Three Days in the Deep

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of messages a few, a couple months ago on pictures of Jesus in the Old Testament. One of the things that I mentioned to you is that God seems to be really fond of the idea of three days. As a matter of fact, you can search online, you can search if you’ve got Bible software.

It’s a little more challenging with a paper Bible, but you can look up the times that God mentions three days or the third day in three days. And for us, depending on what side of the equation you’re on, three days can either feel like forever or it can feel like where did the time go. If you’re waiting for Christmas and you’re a child, three days feels like eternity.

If you’re an adult and you’re waiting on Amazon Prime that’s supposed to be here in two days, three days feels like an eternity. This time of year it turns into six days. Offices were closed for Thanksgiving on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

And so I’ve been out of the office Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. And leaving here Wednesday, I thought, I’ve got all these plans for the Thanksgiving holiday, all these things I’d like to do around the house, all these things I’d like to do with the kids. Do you think any of them got done?

No. Maybe one or two of them got done. But I look back on it, I walk so fast. Three days, a lot of times, is not.

. . We overestimate what we can accomplish in three days.

There have been times I’ve taken three days of vacation to try to clean out my workshop, thinking I could get it all done and it looks worse than when I started, because three days is not enough time. So many of the things that we think we could accomplish, three days is not enough time, but three days is just the right amount of time for God, and something we could never accomplish three days. And one of the most prominent places we see this recurring three-day theme is in the story of Jonah.

And it’s such a prominent story because it’s one of those that is so fantastic that it gets retold. It’s one of those Old Testament stories that people know, I mean, they know about, even if they’ve not grown up in church, they may not know all the details. Their ideas may be rife with misconceptions, but they know about the story.

But it’s also so prominent because the story of Jonah, I’m not going to go through all four chapters this morning, but we’re going to start at the very end of chapter one. We’re going to read Jonah’s prayer in chapter 2 and then see what comes on the other side of it in chapter 3. That sounds like a lot of text this morning.

It is, if I remember my count correctly, it’s 13 verses, so it’s not really more than what we normally go over on Sunday morning. I didn’t want you to think, well, we better move the lunch plans back because we’re. .

. And if you can’t find it or don’t have your Bible this morning, it’ll be on the screen for you here. But here’s what it says in Jonah chapter 1, starting in verse 17 and then going through the beginning of chapter 3.

And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights. Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the stomach of the fish, and he said, I called out of my distress to the Lord, the seas, and the current engulfed me. All your breakers and billows passed over me.

So I said, I have been expelled from your sight. Nevertheless, I will look again toward your holy temple. Water encompassed me to the point of death.

The great deep engulfed me. Weeds were wrapped around my head. I descended to the roots of the mountains.

The earth with its bars was around me forever. But you have brought up my life. Regard vain idols forsake their faithfulness.

But I will sacrifice to you with the voice of thanksgiving that which I have vowed I will pay. Salvation is from the Lord. Then the Lord commanded the fish and it vomited Jonah up onto the dry land.

Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time saying arise, go to Nineveh the great city and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am. . .

God had a plan for the people of Nineveh. God’s plan for Jonah was to bring him back into the fold of walking with him. Jonah was a very strong-willed, self-interested, almost prideful man.

He liked the idea of being a prophet of God more than he liked the actual following through on being obedient to what God told him to do.