Look at Jonah chapter 2 verse 1.
Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly, and said, I cried by
reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me.
Out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice.
So notice in verse 2 he's saying, I cried.
Why did he cry?
By reason of mine affliction.
Now you know what the word afflict means?
Pain.
It's real simple.
So why did he cry pain?
What was the cry?
He didn't want to be in the belly of hell anymore.
Verse 3.
For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas, and the floods compass
me about, all thy billows and thy waves passed over me.
Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight, yet I will look again toward thy holy temple.
Now again, why is he talking about the holy temple?
Because that's where God is.
That's where the Father is.
And he's saying, he can't see that right now.
He's in hell.
He's been cast out.
Yet his cry is going to come all the way back up into the holy temple of God, and God the
Father is going to hear that cry of his Son, and he's going to deliver him out of
hell.
He's not going to leave him there.
He's not going to let his Son just stay in hell.
He said in verse 5, the waters have compass me about even to the soul.
The depth closed me round about.
The weeds were wrapped about my head.
I went down to the bottoms of the mountains.
The earth with her bars was about me forever.
Yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God?
So what's interesting about Jonah is I believe it follows this pattern.
Verse 1, Jonah.
Verse 2, Jesus.
Verse 3, Jonah.
Verse 4, Jesus.
It just does this alternating pattern where it's just Jonah, Jesus.
Jonah, Jesus.
And then there's obviously some overlap here in the sense that all of these verses could
apply to Jonah from a metaphoric perspective.
In a vice versa situation, all the verses that are kind of specifically to Jonah just
give us some semblance of how Christ is also suffering and what it's going to be like.
But the one that's the primary application, the one that you're really thinking about,
it's kind of this picture of Jonah, Jesus, Jonah, Jesus, Jonah, Jesus.
Jonah didn't go to hell.
Jonah wasn't in the midst of the earth, as it were.
But Christ was.
Now, Christ wasn't in a whale's belly.
Christ didn't have seaweed wrapped around his head.
That was Jonah, right?
So you kind of have that interlude, that intersection of the Bible.
And look, I've literally heard, again, the same Baptist preachers look at this story
and say, this is only about Jonah, not about Christ.
And I'm just like, Tim, give all the prophets witness.
Like what would this be about if it's not about Christ?
And look, the picture of Jesus dying was in Jonah chapter 1 when they threw him off
the boat.
But then there's more to the story.
There's the whole part about the whale.
Go to Matthew chapter 12, go to Matthew chapter 12.
And then Jesus brings that whole up, and he says, hey, you know that story?
That was all about me.
Now, think about this.
I believe that Jonah fully encompasses all of Christ's life.
You could look at his death, burial, resurrection, even preaching, and how the gospel is reaching
the Gentiles.
There's a lot to the book of Jonah.
There's a lot of symbolism.
There's a lot about Christ.
But Christ decides to illustrate and say, there's one thing about Jonah that I want
to bring up that's about me.
And what's the one thing that he emphasized?
Does he emphasize the cross?
Is he emphasizing the death?
What is he emphasizing?
Well, Jonah is emphasized, Matthew 12, verse 39.
But he answered and said unto them, 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 three days and three nights in the well's belly, so shall the Son of
Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Why?
He's picturing how Christ is going to descend into hell, and that's the same
picture that they get that Jonah is giving to the Ninevites.
Hey, as I was in the well's belly for three days and three nights, so is Christ
going to be in hell for three days and three nights.
Now again, other than Jonah smelling like, you know, whatever, there wasn't a lot of
evidence.
I mean, Jonah could have been making that story up, but they believed him, didn't they?
We believe that story, don't we?
And much more do we believe the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
And that's what gets you saved.
That's what actually allows you to get to heaven is your faith in the death, burial,
and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
And if Christ says with his own mouth, that was about me, then you have to believe.
I mean, come on.
Seriously, you're going to literally tell me that that's only about Jonah when Jesus
is saying, like, this is the picture of me and how I was going to go into the heart
of the earth.