It's hard to imagine that getting tossed into the sea and then being swaned by the

great fish could be an opportunity for good. But on Truth For Life weekend we're

seeing how that's exactly what happened in Jonah's continuing saga.

Alistair Beggus teaching from Jonah chapter 2.

The emphasis in these verses is not so much upon the predicament of Jonah as it is

upon the provision of God. Not so much about what Jonah has done to get

himself in this situation as it is upon what God has chosen to do to save his

servant in the situation. Jonah ends up on dry land at the end of the chapter

verse 10 and it is clear that he ends up there not because he deserves to but because

of God's grace. What we discover is that the extremity facing Jonah was the

opportunity for God to show quite clearly what we're told there at the final

sentence of verse 9 that salvation comes from the Lord. And there is little doubt

that Jonah would have had in the immediate aftermath of these events many

occasions to rehearse what had happened to him and to repeat again the summary

which is contained in verse 2. People met him and he said where have you been

Jonah and then immediately followed up with and why do you smell so bad? I mean

he must have been really fragrant for a significant length of time coming out

of this. I'm not a fisherman and but there's something about fish once it gets

on you it's just almost impossible to get rid of the pong and so here he must

have been quite and not exactly the person he wanted to sit next to at the

the local symphony concert and his friends would have said to him what in the

world has been happening and then he would have said in my distress I called to

...