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thank you once again is my uh joy and privilege uh sharing with you from the word of God uh the clicker is uh here can I have the opening slide here so it's my joy and privilege to be standing here sharing with from the word of God and thank you uh Lis where is she
uh for uh reading uh the text for today uh very good very well read and I think she's she was very brave and this young lady uh is with our first light girls home and she studies at our Covenant Christian Center upstairs and she came to us from her or asle Village in Cameron Highlands and that was back in uh June 2023 and when she first arrived L didn't speak a word of English and but look how far she has come within a short span of just 20 months talk about transformation now we still in uh the
Chinese New Year season and that's why I'm very I'm wearing rate today someone told me hey this isn't exactly real but it's dark rate okay or should I say matured rate since I'm not getting younger as the years goes by in any case he is wishing you sing not K too fast singu meaning uh blessed new year now we are currently in between series and we have just uh finished the book of Isaiah recently and before we embark on the next series next month which is Galatians as you saw just now the preachers have all been
given free topics now what topic should I choose and since this is the year of the snake I first toyed with the idea of uh preaching from Genesis 3 to talk about the serpent it was a very tempting toall if you know what I mean but later I decided against said as it might spoil your Chinese New Year mood because the Bible has nothing good to say about snakes well if not snake then what uh this is not the answer came when we were shopping for some New Year decorations there were plenty of colorful merchandise with a fish Motif
such as this one uh Happy Fish uh beating a drum and here's another one and this one is spewing up money you know and since I was fishing for a sermon topic I took this as a queue and hence today's sermon is entitled Jonah the fish story Revisited with the text taken from the first chapter of the Book of Jonah in the last verse as you all know well a huge fish a to swall up Jonah as shown in this opening slide I be hard to see but Jonah is at the bottom okay but let me quickly explain to you why the fish is such an important uh
symbol or popular symbol during Chinese New Year for for those less familiar with Chinese culture and back to the earlier slide it comes from the greeting nen U uh which I have circled here in Blue uh it means may you have a abundance year after year and the word the Chinese word for abundance ye has the same sound as the word for fish ye also okay and hence it's actually a visual pun or play on words okay enough of fish for the time being and let's start with a word of prayer Our Father in Heaven you are the Eternal
God how can our finite mind ever fathom Who You Are even so as we probe deeper into the account of Jonah grant that your word will lent us a wider understanding of your nature and your Deeds even by a small measure so that your spirit can continue your transformative work in us even as we step into another New Year and we ask this in the name of your son amen okay first uh uh quick look at the ppit roster next Sunday we'll have Brandon Wong um preaching from um John 11 followed by Elder Arnold uh from
Romans 8 and after that in March as mentioned just now we will kick off uh the new series on Galatians with Dr Peter taking the first slot now with that out of the way uh let's dive in this sermon is divided into two parts a longer part one and a shorter part two in between the two parts uh we'll do something different we'll have a intermission a short break uh during which I have uh a nice surprise for you uh so please stay tuned in the first part uh we shall examine the text in question and since
most of you are familiar with the account of Jonah I shall not go into every minute detail instead I want to offer you some less obvious observations so that you can take home with you some fresh perspectives uh from the text but more importantly in the second part we shall consider the text through the lens of the New Testament so that you can appreciate what the account of Jonah is really all about now let me start with a question that is usually asked at the end of a sermon what are the main lessons and
embedded in the Book of Jonah since you all know the story well what are the main lessons embedded in the Book of Jonah now this church in California for example was teaching lessons in obedience from the from this book of course from the life of Jonah one can certainly extract lessons in obedience for that matter disobedience is a good angle from which one might approach the book of J but it is hardly the main lesson various other Bible teachers have sliced the text in various ways but they mostly miss the
point now related to this I once came across this very uh captivating uh video dating back to July 2023 it's a conversation between this Bill Mar and Dr Jordan Peterson now Mr marah on the left is a well-known American talk show host famous in America I'm not sure about in Malaysia while Dr Peterson on the right is a highly regarded psychologist from Canada and strangely the conversation drifted to discussing the Bible bear in mind that Mr marah is a staunch unbending atheist and he described the Bible as
comically stupid and full of nonsense to quote his exact words no surprise there and then interestingly in this conversation they started they started to talk about Jonah that's why I remembered this this this video our skeptic on the left was like saying surely you cannot believe that a a fish swallow a manhole and he was still alive after 3 days now bear in mind also that Dr Peterson is is not a believer but he expressed the interest in Christianity so he was trying to explain to billar as a non-believer okay and his
response was that behind this story of Jonah and the fish that atheist might find nonsensical is perhaps the lesson that when there is something very important for you to say or do and if you run away from that responsibility there would be severe consequences it's a fascinating take on the account of Jonah coming from especially a non-believer but it is also a Pity that the good doctor didn't see the key lesson that the Book of Jonah had to offer him and what is this key lesson now we shall get to it as we Cruise
along the verses and along the way we shall also pick up some periperal lessons before we arrive at the Crux of the matter I use the word Crux Crux here on purpose as a play on the word Cross C O SS and I'll explain what I mean later in part two of the sermon now at the onset as you all know Jonah was commissioned by God to go to nineve to deliver a warning repent or be destroyed now Jonah was a prophet God's appointed spokesman and surely he wouldn't think twice about carrying out this uh uh assignment but as you all also know well
he did the unthinkable he refused to obey this order in an open Act of defiance now not only did he disregard this directive he also decided to flee from God heading for this place called tashes as seen in the next verse but more on this in shortly in the meantime to dig deeper into the text we need to ask a probing question why did Jonah refuse to obey this order more than anybody else Jonah ought to know the consequence of disobeying God why did he choose to defy God now one quick answer may be found in
history nineve was the capital city of the Assyrian Empire located some 800 km to the Northeast and the Assyrians were Infamous in the ancient world for their cruelty their brutality was legendary they ruled by sheer Terror and fear in the British museum there's a whole collection of uh Stone carvings or rather uh wall panels depicting the savagery of the Assyrians and this gruesome piece one of the many exhibits they have there shows them impaling their enemies on Stakes now could it be that Jonah
dreaded the thought of venturing into Assyrian territory for fear that he might be similarly skewed sorry but the answer is no no not that the prophet was afraid to go to nineve it is not that he feared for his life hardly the answer lies further down in chapter four of Jonah in chapter 4 we get a glimpse of what was going on in his mind when he decided to defy God you see he knew that if he were to journey to nineve to deliver God's warning he knew that the nites would repent and that in his compassion God would spare
them which actually happened in chapter 3 Jonah was a prophet he knew what was going to happen if he went to nineve he knew that the inhabitants there would be saved and that he could not stomach or accept why because he wanted the ninevites destroyed the last thing he wanted was to see them saved why because the Assyrians were evil and wicked people people in his mind they didn't deserve to be Spar or saved they should be wiped out and so when he when he received God's instruction to go to the center of
the Assyrian Empire he just couldn't wrap his head around what God was trying to do hey these are ruthless these are murderous uh uh monsters they saw death and destruction in the lands they conquer look at what they do and you asking me to go and reach out to them thanks but no thanks Jonah just couldn't agree with that God was showing compassion to people who epitomize depravity and sin how could God show them even an iota of leniency and to let them off the hook would seem so wrong and that's what he
said in chapter 4:1 now here one may ask is is that wrong on the part of Jonah not about him disobeying God that is wrong but with regards to the way he was thinking about the Assyrians what do you think now this is so critical to help us understand better the Gospel of Jesus Christ and we need to reflect on this you see the problem is this when Jonah insists that the Assyrians are so bad and they don't deserve God's salvation he is also implying that the converse is true that is to say look I'm
so good and I deserve God's salvation not them I'm not like them and this reminds us of a parable in Luke 18 where Jesus described two fellows in the temple with vastly contrasting attitudes the first one a Pharisee stood up and prayed God I thank you that I'm not like other people those robbers and evildoers and adulterers the other man a tax collector will not even look up to heaven but said God have mercy on me a sinner so in a sense the Book of Jonah is in small part the re-education of a prophet he was more the Pharisee than
the tax collector and God was about to transform his thinking but what about us are we also a little like the Pharisee perhaps there might be a a little Jonah in all of us perhaps that there is some good in us we think so that God will be inclined to look at us more favorably and I confess that perhaps at a subconscious level I also have this tendency to think that I'm not such a bad person but scripture teaches us that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God in the words of Paul in Romans 3 a
few verses before this Paul further argued are we Jews better than the people who are not Jews not at all I've already said that Jews and the people who are not Jews are all sinners this is a crucial point in our text that would lead us to the key lesson in the Book of Jonah because this is the starting point the foundation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that before a Christ holy God we are all sinners enslaved to sin on root to condemnation and we all need the compassion of God and most importantly
his offer of Salvation is not based on any good in us or any Merit on our part none zero and Paul continue in the next verse verse 10 there is not one person not one person who is right with God not even one God's salvation is purely based on something called Grace we may think of Grace as God's compassion in action but it's much much more than that it is best understood as his as his unmerited favor and that is also not good enough actually it's unmerited favor to undeserving people Jonah was right the Assyrians
didn't deserve God's grace but neither did he and that he had to learn the Assyrians would be the last people on Earth to deserve God's grace but God extended it to them nonetheless for his act of defiance Jonah too didn't deserve God's the grace but God gifted it to him anyway and so the account of Jonah is really a story of God's grace or God's abundant grace Jonah refused to go to nin the epicenter of evil the so-called Belly of the beast but then he found himself in the belly of another Beast a literal one
namely the big fish and there trapped in the confined space he sought release from God's judgment and God God showed him Grace just as he wanted to show grace to the nites all Prophet did learn something about God and His nature which you can read further in the chapter 2 now we too need to learn a fresh the nature of God's grace namely his unmar favor to undeserving people I'm saying the second time remember this phrase and as and as I mentioned this is actually the starting point of the Gospel the more we understand this the
more we Embrace this the more liberating it is how for one thing we will exhibit more gratitude we will also exhibit more humility secondly we'll also be less judgmental more gracious more forgiving towards others and I often touch on this in my previous sermons now the continue with this with the text so in an attempt to flee from God so Jonah grab his passport headed quickly to the port city of jopa where he barded a ship as a paying passenger the destination a place called tashes again we ask some probing
questions where is this tashes and why of all places tashes now the exact location of this city is a subject of much debate the it's it's all the way to the to the to the west but I explain how it is so even though Scholars are not very sure but the best guess of its location comes from Psalm 72 where tashes is mentioned in Psalm 72 and is described as the end of the Earth now the end of the Earth simply means the outer perimeter of the known world at that time and that had to be in southern Spain uh
uh near today's Gibralter and so this map shows what the ship's Journey was supposed to have been Jonah starting point to the west to the east uh was this place called GTH heer which I marked with a star this this was where he lived based on 2 Kings 14:25 and you can see that from where he lived jopa isn't too far away and Jonah was supposed to travel Northeast by land to n but instead he planned to cross the entire length of the Mediterranean by sea he was heading west in the opposite direction to get as
far away from God as possible now what was he thinking surely he knew that God is the all seeeing and all knowing god in Proverbs 15:3 it says the eyes of the Lord are everywhere surely he knew that you can run but you cannot hide from God not only God knows exactly where you are but also your plans sooner or later he will come and get you before we go on here lies another peripheral lesson that is in this in his grace God is UN unrelenting in pursuing Those whom he has called in his grace God is unrelenting in pursuing in
chasing Those whom he has called God promised in Ezekiel 34:16 I will search for the loss and bring back the Strays not only is the grace of God abandon abandon in that it is offered to un undeserving people like us but it's also a a persistent quality about his grace and that's why in Psalm 139 David wrote where can I flee from your presence if I go up to the heavens you are there if I may if I make my bit in the depths you are there if I settle on the far side of the sea even there your hand will guide me interesting H that
David used the word the depth The Far Side Of The Sea prophesizing about Jonah we still on the question what was Jonah thinking running away to Tashi why tashes the furthest place the one possible answer may come from my own experience back in 1988 I was hurting from a major personal crisis and I went from one low point to another I was so angry with God that God had allowed it to happen so much so that I didn't want to have anything to do with him and I stayed away from church for many years but praise God that he did pursue
me with his unrelenting Grace and eventually brought me back to his fold and therefore I can understand why Jonah did what he did in running away as far as possible from God perhaps he also didn't want to have anything to to do with God actually in chapter 4 he admitted that he was angry with God but sorry that's not the reason why Jonah chose to run away to far away tshis he wasn't actually he wasn't trying to avoid God as I speculated again from chapter 4 we find the answer and it's even worse he knew that if he would go to nin
the people there will repent and that God will spare them and he didn't he didn't agree with that and so he decided to flee hoping that he could prevent this from happening he was trying to frustrate God's plans he actually thought that he could run and hide and God couldn't find him as unbelievable as it may sound I'm reluctant to say this but this Jonah is not only a disobedient Prophet but but also one whose IQ seems to be a bit lacking and true enough God confronted him on the high seas in the form of a
severe storm we do not know how long they had sailed when this happened but the ship was buffeted by violent winds and towering waves at first the the sailors tried to throw the cargo overboard in order to lighten the vessel but to no avail now you must remember the captain and the crew they must have been experienced seamen because this was a long distance ship and they must have sailed through all kinds of storms before but soon they realized that this was no ordinary storm they quickly realized that this storm was not the
result of some weather phenomenon but a supernatural storm how do we know that because they started to pray to their respective God for Relief and rescue but also to no avail notice how when confronted with death people tend to seek divine intervention this is very common even today and where was Jonah all this time our friend had gone below deck to take a sasta he was sleeping when the rest were fighting a lifethreatening storm no was it because he was very very tired unlikely I mean this was an ancient
sailing ship with ores and by today's standards it wasn't very big don't tell me had he had been jogging every day around the upper deck so why he go to sleep at the most inopportune time I can only speculate I think is because not only he wanted to run away physically but he also wanted to escape mentally because by going into a deep Slumber he didn't have to battle with the stress of thinking about nin about God's command to go to nineve if you sleep you you come you you won't be conscious of these
things but before long the captain found this passenger sleeping like a log below deck in verse 6 hey what are you doing wake up L do something at least pray to your God maybe he will respond everyone has been praying please do your part enough of this this apathy but the crew of the ship if you notice they they were smarter than the captain they didn't think that one more passenger praying to one more God will be of much utility and so the crew suggested that they cast lots to weed out the culprit
whose God was causing the Calamity that they were facing collectively as expected the lot fell on Jonah now some Christians are not comfortable about this casting of lots in the Bible as a way to determine an outcome or to make a decision because rolling a dice seem like a does seem like a random event but God in his sovereignty can also manifest his will through happen chance for example in the New Testament at the end of Acts chapter 1 the apostles and other had gathered and he also cast lots to select Maas as a
replacement for Judas hey I'm not suggesting that we also cast lots to choose leaders of FBC okay our current system works fine in any case now that the captain and crew had identified Jonah as the culprit what follows was an intense exchange between them and Jonah from verses 8 to 12 they interrogated him pressed him for more answers so that Jonah Finally Revealed that it was his God who had whipped up the storm and he referred to him as the Lord the god of Heaven who made the Sea and the dry land in other words he is
the creat god the one true Living God who was doing this and this terrified them they ended by asking what should we do to make the sea what should we do to you to make the sea come down for us to which Jonah offered the only way out he said in verse 12 pick me up and throw me into the sea and it will become calm wow sounds very heroic he was ready to sacrifice himself and we may we may be tempted to think of Jonah as a very heroic guy but sorry again that's not the case Jonah was no hero the truth is he
was ready to die he wanted to die he didn't care about the rest he wanted to die rather than be forced to go to ninev and this we can glean also from chapter 14 chapter 4 he really really didn't want to go to ninev and since God has has come has confronted him he was ready to die Jonah was a very stubborn man his refusal to go to nin sank into his bones at the end of it we have nothing good to say about Jonah disobedient l IQ and now very stubborn now did the captain of the ship take up Jonah's offer throw him
overboard no instead they tried the outmost to to roll back to land wow now the table is turned this seen appeared to be very merciful very very Humane they couldn't bear to throw Jonah overboard as it would mean his death sorry again it's not the case because their reason for sparing Jonah was less noble and this is Apparent from verse 14 they didn't want to be guilty of causing Jonah's death they didn't want Jonah's blood on their hands for fear that God will become even angrier and their own
lives would be at further risk actually they were only thinking for themselves and so with all their might they tried to roll back to land to save the ship and all those on board but it was impossible as the storm had intensified and having run out of options they finally jettisoned Jonah and Cal was restored to the Sea leaving the remaining passengers and crew in all this was what Jonah had asked for he thought that that would be the end of him but God had other plans the text ends with God arranging a
huge fish to swallow Jonah and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights which brings part one of our sermon to a conclusion now before we move to part two I wish to highlight a very important observation one that would serve as a bridge to bring us to the key lesson in part too now we have seen plenty of high dramas on the sea soon after Jonah bordered the vessel in the in verse three and all this climax in verse 15 when they threw Jonah into the Raging Sea they sacrificed Jonah so that they
could Escape certain death and the point is this the point is this someone had to die so That Others May may live someone had to die so That Others May Live one person's death allowed the rest to live you can perhaps guess where I'm hiding remember this slide as it will be Central in the next part of the sermon now as I mentioned at the start we will take a short break now uh before we continue to part two as promise uh this is uh uh uh I got a surprise for you and that is uh the surprise is uh uh
coming up on stage our gifted singer uh Kim uh will bless us with a solo and uh I have the lyrics uh on the screen uh song you know well it's a song that is uh appropriate for today's message now later at the end of sumon I will touch on the lyrics of this song but in the meantime may this song
