Father Mapple’s Sermon

Today on Renewing Your Mind… A dreadful storm comes on.

The ship is like to break, but now when the boatsman 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. That's Dr. R.C. Sproul reading a portion of Moby Dick. R.C. called it the great American novel, Unsurpassed by Any Other.

R.C. was captivated by Herman Melville's classic because of its theological symbolism. He was convinced that the whale is not a symbol of evil, but of God Himself.

I share that with you because R.C. 's message today is going to be a bit different, but from it we're going to learn a valuable lesson from this Old Testament prophet named Jonah. 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 sermon that I'm going to be working on. It's a magnificent exposition that Melville gives us through the lips of his character, Father Mapple, of the whaler's chapel in New Bedford. We read in Melville's Moby Dick these words, where after Father Mapple has risen to the pulpit, he writes 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 lines sound. What a pregnant lesson to us is this prophet. What a noble thing 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 kelpie 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 the 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 Cadiz.

That's the opinion of learned men. And where is Cadiz, shipmates? Cadiz 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 not then, shipmates, that Jonah sought to flee worldwide from God. Miserable man, oh most contemptible and worthy of all scorn, with slouched hat and guilty eyes skulking from his God, prowling among the shipping like a vile burglar hastening to cross the seas, so disordered, self-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 hat box, 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 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. "'Who's there?' 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? Seal 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 stab.' 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. Now Jonah's captain, shipmates, was one whose discernment detects crime in any, but whose cupidity exposes it only in 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 ascended to. Then the captain knows that Jonah's 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 molest the captain.

He rings 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 mudders 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 pre-sentiment of that stifling hour when the whale shall hold him in the smallest of his bowels' 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 bails 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 were rolled around the place, then the thus far successful fugitive finds no refuge for his restless glance. But that contradiction in the lamp more and more appals 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, hides 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, and so much so that he is turning and turns in giddy anguish, praying God for annihilation until the fit be past. 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 boatsman 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 in 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.

Ah, shipmates, Jonah was gone down to 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 bollards, and wave after wave leaps into the ship and fine no-speed event roars foreing aft until the mariners come nigh to drowning while still afloat. And ever as the white moon shows her a frighted face from the steep gullies in the blackness overhead, aghast Jonah sees the rearing bowsprit pointing high upward but soon beat downward against toward the tormented deep. Terrors upon terrors 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 questions.

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. That is upon him.

I am a Hebrew, he cries. And then I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who is made to see in the dry land. Fear him, O Jonah.

Aye. Well, mightest thou fear the Lord God then? 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 heaves the moment when he drops seething into the yawning jaws awaiting him. And the whale shoots to all his eyes, and the 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 red burn, 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 Lutton. But more importantly, we should heed the advice of Father Mapple himself, 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, wherein 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. And that's a crucial warning on repentance for all of us, and it's one of the lessons we've learned today from Jonah when he was lost at sea. We're glad you've joined us today for Renewing Your Mind and Dr. R.C. Sproul's eye-opening presentation here on the story of Jonah. Stay with us. R.C.

will be with us with a final word in just a moment. What we just heard is one of five lessons from Dr. Sproul's series on Jonah, and for a limited time we'll send you the entire series on MP3 CD for your donation of any amount. You can call us at 800-435-4343. Not only will you see the gospel of the Old Testament, but you'll learn surprising lessons about God's sovereignty and His mercy. It's all there in R.C. 's audio series on Jonah.

Again, you can reach us by phone at 800-435-4343 or online at renewingyourmind.org. If you'd like to deepen your study of God's Word, we invite you to visit Ligonier Connect. It features more than 100 interactive courses with some of your favorite Bible teachers, including Dr. R.C. Sproul, along with Dr. W. Robert Gottfried and Dr. Stephen Lawson. You can delve into your favorite topics on your own or with family members or friends.

Just go to connect.ligonier.org. And now here's R.C. with a final thought for us. 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 Pilate 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 appall. 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.

Thank you for joining us today for Renewing Your Mind, and I hope you'll be with us tomorrow. We all have a number of assumptions about Jonah. One of them is that he was swallowed by a whale. Is that accurate? R.C. will address that and other aspects of Jonah tomorrow on the Wednesday edition of Renewing Your Mind. .