JONAH AND THE WHALE.
Men say, “Well, you don’t believe in the story of Jonah and the whale, do you?” I want to tell you I do believe it. A few years ago there was a man whom some one thought a little unsound, and they didn’t want him to speak on the Northfield platform. I said, “I will soon find out whether or not he is sound.” I asked him, “Do you believe the whale swallowed Jonah?” “Yes,” he said, “I do.” I said “All right, then I want you to come and speak.” He came and gave a lecture on Jonah. In Matthew they twice asked Jesus for a sign, and He said the only sign this generation shall have shall be the sign of Jonah in the whale’s belly. He connected that with His resurrection, and I honestly believe that if we overthrow the one, we must overthrow the other. As you get along in life and have perhaps as many friends on the other side of the river as you have on this side, you will get about as much comfort out of the story of the resurrection as any other story in the Bible. Christ had no doubt about the story. He said His resurrection would be a sign like that given unto the Ninevites. It was the resurrected man Jonah who walked through the streets of Nineveh. It must be supposed that the men of Nineveh had heard of Jonah being thrown overboard and swallowed by a great fish. I think it is a master-stroke of Satan to make us doubt the resurrection. But these modern philosophers have made a discovery. They say a whale’s throat is no larger than a man’s fist, and it is a physical impossibility for a whale to swallow a man. The book of Jonah says that God prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah. Couldn’t God make a fish large enough to swallow Jonah? If God could create a world, I think He could create a fish large enough to swallow a million men. As the old woman said, “Could He not, if He chose, prepare a man that could swallow a whale?” A couple of these modern philosophers were going to Europe some time ago, and a Scotch friend of mine was on board who knew his Bible pretty well. They got to talking about the Bible, and one of them said: “I am a scientific man, and I have made some investigation of that Book, and I have taken up some of the statements in it, and I have examined them, and I pronounce them untrue. There is a statement in the Bible that Balaam’s ass spoke. I have taken pains to examine the mouth of an ass and it is so formed that it could not speak.” My friend stood it as long as he could and then said, “Eh, mon, you make the ass and I will make him speak.” The idea that God could not speak through the mouth of an ass!