the sea and men who no doubt had many times been upon heaving seas who had grown accustomed to the kind of upheavals upon the vast oceans which most of us would turn white the very first

10:06 beginnings at the sight of them not so experienced sailors yet God hurls such an abnormal storm and tempest upon that sea that these hardened old salts for in the Hebrew that's what the sailors are called so to call a sea sailor assault is something that goes back at least to this part of time in the Bible these men who had seen many a heaving sea they are struck with fear and the first thing they do as they are gripped with this fear is begin to realize there's something more important than the jokes they've been telling one another something more important than the girls they've been dreaming about and talking about in the next port something more important than their money cargo in the hold of the ship and as God is pleased to hurl this great tempest upon the sea fear grips them obviously a fear of death itself but when they come to Jonah as recorded in the latter part of verse six they say perhaps God will think upon us that we perish not they were in fear for their very lives this causes them then to look beyond their present occupation and they begin to

11:29 look out of themselves and they start crying the text says every man to his own God then as we've suggested they have a shifting of their values the very purpose for which they're on that ship is to deliver a cargo and to receive remuneration from that service but now the cargo is of little value to them and they begin to cast it overseas and then into the sea over the side of the ship and then we see them in their desperate action in arousing Jonah, and seeking to stir him to call upon his God. Well, what is God doing with these men? Well, he is awakening them to their desperate need. And in so doing, he starts with them at the point of their own natural fears. For the text is very careful, or the writer is very careful to underscore, that it was natural fear that provoked them to begin to cry out to their gods and to awaken Jonah to call upon his God. Verse 5, then were the mariners afraid. Verse 10, then were the men exceedingly afraid.

12:46 Now, you see, fear was a wonderful blessing to these pagan sailors. As long as the sea was calm and the skies were blue and the sails were set, nothing but the things of earth, of sense, and of time filled their minds and occupied the concentration of the soul. And when God sends this unusual tempest upon the sea, it jars them loose from their carnal security in that world of sense and of time. And that other world into which they know they shall enter if they die begins to press in upon that present world of sense and time.

13:41 God awakens them to their sense of need. And I would say by way of application that human nature has not changed from that day until now. Ease and prosperity lulled them to their senses. Ease and prosperity lulled most men into a fatal indifference to the world that exists alongside of the world of sense and time.

14:08 The world in which God and sin and death and eternity are the substantial commodities. But left to ourselves, sin so stupefies us that like those pagan sailors, we live as though there were no world, but the world that occupied their conversation and their interest until God hurled the storm upon the sea. How merciful of God to blast their castles of sand and to bring them to the realization by means of a natural fear that there's something more than the goods in the world and the girls in the sales and judgment and God and righteousness. These are the great commodities which deserve attention. My friend, let me ask you as you sit here tonight, have you, by whatever means God was pleased to use, been awakened to the sense of that other world which is really the only world ultimately that counts?

15:28 Are you sitting here tonight lulled into a kind of because God has hurled no wind, upon the sea of your life?

15:43 Many of us can bless God for the tempest that he has hurled upon our lives because by them in the language of the hymn we have sung, grace has taught our hearts to fear. And fear has been the very motive that has jarred us from thinking all that matters is what I can see and touch and enjoy in terms of my physical senses. It's a terrible thing. If we become hardened both to the goodness of God and to the tempest of God.

16:23 And it could well be that I'm speaking to some who on the one hand have been lulled into a carnal security by God's goodness and then when he has hurled his various tempests upon the sea of your life, you've grown indifferent even to those tempests. And yet so, man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. Every man's got to bear, his own load. And rather than fearing and recognizing in those troubles that God is summoning you to wake up to the fact there's more to this life, there's more to your existence than the things that occupy your time.

17:04 It is a frightening thing when men and women and boys and girls become both goodness and tempest hardened. And if I speak to such tonight, my friend, then don't take, don't hide in the fact that tempests no longer terrify you. But you better cry to God to have mercy upon your heart and soul. Can you go to the funeral of friends in your place of business and relatives now and come away and never think for two minutes, I too shall be laid out one day soon?

17:41 Do you pride yourself that you can go to funerals and read of calamities and never be gripped with fear? Do you pride yourself that you can go to funerals and read of calamities and never be gripped with fear? Do you pride yourself that you can go to funerals and read of calamities and never be gripped with fear? Do you pride yourself that you can go to funerals and read of calamities and never be gripped with fear?

17:51 My friend, you're to be pitied. For in the rawness of their paganism, when God begins to press down upon them with the great realities of death and the world to come, they're scared out of their wits. They are afraid. And so the first step then, as it were, in their conversion, though I don't like the term, is that they were awakened to their need.

Confronted with the Impotence of Idols

18:20 But then secondly, they were brought to serve God. But then secondly, they were brought to serve God. To see and feel the impotence of their own gods in the face of that need. You see, until now, their gods were adequate.

18:34 To just give them a little religious dimension, so they could say a little prayer to their gods when they set out to sea, so that they could wear maybe an amulet around the neck to give the impression that they were religious. To have something, as it were, to lean upon occasionally. Their gods were very adequate. But now God begins to deal with them.

18:54 But now God begins to deal with them. To show them the utter inadequacy of their gods in the point or at the point of real crisis. So the text shows the progression of their thought as well as their actions. They begin in verse 5, every man crying to his own God.

19:15 And they add to that crying this activity of casting forth the wares. What happens? Nothing. Their gods are impotent to do anything to the sea.

19:25 And so they go down and they shake Jonah. What meanest thou, O sleeper, rise, call upon thy God? Now notice the language. If so, be that not thy God, but that God will think upon us.

19:40 And I don't believe it's reading something into the text. And the most judicious commentators I've consulted point this fact out. That there is a tacit admission that they know that Jonah's God is really, that there is a tacit admission that they know that Jonah's God is really, that there is a tacit admission that they know that Jonah's God is really, the true God. They say, call upon thy God.

19:59 And you get the impression from that we have, each one of us, a God. They were men, apparently, from different nations. Each one had his own national God. And they say, well, Jonah, call upon thy God.

20:11 But it was not with the sense that, well, you may be from another nation and therefore you have another God. Let's add him to the number. No, no. They say, call upon thy God.

20:22 If so, be that God will think upon us. If so, be that God will think upon us. If so, be that God will think upon us. That we perish not.

20:30 God was bringing them to own what down underneath they knew all along. That those things that they made into gods and worshipped as gods were no true gods. Here is a commentary upon Romans chapter 1. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold down the truth in unrighteousness.

20:58 For that which may be known of God is manifest in them. What may be known of God? Well, from the creation and from that which God has stamped upon every man as an image-bearer, even though the image is defaced. Man knows his everlasting power and godhead.

21:17 Man knows that God, the God who made him into whom he is answerable, cannot be that creature that he has formed with his own hands. That capricious God, who is the figment of his own imagination and the creation of his own artifice. And these men fit the category of Romans 1. And in their crisis, they acknowledge that they have been holding down the knowledge of the true God.

21:44 And now they come then to Jonah and say, Call upon thy God, if so be that God. The God who is indeed the maker and creator of the heaven and earth. If he will but think upon us, that's the God who truly controls the activities of the waves and the sea. And if he will but think upon us with favor, there can be an adjustment in all the circumstances that now threaten us.

22:12 See, they could never be converted until they were brought to see the impotence of their own gods. For the essence of conversion is turning from idols to the living and the true God. Therefore, God must fill them with the sense of the emptiness and the barrenness of the worship of their gods, and convince them of the reality in the true and the living God. And what did God do to bring them to that place?

22:43 He sent a tempest. He hurled a tempest upon the sea. And again, by way of application, let me say that as with them, so with us, there will be no true conversion until added to our sense, the sense of need that jars us loose from the world of things and of sense, enabling us to live as though there were nothing beyond what we see. There must come the conviction of the absolute impotence of our own gods.

23:16 Anything that we trust in as God, anything that we worship as God, other than the true and the living God of the Bible, we must be brought to the conviction of the utter impotence of God. The impotence of that which we have called God. You see, when death stares you in the eye, and conscience becomes alive with respect to your sin, and calamity begins to bear down upon you, how impotent any god but the true and the living God becomes. What is your God tonight?

23:52 What is the thing you worship? Is it the concoction of your own ideas of what you'd like God to be like?

24:02 Sort of a benevolent, near-sighted, indulgent, paternalistic power out there somewhere, with a big broad shoulder that you lean upon once in a while when you can't quite cope? My friend, listen. You begin to look death square in the eye, and begin to take honestly what your own conscience tells you about your accountability to God, and the fact that you are answerable for your sins, and that God that you've concocted, out of the stuff of your own mind, will appear a very paltry resting place in the face of death, in the face of an awakened conscience, in the face of the reality of judgment and hell in the world to come. It could be that your God is the concoction of some sensual pursuit, some carnal, fleshly ambition. But whatever it is that occupies your devotion, is the object of your trust, you'll never be converted until you are brought to see the utter impotence of your own gods. Well, basically, these first two things are negative.

Confronted with the Knowledge of the True and Living God

25:17 They are brought to fear. They are awakened to their sense of need. They are brought to see the impotence of their own gods. But now, positively, in the third place, they were confronted with the knowledge of the true and the living God.

25:34 And this, to me, is the most amazing thing in this passage, apart from their actual conversion. For in a most wonderful way, God speaks through a bachelored prophet and through the heaving billows of an angry sea to bring to bear upon the consciences and the understanding of these pagan sailors the knowledge of Himself. Notice the aspects of the knowledge of the true God which are taught to these pagan sailors. In that strange sanctuary.

26:09 Can you picture it now? Here is the picture that the writer gives to us. A storm so fierce it's about to break the ship in pieces. Not just little three or four foot waves.

26:21 Here are heaving billows and it's dashed up one side, down the other. And when it's coming into a trough and the ship is slipping sideways, it seems like a wave coming out of nowhere slaps against the side of it and the ship shudders. Some of us have felt that in smaller craft and it's very vivid when you read the language. It was about to be broken.

26:43 And in the midst of that, all of this strange activity of God. There's a man sound asleep. How in the world they ever got the lots to be cast on that heaving deck, I don't know, but somehow they did. And somehow God so ordered the casting of the lots in the midst of that heaving ship and the angry billows all about them, that it falls upon Jonah.

27:07 And in the midst of all of that, conversation is carried on. And what's happening? This has become a sanctuary where God is proclaiming the knowledge of Himself to these men. Notice the elements that are proclaimed.

27:20 First of all, He is the God of heaven. Verse 9, When they asked Jonah, Who are you? Where have you come from? He said unto them, I am a Hebrew, and I fear Jehovah, the God of heaven.

27:38 And immediately Jonah preaches to them that there is but one true and living God. He is the God of heaven. That is, He is not a God of man's creation. All of the gods that they knew were gods that they had made with their own hands.

27:58 Jonah proclaims that which conscience affirms. There is but one true and living God. He is the God of heaven. The exclusive, uncaused, eternal God.

28:14 Secondly, Jonah proclaims that He is the Creator and therefore the Sustainer and Governor of His world. Verse 9, The God of heaven, who hath made the sea and the dry land. Jonah preaches on the slippery decks of that heaving ship, the doctrine of creation. Unlike your gods, who are your creatures, this God is the One who has made all that exists.

28:49 He is Creator of heaven, of earth, of sea. Then they come to the acknowledgment that this God of heaven, this God who is Creator, is the moral Governor of the universe to whom they are accountable. Notice the language of verse 14. Therefore they cried unto the Lord and said, We beseech Thee, O Lord, we beseech Thee, let us not perish for this man's life.

29:21 Lay not upon us innocent blood. You see what they are saying? Jonah has said, The only way for this sea to be calm is to cast me into it. They are reluctant to do it.

29:35 They make every effort to bring the ship to land, and when it is evident that they cannot do it, that God has designed one way by which to bring about the silencing of that angry storm, they confess in their prayer, O God, we know that out here in the midst of the sea, thousands of miles away from any visible gods, we know that You are the moral Governor of the universe and You take cognizant of the actions of each one of us. If out here in the midst of the sea, cut off from the eyes of all human observers, if we are to throw this man into the sea and in that sense be his executioners, Lord, we are accountable for our actions, lay not this man's blood to our account. What a confession of their awareness that what they did on earth was recorded in heaven and would meet them at the last day. They came to the knowledge, not only that there was but one true and living God, the God of heaven, they were confronted with the knowledge that this God is Creator and their Creator. Thirdly, that He was the moral Governor of the universe to whom they were accountable.

30:50 And then they came to the knowledge in the fourth place that He was the God of inflexible justice, the God of inflexible justice. And how did God preach this to them in this strange, in this strange object lesson? Verse 11, Then they said unto him, that is unto Jonah, What shall we do unto thee that the sea may become unto us? For the sea grew more and more tempestuous.

31:16 And he said unto them, Take me up and cast me forth into the sea, so shall the sea become unto you, for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you. Now put the pieces together. They are conscious that there is some connection between an angry deity and the angry sea. When the lot falls upon Jonah as the culprit, they say, Who in the world are you?

31:49 What is the rationale between this connection? Jonah says, I'll tell you who I am. I am a worshipper of the true and living God. I am a servant of Jehovah, Creator of heaven and earth.

32:04 Furthermore, the text says, Jonah told them that he was in a present condition of disobedience to that Jehovah God. For he had told them, verse 10, the latter part of the verse, that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord. Now they have sense enough to put the pieces together. Here is a man who is a servant of the true God.

32:29 He fears Jehovah. He bows down before no idol, as we have done. He does not call upon idols. He does not call upon idols, as we have done.

32:38 Here is a servant, a worshipper, of the true God who made heaven and earth, who has caused the heaving sea. Now he tells us that the rationale for that angry sea is my disobedience. What is he telling them? He is saying, My God is so holy and so just that it is right for Him to take my life for my sin.

33:05 Make me into the sea. Make me, as it were, a sacrifice to that angry sea. And the anger of God will be turned away. You talk about a lesson concerning God as a God of inflexible justice.

33:20 They got it on the slippery decks of that heaving ship that day. They no doubt reasoned if Jehovah, the true God, the God who makes heaven and earth, the God to whom we are accountable, if He deals with such vengeance upon a true worshipper of Himself who dares to disobey Him. What must His attitude be to us who for our lifetime have called upon false gods, who violated His law, who day after day spill forth oaths from our mouths? They came to a shocking awareness that unlike their heathen deities who could be placated with the blood wrung from a chicken whose anger could somehow be turned away if you did enough little religious deeds to satisfy Him, that is, if you caught Him in a good mood, they now read in the characters of that sea in the calmness of the judgment Jonah brings upon himself something of the inflexible justice of the true and the living God.

34:47 But thank God, they also come to another aspect of the knowledge of God. In the fifth place, they come to the knowledge that He is a God of pardoning grace and mercy. How did they come to that knowledge? Well, go back to this man Jonah.

35:06 He, unlike them, trembling at the thought that they will perish, conscience screaming because it has never been pacified in the appointed way, Jonah can face death with absolute calmness, confessing he sinned against God, a God who is so just as to demand his own death. Yet Jonah can say with absolute calmness, cast me into the sea. He doesn't struggle. They don't have to apprehend him.

35:40 He gives the sentence of execution and calmly submits to it. And the moment he does, what happens? Look at the text. The moment he does, the moment they throw him into the sea, the scripture says in verse 15, they took up Jonah and cast him forth into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging.

36:02 Oh, what a message of divine forgiveness and mercy. Surely mercy that enabled Jonah to face his own execution with calmness. And then mercy manifested in that the moment Jonah is thrown into the sea, everything that threatens their own lives is abated. Immediately the sea is calm and God says in the calming of the sea, as surely as I've brought a tempest of conscience by awakening you to what you are and who I am, now I bring calm.

36:38 I delight to show mercy to sinners who acknowledge me to be what I am and who are prepared to come to me in the way that I have appointed. And so they came not only to the knowledge that there was but one true and living God, that that God was creator, that God was moral governor, that God was a God of inflexible justice, but that he was a God of pardoning grace and mercy. And as then, so now, you will never be converted until you are brought not only to a sense of your desperate need, but a sense of the futility of everything that you worshipped as God. You must come to the knowledge of the true God. The language again of our Lord to Paul, I send thee to the Gentiles to open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light. And my friend, you must come to know those essential things about God that these sailors came to know.

37:46 You must start with the fact there is but one true and living God. And it's a tragedy to think in so-called Christian America, I say so-called, for that's a prostitution of the term, that we must assert again there is but one true and living God. He exists in himself. If all the universe of man and things went back into the oblivion of nothingness, he would yet be God.

38:18 God is not an idea we project upward and exist only in the framing of our idea. No, no. He is the true and the living God who always was and ever shall be in the mystery of his trinality, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And you need to understand that he is Creator.

38:43 This is his world. He made it. And you're his creature. And he made you.

38:49 And thirdly, you need to come to grips with that which your conscience tells you, which you continually attempt to put down so that you can have a license to sin. You're accountable to that God who made you. And the presence of your conscience is the monumental testimony to that accountability. God is woven into the fabric of your humanness, the awareness of your accountability.

39:15 And you can't escape it, my friend. It's appointed unto men once to die, and after this cometh judgment. That's why these sailors feared death. If you die and that's the end of you, why be afraid?

39:30 No, the Scripture says, who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject of bondage. And that's the tragedy of so much of the so-called thanatology in our day and the teaching that death is just a wonderful experience. You just float out of your body. My friends, this is a massive satanic deception.

39:50 You don't float out of your body into a peaceful, comfortable acquaintance with a big, warm light. If you're not in Christ, you'll go to judgment and to hell. My friend, you'll never be converted until you take that seriously. There's a God to whom you're accountable who knows every thought, every word, every deed, every intention of the heart.

40:30 And the Scripture says in that day He will judge according to the secrets of men's hearts. There is nothing hid that shall be known. And you need to understand that that God to whom you're accountable is a God of inflexible justice. The Scripture says He will by no means clear the guilty.

40:50 The soul that sinneth, it shall die. My friend, have you come to grips with that? If one sin was enough to banish our first father and mother from the Garden of Eden and to plunge them in all their posterity into a state of judgment, the wages of sin is death. What shall we say of the mountain of iniquity that we've raised up in our own individual life history?

41:21 No, no, my friend. All kinds of wishful thinking that that mountain will just dissolve before some kind of benevolent ooze called God. No, no, my friend. The mountain of your iniquity raised by your own sin stands and cries to God for judgment.

41:45 You need to take that seriously. But my friend, if that's all you know of God, that will drive you to despair, you need to come to understand He's a God of forgiving mercy, a God who delights to show pity to sinners, who, though they acknowledge their sin, can come to such a confidence of forgiveness that they can face death with calm. For Jonah had no revelation that he was going to be spared. As far as he was concerned, he was declaring his own death warrant.

42:17 And there's a beautiful analogy. I'm not saying that God had this in mind when He gave it, but I can't help but see it. Just as those sailors learned God's mercy when they saw Jonah swallowed up in the billows of that watery grave. You and I can look to another point in history.

42:39 We can learn the mercy of God when someone else was swallowed up under billows of divine wrath. For prophetically, our Lord says in the Psalms, all thy waves and thy billows are gone over my head. And oh, my friend, how wonderful to read of the mercy of God, not in an angry sea made calm when a Jonah is cast into it, but when a darkened heavens is split with the cry, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And then that wonderful cry, it is finished. And all the billows of the wrath of God broke over the head of His Son, and He went into the depths. Why? Because God is a God who delights to show mercy to sinners.

43:43 God commanded His love toward us. Him that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. You'll never be converted. You'll never be converted until you come to that knowledge that God is a pardoning God in the person of His own beloved Son, His Son who died the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.

A Saving Response to Divine Knowledge

44:14 Well, we must hurry on to the fourth line of thought that's in the text, for they're not yet converted, you see. You can come that far and still be lost. They're not only awakened to their need, brought to see the futility of their own gods, brought to the acquaintance of the true God, but in the fourth place, they are brought to a saving response to the knowledge to which they've been introduced. Note the details.

44:43 Verse 14. We begin to see the saving response to that knowledge. Verse 14. Wherefore they cried, no longer every man, unto his God, nor did they cry, does the text say, unto Elohim, the term that is used both for false gods and the true God.

45:11 But the text is very specific. Then they began to cry unto Jehovah, the God of the covenant, the God of sovereign mercy, who when He had set His love upon a people and entered into covenant, He had made His relationship with them manifest Himself as Jehovah. And they said, We beseech Thee, O Jehovah, We beseech Thee. There is earnestness now.

45:45 No longer every man saying the prayers that he learned while his mind is on a thousand other things. They're engaging God. They're having dealings for the first time in their life. They're having dealings with God.

46:00 We beseech Thee, O Jehovah. We beseech Thee. Let us not perish for this man's life. Lay not upon us innocent blood, now notice, for Thou, O Jehovah, has done as it pleased Thee.

46:18 They call upon Jehovah in a disposition of utter resignation to His will. They're the first indications, you see, of a saving response. They're calling upon God, not to get Him in a hammerlock, force Him into their own preconceived ideas. They're calling from a spirit of submission.

46:48 Do you remember when Ananias couldn't believe what his ears heard? That Saul of Tarsus, great enemy of the church, has been converted? How does the Lord encourage him? Behold, he prayed.

47:00 It's all right, Ananias. If I've got into the place where he's really praying, he's all right now. He's no longer the old Pharisee who says his prayers, who goes through the motions. He's praying.

47:11 He's engaging me in prayer. Ananias, as it were, tips his hat and says, Lord, that's enough for me. I'm on my way. And off he goes.

47:23 The saving response is first seen in that they begin to call upon God. Then we have the details in verse 16. Then the man feared, feared the Lord exceedingly. Now isn't that strange?

47:41 We read in verse 5, they were afraid. Verse 6, afraid that they're going to perish. Verse 10, exceedingly afraid. And all of this fear had to do with the external calamity about to overtake them.

47:58 The ship is creaking and shuddering beneath the buffeting of the angry billows. Now the sea is perfectly calm. And they're exceedingly afraid. No longer with carnal fear.

48:15 But they fear Jehovah. And in Old Testament language, the fear of Jehovah is a synonym for true religion. They fear Jehovah. They regard Him in a true light.

48:31 He now becomes to them what He is in Himself, the living and the true God, worthy of their homage, their obedience, their love. They fear Him exceedingly. When all cause for carnal fear is gone, true spiritual religious saving fear is placed in their hearts. And isn't this the language of the Old Testament when God would describe His work of grace in the New Covenant.

49:04 He says, I will put my fear into their hearts. Well it had to be in their hearts because it was no longer fear in terms of external circumstances. All the fearfulness was gone. This was fear implanted in the heart by the work of the Spirit.

49:20 And then it further manifests itself in the language of the next phrase. And they offered a sacrifice unto Jehovah. Now curiosity would ask what in the world did they have left to sacrifice on the ship when they threw out I don't know and I don't care. If it was any of my business God would have told me.

49:44 And if it was any of your business He would have told you as well. So let's together mind our business. But we do know that in the Old Testament when the fear of God was implanted in the heart, when true religion existed in the soul, it cut a channel consistent with the revealed way of approach to God. Remember David says, Lord I'm not going to come and burden you with sacrifices.

50:10 I would first of all come with heart religion. I would have my heart broken. I would have your joy put in my heart. Then he says, you'll be pleased with sacrifices and burnt offerings.

50:22 And so they approached God in the appointed way. How in the world did they know that? I don't know. But I do know that there upon that ship they offered sacrifice unto God as an expression of the religion implanted in the heart.

50:47 And then it says they made vows. And again in Old Testament language the making of vows is the solemn engagement to enter into covenant relationship with God. To acknowledge His claims over us and gladly to assent to those claims. In the language of the New Testament it is taking His yoke upon us and learning of Him.

51:19 And so we see in the fourth place then that their conversion is now complete as they are brought to a saving response to the knowledge they received of God. In the eloquent words of Hugh Martin commentator of another generation, thus did these men they awoke to know the living and the true God. They prayed to Him. They appealed to Him.

51:45 The storm they clearly saw was in His hand. The reason for the storm they saw was in His heart. And that reason they saw as clearly as they saw the storm. His hand they saw was almighty.

52:04 His heart they saw was righteous. In brief time they learned not a little of the true and living God. They felt His anger. They even became executed.

52:16 They became executioners of His wrath. They emphatically justify their deed as being constrained to become executioners of the wrath of the living God. Hugh Martin says this was a solemn initiation into the knowledge of His character. To be executioners of His wrath.

52:36 Now their guest, their passenger is gone. The sea has closed over Him. And the sea has ceased from her raging. If they doubted that a living God was moving the storm by the power of His hand and according to the purpose of His heart, they can now at least doubt no more.

52:55 The sudden appearing of the tempest spoke of His wrath. Now the silencing of the tempest tells its own tale. They fear God in the calm more than in the tempest. And now under no stress of weather, under no strain of terror, they vow.

53:16 Not an extorted mercenary vow, but a free, voluntary dedication of themselves to the Lord. One would fain say these men were converted to the God of Israel. I would not fain say it. I would say it.

53:33 They were converted to the God of Israel. Now then, finally, by way of concluding application, do you see how wonderfully this incident suits the purpose of the program? Why is this put in the book? Remember what the purpose of the book was?

The Conversion of Pagans as a Rebuke to Impenitent Israel

53:53 It was to show the largeness of God's heart to Israel, who, mistaking her purpose as she always did in times of declension, thought that she was God's little favorite one, rather than favored to be a light to the nations. And Israel began to think God's heart was as narrow as her own. God says, I'll show you how broad and large are the sympathies of my heart. Can you imagine what happened the first time this book was read to a bunch of bigoted, narrow-minded, apostate Israelites?

54:33 And they read of people who in a matter of a few minutes from calling upon pagan gods are accepted as true worshipers by the God of Israel. It beautifully suits the very purpose of the book to show the largeness of God's heart, to show the salvability of the pagan world, that Gentile dogs are not beasts, that Gentiles are made in the image of God, and though they with Israelites fell in Adam, they can yet be the recipients of divine mercy. And then I believe also the element that is in the passage is God is underscoring the wickedness of Israel's impenitence. And here I want to draw out the application. Here are pagan sailors. They come from nations and cities where there was no standing order of priesthood.

55:31 There was no temple, the dimensions of which and the worship within which was revealed from heaven. There was no standing order of prophets. There were no written scriptures. Here were men who came out of raw paganism.

55:48 And look at the story. One sermon they received. One sermon preached by angry billows, a disobedient prophet, and an execution. What a sermon.

56:04 One sermon preached by waves, excellent prophet, and an execution. And what did that one sermon do? It brought them to forsake the whole heritage of pagans in a matter of a few minutes, and brought them solemnly to bind themselves to Jehovah as their God for time and on into eternity. Can you imagine what a rebuke this should have been to the Israelites when that story was told?

56:41 For right while these men were seeing the folly of their pagan gods on that slippery deck and turning from these heathen idols to the living God, what was going on back in Israel? What was going on back in Israel? Prophets were crying out to the Israelites for doing what? Forsaking the living God and turning to the gods of the nations.

57:14 They had a standing order of priests. They had the prophets in the language of the prophets sent to them early and late, calling upon them to worship only Jehovah. Do you feel the weight of the contrast? With such limited power, with such limited means, in such strange circumstances, pagans forsake their idols and embrace the living God.

57:41 While back in Israel, the place from which Jonah came, and you read the account of Israel's history there in Kings and Chronicles at the time of Jonah, declension, declension, idolatry, the crying of the prophets, the deafened ears of Israelites. They are turning from the living God and all their privileges to worship the very gods that could do no good for the pagan sailors in the midst of a storm. Do you see where I'm going with my application? That situation is reproduced in this very building tonight.

Application: The Wickedness of Impenitence in the Church

58:16 There are men, there are women, there are boys and girls in this building who are like the Israelites. No, there is no more theocracy. But in terms of privilege, you have never known a time when you did not have the benefit of a New Testament priesthood. You had a mother and a father that prayed for you before you ever came out of your womb, who came by the new and living way as priests unto God and pleaded for you.

58:52 You've had a standing order of prophets, the same mother and dad that's spoken to you the word of God from the dawning of your consciousness. And before you even knew the words, they folded your little hands at your high chair, and they taught you to pray, Dear God, thank you for my food. They were teaching you there is one God. He is creator. He is sustainer.

59:17 He is giver of every good and perfect gift. Added to that has been the extension of that prophetic ministry, your Sunday school teachers, who patiently labored and continue to labor to make the word of God simple and plain. Your pastors and elders who stand and preach to you, who don't come to this pulpit and just mumble out some religious phrases and send you home. They look to your eyes.

59:44 They preach to your heart from their heart. And what are you doing? You're exchanging that God for the God of the pagans. And out there tonight in raw America are men and women and boys and girls who've never had a page of the Bible read to them.

60:07 They've never had one prayer uttered for them by mother or father. What is their God? The God of sex. The God of the rock culture.

60:18 The God of drugs. The God of alcohol. The God of materialism. And what are some of you doing?

60:26 You're the very gods of the pagans. While sitting here tonight are men and women and boys and girls who had none of those privileges. The first or second time they heard the message of the gospel they turned from all that paganism and they made vows to Jehovah Jesus. And they sit here tonight monuments of His grace.

61:08 Oh, doesn't it provoke you to jealousy? Don't you get the message? Will you call these converted pagans liars? Everything you've set your silly heart upon they've tried and they've called upon it in the storms of life and they've found that those gods have no eyes to see no ears to hear no hand to stretch for.

61:40 Oh, silly young man. Silly young woman. Man, how long will you turn to the gods whose futility is not only declared in Scripture but manifested by living monuments of the grace of God sitting in this very place. But God didn't go on forever sending the prophets to Israel.

62:13 There came a time when God says enough. Enough. And Jesus said the kingdom of God is taken from you and it's given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. Oh, they didn't like that.

62:28 Oh, they said forbid. He told a parable and they got the message. Oh, don't give the kingdom to the pagans. We want the benefits of covenant relations to Jehovah.

62:39 God says if you won't have the covenant engagements of the heart you won't have the privileges of the external blessings any longer. And God took them away and when in 70 AD their temple was leveled and they were dispersed amongst the nations Paul describes it by saying wrath has come upon them to the uttermost. And my friend that's what will happen to you if you're not provoked to jealousy. To say, oh God, what a fool I am.

63:10 What a fool I've been. If pagans have proven the emptiness of their gods what a fool am I to leave the framework of the knowledge of the true God to set my heart upon the pagan idols. Oh God, forgive my folly. And take your stance with these pagan sailors.

Call to Conversion and Gratitude

63:31 You don't need to go out on a ship and ask God to stir up a storm. You have every warrant to come sitting right where you are tonight Oh God, I've played the fool. My conscience affirms every word the preacher has preached in your name from your book. I know I'm accountable to you, oh God.

63:51 I know that I cannot face death with calmness or I try to forget it and drive it out of sight. But when you bring death near, Lord my heart trembles. I know I'm not prepared to die. Or in the language of John Bunyan, you remember placed in the lips of Christian what are you doing?

64:12 I'm fleeing. Why? Is that I know from the book that I must die and go to judgment and I'm not prepared for that awesome reality. Oh my friend, you must be converted.

64:30 Except you be converted ye shall in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven. What's involved in conversion? We're not telling you to go to so many weeks of instruction. You've got to do this.

64:42 No, no, no, my friend. No, none of that. None of that. We call upon you this night to recognize your desperate need of the living God.

64:52 We call upon you to recognize the futility of everything you worship and serve as God. We call upon you to receive the knowledge of the true God. He is Creator. The God of heaven.

65:03 The one to whom you're accountable. God of inflexible justice. God of overflowing mercy manifested in His Son. We call upon you savingly to embrace that knowledge and you do so not by embracing abstract propositions but by embracing Him in whom all that knowledge is found.

65:24 Even the Lord Jesus Christ for He is the truth and the scripture says as many as received Him. What they did when they feared exceedingly offered sacrifices and made vows in the language of the New Testament they repented and they believed the gospel. Oh my friend may you repent and believe this night and child of God though I've been constrained to as it were preach with a fury to the conscience of the unconverted. I hope your own heart has been filled with gratitude to God tonight.

66:00 Do you delight to trace out what He did to bring you to Himself? Your conversion is His mighty work. Do you see and believe and bless Him for the mercy that awakened you? Can you say with John Newton "'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear." Can you bless Him that He brought you to someone that knew God? Even though He may have been backslidden and out of the way as was this prophet He told the truth about God. Even though He was in a way of disobedience He told the truth about God. Do you bless God for whatever means He brought into the orbit of your life?

66:44 Do you bless Him that He made that means effectual? For my friend if He hadn't you would be like those who are simply awakened who simply taste the good word of God or like the thorny ground and stony ground hearers in the parable of the sower you give some external temporary response. My friend if your vows to Christ vows of allegiance and trust are bona fide they've stood the test of time it's not because you were sincere in your decision it's because the Lord took out the heart of stone and gave you a heart of flesh and wrote His law upon your heart and gave you both the motive and the power to cleave to Him throughout all the days of your life. Oh what a wonderful God we have who takes pagans like you and me who are in the language of Ephesians without hope and without God and brings us to the knowledge of Himself. Do you know that God? Have you been converted?

Prayer for Mercy and Zeal

67:53 Oh if not my friend cry to this God. These pagans were bold enough to believe that though they had spent a lifetime worshipping idols and living as idol worshippers do they could come to that God there on a ship they didn't have to get a priest or a rabbi or a minister someone with a turned collar or a robe they fell upon the deck and they cried we beseech the old Jehovah and He heard them. And my friend you'll hear your cry ascending from your heart right there in that seat with all kinds of rotten graffiti scribbled upon it in an old rickety school building my God does not need any fitting religious setting to deal in mercy. This was the least unlikely setting there in Jonah chapter 1 but He's the God who'll hear your cry call upon Him oh call upon Him and be saved. Let us pray. Oh our Father our hearts well up within us as we contemplate your mercy to hell deserving sinners and we own ourselves to be just that we do not draw our pharisaic robes

69:23 around us and say we thank thee that we are not like these pagan sailors with shame Lord we take our place with them we too worshiped idols the idols of our own ambitions and pride and lusts and we thank you that you alarmed us you jarred us loose from our fatal ease we thank you that you brought us to the place where we were desperate we thank you for revealing the truth concerning yourself in the face of Jesus Christ oh God do the same tonight for men, women, boys and girls in this place oh God stretch forth the arm of your power the same arm that was stretched forth upon the deck of that ship many centuries ago and we pray that those of us who have been rescued may find our hearts so filled with joy in the contemplation of your mighty work in us that we may with new zeal seize every opportunity to proclaim the truth concerning yourself and concerning your son oh make us zealous to proclaim this message in every fitting opportunity oh Lord seal the word seal the word to our hearts we thank you for this day

70:51 we bless you for the privilege oh God the holy privilege that has been ours to meet in this way unmolested with an open Bible Lord I thank you for your mercies to me restoring me to sufficient strength to be amongst this people again to preach your word oh Lord surely your mercies are higher than the heavens we bless you we praise you receive the worship of our hearts and may the blessing of your own presence rest upon us and we thank you that we have the promise it shall abide with us for you have said I will never leave thee nor forsake thee receive then our praise and bless us as we part from one another through our Lord Jesus Christ Amen