Going Down

Order of Service

• Preparation Song — Glorify Thy Name
• Call to Worship — 1 Chronicles 29:10-13
• Hymn — Glorify Thy Name
• Prayer of Invocation
• Confession of Sin — from Psalm 51
• Assurance of Pardon — from Psalm 51:17
• Confession of Faith — Heidelberg Catechism
• Pastoral Prayer
• Offering
• Hymn — Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing
• Scripture Reading — Jonah 1:1-17
• Sermon
• Communion Meditation and Institution of the Lord's Supper — Matthew 26:26-28
• Hymn — Behold the Lamb (verses 1–2)
• Prayer before Communion
• Lord's Supper
• Hymn — Behold the Lamb (verses 3–4)
• Benediction — 2 Corinthians 13:14

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Sermon Title: Going Down

Scripture: Jonah 1:1-17

I. The Movement of Sin: Fleeing the Presence of God

A. God commands Jonah to go to Nineveh, the capital of the brutal Assyrian Empire, and call out against it

1. The phrase "the word of the Lord came to Jonah" appears over 100 times in the Hebrew Bible and almost always signals a prophetic calling
2. Jonah is identified as the same prophet mentioned in 2 Kings 14:25, from Gath-hepher in the territory of Zebulun, a contemporary of Hosea and Amos

B. Jonah's rebellion is open-eyed and willful, not ignorant

1. Instead of going east to Nineveh, Jonah flees west to Tarshish — the farthest possible point in the known world
2. In Jonah 1:9 Jonah confesses, "I fear the Lord, the God of heaven" — this is sin committed in full knowledge of God
3. Like the prodigal son, Jonah knowingly abandons a Father he has experienced; like Balaam in Numbers 22–24, even wicked prophets cannot escape God's word

C. It is foolishness to flee from the omnipresent God

1. Psalm 139:7-10: "Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?"
2. Amos 3:8: "The lion has roared; who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken; who can but prophesy?"
3. Augustine's reflection: God is more inward than your own heart — there is no place to flee from him; wisdom is to flee unto him rather than away

II. The Movement of Sin: A Downward Descent

A. The literary structure of chapter 1 brilliantly uses the contrast of "arise" and "go down" to depict the trajectory of sin

1. God commands: Arise (Jonah 1:2)
2. Jonah went down to Joppa, went down into the ship (Jonah 1:3), had gone down into the inner part of the ship to sleep (Jonah 1:5)
3. The captain echoes God: Arise, call out to your God (Jonah 1:6)
4. The descent culminates in the belly of the great fish — a picture of Sheol and darkness

B. Sin always leads to a destination — the soul is always on a trajectory either upward in obedience or downward in rebellion

1. Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress depicts the Christian life as a pilgrimage from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City
2. The question for every soul: are you heading upward in trust and obedience, or downward into the depths through rebellion?

C. Sin makes you slumber — Jonah sleeps through a violent storm

1. The captain's rebuke mirrors the disciples' experience with Jesus asleep in the storm
2. The Psalms call the soul to "wake up" — to gird up one's loins and move in obedience toward the Lord

D. Jonah's solution — "throw me into the sea" — is effectively suicide; sin against God is self-destruction

1. In the garden, Adam was warned: "If you eat of that tree, you will surely die" — yet he willingly chose death (Genesis 2–3)
2. Ezekiel 33:10-11: "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back… for why will you die?"
3. Application: secret, cherished sins cannot be hidden from the omnipresent God — the Lord calls sinners today to turn to Christ and live

III. The Movement of the Lord: Overcoming Sin

A. God uses all of creation providentially to pursue and restore his wayward people

1. Jonah 1:4: The Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea
2. Jonah 1:17: The Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah
3. Romans 8:19-21: Creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God — creation has a vested interest in our salvation

B. The pagan sailors are converted to the Lord — a major theme of Jonah is that God's saving hand reaches beyond Israel

1. Verse 5: Sailors fear the storm and cry to their gods
2. Verse 10: Sailors fear Yahweh who controls the storm
3. Verse 16: Sailors fear the Lord with holy, godly fear and offer sacrifices and vows — a true conversion
4. Two movements run simultaneously: Jonah moving away from God, the sailors moving toward God

C. Jonah thrown overboard is the sailors' salvation — he is a living sacrifice pointing to Christ

1. The great fish is Jonah's lifeboat — his ark — sparing him even as his sacrifice saves the sailors
2. In Matthew 12, Jesus treats Jonah's three days and three nights in the fish as historical and as a type of his own death and burial
3. Revelation 1:17-18: "Fear not, I am the first and the last and the living one. I died; behold, I am alive forevermore."
4. Christ is the true living sacrifice — he died and rose so that sinners might be hidden in his love and blood and restored through his resurrection life

D. Closing application: No matter how deep your sin feels, the sovereign Lord has appointed not merely a great fish but a great Son to hide you in his love and restore you

1. The Lord will pursue the sinner all the way down into the depths — even to the cross itself
2. The call is to become a living sacrifice: "Lord, your servant is listening" — to the one who died and is risen for you