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Alright, thank you so much for being here. We're going to turn our hymnal to song 199 and we'll get started for the evening. Thanks for coming to Purits Baptist Church. Song 199, Let the Joy Overflow. Song 199, Let the Joy Overflow. There's a clear fountain flowing from the bright throne above and its waters are glowing with the sunshine from above. Take the blessed consolation which the Lord will bestow. Take the cup of salvation, let the joy overflow. Oh the joy, with his wondrous salvation, be our hearts all the glow. Oh the joy, let the blessing run over and joy overflow. Many hearts need the story or a thirst for his grace. Fill to them with his glory shining out from your face. Tell of Jesus your savior, if his mercies you know. Show the light of his favor, let the joy overflow. Oh the joy, with his wondrous salvation, be our hearts all the glow. Oh the joy, let the blessing run over and joy overflow. Be our lives freely yielded to the savior's command, by his care ever shielded and upheld by his hand. In the pathways of sadness, sweetness lilies may grow. Let us sow seeds of gladness, let the joy overflow. Oh the joy, with his wondrous salvation, be our hearts all the glow. Oh the joy, let the blessing run over and joy overflow. Brother Mo, would you lead us in prayer this evening please? ... Amen. Let's go to song 191, just flip back a few pages, 191. In my heart there rings a melody. ... I have a song that Jesus gave me, it was sent from heaven above. There never was a sweeter melody, tis a melody of love. In my heart there rings a melody, there rings a melody with Emmett's harmony. In my heart there rings a melody, there rings a melody of love. Christ who died on Calvary, for he washed my sins away. He put within my heart a melody, and I know it's there to stay. In my heart there rings a melody, there rings a melody with Heaven's harmony. In my heart there rings a melody, there rings a melody of love. To be my endless theme and glory, with the angels I will sing. To be a song with glorious harmony, when the courts of heaven ring. In my heart there rings a melody, there rings a melody with Heaven's harmony. In my heart there rings a melody, there rings a melody of love. Thanks so much for coming to Pure Words Baptist Church. If you need a bulletin for the branding can get you one. It does have the inside information which is important. For some reason the front page got a little wonky. On the inside we have our service and soul winning times as well as our church stats. I know I had a couple people report some extra ones for me. Is there anything outside soul winning numbers that haven't been reported that need to be counted? Another couple over here, great. Keep up the great work on soul winning. Continue to pray for the Darnells who are expecting in June. Hottest month of the year, that's great. And then also we have our upcoming guest preaching. Brother David Keeper came out this past Sunday and that was definitely a blessing to have him out here. He said he really enjoyed it. He hopes that if there's another opportunity maybe he can come back because he just said it was great seeing you guys and being here. And so I appreciate y'all for being here, those that came. Seemed like I got a pretty good crowd Sunday night. About 50 people is what I was on the stat sheet so that's great. And then May 15th, Brother Ben Naim is going to be coming out here. He'll be preaching for us. And then July 7th, we're having Pastor Steven Anderson from Faith Board Baptist Church. Don't want to miss that one. And then also upcoming events. May 7th is a Mother's Day Tea from 5 p.m. to 6.30 p.m. I believe there's been emails about that so make sure to follow up with my wife if you have any questions about that. I know that she was definitely wanting everybody to make sure they RSVP for that. May 21st, a soloing marathon in Austin, Texas. Who's planning on going to that? Anybody planning on going to the Austin one? Okay. We definitely have a lot of people coming down from the DFW area. So if you want to, if you can make it, please try to make it out there. Prayer requests. Continue to pray for our church family up there in the DFW area. The Goodwin family, Brother Edward is health. Liberty's daughter-in-law, Mother Catherine. Brother Joel. And also Faith Board Baptist Church. Pray for them as well. We can say a quick word of prayer for those that were mentioned. Thank you Heavenly Father for Pure Words Baptist Church. Thank you for allowing us to be here gathered together. I pray that you'd be with our church members that aren't able to make it this evening. That you'd give them strength, give them comfort. I pray that you would just bless all of our friends and family with the opportunity to get the gospel. That we need to get them saved. I pray that you would just bless us with opportunities. Bless others to sow seeds in their hearts that will be watered by the word of God. And that they would choose to be saved. And we just thank you so much for all the blessings that you've already given us. And we pray that we continue to be faithful this week. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. That's pretty much all I have. Four announcements at this time. We'll go ahead and go to our third song. Let's go ahead to 195. 195. Dancing around on the 190. I will sing of the mercies. Song 195. I will sing of the mercies. December 9, 2001 I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever. I will sing. I will sing. I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever. I will sing. of the mercies of the Lord. With my mouth will I make known Thy faithfulness, Thy faithfulness. With my mouth will I make known Thy faithfulness to all generations Because of the mercies of the Lord Forever I will sing of mercifully I will sing of the mercies of the Lord Forever I will sing of the mercies of the Lord Very good, let's go to our book of the Bible, Jonah If you turn to the book of Jonah Brother Brandon is going to read for us, Jonah chapter 1 And we'll pass the offering plate along to Jonah chapter 1 Alright, Jonah chapter number 1 of the Bible reads Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittah Saying, Arise, go to Nineveh to the great city and cry against it for their wickedness has come up before me But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord and went down to Joppa and he found a ship going to Tarshish so he paid the fare thereof and went down into it to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord But the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea and there was a mighty tempest in the sea so that the ship was likely broken Then the mariners were afraid and cried every man unto his God and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea to lighten it of them But Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship and he lay and was fast asleep So the shipmaster came to him and said unto him What meanest thou, O sleeper? Arise, call upon thy God so be that God will think upon us that we perish not And they said, Every one to his fellow, come and let us cast lots that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us So they cast lots and not lot fell upon Jonah Then said they unto him and tell us, We pray thee for whose cause this evil is upon us What is thine occupation and which comest thou? What is thy country and what people art thou? And he said unto them, I am in Hebrew and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven which hath made the sea and the dry land Then were the men exceedingly afraid and said unto him, Why hast thou done this? For the men that he had fled from the presence of the Lord because he had told them Then they said unto him, What shall we do unto thee? That the sea may be calm unto us For the sea wrought and was tempestuous And he said unto them, Take me up and cast me forth into the sea So shall the sea be calm unto you For I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you Nevertheless the men rode hard to bring it to the land but they could not For the sea wrought and was tempestuous against them Therefore they cried unto the Lord and said, We beseech thee, O Lord, we beseech thee Let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not upon us this innocent blood For thou, O Lord, hast done as it pleased thee So they took up Jonah and cast him forth into the sea And the seas ceased from her raging Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly And offered to sacrifice unto the Lord and made vow Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights Amen. So we're in the book of Jonah and it's a really famous story It's probably a lot of children's favorite stories in the Bible One of the greatest books of the Bible As far as just the storyline, it's really iconic A lot of people that have never even read the Bible know the story of Jonah A lot of people that haven't read very much of the Bible, at least they know Jonah When it comes to the Minor Prophets, you have to think that Jonah's probably the most popular of the Minor Prophets by far And it's for good reason, it's a great story There's a lot of great symbolism in this book And it's one that I often will read to my children on a regular basis I try to keep to some of the books that are a little bit easier for them to understand And I feel like Jonah's a really good story My children love the story of Jonah And so I'm really excited to kind of preach through the book of Jonah And kind of draw out some of the symbolism and some of the life lessons that we get from this book But it says here in verse number one Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Methai saying Arise go to Nineveh that great city and cry against it For their wickedness has come up before me And one of the things I really like about the book of Jonah is It's a really famous story Notice that the purpose of Jonah Or the main plot of Jonah is to preach against sin And it seems like today's culture, seems like today's Christianity They've forgotten that the job of preachers and the job of pastors is to preach against sin Not to make everybody feel good Not to be some kind of a motivational speaker Not to try and get money In fact, nowhere in this book of the Bible do we see Jonah making any money In fact, the exact opposite, he has to pay to go his way to end up preaching God's message And really when you're a messenger of God It's not about the money, it's not about the accolades It's not about anything superfluous or something carnal It's really just you're supposed to just obey God And you could look at it this way that the money that God has blessed you with Was the money that he's given you to accomplish his will anyways But when we talk about Jonah specifically He doesn't want to do this, does he? Look at verse 3 But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish So Jonah doesn't want to do this preaching Now there's probably a lot of reasons But here's one of the reasons that's probably why he doesn't want to do this Keep your finger here and go to John chapter number 7 It's not necessarily fun to preach against people And you have to understand that when you preach against people They can sometimes have a pretty visceral reaction Or they can be very angry with you In fact, they can attack you, assault you Perhaps you may even have to suffer physical violence Just for simply preaching against someone And in America today, that's very true It's becoming more true that you can say something about someone Tell them they're doing something wrong Say that they're wicked, point out their problems And your life could be at risk People may end up hurting you because of what you said about them And this is what ultimately was the demise of Jesus Christ himself In the fact that what he said caused the Jews to be so angry at him That they wanted to kill him Look at John chapter 7 verse 7 The world cannot hate you But me it hateth because I testify of it That the works thereof are evil So when you tell people that they are evil When you tell people that they're wicked When you preach against their sin What is their reaction? Their reaction is to hate you And when someone hates you Often the sky is the limit as far as what they may do to you physically And we see this consistently throughout the Bible as a theme Of the man of God is the prophet of preaching against people Preaching against even his own people And they end up hurting them Casting them in the prison Throwing stones at them Killing them A lot of evil happens to God's preachers Even though they're simply just a messenger from God They're just telling them what God had to say Isn't it interesting that people are so interested Hey I want God to talk to me Or they would pay all this money to hear from God But then when they actually hear from God They are really angry about it And now they don't actually want to hear what God had to say to them And it's really no different here in the story of Jonah Where Jonah has a message from the Lord But he doesn't want to deliver it Now when we get later in the book of Jonah We have other motivating factors as to why Jonah really didn't want to preach this message And we get a little bit more insight into Jonah's mind Of some of the reasons why he didn't preach But one thing is for sure that you have to count the cost If you're going to preach the Bible to anyone If you're going to tell them about their sin They may despise you or hate you because of that It can even happen when you come with a very good message I mean this is arguably not that great of a message Okay he's crying against their wickedness But even when you go out to preach the gospel And you're trying to tell people how to go to heaven That doesn't sound bad but in order to get them to heaven You have to explain to them that they're a sinner And by explaining to them that they're a sinner They can sometimes become very angry at that Or suggesting to them that they're not even saved This also will make people very angry When you say hey are you going to heaven Like yeah I'm a good person And then you have to basically tell them Well unfortunately no one's a good person And you're not saved That's necessary to get them to the point where they realize they need to be saved Because if they don't realize they need to be saved Why would they get saved if they already think that they are That's what false religion tries to do Is to lull people asleep with a false sense of security A false salvation, a fake plan of salvation So that they don't actually strive for real salvation They don't actually strive for the true gospel Now if we keep reading it says in verse 3 But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord And went down to Joppa And he found a ship going to Tarshish So he paid the fare thereof and went down into it To go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord So notice again he has to pay money Also you could look at this as a kind of a little bit of symbolism The fact that when you sin it costs you something You know he's having to pay money to literally run away from God And often sin is an expensive habit If you think about our world today Most sin has a financial detriment attached to it You know drinking alcohol is expensive You know I don't even know what the rate is anymore But if you go to a restaurant I mean I have some idea there You look at the menu I mean it's typically the most expensive things on the menu Especially in a beverage category You know you think fresh orange juice is expensive How about a mimosa right or how about a margarita Or how about a cocktail or even just a beer is very expensive At a restaurant it could be 5, 6, 7 dollars You go to a football game or a baseball game I mean people are going to professional sporting athlete type events Their drinks are 7, 8, 9, 10 dollars a drink And of course for some reason people can drink way more alcohol than any other beverage I mean if I said hey will you drink these 10 water bottles They'd be like that's going to take me a week But then they'll drink 10 beers in one sitting won't they And it's kind of crazy how they can consume this alcohol at such a high rate Even though it's extremely expensive You know people go to the bar and they'll rack up 100, 200, 300 dollar bar tabs in one night You know in just one going just a very expensive habit Smoking, smoking is also a very very expensive habit People are shelling out hundreds a week even months You know they're just going through all of these cigarettes Drugs, expensive habit And not only do these sins have an immediate fare that you have to pay They also often times have other bills associated with them When you have to go to the hospital because you injured yourself Or because you got in a car accident Or because you injured someone else Or because you're damaging your body so much You're constantly in and out of the hospital trying to fix your liver Trying to fix your lungs or cancers You know cancers of the mouth because of your dipping habit or whatever I mean there's all kinds of negative consequences to sin And often you have to pay for them Prostitution, you got to pay for that You know there's this association of money with that I mean when it comes to sin today it's an expensive habit Sometimes people they think like how am I going to afford all of how to live It's like well stop sinning You know how am I going to afford you know kids And how am I going to afford college or whatever Well first of all don't worry about college right That's a good way to cheapen that part of your life But I mean there's all kinds of areas that people are literally just wasting money That are just sin related You know sin is an expensive habit Sin has lots of problems with it And often you're paying all these fares for things where you wouldn't have to pay I mean Jonah's just literally throwing money away by going onto this fare And he's not going to make it to the side You know this boat ride is not going where he was planning on going So you end up paying for something and you don't get what you wanted right You know you pay for a good time at the bar But then you throw it all up three hours later You didn't even get your money's worth right And they never like scrape it up and give you a doggy bag to take home or whatever Like hey you're leaving all this good merchandise behind right I mean you know you pay for a good time at the casino But then they throw you out and you lost all your money I mean sin is an expensive habit and a lot of times you don't even get what you paid for You pay for this fancy boat ride you know across the town But that's not how it's going to end for Jonah is it And I'm telling you when it comes to our lives You know the less you sin the less expensive it's going to be Just your life in general The more you have to spend on good things You know hey I don't want to have alcohol I'll have extra steak right or I'll have a nice dinner right Instead of going to the cheap place where they have the cheap drinks I'll just not drink and I'll go and eat good food You know and have actual organic food or nice food or prepared food Or you know we'll buy really good food from the store and prepare it at home That's even better I mean the best food is always the food that's cooked at home That's my personal opinion I unfortunately eat out more than I would like to Especially traveling and all this kind of stuff And I get to the point sometimes where I like to test eating out Like I just don't even want it I just like eating out just sounds so repulsive to me That all I want to do is eat at home or you know eat something else But sin is just an expensive habit that if you avoided You could then put that money into something that's beneficial like a child You know people are like oh children are expensive Yeah well your sin habit is expensive you know And at least the children will eventually reap rewards Maybe not in the immediate future But you know eventually coming down the road you'll get grandchildren That's a great blessing And that's something that you don't have to pay for They have to pay for So you know you can just spoil them or whatever right But another thing that's interesting about this is He's leaving supposedly to leave from the presence of the Lord Now it's kind of an interesting concept How can you escape the presence of the Lord right? And it makes me think of passage of the Bible Go to Psalms 139 Go to Psalms 139 Psalm 139 is going to bring up a passage about Essentially the presence of the Lord in one capacity It says in verse 1 For thou has searched me and known me Thou knowest my down sitting and mine up rising Thou understandest my thought afar off Thou compasses my path and my lying down And art acquainted with all my ways There is not a word in my tongue But lo O Lord thou knowest it all together Thou hast beset me behind and before And laid thine hand upon me Such knowledge is too wonderful for me It is high and I attain unto it Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I send up into heaven, thou art there If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea Even there shall thy hand lead me and thy right hand shall hold me So, and I'm not going to belabor the whole passage But you're getting the presence that the Bible's giving this idea That you can't get away from God And that is true So when it talks about Jonah fleeing from the presence of the Lord It's not in contradiction to Psalms 139 I believe what the Bible is teaching is that there's varying levels Or different ways that we can understand the idea of the presence of the Lord Because in one capacity We understand that you can't escape God From a perspective of him knowing what you're doing Or where you're at He's there, he's in some kind of influence of your life This would be kind of like And this is kind of my parable, as it were But if you think about presence Sometimes you're in the presence of the government In the sense that You're in a government building And you're around government officials So that's like one aspect of their presence, right? But then there's another aspect of their presence Where they're just monitoring us Constantly through, you know, cameras Through, you know, the IRS Through the telephone, you know Like all these different technology devices You know, the government's kind of monitoring And spying on its citizens And it's really almost impossible to get away from their presence In that sense, isn't there? So you kind of have like different layers To someone's presence Or perhaps even You're at home And you could be sitting right next to your mom Talking to your mom You know, interacting with your parents Or you could be Like in your own room Doing your own thing, right? But you're still kind of in their presence In both situations It's just a varying degree of that presence, right? Because if you start being really loud Mom and dad might be like, hey, shut up, I'm there, you know Or don't do that, or don't make that noise Or go to bed, or whatever the noise is So you didn't really escape their presence Necessarily, okay? But at the same time, there's a difference between Being like right next to the person Talking to them, interacting with them Having fellowship with them The same is with God In the sense that you can never escape His presence In the sense that he knows that you're on the earth And you're there And he's within reach And he can direct your steps at any moment But there is another layer Of his presence that's more of like A personal intimate relationship Go to Genesis chapter 4 Go to Genesis chapter number 4 And look at verse number 16 The Bible says, And Cain went out From the presence of the Lord And dwelt in the land of Nod On the east of Eden So, again, the Bible brings up The idea that Cain left the presence of the Lord So, what does that mean? It's not necessarily saying that God doesn't know where Cain's at Or God doesn't see what Cain's doing Or God doesn't still know all the hairs How many hairs are on Cain's head Or anything like that But it's denoting a difference in relationship Because initially Cain is offering sacrifice to the Lord Cain's talking with the Lord Have you not noticed in the Bible All of a sudden Cain's just talking with God The Lord's sitting on Cain and they're like having this conversation So, it's kind of like a different Picture of their relationship Go, if you would, to Revelation chapter number 3 now Go to Revelation chapter number 3 And When we come to the house of God In the church We're talking about a different Presence of God Than just everyday presence Because we know no matter where we're at I mean, at any moment in our lives We could just call out to God and God would hear us Because God is literally Able to see here And experience everything All at the same time He's omniscient, meaning all knowing He's omnipotent Meaning that he's all powerful And omnipotent is a word drawn Straight from the text Omniscient is one that we kind of glean From passages like Psalm 139 Which basically instructs us Like, he knows everything He even knew every word And we get other passages that talk about He knows even the number of the hairs on your head And he's basically Throughout the scripture we can see He basically just knows everything He understands everything Even every thought Every idle word that men shall speak They'll have to give an account there on the day of judgment Illustrating at what microscopic level God Has knowledge It's just all encompassing But there's still a desire For God to have more of an intimate Relationship with you An intimate presence with you Revelation chapter number 3 Look at verse number 20 Behold I stand at the door and knock If any man hear my voice Open the door I will come in to him and will sup with him And he with me So notice Jesus has this desire to have Like a personal intimate Relationship, fellowship With the children of God With his servants And it's at our discretion If we're going to allow him to have fellowship with us Notice that it's not automatic He doesn't force it And it kind of also makes me think of And again this is not in relation to Jesus But this is in relation to understanding this concept Think about Sometimes there's this idea of like a stalker Or this kind of this creepy guy That wants to be dating This girl And he'll like Put posts on social media He'll like go and stand kind of like near her And like take a picture and you'll kind of like see him in there And he'll be like we're hanging out at the park But it's not like they're They're both at the park But they're not really hanging out at the park Or sometimes people will go to the store Or they'll go on a plane Or they'll go somewhere and they'll run into a celebrity Like a celebrity to be at that location when they're there And they'll try to take a picture Like they'll kind of creep up on them And they'll just kind of like take a picture with them And they'll be like yeah just hanging out with Michael Jordan At the store you know I just hear at the plane And here's the thing You can technically say that They're in the presence of them Because they're both in the same airplane At the store or something like that right So from that perspective You're always in the presence of God Okay Yeah you could take a pic of you no matter where you're at The top of a mountain In the bottom of the sea and be like hanging out with God You know in that essence You're in his presence But at the same time is it really that you're like In the presence of that celebrity If you're just on the plane But like ten rows behind them Or is it the person that's sitting right next to them And talking with them That's a completely different layer to the presence Being in their presence isn't it And you could say Let's say someone's getting a little too starstruck over here And just starts rassing the celebrity They have this The flight attendant comes up and says sir You're going to have to leave your seat And we're going to have to move you to this back row Couldn't someone say that you're leaving the presence Of that person Like you're no longer in their presence But at the same time You're still on the plane And in another context you're still what In the presence of that person So there's layers to this understanding Of the presence of the Lord So when Jonah's leaving the presence of the Lord What are we talking about We're not talking about Psalm 139 We're not talking about the fact that he literally Escaped God and God doesn't know where he is anymore And God can't see him And God doesn't know the number of hairs on his head And doesn't know the words that he's going to speak What it's saying is He's in a tight relationship with the Lord He's in an intimate fellowship with God He's supping with the Lord He's having this close communication with God And he's walking away from that To go unto the world Now as a separate note Tarshish is kind of a place of prosperity and wealth So one way to kind of illustrate this Is it's like going back into the world And forsaking God So you could be In a situation in your life Where you're reading the Bible You're praying And you have just the presence of the Lord with you On a regular basis You have a really close fellowship with the Lord And you decide to forsake that And start going back into the world And not reading the Bible And not going to church And in essence you're kind of like Fleeing from the presence of the Lord You know some people decide To forsake church That in my opinion Is a way to describe Fleeing the presence of the Lord Because you don't want to come in here And hear the word of God being preached You don't want to be in his presence Because when the word of God is being thundered forth When you're reading the Bible out loud That's a different layer of presence Than just being out in the world today Than going to a music concert Or going to a movie theater Or something like that The presence of the Lord is not down in Hollywood That's not the real presence of the Lord We know that God still sees what goes on over there But he hates what's going on over there Whereas he looks down at a church That's worshiping God and he's pleased He likes that And the Bible even talks about a different layer of presence Go to Matthew chapter 18 Matthew chapter 18 Because see God was knocking At the door of your heart Saying hey I want to have fellowship with you Are you going to let me in? I mean every morning Jesus is sitting there knocking at the door Your Bible is just sitting there knocking on the door Hey I want to talk to you Hey I want you to read me Hey I want you to pray to me That is literally every day Jesus is sitting there knocking at the door But unfortunately a lot of people won't answer the door That doesn't mean he doesn't know what's going on inside That doesn't mean that you can Escape from God Can't get away from God Literally everywhere Even from in hell he knows what's going on Now look at Matthew chapter 18 And look at verse number 20 Now isn't that a little bit closer In proximity Than what we're describing in some of these other cases So that's a really close presence of the Lord isn't it? When he's literally sitting there with you When he's on your side You know you could say that the disciples They had a different experience With the presence of the Lord Than the 5,000 Why? Because they're in a closer proximity Closer relationship with Jesus So Jonah is walking away from this close proximity This close relationship and fellowship He has with God Because he doesn't want to do what God had For him to say And this happens Some of us will be challenged By God to do something That we don't want to do And what is going to be our response? Will we walk away from the presence of the Lord? Because in order to maintain Fellowship with God In order to maintain that close proximity You have to continue walking in the direction That he wants you to walk But many Christians will walk in the other direction Many Christians will walk away And that's where you Go into a bad place That's where you have a lot of consequence You know some people think like Oh well you know what I'm just going to take a break from church Like who cares you know But it's like is that really not Going to be a big deal for Jonah? I mean let's see what happens to Jonah When you just walk away from God And here's the thing It's not like God asks him to do something easy But here's the thing When God asks you to do something When God's telling you to do something You just do it Whether it's easy or not Whether it's difficult or not You're just supposed to do it Because that's what God expects You want to try it? Would you like to do it? When did that happen? When in the Bible is God saying like Hey I have this cool idea I was kind of hoping maybe you might want Is your calendar open? What do you got going on in June? How does July look? Or does it just say Hey go and preach against them But then what does he do? He says nah I'm going to go and flee I'm going to go to Tarshish But he doesn't want to do it Verse 4 But the Lord sent out a great wind Into the sea and there was a mighty tempest In the sea so that the ship Was like to be broken Notice immediate consequences Notice that as soon as he gets on this ship A huge storm One thing that's really interesting about the Bible Is the storms in the Bible are almost always If not a hundred percent associated With God's direct dealing And that makes me believe That every storm is in God's hands Now whether or not he's directly Causing it or just allowing these things To happen I'm not going to get too dogmatic But he's certainly In control of the storms in the Bible And he can do whatever he wants To the storms and often intervenes In people's lives through storms Or through the weather Or all kinds of crazy events Every single storm or weather Pattern or anything that's happening in the climate It's always like God doing it Sending a flood to destroy the entire earth That was God's direct hand wasn't it? When you have changes in the weather patterns In Egypt I'm coming from the sky and fire I mean that was what? God's hand wasn't it? And you constantly see this drought coming Because God wants drought to come Famine or maybe even just a prosperous season It's still God's hand that's leading And so God's just in control Of the climate of the weather And often he uses this to picture A metaphor Of our lives Because while we might not always have The weather physically harming Us or hurting us There's sometimes just storms in our life And it's not necessarily physical rain It's a different kind of rain There's a different kind of wind Or things that are troubling us And the Bible uses kind of this language To denote problems Look at Psalms 55 Psalms 55 It's easy for me to picture this Driving here because I had to go through Some wicked storms to get down In fact I was driving at one point And it was like a low ditch And I hit this ditch And the flood waters just came All the way in the windshield And my windshield wipers were just going like And it covered the entire windshield Where I was blind for like five seconds straight And of course I'm by all these semis And other cars I didn't even know what to do All of a sudden you're just driving And then you just can't see But here's the thing I know enough that you don't want to Slam on your brakes or anything Because the people behind you If they don't stop They're going to smash you So typically the best thing to do is Keep doing whatever you were doing To the best of your ability But you don't know if the person in front of you I mean it's not a good feeling I'll just say it that way And you might say choice words I'm not saying what I said or didn't say But I'm just saying like sometimes You know it's a really intimidating situation But what I am saying is this That's not fun I don't want to be in this situation where I'm literally Just blind and it's scary And think about it When you're on a boat in the middle of the sea And then all of a sudden it's just storming And raining and the waves are crashing Or whatever I mean this is a scary situation It's an intimidating situation And this is life without Jesus When you're not on God's path When you're not walking by faith When you're walking by sight You know and then you lose that sight It's just like a terrifying experience Because you don't really even know what to do How does anybody in this world Literally even know what to do anymore I mean if you're not following the Bible I honestly don't know how you drive The car of life I mean to me It's just as normal as just putting on blindfolders And just start driving today I feel like I would just wreck instantly And that is how people are living their lives today Is they have blinders on They're not using this as their source Of how to live their life And so what are they doing It's just like demolition derby I mean they're just running their car into the wall And running their car into their cars And just destroying themselves Because there's no way to know how to navigate your life Without the Bible Later in life a lot of times they have a lot of scar tissue They have a lot of damage From their past Because they didn't know what to do Or they didn't have the light of scripture And so they ended up Wrecking a lot of times And of course there's consequences To those accidents that they had But look at Psalms 55 And I want to give a little context Before I get to my verse But look at verse 1 it says Turn to my complaint and make a noise Because of the voice of the enemy Because of the oppression of the wicked For they cast iniquity upon me And in wrath they hate me My heart is sore pained within me And the terrors of death are falling upon me Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me And horror hath overwhelmed me And I said oh that I had wings like a dove For then would I fly away and be at rest Lo then would I wander far off And remain in the wilderness sea-lo I would hasten my escape From the windy storm And tempest Destroy O Lord and divide their tongues So we have here And the reason why I'm bringing up this passage We just have an example of this guy going through a really hard time A really difficult time And he's kind of talking about His enemies His enemies are oppressing him They're casting iniquity upon him They have this wrath He has all this pain The terror of death is coming upon him He's overwhelmed And then he uses kind of this metaphor Saying I wish I was like a bird So I could just kind of like fly away from danger And then he describes As danger as what? A windy storm and a tempest Meaning that he wishes to do this to burr So he can just fly away and get away from the storm You know some birds can even fly above the clouds When you're above the clouds you know You don't have to worry about the storm do you? You're above it. Like an airplane An airplane a lot of times they want to get through that turbulence They want to get through the clouds Because if they get high enough They can basically fly over the storm And they don't have to go through that storm And what is he saying That this tempest is like though It's like trouble It's like an issue It's like problems It's whatever is going on in your life And this could be persecution Or it could be consequence to sin But ultimately what it is though is just problems And so I'm just showing you that We need to exist to illustrate problems Or to illustrate issues in our life And so Jonah fleeing from the presence of the Lord Is going to bring tempest on his life And for us If we decide to avoid God's presence If we decide to run away from God's presence And chase other things Or disobey God's word There will be consequences to those actions Now it may not be a literal storm in the ocean Because you may not go in the ocean Or maybe you do and that would be really scary Or maybe it's just driving But look God could take our lives like that We never know when we're going to die And we should be terrified That the Lord will punish us When we disobey him Go back if you would to Jonah chapter number 1 Jonah chapter number 1 One of the big lessons of Jonah is that Disobedience has its consequence And we are to be obedient to the Lord Whether we like it or not Whether we want to do it or not God demands obedience God doesn't suggest obedience He doesn't say maybe this is a good idea He just says do it And we're supposed to do it We're supposed to obey When the commandments of the Lord are coming down That's why we need church Why we need preachers So they can remind us So they can warn us So they can try to help us Avoid the consequences That are going to be passed down When we do rebel So if I don't learn the Bible And I don't go to church Then I can't disobey But God expects us To follow all of his commandments Whether you read the Bible or not God doesn't say well You know I know you didn't know about murder So I'll let you get away with murder No There's certainly clear examples of this King Herod is one that I often refer to But King Herod is not a Jew So you say oh well he doesn't have to abide by Jewish law But here's the thing Whenever John the Baptist rebukes King Herod He brings up the law of God Saying that it was not lawful for him to be married To his brother's wife And again that seems like a pretty specific Custom That doesn't even necessarily seem like as universal As the Ten Commandments Like lying, stealing, adultery, murder I mean that's a pretty granular Commandment found in the scripture But notice he still rebukes Herod and tells him that's wrong Because you know what every person Is supposed to obey all the commandments of God Period And of course Some commandments are specific to some people And not to others right Like obviously some commandments are for men only Some commandments are for women only Some commandments are for children Some are for parents Some are for different situations Some are for the married Some are for the unmarried right There is no every commandment if it doesn't apply to you But there is no Well I'm not a Jew so it doesn't apply to me Or I'm not a Christian so it doesn't apply to me No It doesn't apply to you only if it was Specific to something that you're just not Right Like if it's for men okay that doesn't apply to you Because it's for men right If it's for women well that doesn't apply to you Because it's for women right Certain commandments that even Paul brings up He talks about widows He says that if they're under the age of 60 They're supposed to get married But if they're not If they're above 60 Then that doesn't apply So of course there is always An application aspect To the commandments of God And don't hear me wrong But if it does apply to you There is no wiggling out of it You must obey You must follow God's commandments Exactly as instructed I'm not clearly being commanded to go to Nineveh I mean Nineveh is not really a place today right So I'm not like in violation of God's Word for not going to Nineveh to Preach But here's an application What if I am reading the Bible and I'm studying it And God lays it on my heart wickedness in the city of Houston And I decide not to preach against Houston I believe that could apply to me Or in any area of our lives Where we have clear instruction If I have a great opportunity to preach the gospel To someone and I say you know what I just don't want to preach the gospel today I don't feel like preaching the gospel today I'm just not going to preach the gospel anymore Then yes This could apply to me where I'm going to Receive the same kind of persecution Not persecution I'm sorry The same punishment that Jonah Is receiving here Verse 5 the Bible says Then the mariners were afraid And cried every man unto his God That were in the ship into the sea To lighten it of them But Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship And he lay and was fast asleep So the shipmaster came to him and said unto him What meanest thou O sleeper Arise Call upon my God If so be that God will think upon us That we perish not Now it's funny because There's all these problems There's all these issues The tempest right What do the other men Go to They go to their God They go to their religion As it were But notice Jonah's not Now why do you think Jonah's not He's running away from God It's kind of weird for him to then seek the Lord When the whole reason why he's on the boat Is to get away from God And this is really the danger Of fleeing God Is you end up not seeking him And what I mean by that Sometimes people They'll decide well I'm going to stop Coming to church For whatever reason I don't care What the reason is But then they'll have a serious issue in their life And instead of seeking help at the church They just don't Because the whole reason they're in that problem Is because they fled church And then it's like You don't realize how much you're hurting yourself Because you're just not even Going to church And so when we flee God We're literally fleeing our only lifeline We're fleeing our only help We're fleeing our only shelter And this is just a very dangerous place To be in in our lives Even if we're screwed up We want to just at least still try to serve God No matter how screwed up we are How many problems we have Or things we're working out It's better to just keep trying Than the Lord Because then you just have no help Then you have no resource to go to And the unsaved They're going to go to their Methods of help But there is no help When the unsaved have problems And of course they do Drinking, alcohol Fornication Marriage problems And they seek Judaism They seek Islam False gods, they seek Hinduism They seek the new age They seek all these things That doesn't help them That doesn't provide them any relief It's completely vain And they end up having usually worse problems They end up having more problems Than they started with And this is kind of what's pictured here in this chapter Is how the unsaved Is striving to Have peace in their life But they're never going to have it apart from God They're never going to have it apart from the Lord Jesus Christ And We have the one person That can give them that peace We have the one person That can assist them And he's sleeping on the job And you know what, there's a lot of Christians today That are asleep at the wheel That they've basically forsaken the presence of the Lord They're not really serving God And they're just sleeping While they have all these problems They're just living their own life Like, hey, I'm fine just destroying my life And everyone around me Because I'm fleeing the presence of God And you know what, that is a selfish attitude It is a selfish attitude for a Christian To not warn people And preach the gospel and do what is right I mean, how can you not be selfish When you say, well, I'm on my way to heaven So nuts to everybody else You know, let's just get on the boat Called the United States and let's just Sail into hell, you know Because I'm not going to go there even though you guys are I mean, how many Christians a day They're saved, but then they You know what, they do nothing for God They're only living for themselves They're only chasing money Or they're just literally just a do-nothing Christian You know, what a shame that there's so many Do-nothing Christians And they look down on Jonah But they themselves aren't willing to serve the Lord They're not willing to do something that's difficult And you bring up, hey, why aren't you going to church? And why aren't you getting so many? Oh, that's hard, oh, this is all this work Oh, I got all these other things going on And it's like, okay, I guarantee that That's easier than what Jonah was commanded to do You know Well, I don't want to drive that far How far is Tarshish? We don't even know He doesn't have an electric vehicle Or something to just drive him automatically He doesn't have a gas-powered vehicle That he can drive himself He doesn't have cruise control He doesn't have air conditioning I mean, he can't just get on a boat He can't, I'm sorry Well, he can't get on a plane Okay, he can't get on a train He has to get on a boat And he's going away, right? But what I'm saying is It was harder for them to travel than it was for us And it's kind of sad when people complain about traveling To serve God, or spending money Or doing all these things It's like, why did God give you money and legs anyways? You know, one of the main aspects of preaching the gospel is your feet Is what the Bible always brings up But I guess you just want to take naps all day, right? Be like a Jonah Christian And just sleep it all away And just do nothing And it's funny because even the unsaved Are like, what are you doing? Like, why aren't you calling on God? Why aren't you serving God? You're a Christian and you don't even go to church? You know, it makes me think of these atheists I'm pretty sure they're atheists I think they're comedians or something Pen and Teller, anybody know who I'm talking about? Pen and Teller, they're kind of like these famous guys I think they had a talk show or TV show or something But I remember one of them saying he had no respect For Christians that wouldn't try to evangelize him That wouldn't try to give him the gospel Because he's saying, you really believe that I'm going to go to hell And that everyone in this whole studio is going to go to hell And the whole world is going to hell And you won't tell anybody about it He's like, I don't even believe you He's basically mocking the fact that you think you're a Christian Or you are a Christian and you believe that But you're doing nothing about it He's like, man, you have no faith or something Such a weak faith or such a stupid faith It's kind of like James 2 Faith without works is dead You're just this sleeping Christian, a do-nothing Christian And it makes me think of another person Go to 1 Timothy 5 Since we're talking about this You know, James 2 I think too often We're so concerned with preaching against works-based salvation That we don't preach what James 2 is actually about And it's trying to tell do-nothing Christians To get off their butt and actually do some works Right? Actually go out and have some works to go along with their faith And James 2 needs to be thundered forth From pulpus today Not teaching how to go to heaven But teaching to do something for God You know, oh vain man You know, oh I have faith Show me your faith by your works Right? You know, I'll show you my faith by my doctrine How about show people your faith by your works Isn't that what James 2 actually says? I mean it's going to be a lot more convincing When you're going out and you're preaching the gospel And you're compelling people to get saved And you're telling them why it's so important To believe only when you're doing the works Because think about it People are sometimes confused, they're like You guys seem to be like dressed, you know Conservatively and you're going to church And you're reading the Bible Why are you doing all these works if salvation is a free gift? And it's like Well because I want rewards, you know Because I'm supposed to And I think it makes it easier for people to still believe us And believe us by faith alone When they see us doing so much work And we don't believe it has anything to do with getting to heaven They're like Well I mean I guess this person really believes that though I mean they have to expect and assume we're pretty sincere When we're doing that, don't they? But those that are doing nothing Notice how the Bible describes them It says in verse number 6 But she, and this is talking about a widow That liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth Meaning, hey, even if you're saved If you're just living in this world If you're just on the boat to Tarshish You know what, the Bible says you're like dead Why? Because faith without works is dead Hey, arise, sleeper Call upon God, you know, get right with God And you know what, there's never a bad time to get right with God And you know what, there's a lot of Jonah Christians in this world We know who they are And you know what, they should call on God They should get right with God before they have what's about to happen to them And if we go back to Jonah chapter 1 Look at verse number 7 And they said to his fellow, Come and let us cast lots That we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us So they cast lots and the lot fell upon Jonah It's funny, casting lots is kind of like a silly carnal thing It's not really a biblical thing The Bible doesn't necessarily say cast lots or something But it's just funny how God, in my opinion, has like a sense of humor And it's just like, you know, these unsaved people are like I don't know what's going on, let's just cast lots And it's just like, oh, it's Jonah It's like, God's like, hey, I want everybody to know it's him You know, and God just kind of has this sense of humor To always like just make sure that everything just points to you You know, it's never like this random thing you don't know It's just like, Jonah's probably just sitting here like Oh, I hope it doesn't land on me And he's like, oh, it's him for sure And I was like, oh, man, you can't escape God God can just do whatever he wants, you know And God will find you out Be sure your sin will find you out Is what the Bible says And it's just funny to me It'd be funny to see how this happened Like, I don't know, there's like angels down there And they cast a lot and they're just like grabbing it like, Jonah You know, like, I don't even know how it worked But, you know, it's obviously some kind of a miracle or supernatural You know, an intervention here And God will do that to you You know, I've heard people, I've heard Christians even tell me these things You know, they like do something bad or they screw up or whatever And their punishment, they're like, I just know God just did that to me on purpose Just because of my, just because of what I did And God will do that It says in verse number 8 I also think this is interesting Think about how these are just unsaved people These are not children of God They don't necessarily believe the Bible whatsoever Yet they know, they just know That this storm is because of somebody on the boat Think about that Isn't that kind of interesting? That they just know that this They didn't say like, I wonder what's causing this storm It's probably global warming Yeah, it's probably, you know, you're eating too much steak, aren't you? You know No, no, they just know someone's not right with God They know someone has sinned Isn't that interesting? Yet today, we'll have huge natural disasters And it's like, we don't know what caused it We don't know what the problem is And it's like, how about it's just a sin issue And someone's not right with God I also think that this storm must have been really unnatural Like, it's not a normal storm It's something that's just really clear to people And I've seen this happen in people's lives Where I went into a bookstore And I was trying to buy a Bible And a guy walked in there real frantic He didn't even know what he was doing And he's just like, looking up books And picking up big ones And I'm just like, I said, looking for a Bible? And he's like, yeah, I don't even know what I'm I don't even know what I'm looking for And I said, okay, what kind of Bible do you want? He's like, I don't know He's like, I was in a car accident two weeks ago And I almost died And I think it was a miracle of God that I didn't die And I think he wants me to seek after him And I was just like, well, you know, if you died today Are you sure you go to heaven? And he's like, no, I don't know at all And I said, would you like to know? He's like, yes, show me And then I just like, pulled a Bible off the shelf Just showed him how to And he was like the easiest person I've ever gotten To save my life But what I'm saying is, even this guy that's not saved Just knew like, hey, this event that happened in my life I think God's trying to talk to me Or I think that there's something happening And they can basically see God's hand in this world You know, don't watch too much TV Because you watch so much TV And you think like, everybody's an atheist or something That's not the reality Most people are religious Most people understand and can see the handiwork of God They see God's moving And notice when this storm's coming They're like, obviously God is mad or something Like there's something serious happening This is a spiritual thing that's happening right now This is not a natural occurrence, okay It's not some global warming phenomenon, okay He says in verse 9 And he said to them, I am a Hebrew And I fear the Lord, the God of heaven Which hath made the sea and the dry land Then the men were, then the men exceedingly afraid And said unto them, why hast thou done this? For the men knew that he had fled from the presence of the Lord Because he had told them So he's like, oh yeah, so God told me to go preach And I said no And I decided to run away and I got on the boat So that's why there's this storm And they're like, oh no, like why'd you do that? Why didn't you obey God? You're a Christian and you didn't do what God said? And you know what? That perplexes the world The world is perplexed when they say, oh you're a Christian And you just lie and steal and cheat and commit adultery and do all this wicked stuff You know what? It approaches Christ It approaches God when we don't actually do what the Bible said And then it's perplexing them like Why do you even claim to believe in the Bible if you don't even do it? Why are you a Christian and you don't even go to church? Why are you a Christian and you've never read the Bible? Why are you a Christian and you've never told a single person about Christ? You know, it's just perplexing to them And you know what? It's perplexing to everyone Like, why? It says in verse number 11 Then said they unto him, What shall we do unto thee? That the sea may be calm unto us, for the sea wrought and was tempestuous And he said unto them, Take me up and cast me forth into the sea So shall the sea be calm unto you, for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you Now this is interesting I don't know exactly what's going on in Jonah's mind But he's like, Hey, the only way for you guys to survive is for me to die Just throw me in the sea And it'll somehow be calm And it says in verse 14 Wherefore they cried unto the Lord and said, We beseech thee, O Lord, we beseech thee Let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not upon us innocent blood For thou, O Lord, has done as it pleased thee This is interesting You know, it's like, Hey, just kill me In their mind, essentially And they're like, Okay But before we do We're gonna pray to God And we're gonna say Please don't cause more storm or more problems unto us For killing this guy We're trying to do what you want We're trying to basically If this is what you want, if you want us to throw this guy into the sea Then fine, we'll do it But please don't harm us We're not trying to hurt him We're just doing what he said Okay, we just want to throw this guy in the sea Makes me think of another passage where there's a man of God that says like, Smite me And the guy refuses to do it And the Lord just kills him He kills the guy that won't smite him So it's like, even if the man of God says, Hit you You know, hit him It's like, Okay Just rear back and be like, Let me get a good one in You know, or whatever It's like, Hey, throw me in the sea It's like, Alright, let's go And it says in verse 15 He took up Jonah and cast him forth in the sea And the sea ceased from raging Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly And offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights So they get them up And they're like, Alright, throw them in And then all of a sudden, the storm just completely ceases And they're just like, Whoa Like, God is someone to fear We don't want to mess with God And they end up making some kind of a vow You know, I'm guessing that they're going to serve the Lord Or I don't know what it is that they made But they made a vow And then it says that the Lord basically didn't allow Jonah to die But rather picked a fish A great fish, which we know is a whale In the New Testament, to swallow up Jonah And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights Now what's really cool about this story Is, even though this all happened, it's a real story It pictures the gospel And it pictures the gospel of Jesus Christ Now Jesus, you know, go to Matthew again And we'll find the passage where Jesus relates himself to Jonah I believe it's in Matthew, what, 12? Verse 40 Matthew chapter 12, look at verse 40 It says, For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly So shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth So, what the Bible teaches is that Jonah was a picture of Christ And I believe that Jesus is a picture in all of the books of the Bible But, when you have one where Jesus is saying it with his own mouth I mean, that one you can just take to the bank I mean, that one, there's no guessing if Jonah pictures Jesus Now, what is that picturing? Well, if Jonah is in this whale's belly and Jesus is in the heart of the earth That's signifying what part of Jesus is life This is picturing him going to hell And in Jonah chapter 2, which we'll talk a lot more in detail You know, it even says, Out of the belly of hell cried I So, it's very clear in the Bible that Jesus descending down into the lower parts of the earth Is him going to hell Acts chapter number 2 makes this very clear in several verses It's not even just one It makes it very clear that he was afflicted and suffering in hell And that he didn't stay there, but he rose again So, if we know that him being in the whale's belly is hell Then let's back up, let's go backwards What happened before Jesus went to hell? He died on the cross As what? A sacrifice unto all mankind What happened with Jonah? Tossed into the sea, as what? As a sacrifice unto all of these men As soon as he's thrown into the sea, what happens? All of the tempest ceases What is this a picture of? The fact that Jesus paid all of our sins And that we can escape the consequence of our sins Through his sacrifice So, just like Jonah's being tossed in there Is the same picture of Jesus Christ dying for all mankind Also, go to Isaiah chapter number 53 Whenever they prayed They said, hey, don't impute basically this sin, this innocent blood upon us This is essentially what they're kind of paraphrasing, praying And they said, because we're trying to do what pleases you Well, that's interesting that they're talking about what pleases God Because look at Isaiah 53 And let's read a few verses and then I'll get to the verse I'm talking about But it says in verse number 3 He is despised and rejected of men A man of sorrows and equated with grief And we hid as it were a face of him He was despised and we esteemed him not Surely he hath borne our griefs And carried our sorrows Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted Now, when it talks about Jesus here in Isaiah 53 Notice he's saying he's smitten of God and afflicted Isn't that what's happening with Jonah in the sense that he's being afflicted by God and he's being smitten? Now, because Jesus is perfect No man in the Bible will ever be a perfect example of Jesus God uses the downfall of men to illustrate things about Jesus But Jonah is deserving of affliction Jonah did something wrong and that's why he's being punished Jesus never did anything wrong So that parallel will never be the exact same But what did happen is Jesus is being afflicted Like Jonah's being afflicted But for our wrongdoing because he's taking our wrongdoing upon himself But look what it says in verse 10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him He hath put him to grief So notice it said that God was pleased The Lord was pleased with Jesus' sacrifice Also, God was pleased with Jonah's sacrifice Now, why did Jonah say to throw them in the sea? We don't know, we don't know exactly what was going through on Jonah's mind We have no real place in scripture to suggest that Jonah knew he was going to survive So it's kind of like a self-sacrifice to what? Preserve others Same as the picture of Jesus having the self-sacrifice to preserve others Another thing I like about this parallel If we're thinking about the gospel Is that what Jonah did saved everyone on the boat And it gave them an opportunity to become saved But we don't know that they all got saved And that's the same with Jesus in the sense that he's the ransom for all mankind That he should taste death for every man Meaning that Jesus truly did die for every single person And gave them all the opportunity to have reconciliation with God But then they still have the choice afterwards to then believe on the Lord Jesus Christ To then call upon the Lord and get saved And so even though he's a sacrifice for all They still have that option of basically accepting the Lord, getting saved and everything like that And the same with Jesus, Jesus is the savior of all mankind Especially of the belief And we also have the fact that these men They were never going to get any kind of salvation for what? Them calling on their gods and doing all of their religious exercises Meaning that there's only one savior and that's Jesus Christ Because there was only one rescuing from that tempest Go back to Jonah and I want to show another thing here That's a great rebuke It says in verse number 12 So when Jonah said to sacrifice them, they didn't initially do it They initially tried to just get there on their own But here's the thing, this is like your works This is your works trying to get saved on your own Trying as hard as you can But here's the thing, your works will never get you there You can never be saved by how hard you can row Or the efforts that you have Your sin, that tempest is just too strong for you And so therefore the only thing that can rescue you Is the sacrifice of Jonah Which is the picture of the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ The only thing that will save you is faith alone in Jesus And the only way they were going to be saved is by believing what Jonah said Because they didn't have to throw them in the sea, did they? But by them throwing them in the sea is kind of the picture of You decide, hey, I'm not going to trust my works anymore I'm going to stop rowing, repentance from dead works And faith toward God And I'm going to trust what the Lord said And I'm going to throw Jonah into the sea And I'm going to be saved by faith And notice that the salvation, immediate Notice that it's like, hey, as soon as you trust in Christ, just salvation You didn't have to wait, it wasn't this process of salvation It was an immediate salvation It was immediate rescuing And of course you couldn't write this book Jonah, just a simple little book about a simple story Think about how many parallels this is just of all these biblical doctrines Salvation is a moment in time It's just by faith, it's not of works It's what Jesus did We have the Jesus' death, we have him going into hell And then as we get later in the story we'll have the resurrection Because it has the entire gospel message in this book It's also hard for me when I hear someone suggest the idea that the gospel didn't exist In the Old Testament And I'm like, what do you mean? All of the Old Testament is the gospel, it's just the gospel over and over and over again You're going to tell me that holy men of God, filled with the Spirit of God Weren't able to discern the gospel in these books As they would read them and preach from them That they're just sitting here like, I don't know what the story's about Don't go in the sea when it's stormy No, no, no They were getting up, filled with the Holy Spirit Preaching the coming Messiah Preaching about his sacrifice Preaching about him going to hell Preaching about him being risen again Preaching the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ I mean, to say that the gospel didn't happen until the gospel is foolishness Because Jesus himself preached the literal death, burial and resurrection While he was alive on this earth before it ever happened And people were believing the gospel and getting saved then So of course they believed the gospel before that And they got saved And the gospel's always been preached I mean the gospel's clear in Isaac's sacrifice It's clear in all kinds of different stories and pictures in the Bible And this is no different In my opinion, this is probably one of the easiest stories to show someone You know, this would be a great thing to show a new Christian or show a family member Hey, did you see the gospels in the book of Jonah? And I think this one's one where you can kind of help people see this picture And then say, hey, you know what? It's like that in every book of the Bible You should come to church, you should learn about all the different pictures in the Bible You should learn, you know, these stories And you should read it on your own And when you read it on your own, lots of times God will reveal himself in the pages of the scripture He'll show you, hey, that's me that the Bible's talking about Hey, when David was talking in the psalm, he was talking about me He was talking about my death, he was talking about my burial, he was talking about my resurrection He was talking about faith, he was talking about your life circumstances You know what? That's how God likes to communicate with us Is through the Bible You know what? When the word of the Lord comes into us and asks us to do something Cry against this wickedness You know, it's not for us to decide, well, I don't know if I want to do that or not We're supposed to just do it anyway And there's been times in my life and in my ministry where I've kind of wondered I had this foolish thought, like, should I really preach that? And it's like, well, here's the thing, is it in the Bible? Yes You know, we don't want to have this, well, my life's harder because of that No, my life could have been way harder if I didn't preach it And we think our lives are hard, but we don't even know what our lives could have been if we disobeyed God So let's continue to stay on the straight and narrow so we're not swallowed by a whale Alright, let's close in prayer Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for this story Thank you for giving us this example Thank you for the sacrifice of your son, the Lord Jesus Christ And that all we have to do is trust in him We can never row our way to heaven By our works and vain efforts, they're meaningless We thank you that you give us free gift of salvation that's eternal And I pray that we would not just take that free gift for ourselves and be selfish with it We wouldn't just take a nap Rather, we would go out and we'd share the gospel with others We'd preach the word of God Whether it's good news or bad news, whether it's popular or unpopular, whether it's for or against That we would just be obedient servants under the word of God So that you could be pleased with us And I pray that you continue to guide us through the tempests and storms of this life So that we wouldn't have to suffer the consequences of sin In Jesus' name we pray, amen Let's go to song 44 in our hymnal, song 44 We'll work till Jesus comes That's a good one to end on It doesn't say we'll sleep, it says we'll work, alright? O land of rest for thee I sigh When will the moment come When I shall lay my armor by And dwell in peace at home We'll work till Jesus comes We'll work till Jesus comes We'll work till Jesus comes And we'll be gathered home To Jesus Christ I fled for rest He bade me cease to roam And lean for succor on His breast Till He conduct me whole We'll work till Jesus comes We'll work till Jesus comes We'll work till Jesus comes And we'll be gathered home I sought at once my Savior's side No more my steps shall roam With Him all brave deaths chilling tight And reached my heavenly home We'll work till Jesus comes We'll work till Jesus comes We'll work till Jesus comes And we'll be gathered home Thank you so much for coming. God bless. You already missed one other note I did. We already got the church directories ordered. So hopefully we'll get them in a couple weeks. And they're going to look really nice. Thanks to those who participated. Even if you didn't take a picture, we put your picture in the rain. I'm just kidding. But we got one for you anyways. So God bless and good night.