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Amazing Facts

Jonah

Joe Crews

Jonah, Part 1

The first submarine ride took place in the Mediterranean Sea over 2000 years ago.

The accommodations were crowded, but the aquanauts survived 3 full days completely submerged.

In a moment, the amazing facts about this unusual experience and how it affects you.

Hello, this is Joe Cruz from the Amazing Facts broadcast, Facts Which Affect You.

Our subject today revolves around that old-time Bible story of Jonah and the whale.

The book of Jonah is very short, containing only 4 chapters and 48 verses, yet skeptics, critics, agnostics, and infidels, and even some professed Christians have had more trouble over this 1 little book than all the other books in the Bible put together.

It seems that 2 verses cause most of the trouble.

If these particular verses could be cut out, no 1 would quibble over the book of Jonah.

1 is the last verse in chapter 1, and the other is the last verse of chapter 2.

The last verse of Chapter 1 tells about Jonah being swallowed by a great fish or a whale, and the last verse of Chapter 2 tells how the fish got rid of him by depositing him on the shore again.

Now just as soon as the book of Jonah is mentioned, a great many people will say, oh, it's absolutely, utterly impossible for that story to be true.

Now they have 2 reasons for feeling that way, friends.

The first is that scientists have said time and again that whales have very little throats and that it's impossible for a whale to swallow anything as big as a human being.

The second reason is that even if a big fish could swallow a man, he wouldn't live very long.

It's ridiculous, they say, to believe that a man could survive for 3 days and 3 nights inside a whale.

Well, in spite of what 1 thinks, it is on the record again and again, even outside the Bible, that men have been swallowed by whales and did live.

They were taken out of the stomach of a whale and survived.

I've heard preachers mention this fact and go into great lengths showing how it happened here and there.

I know it's true because I've seen the certified records myself.

You can look it up for yourself if you care to.

I don't think it's necessary because of 1 verse in Jonah, because of just 1 single verse.

Jonah 1, 17, and this is what it says, Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah.

Now friends, it doesn't make a particle of difference whether or not a whale could ever swallow a man.

I believe it can because it's been proven.

But it doesn't make a bit of difference because God prepared a special fish for this occasion.

I don't know if he prepared 1 that was already swimming around out there by remodeling a bit or whether he actually created a new fish for the purpose, but the Bible says it happened and I believe it.

Jonah was actually swallowed by that fish.

Many years ago Sam Jones, a very famous preacher and evangelist down south, said this concerning the story of Jonah.

He said, I believe the story of Jonah word for word.

God said a whale swallowed Jonah, and I believe it.

And if God said Jonah swallowed a whale, I'd believe that.

And then he went on to say, I believe if God wanted Jonah to swallow a whale, he could take off his belt and swallow a whale.

Well he had a very picture-esque way of saying things, but you know, friends, he's right.

If God said a whale swallowed Jonah, that settles it.

He did prepare a special fish, and that fish did swallow the prophet.

There's something else I want to mention here.

Did you know that you can't be a Christian unless you believe this story about Jonah and the whale?

I've heard a great many people who profess Christianity deny that the book of John is true.

But it's impossible for a person to be a true Christian and a true follower of Christ and not believe the book of Jonah.

Now you might ask what makes you say that?

Let's read Matthew 12, 39, and notice that Jesus Himself is speaking here, and He's speaking about Jonah.

"'An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall no sign be given to it but the sign of the prophet Jonas.

For as Jonas was 3 days and 3 nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man be 3 days and 3 nights in the heart of the earth.

The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, it greater than Jonah is here." Now, God said He prepared a special fish and that the fish swallowed Jonah.

Then in the New Testament, Christ said that the story was true.

So friends, there is absolutely no room for doubt.

A Christian must believe the story or else admit that he doesn't even believe the testimony of Christ.

And that would make him un-Christian, wouldn't it?

The book of Jonah is a very important book, for it contains far more than the story of the first submarine ride.

It is that, of course, but there are other strong lessons for all of us in this book.

1 of the great solemn lessons of the Bible is right here in the story of Jonah and the Great Fish.

Now Jonah was a preacher, and he must have been an outstanding preacher judging by the results we are going to talk about in just a moment.

And 1 day the Lord said to Jonah, you're acquainted with that city of Nineveh and how it's so wicked and abominable.

I'm going to give those people just 40 days warning and then I'll destroy them and their city.

And I want you to go there and Tell them this message, give them this warning." Well Jonah began to think about that assignment.

He probably had done evangelistic work in other places and had prophesied here and there, but Nineveh?

Oh no, not Nineveh, anywhere but Nineveh.

You see, friends, it was a very old city.

In fact, it was built way back in the time of the Tower of Babel.

In this old-time city, the people were very set in their ways, and it was a really big city.

The Scriptures teach that it was a city of 3 days' journey.

Now most commentators believe that this meant it would take 3 days to journey through the city on foot.

And in Nahum 3, verse 1, the Bible declares that it was a bloody city, full of lies and robbery.

So there stood a great metropolis with no 1 good living in it.

And this 1 man was commissioned to go over and tell them, you're so wicked that in 40 days God's going to destroy this city.

Well, Jonah must have thought, my, that's an awful big job and would surely take a lot of faith.

I don't think I'd have enough of faith to do that.

Why, they might torn and feather me, or even worse, they might tear me limb from limb, and even if I escaped I'd be the laughing stock of the whole world." And the more he thought about it, the more fanatical and unreasonable it seemed.

Then just as most of us probably would have done, he decided not to do it.

He remembered the city of Tarsus, which was located just as far away as possible in the other direction.

The Bible says he went down to Joppa, a little seacoast town, and bought a ticket.

Then he went down to the ship, and down into the sides of the ship, and went to sleep.

Now when you read this little book, and I hope you will, it will take you only a few minutes, I want you to notice the word down.

Jonah went down, down, down, down to discouragement, down to joppa, down to the ship, down into the sides of the ship, down into sleep, down into unbelief, down into lack of faith, down in everything.

In fact, he was at the bottom because he was running away from God.

It always leads us on a downward path to destruction.

Are you running away from God over something?

It's pretty hard to stop after you get started.

It's like a big snowball that starts rolling at the top of a hill.

You better stop it quick or it goes down, down, down, and becomes bigger and faster and harder to cope with.

He was in a very sorry way because of running away from God.

So he went to sleep, and after a while the ship set sail.

The crew manning the ship were not Christians, they were a pagan crew.

As they got out to sea, a great storm swept down on them.

The little ship began to toss and turn and twist like a little chip of wood being tossed hither and yon.

And as the boat creaked under the strain, they began to throw things overboard to lighten the load.

Jonah, Part 2

A crackdown of law enforcement officers has often dried up pockets of crime in vice-ridden cities.

1 of the most lawless cities in the world was changed within 40 days to a model community without the help of a single policeman.

I'll be back in a moment with the amazing facts.

Hello, this is Joe Cruz on the Amazing Facts broadcast, facts which affect you.

In our last broadcast, we followed the tragic footsteps of Jonah's course in running away from God.

We learned that Jesus himself has endorsed the authenticity of the story, so often doubted and ridiculed by modern commentators.

There's no room for doubt on the part of Christians or anyone else.

We must either accept the story as true or accuse Jesus of deception.

To deny the veracity of Christ is to strike at the very heart of the Christian faith.

He was swallowed, Jonah was, by a great fish especially prepared by God.

Now in our last broadcast we learned how Jonah tried to avoid God's orders to preach in the great wicked city of Nineveh.

He bought a boat ticket in exactly the opposite direction and tried to run away from God.

But a terrible storm arose which threatened to sink the ship at any moment.

The heathen crew of that ship finally cast lots to find out who was guilty of offending the God of the seas.

Jonah was designated by the lots and finally he confessed his guilt in offending and disobeying God.

So with prayers of forgiveness, the pagan seaman cast Jonah into the ocean and he plummeted straight down into the black depths of the water.

Down, down, down he sank, until suddenly a great big black mouth opened up and he went down into the fish, and then the fish went down into the bottom of the sea.

Down, down, down, just as far as he could go.

By the way, friends, when he came there, he was really down.

Down in hope, down in the dumps, down in the ship, down into sleep, down in the water, down in the fish, and then right down to the very bottom of the sea.

It was rock bottom as far as Jonah was concerned.

But you know, in spite of all this, God had not forgotten the Prophet.

God had not forgotten Jonah, even after all that he had done.

It doesn't make any difference how far down you've gone.

You can't go so far into sin that you can't come back to God.

You can't become so vile or black or terrible that God will leave you alone.

He'll call you back and receive you to Himself again.

Now people often say to me, Oh, I've been so wicked that God wouldn't have me.

His great heart longs for you, no matter what you've done, no matter how far down you've gone.

It's an interesting thing to picture the circumstances that face Jonah down there.

He was on the whale's valet and it was hot, stuffy, and dark, no doubt.

Here's a little picture of it in the book of Jonah, chapter 2, verse 5.

Yes, I imagine there were digestive juices sort of swirling around him there in the stomach of that great fish.

And he also says in verse 5, the weeds were wrapped about my head.

Whale had something else for dinner besides Jonah, and it was dark.

Just picture yourself in that situation for a moment.

Maybe it wasn't so wise to run away from God, after all.

And so, way down there in the bottom of the sea, he began to think.

And he did something else, as brought out in Jonah 2.1.

Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly.

Oh no, the Lord directed that fish through God's heavenly radar system over to the shore and somehow miraculously deposited Jonah on the dry land.

The word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.

So the Lord was saying, Now Jonah, you've recuperated.

It's the same job I gave you before, and I want you to preach the same message that I ask you to preach.

Now listen, friends, it doesn't make a bit of difference who you are or what your background is.

God will never bless you and you will never succeed until you do what God asks you to do.

Now, this applies to you and to me and to everybody.

If you go running off to Tarshish, as he did, and buy some tickets far, far away, you will never prosper.

So Jonah decided that he'd go to Nineveh.

He took his journey and walked into that city, a part of a day's journey, no doubt, and he began to preach.

Yet 40 days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

Oh, I can imagine people looking at him and saying, Who is he?

Probably somebody asked, Have you ever seen him before?

And another said, No, I don't know who he is.

And they thought, I'm sure, well, he's just a crackpot of some kind.

Don't pay any attention to him." But he wasn't gone tomorrow.

Tomorrow, he said, you have 39 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

And people began to say, well, that's a different message anyway, isn't it?

I've never heard anybody talk like that before.

And then 30 days and Nineveh will be destroyed.

By that time, everybody was looking and listening.

I can imagine they followed him along and looked him over.

More days passed and he was saying, all right, friends, 25 days and this great city will be destroyed.

The inhabitants said, you'll certainly have to give him credit for this.

Again the days passed by and he was saying 20 days.

And some of the people said, what if he's right?

I don't believe he is, but suppose he is right.

A few more days passed and he was saying, yet 10 days, you have only 10 more days, a little over a week.

And some of them began to say, I don't know what you think, but I believe him, I'm going to do something about this.

And I imagine by the time he was saying 5 days, 4 days, 3 days, they had all made decisions.

According to the Scripture, from the king on the throne right on down to the beggar on the street, they repented in sackcloth and ashes, the entire city.

Well, that was probably the greatest revival ever held, bar none.

And that was probably the most wonderful experience that ever came to a preacher or evangelist, bar none.

But now let's come to the lesson for us, friends.

The devil knows that God commands and that we can only have true joy and peace and happiness when we keep those commandments.

So he tries to picture God's commandments as impossible.

The only way to joy and peace is found in following those orders of God.

The devil knows that, and so he puts his lies in force to keep you from doing what God asked you to do.

The Lord says, go to Nineveh, do this, do that, and the devil comes along and says, now wait, you don't want to do that yet, and while you wait, he builds that thing bigger and bigger and bigger and makes it seem more impossible until you feel that it just can't be done after all.

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