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Before we begin today's episode of Renewing youg Mind, we invite you to stay with us through the end of the program to hear how you can request today's featured resource from Ligonier Ministries.
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How like David is Jonah at that moment where, in David's magnificent psalm of repentance, Psalm 51, in His Spirit of contrition, in his broken and contrite heart, he asks God to treat him according to his mercy and not according to his justice, and yet at the same time acknowledges that God would be perfectly right, perfectly just and perfectly clear to bring the full judgment of his wrath upon David's own head. That's the posture of Jonah. That's the posture of all who come to repentance.
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To receive mercy when we know we deserve justice. What a beautiful gift. This is the Friday edition of Renewing youg Mind, and thank you for joining us today. Yesterday we began a study of the Book of Jonah. You'll recall it was Jonah who fled from God's calling on his life. Or to be more accurate, he attempted to flee. Today, Dr. Sproul will continue our study of Jonah, but with the help of that great author of nautical fiction, Herman Melville. Within the pages of Moby Dick, Melville introduces us to Father Mapple, who reminds the sailors in the novel and us that there is nowhere to hide from an omnipresent God. Here's Dr. Sproul.
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I think the greatest sermon ever preached on the Book of Jonah was perhaps never really preached. The only time I heard it, I heard it in the movies. And the preacher was Charles Laughton. He was in this movie delivering a sermon that was composed for a novel, not for a Sunday morning service. It's my favorite novel, of course, Moby Dick. In the opening chapters of that great work, we find Ishmael on the Sabbath day before he sets sail and joins Ahab for his pursuit of the great white whale. We find Ishmael roaming through the streets of New Bedford in search of the Whaler's Chapel. And he enters into the chapel that Sabbath morning, and the minister, Father Mapple, rises to the pulpit and delivers a sermon on the Book of Jonah. Now I'm going to do something I almost never do, and that is, rather than give my own exposition of Jonah or any other text that we might be working on, I'm going to ask your indulgence as I read for you today, portions of that magnificent exposition that Melville gives us through the lips of his character, Father Mapple of the Wailer's Chapel in New Bedford. We read in Melville's Moby Dick. These words where after Father Mapple has risen to the pulpit, he says, shipmates, this book, referring to the book of Jonah, containing only four chapters, four yarns, is one of the smallest strands in the mighty cable of the Scriptures. Yet what depths of the soul Jonah's deep sea lions sound. What a pregnant lesson to us is this prophet. What a noble thing is that canticle in the fish's belly. How billow like and boisterously grand. We feel the flood surging over us. We sound with him to the kelpy bottom of the waters. Seaweed and all the slime of the sea is about us. But what is the lesson that the book of Jonah teaches shipmates? It's a two stranded lesson. A lesson to us all as sinful men, and a lesson to me as a pilot of the living God, as sinful men. It is a lesson because it is a story of the sin, hard heartedness, suddenly awakened fears, the swift punishment, repentance, prayers, and finally the deliverance and joy of Jonah. And then he goes on and tells of how Jonah encounters his difficulty because he has disobeyed God. And Father Mapple says, with this sin of disobedience in him, Jonah still further flouts at God by seeking to flee from him. He thinks that a ship made by men will carry him into countries where God does not reign, but only the captains of this earth. He skulks about the wharves of Joppa and seeks a ship that is bound for Tarshish. There lurks perhaps a hitherto unheeded meaning here. By all accounts, Tarshish could have been no other city than the modern Kediz. That's the opinion of learned men. And where is Kediz, shipmates? Caediz is in Spain, so far by water from Joppa as Jonah could possibly have sailed in those ancient days when the Atlantic was an almost unknown sea. See ye not then, shipmates, that Jonah sought to flee worldwide from God. Miserable man. O most contemptible and worthy of all scorn, with slouched hat and guilty eye, skulking from his God, prowling among the shipping like a vile burglar hastening to cross the seas, so disordered self convicted, condemning in his look that had there been a policeman in those days, Jonah, on the mere suspicion of something wrong, would have been arrested before he touched a deck. How plainly he's a fugitive. No baggage, not a hatbox, valise or carpet bag, no friends accompanying him to the wharf with their audio. And at last, after much dodging Search. He finds the Tarshish ship receiving the last items of her cargo, and as he steps on board to see its captain in the cabin, all the sailors for the moment desist from hoisting in the goods to mark the stranger's evil eye. Jonah sees this, but in vain. He tries to look all ease and confidence. In vain assays his wretched smile. Strong intuitions of the man assure the mariners he can be no innocent in their gamesome but still serious way. One whispers to the other, jack, he's robbed a widow. Or Joe, do you mark him? He's a bigamist. Or Harry lad, I guess he's the adulterer that broke jail in old Gomorrah, or belike one of the missing murderers from Sodom. Another runs to read the bill that's stuck against the spile upon the wharf to which the ship is moored, offering 500 gold coins for the apprehension of a parasite and containing a description of the person. He reads, then looks from Jonah to the bill, while his sympathetic shipmates now crowd round about Jonah, prepare to lay their hands upon him. Frightened, Jonah trembles, summoning all his boldness to his face only looks so much more the coward. He will not confess himself suspected, but that itself is strong suspicion, so he makes the best of it. And when the sailors find him not to be the man that is advertised, they let him pass, and he descends into the cabin.
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Who's there?
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Cries the captain at his busy desk, hurriedly making out his papers for the customs. Who's there? Oh, how that harmless question mangles Jonah for the instant. He almost turns to flee again, but he rallies. I seek a passage in this ship to Tarshish. How soon sail ye, sir? Thus far the busy captain had not looked up to Jonah, though the man now stands before him. But no sooner does he hear that hollow voice than he darts a scrutinizing glance. We sail with the next coming tide. No sooner, sir. Soon enough for any honest man that goes a passenger. Ha. Jonah, that's another stabilizer. But he swiftly calls away the captain from that scent. I'll sail with ye, he says. The passage money, how much is it? I'll pay now, for it is particularly written, shipmates, as if it were a thing not to be overlooked in this history that he paid the fare thereof before the craft did sail. And taken with the context, this is full of meaning. Jonah's captain, shipmates, was one whose discernment detects crime in any, but whose cupidity exposes it only. And the penniless in this World, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely and without a passport, whereas virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers. So Jonah's captain prepares to test the length of Jonah's purse. Ere he judge him openly, he charges him thrice the usual sum, and it's assented to. Then the captain knows that Jonah is a fugitive, but at the same time resolves to help a flight that paves its rear with gold. Yet when Jonah fairly takes out his purse, prudent suspicions still molests the captain. He wrings every coin to find a counterfeit. Not a forger, anyway, he mutters, and Jonah is put down for his passage. Point out my stateroom, sir, says Jonah. Now I'm travel weary and I need sleep. Thou lookest like it, says the captain. There's thy room. Jonah enters and would lock the door, but the lock contains no key. Hearing him foolishly fumbling there, the captain laughs lowly to himself and mutters something about the door of convex cells being never allowed to be locked from within. All dressed and dusty as he is, Jonah throws himself into his berth and finds the little stateroom ceiling almost resting on his forehead. The air is close, and Jonah gasps. Then, in that contracted hole sunk to beneath the ship's waterline, Jonah feels the heralding presentiment of that stifling hour when the whale shall hold him in the smallest of his bow's wards, screwed at its axis against the side. A swinging lamp slightly oscillates in Jonah's room, and the ship, heeling over towards the wharf with the weight of its last bales received, the lamp, flame and all, though in slight motion, still maintains a permanent obliquity. With reference to the room, though in truth infallibly straight itself, it is made obvious the false lying levels among which it hung. The lamp alarms and frightens Jonah, as, lying in his berth, his tormented eyes roll round the place, and the thus far successful fugitive finds no refuge for his restless glance. But that contradiction in the lamp more and more appalls him. The floor, the ceiling, the side, they're all awry. Oh, so my conscience hangs in me. He groans. Straight upward, so it burns. But the chambers of my soul are all in crookedness. Like one who, after a night of drunken revelry, hies to his bed, still reeling, but with conscience yet pricking him as the plungings of the Roman racehorse. But so much the more strike his steel tags into him, as one who is in that miserable plight still turns and turns in giddy anguish, praying God for annihilation until the fit be passed. And at last, amid the whirl of woe, he feels a deep stupor steals over him as over the man who bleeds to death. For conscience is the wound, and there's nothing to staunch it. And so, after sore wrestling in his birth, Jonah's prodigy of ponderous misery drags him, drowning, down to sleep. And now the time of tide has come. The ship casts off her cables. And from the deserted wharf the uncheered ship for Tarshish, all careening, glides out to sea. That ship, my friends, was the first of recorded smugglers. The contraband was Jonah. But the sea rebels. He will not bear the wicked burden. A dreadful storm comes on. The ship is like to break. But now, when the boatswain calls all hands to lighten her, when boxes, bales and jars are clattering overboard, when the wind is shrieking and the men are yelling. And every plank thunders with trampling feet right over Jonah's head. In all this raging tumult, Jonah sleeps his hideous sleep. He sees no black sky and raging sea, feels not the reeling timbers, and little hears he or heeds he the far rush of the mighty whale, which even now with open mouth is cleaving the seas after him. Ay, shipmates, Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship. A berth in the cabin as I have taken it, and was fast asleep. But the frightened master comes to him and shrieks in his dead ear, what meanest thou, O sleeper, arise? And startled from his lethargy by that direful cry, Jonah staggers to his feet, stumbling to the deck, grasps a shroud to look upon the sea. But at that moment he is sprung upon by a panther billow leaping over the bulwarks. Wave after wave leaps into the ship. And find no speedy vent roars foring aft until the mariners come nigh to drowning while still afloat. And ever as the white moon shows her affrighted face from the steep gullies in the blackness overhead. Aghast, Jonah sees the rearing boughs, sprit pointing high upward, but soon beat downward against. Toward the tormented deep. Terrors upon tears run shouting through his soul. And in all his cringing attitudes. The God fugitive is now too plainly known. The sailors mark him more and more certain, grow their suspicions of him. And at last fully to test the truth by referring the whole matter to high heaven. They fall to casting lots to see for whose cause this great tempest was upon them. The lot is Jonah's that discovered. And then how furiously they mob him with their what is thine occupation? Whence comest thou thy country? What people? But mark now, my shipmates, the behavior of poor Jonah, the eager mariners. But ask him who he is and where he's from. Whereas they not only receive an answer to these questions. But likewise another answer to a question not put by them. But the unsolicited answer is forced from Jonah. By the hard hand of God that is upon him. I am a Hebrew. He cries. And then I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who hath made the sea and the dry land. Fear him, O Jonah. Ay, well mightest thou fear the Lord God.
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Then
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straightway he now goes on to make a full confession. Whereupon the mariners became more and more appalled. But still are pitiful. For when Jonah, not yet supplicating God for mercy, since he but too well knew the darkness of his deserts, when wretched Jonah cries out to them to take him and cast him forth into the sea. For he knew that for his sake this great tempest was upon him, they mercifully turned from him and seek by other means to save the ship. But all in vain. The indignant gale howls louder. And then, with one hand raised invokingly to God with the other, they not unreluctantly lay hold of Jonah. And now behold Jonah, taken up as an anchor and dropped into the sea. When instantly an oily calmness floats from the east and the sea is still. As Jonah carries down the gale with him, leaving smooth water behind, he goes down in the whirling heart of such a masterless commotion. That he scarce heeds the moment when he drops seething into the yawning jaws awaiting him. And the wail shoots to all his ivory teeth. Like so many white bolts upon his prison. And then Jonah prayed. But observe his prayer and learn a weighty lesson. For sinful as he is, Jonah does not weep and wail for direct deliverance. He feels that his dreadful punishment is just. He leaves all his deliverance to God, contenting himself with this. That in spite of all his pains and pangs, he will still look toward his holy temple. And here, shipmates, is true and faithful repentance. Not clamorous for pardon, but grateful for punishment. And how pleasing to God was this conduct in Jonah. Is shown in the eventual deliverance of him from the sea and the whale. Shipmates, I do not place Jonah before you to be copied for his sin. But I do place him before you as a model of repentance. Sin not. But if you do take heed to repent of it, like Jonah. Now, that's not the end of the sermon that was preached by Father Mapple in New Bedford. He goes on with some concluding remarks that I won't take the time to illustrate. But what I like about this rendition of Jonah from the pen of Herman Melville is that Melville takes an existential look at the story. He gets into the very skin of Jonah. He makes the text come alive. Oh, that's a bad thing to say, because the text already is alive. I should say that the text makes Melville come alive. But Melville, who had such a love affair with the sea and all things associated with sailing, identified with this human being who was a fugitive from God. Perhaps he was the model for Melville's own Redburn, who sought refuge in a far land. But it's obvious that he understood the heartbeat of Jonah and of those who would seek to flee from the presence of God. I commend to you the reading of the full text of this sermon from Herman Melville as it is uttered through the lips of Father Mapple. And if you have the opportunity ever to see the film version of Moby Dick, you will take note of the portion of the sermon that is given on the screen by Charles Lawton. But more importantly, we should heed the advice of Father Mapple himself that we emulate Jonah not in his sin, but in his spirit of penitence, which is marked foremost by his acknowledgment that his punishment is just. How like David is Jonah at that moment where, in David's magnificent psalm of repentance, Psalm 51, in His Spirit of contrition, in his broken and contrite heart, he asks God to treat him according to his mercy and not according to his justice, and yet at the same time acknowledges that God would be perfectly right, perfectly just and perfectly clear to bring the full judgment of his wrath upon David's own head. That's the posture of Jonah. That's the posture of all who come to repentance in our time today. I didn't have the opportunity to complete Melville's rendition of Father Mapple's sermon on the Book of Jonah, but I would like to read now its conclusion as Father Mapple addresses his words not so much to the layperson as he does to the clergy. And so, if there are any clergy who are listening to this, take heed. Father Mapple concludes his sermon with these words. Finally, Jonah did the Almighty's bidding. And what was that, shipmates? It was to preach the truth to the face of falsehood. That was it. This shipmates, is that other lesson. And woe to that pilot of the living God who slights it. Woe to him whom this world charms from gospel duty. Woe to him who seeks to pour oil upon the waters when God has brewed them into a gale. Woe to him who seeks to please rather than to appal. Woe to him whose good name is more to him than goodness. Woe to him who in this world courts not dishonor. Woe to him who would not be true, even though to be false were salvation. Yea, woe to him who, as the great Pilate Paul has it, while preaching to others, is himself a castaway foreign.
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To speak the truth in the face of falsehood. That's the calling of every Christian, isn't it? May we all have the courage to proclaim the truth of his word. This is the Friday edition of Renewing your Mind, and you can receive lifetime Digital access to Dr. R.C. sproul's entire teaching series on Jonah simply by calling us with a donation at 800-435-4343. You can also give your gift at renewingyourmind.org your support helps keep renewing your mind available for listeners around the world. So we thank you for your generous donation. I hope you'll join us again next week. On Monday, Dr. Sinclair Ferguson will help us answer the question, who is the Holy Spirit? Here's a preview.
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Who is the Holy Spirit? What person is he? What kind of character does he have? How can we come to know him and have fellowship with him? And how is it that it's to our advantage that the Lord Jesus has gone away and that the Holy Spirit has come to the church? Who is the Holy Spirit?
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I hope you'll join us beginning Monday here on Renewing youg Mind.
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Sam.