Jonah's Baptism (Jonah 2)

WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.320 --> 00:00:07.190 Let's turn to God's Word and Jonah Chapter two. Jonah Chapter Two. This 2 00:00:07.309 --> 00:00:10.349 is on page seven hundred and seventy four, if you grabbed one of the 3 00:00:10.470 --> 00:00:16.589 black bibles off the cart in the back. Jonah, we read in Chapter 4 00:00:16.789 --> 00:00:20.429 One, was given a command of the Lord. Jonah, a prophet of 5 00:00:20.510 --> 00:00:25.859 the Lord, one who was called and ordained to speak God's word. He 6 00:00:26.019 --> 00:00:29.660 was given this command to go and to preach to the great city of Nineveh, 7 00:00:30.100 --> 00:00:36.689 one of Israel's enemies. Jonah decided he'd rather not. He decided to 8 00:00:36.729 --> 00:00:41.130 go his own way, as he puts it, to flee the presence of 9 00:00:41.250 --> 00:00:46.689 the Lord, to have life on his own terms, in his own way. 10 00:00:48.170 --> 00:00:53.280 And a great tempest was thrown upon the sea. He was sailing away 11 00:00:53.799 --> 00:01:00.200 from his duties, and eventually he was thrown overboard from this ship. And 12 00:01:00.359 --> 00:01:04.230 we read this. And in chapter two, after Jonah was swallowed by a 13 00:01:04.349 --> 00:01:10.909 fish appointed by God. Then Jonah prayed to the Lord, his God, 14 00:01:11.189 --> 00:01:18.430 from the belly of the fish, saying I called out to the Lord out 15 00:01:18.430 --> 00:01:23.099 of my distress. He answered me. Out of the belly of SHEOL. 16 00:01:23.260 --> 00:01:27.420 I cried and you heard my voice, for you cast me into the deep, 17 00:01:29.140 --> 00:01:33.650 into the heart of the seas and the flood surrounded me. All of 18 00:01:33.769 --> 00:01:38.290 your waves and your billows passed over me. Then Ayus. Then I said, 19 00:01:38.290 --> 00:01:41.849 I am driven from your sight, I am driven away from your sight, 20 00:01:42.250 --> 00:01:47.680 yet I shall again look upon your Holy Temple. The waters closed in 21 00:01:47.840 --> 00:01:53.879 over me to take my life. The deep surrounded me, weeds were wrapped 22 00:01:53.920 --> 00:01:59.079 around my head. At the roots of the mountains, I went down to 23 00:01:59.159 --> 00:02:05.629 the land, whose bars closed upon me forever. Yet you brought my life 24 00:02:05.790 --> 00:02:10.310 from the pit O, Lord, my God, when my life was fainting 25 00:02:10.389 --> 00:02:15.099 away, I remembered the Lord and my prayer came to you, into your 26 00:02:15.180 --> 00:02:22.659 Holy Temple. Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast 27 00:02:22.780 --> 00:02:27.219 love, but I, with the voice of Thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you 28 00:02:28.539 --> 00:02:35.770 what I have vowed. I will pay salvation belongs to the Lord, and 29 00:02:35.889 --> 00:02:40.090 the Lord spoke to the fish and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land. 30 00:02:42.930 --> 00:02:46.560 May God be praised in me, as word be a blessing to us. 31 00:02:46.960 --> 00:03:14.139 He may be seated the water that is described here, the sea that 32 00:03:14.300 --> 00:03:21.099 is described in Jonah chapter two. This water is not the calm water that 33 00:03:21.259 --> 00:03:24.340 you sit on. That you perhaps travel hours to to go sit on a 34 00:03:24.419 --> 00:03:30.250 beach and look at to observe it's coming in and it's going out, to 35 00:03:30.449 --> 00:03:37.729 feel the breeze blow on you and I be comforted, find relaxation, spend 36 00:03:37.810 --> 00:03:45.400 a Saturday afternoon. No, this, this sea that Jonah has found himself 37 00:03:45.479 --> 00:03:51.800 in, with a great fish that has swallowed him, with weeds that are 38 00:03:51.800 --> 00:03:55.629 wrapped around his head, with sinking down further and further into the depths, 39 00:03:57.669 --> 00:04:06.550 is a sea of terror, water of judgment, of God's wrath. The 40 00:04:06.669 --> 00:04:13.819 water is not always a calm, nice place to go vacation at. The 41 00:04:13.979 --> 00:04:17.779 water is. Water is kind of a strange thing in some ways. In 42 00:04:17.899 --> 00:04:21.019 the lot out of ways it's a fearful thing. In fact, throughout the 43 00:04:21.139 --> 00:04:27.689 world we have many monsters, stories of monsters who live in the waters. 44 00:04:28.370 --> 00:04:32.410 The lochness monster, old Nessie, right in the waters of Scotland, and 45 00:04:33.370 --> 00:04:41.160 there are others, Nin Kinanda, fifty footlong dragon monster of the African Mangrove 46 00:04:41.360 --> 00:04:48.120 swamps. Each children who wander away from home, kids watch out. There's 47 00:04:48.160 --> 00:04:54.509 Bunyip, who lives in the Australian creeks and other waters, kind of like 48 00:04:54.550 --> 00:05:00.189 a large kangaroo. He kills people by hugging them and then eating them. 49 00:05:00.230 --> 00:05:06.540 There's your Karuna from the Amazon River, like a human but with a backwards 50 00:05:06.579 --> 00:05:13.660 head and backwards feet, he kidnaps people, marries them, pulls them down 51 00:05:13.660 --> 00:05:19.540 into his underwater city forever. Why do we have these stories? Why do 52 00:05:19.660 --> 00:05:26.529 these these things exist? Well, no doubt they're based in some truth. 53 00:05:26.730 --> 00:05:31.490 There are monsters under the sea. The Sea is a terrifying place. It's 54 00:05:31.490 --> 00:05:36.839 a scary place, let's say, a place that takes the living from us, 55 00:05:36.879 --> 00:05:42.839 a see that takes our lives. It pulls us down under places that 56 00:05:42.879 --> 00:05:46.920 are dark, that we can't see. Now Jonah, too, is no 57 00:05:47.160 --> 00:05:54.589 fanciful myth or story, it's true. It's it's God's word, and the 58 00:05:54.670 --> 00:06:00.470 fish that swallows Jonah is not some kind of crazy beast, human monster, 59 00:06:00.550 --> 00:06:06.019 kangaroo thing. It's a big fish, just a normal big fish, but 60 00:06:06.139 --> 00:06:14.980 it swallows Jonah, swallows him in judgment, but ultimately also in salvation. 61 00:06:15.860 --> 00:06:19.649 We love the water, of course, water, we say, is life, 62 00:06:20.810 --> 00:06:27.329 but water is also predictable. What can provide your food is also the 63 00:06:27.490 --> 00:06:31.529 means of a flood, and this is especially true in places like Israel, 64 00:06:32.279 --> 00:06:38.720 places like Arizona, where our major rivers are all dried up and even in 65 00:06:38.879 --> 00:06:42.800 Israel, where the Jordan flows, it's not a very useful river. It's 66 00:06:42.839 --> 00:06:46.430 pretty steep, flows quickly. You can't really muse it for very much. 67 00:06:47.110 --> 00:06:50.430 There's not very many people that live along its banks and work with it. 68 00:06:51.269 --> 00:06:57.750 Ultimately it flows into something called the Dead Sea, which itself isn't a very 69 00:06:58.069 --> 00:07:01.060 useful thing, at least in terms of building a civilization on. It's not 70 00:07:01.220 --> 00:07:06.899 like the Nile, for example, where you can control it and flood lands 71 00:07:06.939 --> 00:07:14.860 and and create a dynasty. Fishing, crop production, all of these things 72 00:07:14.899 --> 00:07:18.410 are possible when you have water, but in a desert you are very dependent 73 00:07:18.610 --> 00:07:23.050 on it. It's it's unpredictable. You wait on it, not from the 74 00:07:23.209 --> 00:07:28.529 ground really, but but from above. The rain and when will it come, 75 00:07:28.769 --> 00:07:32.759 and how much? All of these things we wonder and we struggle to 76 00:07:32.800 --> 00:07:38.079 control it. On the one hand, we we wait and we wait for 77 00:07:38.160 --> 00:07:42.160 it to rain here and our own city, and then when it finally does, 78 00:07:42.279 --> 00:07:46.509 it'll crash through a canyon and take a whole family with it. So 79 00:07:46.709 --> 00:07:50.870 we try to control water and those who are able to control it are, 80 00:07:50.990 --> 00:07:57.430 as I said, powerful, they become kings, they become empires. They 81 00:07:57.509 --> 00:08:01.100 can master the monster when they can make it work for them. But we 82 00:08:01.220 --> 00:08:05.100 all know from history and our own experiences that this is limited. Right. 83 00:08:07.660 --> 00:08:13.649 Eventually the dam's break, the levees overflow. Some of you have lived through 84 00:08:13.689 --> 00:08:18.209 these kinds of experiences. You know what it means when our mastery of water 85 00:08:18.970 --> 00:08:26.449 a sort of falls apart. One of our biggest bills for our government here 86 00:08:26.529 --> 00:08:31.440 is pumping water, getting it here to the desert, to our dry land. 87 00:08:33.639 --> 00:08:37.399 Being able to control these things is what makes a strong but we learn 88 00:08:37.519 --> 00:08:41.110 in the Bible and we know from history that man never fully controls the water. 89 00:08:43.389 --> 00:08:46.309 And that's true of all nature, isn't this is something that God is 90 00:08:46.389 --> 00:08:52.149 making very, very clear in Jonah, something that we all know on a 91 00:08:52.190 --> 00:08:56.740 regular basis but we often forget and ignore because of the power in which we 92 00:08:56.899 --> 00:09:03.419 have been able to manifest over our natural resources. Ultimately, there is a 93 00:09:03.500 --> 00:09:07.899 limit to that mastery, a limit to that control, and it doesn't take 94 00:09:07.940 --> 00:09:13.289 very much. Even byhind my house, which is not anywhere near any kind 95 00:09:13.289 --> 00:09:16.129 of great river, which is right in the middle of the desert, it 96 00:09:16.289 --> 00:09:20.570 took one or our last reign, one rain for just a few minutes and 97 00:09:20.690 --> 00:09:24.799 I had about, you know, three feet wide of water rushing through the 98 00:09:24.960 --> 00:09:31.200 back in seconds. Really, Pharaoh, you might remember from the stories and 99 00:09:31.279 --> 00:09:39.029 Exodus, was mystified when the Nile turned to blood. And can you imagine 100 00:09:39.070 --> 00:09:43.110 what he felt when the Red Sea closed in on him and his armies? 101 00:09:43.149 --> 00:09:50.669 He, who considered himself literally a God, in control of the Sun and 102 00:09:52.029 --> 00:09:54.860 the Moon, of the Nile, of the many waters around him, who 103 00:09:54.899 --> 00:10:00.940 is able to establish his great city and his great kingdom, to control these 104 00:10:01.100 --> 00:10:03.860 people, to be a master over these slaves, to be a great people 105 00:10:03.940 --> 00:10:09.250 and to have a great name, all of a sudden crushed by the very 106 00:10:09.330 --> 00:10:15.250 things he thought he can control. Jonah thought he could run from God. 107 00:10:15.409 --> 00:10:20.049 Jonah thought he could escape using the waters. I'll get on this ship all, 108 00:10:20.330 --> 00:10:24.679 I'll pay for this ship. The sailors know what they're doing. I 109 00:10:24.799 --> 00:10:31.480 will go my own way. And it was nothing for God to throw a 110 00:10:31.559 --> 00:10:35.350 tempest on the waters, to create such a storm that these sailors are afraid 111 00:10:35.549 --> 00:10:39.789 for their lives and calling out to any God that they can think of and 112 00:10:39.950 --> 00:10:45.950 ultimately to the one true God, as Jonah says, the God who made 113 00:10:45.990 --> 00:10:54.419 the sea and the dry land. There is nothing in your life that God 114 00:10:54.500 --> 00:11:00.860 doesn't control. This is something that Jonah wasn't thinking about or ignoring or I 115 00:11:00.980 --> 00:11:09.210 don't know, but it certainly wasn't moving him to act and believe and live 116 00:11:09.330 --> 00:11:13.370 in a certain way. And this is true of the water that Jonah was 117 00:11:13.529 --> 00:11:20.720 finding himself sinking, deep, deep down into. God controls every drop, 118 00:11:20.720 --> 00:11:26.240 from the little trickle of water that goes down the pleats of a Sawaro to 119 00:11:26.320 --> 00:11:31.000 the great rushing waters that rush through a canyon. Every D rob is his 120 00:11:31.840 --> 00:11:39.389 faithful servant, like an enormous, aqueous army, all at his command, 121 00:11:41.269 --> 00:11:48.620 every drop controlled and moved and directed by him, bringing life sometimes and at 122 00:11:48.659 --> 00:11:54.500 other times waging war. What's the difference, though, between those two things? 123 00:11:54.899 --> 00:12:01.419 Why does God employ one or the other? Why does he put this 124 00:12:01.690 --> 00:12:07.049 army or the army of the wind or the army of the land or human 125 00:12:07.210 --> 00:12:11.090 hearts or whatever it is he desires? What makes him choose one thing over 126 00:12:11.210 --> 00:12:16.279 another, to use it for life in one instance or to use it for 127 00:12:16.480 --> 00:12:22.720 death in another? Jonah story teaches us that God is sovereign, but it 128 00:12:22.879 --> 00:12:28.440 also teaches us that God is holy, that his will is good. Why 129 00:12:28.600 --> 00:12:35.269 did Joan, why did God want Jonah to go to innover to preach to 130 00:12:35.350 --> 00:12:41.190 them a gospel of repentance. Jonah will later say, in anger, anger, 131 00:12:41.389 --> 00:12:46.340 that Jesus Forbid, forbade earlier. We read in Matthew Five. He 132 00:12:46.460 --> 00:12:52.980 says that God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast 133 00:12:52.059 --> 00:12:56.899 love, relenting from disaster. Jonah confesses this. He says, I know 134 00:12:58.139 --> 00:13:01.769 this is true about you, Oh God, and it is true. See, 135 00:13:01.809 --> 00:13:05.970 the devil wants to trick us. He wants us to look at God's 136 00:13:05.009 --> 00:13:11.129 great power and and accuse him. That's who Satan is. He's an accuser. 137 00:13:11.289 --> 00:13:16.759 To consider God's great power and not trust him, to accuse him of 138 00:13:16.799 --> 00:13:22.240 evil, to accuse him of not being good. But God is always good. 139 00:13:22.279 --> 00:13:28.269 God is always doing things for good ends, righteous ends, holy ends, 140 00:13:28.950 --> 00:13:35.509 things that are about beauty, about order. When you flee from order, 141 00:13:37.070 --> 00:13:41.860 when you flee from beauty, when you flee from righteousness, where do 142 00:13:41.899 --> 00:13:48.820 you find yourself? Chaos, disorder, death, frustration, vanity and a 143 00:13:48.860 --> 00:13:52.779 whole host of other things. That's what happens when we move away from God. 144 00:13:52.980 --> 00:13:56.610 That's what happens when Jonah moved away from the presence of the Lord and 145 00:13:58.649 --> 00:14:03.929 it doesn't happen that way. Sometimes it happens that way every time. Now 146 00:14:03.049 --> 00:14:07.330 sometimes we feel like we're getting away with it. We say, Oh, 147 00:14:07.450 --> 00:14:11.559 it's not happening, like Jonah, the sailing away on the ship, you 148 00:14:11.639 --> 00:14:15.159 know, the sailors, you know, doing their normal duties, tying their 149 00:14:15.200 --> 00:14:20.519 robes and going about their normal days. Jonah thinking, yeah, that was 150 00:14:20.559 --> 00:14:24.710 a good choice. I'm not going an inhim. That's crazy. The waters 151 00:14:24.789 --> 00:14:30.990 calm, the ship is moving off on the way to Tarshish, but only 152 00:14:31.070 --> 00:14:39.059 for a time. What appears to be a moment of of relaxation, a 153 00:14:39.179 --> 00:14:43.059 moment of God's pleasure, even now it's all right, or or of God's 154 00:14:43.059 --> 00:14:48.860 lack of authority or power? What is it really it's God being patient, 155 00:14:50.899 --> 00:14:56.610 it's God waiting and giving us time to turn and repent, but those who 156 00:14:56.649 --> 00:15:05.250 don't often suffer watery consequences. We have many lessons of this, and doing 157 00:15:05.289 --> 00:15:07.879 it it was one of them. The Red Sea is another one. Or 158 00:15:07.960 --> 00:15:13.639 how about those flood when God saw the evil of the world continue to grow 159 00:15:13.879 --> 00:15:20.240 and grow and grow and grow until he could not tolerateate, tolerate it anymore 160 00:15:20.720 --> 00:15:24.629 and in the spirit of all goodness and righteousness, the Justice said this cannot 161 00:15:24.669 --> 00:15:31.549 be, I cannot allow this. Yet one more day and the waters broke 162 00:15:31.629 --> 00:15:35.059 out from the heavens and from the deeps and flooded the world in judgment, 163 00:15:37.379 --> 00:15:41.500 whether it's by water or fire or some other punishment, those who flee from 164 00:15:41.539 --> 00:15:45.940 God, flee from his wheels, will flee from his will, will always 165 00:15:46.460 --> 00:15:50.809 come under this kind of judgment. It may not happen immediately, but it 166 00:15:50.970 --> 00:15:54.929 will happen, and, if not in this life, in the next. 167 00:15:54.929 --> 00:16:00.129 How can we know, well from these examples, from this history that's recorded 168 00:16:00.210 --> 00:16:06.320 from us, from our own sense of justice in this life, that it 169 00:16:06.600 --> 00:16:11.080 has to be true that righteousness wins? It has to be true that good 170 00:16:11.200 --> 00:16:15.320 wins the day. This is what all of our stories are about, all 171 00:16:15.399 --> 00:16:22.389 of our movies are about. Every push in the in a checkoutline, every 172 00:16:22.429 --> 00:16:26.990 time somebody cut you off on the road, every time somebody does something that's 173 00:16:26.029 --> 00:16:32.309 unfair. We have this sense in us, it's built into our very souls, 174 00:16:32.750 --> 00:16:40.779 to desire goodness and justice and fairness. Given that that is so deep 175 00:16:40.860 --> 00:16:44.379 within us and made in the image of God, who is all of these 176 00:16:44.500 --> 00:16:49.809 things, do you really think that God will simply let all that go and 177 00:16:49.929 --> 00:16:55.850 say, I guess I don't care about goodness anymore. I guess I don't 178 00:16:55.889 --> 00:17:00.330 care about justice anymore. Well, if that were true, that would be 179 00:17:00.330 --> 00:17:06.720 the most horrible ending to everything. Of course it's not true. God is 180 00:17:07.039 --> 00:17:14.599 unchangeable in his Justice, in his goodness, in his power, and he 181 00:17:14.759 --> 00:17:18.309 uses these things for those end and so we can know, be on the 182 00:17:18.390 --> 00:17:22.750 shadow of doubt, that God will and does always judge. So that is 183 00:17:22.789 --> 00:17:26.670 a good thing, of course, except for all of us who raise our 184 00:17:26.710 --> 00:17:30.900 hands and say that we are worthy to be judged. It's good and sort 185 00:17:30.940 --> 00:17:36.339 of this big sense of things in terms of how all things work out in 186 00:17:36.420 --> 00:17:41.019 the end and that goodness ultimately wins. But what about us who've done bad 187 00:17:41.180 --> 00:17:48.329 things, who do bad things, who deserve justice, who have been who've 188 00:17:48.369 --> 00:17:55.289 deserved condemnation, the condemnation of justice, people have been like Jonah, who 189 00:17:55.329 --> 00:18:00.839 have run, or perhaps even now are running away from the presence of God. 190 00:18:02.319 --> 00:18:04.160 Satan, at this point will whisper in your ear and say, see, 191 00:18:06.079 --> 00:18:08.920 God is mean, he's mean, he doesn't want you to enjoy yourself, 192 00:18:08.960 --> 00:18:12.750 he doesn't want you to have what you want. You should hate him, 193 00:18:14.509 --> 00:18:17.589 you should avoid him. If you can't avoid him, you should hate 194 00:18:17.589 --> 00:18:22.269 him. This is how Satan accuses a god in order to destroy you. 195 00:18:25.349 --> 00:18:30.779 Don't believe his lies. Don't believe what he says. God is a god 196 00:18:30.019 --> 00:18:34.140 of goodness and Truth and beauty and justice. He does what he does not 197 00:18:34.259 --> 00:18:40.779 because of some kind of arbitrary selfishness, but because he is good and he 198 00:18:40.900 --> 00:18:48.250 wants good for all things. God clears away evil and injustice because he is 199 00:18:48.410 --> 00:18:53.009 holy. Satan wants you to think that to be away from God is better, 200 00:18:55.089 --> 00:18:59.319 that to be away from him is safer, is more enjoyable, to 201 00:18:59.440 --> 00:19:03.400 be in the arms of Satan is better than to be in the arms of 202 00:19:03.519 --> 00:19:07.480 God. Of course he will say these things. He is the great accuser, 203 00:19:07.519 --> 00:19:11.150 he is the great lie he is the Great Liar. And when we 204 00:19:11.230 --> 00:19:14.190 are clinging to our sins, when you're in the midst of that moment where 205 00:19:14.349 --> 00:19:18.109 the only thing that matters to you is satisfying this desire or having pride in 206 00:19:18.190 --> 00:19:22.710 yourself, or whatever it is, these lies will seem very nice. They'll 207 00:19:22.750 --> 00:19:29.579 sound very good. It's what we call in psychology confirmation by US right, 208 00:19:29.740 --> 00:19:34.660 you want to hear that thing. It sounds good because you've already decided what 209 00:19:34.819 --> 00:19:42.289 you want. When we prize our desires in our sinful ways more than we 210 00:19:42.410 --> 00:19:45.809 love God, of course we don't want anything to do with him. Of 211 00:19:45.970 --> 00:19:51.490 course we despise him for calling him, calling us back to himself. We're 212 00:19:51.529 --> 00:19:55.160 like a toddler that goes and sees a pretty snake on the ground, a 213 00:19:55.519 --> 00:19:59.640 pretty deadly snake, and picks it up and then when their father slaps their 214 00:19:59.720 --> 00:20:02.759 hand and knock the snake out, we say hey, why are you so 215 00:20:03.039 --> 00:20:07.470 mean to me? I want my snake all right. That's what Jonah is 216 00:20:07.829 --> 00:20:11.109 is doing. He's upset on the boat before chapter to. He saying, 217 00:20:11.950 --> 00:20:14.230 you know, I just put me to death. I don't care about this 218 00:20:14.390 --> 00:20:18.910 thing. I want what I want. That's not fair. We wine and 219 00:20:18.069 --> 00:20:21.819 then the devil says, see, I told you he was a bad father. 220 00:20:22.059 --> 00:20:29.099 Of course it's all ridiculous. It's just our sin. These are lies, 221 00:20:29.619 --> 00:20:33.859 the lies of our sinful hearts. The truth is is that God is 222 00:20:33.900 --> 00:20:37.490 all powerful, but unlike our power, which we use for both good and 223 00:20:37.809 --> 00:20:45.130 evil, God's power is always used in conjunction with justice and goodness and truth. 224 00:20:45.250 --> 00:20:49.079 He only and always puts down the evil and holds up the good. 225 00:20:49.880 --> 00:20:56.319 He's like the Superhero of all our stories, except he's real, except he's 226 00:20:56.480 --> 00:21:00.319 perfect and infinitely strong and always does his does what is right. To put 227 00:21:00.359 --> 00:21:07.269 it another way, he's not a superhero, he is God. He is 228 00:21:07.789 --> 00:21:11.990 God, the God who controls everything, as Jonah says, rightly, the 229 00:21:12.190 --> 00:21:18.740 sea and the dry land. Those who reject God not only following under his 230 00:21:18.859 --> 00:21:22.940 wrath, like Jonah, but, as Jonah says in his prayer and Jonah 231 00:21:22.980 --> 00:21:29.500 chapter two, those who cling to idols and forsake God, reject their hope 232 00:21:30.740 --> 00:21:34.329 of steadfast love. Is that what you want to do? And clinging to 233 00:21:34.410 --> 00:21:38.289 your sins, not only to flee and from the presence of the Lord and 234 00:21:38.450 --> 00:21:47.319 come under his just judgment and wrath, but to also reject your only hope 235 00:21:47.480 --> 00:21:56.640 of steadfast, eternal love? I hope not to be in the presence of 236 00:21:56.759 --> 00:22:03.470 God. The thing that Jonah is fleeing from is to be under his protection. 237 00:22:03.670 --> 00:22:07.349 It's to be under the power of his goodness, in his strength, 238 00:22:07.509 --> 00:22:12.390 like a like a hen that holds her chicks down underneath her wings, or 239 00:22:12.470 --> 00:22:18.660 like a fortress that defends against its enemies, like a husband that loves his 240 00:22:18.859 --> 00:22:25.700 wife, like a soft blanket that shuts out the cold, or like a 241 00:22:25.819 --> 00:22:33.130 cup of water in a dry and weary place. God is good. To 242 00:22:33.329 --> 00:22:37.769 know him, as good to follow him, as good to be in his 243 00:22:37.930 --> 00:22:45.720 presence is good. How can we be in the presence of God then? 244 00:22:48.039 --> 00:22:56.759 How can we stop fleeing and start coming toward him? We receive it through 245 00:22:57.160 --> 00:23:03.670 his son, named Jesus. This Jesus is also spoken about in the Bible 246 00:23:04.150 --> 00:23:14.619 later on, and Jonah, but foretold in a way here, prophesied about 247 00:23:14.700 --> 00:23:19.700 here. Jesus will say this himself, that he comes as a greater prophet, 248 00:23:19.740 --> 00:23:27.890 as a Greater Jonah. How is that? Why is that? Well, 249 00:23:27.890 --> 00:23:34.250 Jesus is a greater prophet than Jonah, because when Jesus goes down into 250 00:23:34.849 --> 00:23:42.279 the waters of judgment, as the cross is called in the Bible, Jesus 251 00:23:42.359 --> 00:23:47.599 doesn't go and come under God's wrath and judgment because of his own sins. 252 00:23:48.319 --> 00:23:52.759 Jesus never fled the presence of God. Jesus never said I want what I 253 00:23:52.920 --> 00:23:56.710 want. No, Jesus, as the son of God, had his will 254 00:23:56.750 --> 00:24:04.430 always perfectly a with the will of the father. Jesus indeed had indeed walked 255 00:24:04.509 --> 00:24:12.180 always according to obedience and truth. And so when Jesus went to judgment. 256 00:24:12.339 --> 00:24:18.619 He went not for his own sins, but for yours and from mine. 257 00:24:21.380 --> 00:24:27.210 Jesus left the presence of the Lord in order to bring us into the presence 258 00:24:27.250 --> 00:24:33.809 of the Lord, and he does that by conquering sin and death. When 259 00:24:33.849 --> 00:24:37.490 Jesus goes down, down, down under the judgment of God, by dying 260 00:24:37.599 --> 00:24:41.640 a death on a Crost, he does that to get to the root of 261 00:24:41.680 --> 00:24:48.599 the problem, to get to the very bottom of things, to sin itself 262 00:24:48.079 --> 00:24:55.470 to death itself. Jesus undergoes this, and it's symbolized in this way at 263 00:24:55.470 --> 00:25:00.549 the very beginning of his ministry, when Jesus goes into the waters of Jordan, 264 00:25:00.509 --> 00:25:03.829 the rivers that, like the Red Sea, would cross and the people 265 00:25:03.950 --> 00:25:08.299 of Israel would pass through, a kind of baptism, the New Testament calls 266 00:25:08.339 --> 00:25:14.180 it, and Jesus stands in those waters and is baptized by John for repentance 267 00:25:14.299 --> 00:25:18.220 of sins. How could that be when Jesus had no sins to repent of? 268 00:25:19.539 --> 00:25:23.569 Because he was preparing for a ministry in which that's what it was all 269 00:25:23.609 --> 00:25:27.849 about. Him doing it for us. And you remember what happens in those 270 00:25:27.890 --> 00:25:36.720 waters of Jordan. The father's voice comes down upon the sun and says this 271 00:25:37.119 --> 00:25:44.880 is my son, in whom I am well pleased. Jesus is vindicated publicly 272 00:25:45.319 --> 00:25:49.230 as the righteous one, as the justified one, not as the one who 273 00:25:49.269 --> 00:25:55.190 is swallowing down and Sang, God save me, I'm a sinner, but 274 00:25:55.269 --> 00:26:02.910 who rises victorious over sins and says to God save them, these whom I 275 00:26:03.190 --> 00:26:11.940 have died for. The Jesus is work on the Cross is compared to a 276 00:26:11.019 --> 00:26:15.539 baptism. Is said by Jesus himself that the waters would come over him, 277 00:26:15.579 --> 00:26:18.930 the waters of judgment, as they did in the Red Sea, as they 278 00:26:18.970 --> 00:26:23.170 did in the flood, as they did in other places. In Luke fifty, 279 00:26:23.210 --> 00:26:27.250 Jesus says, I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how 280 00:26:27.410 --> 00:26:33.720 great is my distressed until it is accomplished? Mark Thirty Eight. Jesus said 281 00:26:33.720 --> 00:26:37.880 to them, you do not know what you are asking, he says. 282 00:26:37.920 --> 00:26:41.200 To James and John, he says, are you able to drink the cup 283 00:26:41.319 --> 00:26:45.319 that I drink, or to be baptism with? To be baptized or sorry, 284 00:26:45.720 --> 00:26:49.750 and to be baptized with the baptism with which I am to be baptized? 285 00:26:51.750 --> 00:26:56.630 This was long after the Jordan event, but right before the cross. 286 00:26:57.509 --> 00:27:03.619 Jesus goes to the Cross and he compares it to a baptism, because baptism 287 00:27:03.740 --> 00:27:07.420 in the Bible is very much like we see happening here with Jonah. It 288 00:27:07.579 --> 00:27:11.539 is a passing through the waters of judgment, being cleansed, washed, saved 289 00:27:11.619 --> 00:27:18.450 and brought to the newness of life Jesus. But that happens for us in 290 00:27:18.609 --> 00:27:22.849 the salvation of God. As Jonah says, salvation below longs to the Lord. 291 00:27:22.730 --> 00:27:26.329 But when we come to the New Testament we see how all of that 292 00:27:26.529 --> 00:27:30.400 is. It comes because Jesus, as he says to the woman at the 293 00:27:30.480 --> 00:27:34.960 well, I can give to you the waters of life. Jesus has a 294 00:27:36.039 --> 00:27:41.960 way of transforming the waters of judgment into something that bring us salvation, waters 295 00:27:41.039 --> 00:27:48.190 that feed US eternally, waters that are no longer scary and frightening, but 296 00:27:48.390 --> 00:27:53.750 for ours, but for our our salvation. When Jesus suffered on the cross, 297 00:27:53.789 --> 00:27:59.019 he underwent a similar trial that Jonah went through, but it was different 298 00:27:59.099 --> 00:28:03.579 in this one huge way. Jonah was saved because of God's mercy given to 299 00:28:03.660 --> 00:28:11.339 him in Christ. Jesus was saved because of himself, and that matters a 300 00:28:11.420 --> 00:28:17.130 big different. That matters a great deal. I'll say when you're drowning, 301 00:28:18.849 --> 00:28:25.410 I mean that both literally and figuratively, when you find yourself in trouble, 302 00:28:26.890 --> 00:28:32.359 whether that's physical trouble or or trouble in your soul, what are you going 303 00:28:32.519 --> 00:28:37.319 to cling to? This really matters. Who are you going to call out 304 00:28:37.440 --> 00:28:41.910 to? Are you going to call out to yourself? Are you going to 305 00:28:41.950 --> 00:28:45.470 be thrashing and being pulled down under the water and say, Oh, there's 306 00:28:45.509 --> 00:28:48.190 my arm, that'll help me, there's my leg, God know that it 307 00:28:48.390 --> 00:28:52.710 is. The scene looks ridiculous, right, a thrashing, drowning person cannot 308 00:28:52.829 --> 00:28:59.940 save themselves. Or are you going to grab some floating flats, some that's 309 00:29:00.059 --> 00:29:07.019 happens to be walking bar or floating by a Christmas bonus, a facebook like, 310 00:29:08.259 --> 00:29:14.890 a friend who is nice, the possibility of a romance? Are these 311 00:29:15.089 --> 00:29:18.529 going to be the things that you're grabbing onto, your holding onto when you're 312 00:29:18.569 --> 00:29:25.440 drowning? This is what we do, but what we're really grabbing onto is 313 00:29:25.720 --> 00:29:30.799 monsters. Our sinful desires, are wicked loves that are just weights that pull 314 00:29:30.880 --> 00:29:36.599 us down more and more and more. They are like the seaweed encircling us 315 00:29:37.599 --> 00:29:42.549 and drowning us. We can't trust anything but one thing, and that is 316 00:29:42.630 --> 00:29:48.029 Jesus Christ, because him and him, any him and any him alone is 317 00:29:48.109 --> 00:29:55.859 where we find the salvation of the Lord. That's why he came, that's 318 00:29:55.940 --> 00:30:03.859 why he was sent to do this great work, and this work was for 319 00:30:03.900 --> 00:30:07.089 us, and you can reflect on this when you reflect on your own baptism. 320 00:30:07.170 --> 00:30:17.490 I'll close with this. Colossians twelve says, having been buried with him 321 00:30:17.529 --> 00:30:23.559 in baptism in which you were raised with him through faith in the powerful working 322 00:30:23.720 --> 00:30:29.000 of God who raised him from the dead. In this you have been saved, 323 00:30:29.079 --> 00:30:33.480 you have been brought from death to life, or, as Paul says, 324 00:30:33.519 --> 00:30:37.829 in Romans six, three four. To these Roman Christians, he says, 325 00:30:37.869 --> 00:30:41.990 do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into not 326 00:30:41.190 --> 00:30:49.380 ourselves but into Christ, Jesus? We're baptized into his death, which is 327 00:30:49.500 --> 00:30:56.339 to say into his judgment, into the sacrifice, into the blood. We 328 00:30:56.539 --> 00:31:03.140 were buried, Paul says, therefore, with him by baptism into death in 329 00:31:03.299 --> 00:31:06.730 order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of 330 00:31:06.769 --> 00:31:11.130 the father, we two might walk in the newness of life. That's why 331 00:31:11.250 --> 00:31:15.650 is a Christian. If you belong to the Lord. You can look at 332 00:31:15.650 --> 00:31:19.640 your baptism, just like Jonah looked at his, and say salvation belongs to 333 00:31:19.720 --> 00:31:26.440 the Lord. This is evidently clear. It's all symbolized and promised right here 334 00:31:26.920 --> 00:31:32.359 in this work of God. I have been buried with my Lord in faith, 335 00:31:32.440 --> 00:31:36.309 or I've been buried with my Lord into his death. I walk into 336 00:31:36.309 --> 00:31:40.869 the new in the newness of life, and all because of him. We 337 00:31:41.069 --> 00:31:48.619 have these gifts because we trust him and not ourselves. And so this is 338 00:31:48.900 --> 00:31:52.339 my promise to you, that's based not on my word but on the very 339 00:31:52.460 --> 00:31:57.660 word of God, that when you put your faith in Jesus Christ, you 340 00:31:57.940 --> 00:32:04.289 no longer have anything to fear, not the waters of this world, not 341 00:32:04.410 --> 00:32:08.250 the greatcoming judgment of God at the end of the world, not the fires 342 00:32:08.329 --> 00:32:14.930 of hell, not pretend things, not real things, not anything, because 343 00:32:14.970 --> 00:32:21.440 under God all things are used to bless you, to build you up, 344 00:32:21.480 --> 00:32:25.079 to lift you up, to strengthen you and him. There are indeed trials 345 00:32:25.160 --> 00:32:30.150 that Christians faith in this life, but they are trials that God is using 346 00:32:30.269 --> 00:32:35.950 not to judge us, because judgment is past in Christ, but to sanctify 347 00:32:36.069 --> 00:32:39.630 us, to build us up and to draw us more closely to him. 348 00:32:42.670 --> 00:32:49.500 This is what we learn from Jonah's baptism in Jonah chapter two. When you 349 00:32:49.579 --> 00:32:52.500 put your faith in Jesus Christ, you come out from under the wrath of 350 00:32:52.660 --> 00:32:57.700 God, you come under his protection, in His grace, and you can 351 00:32:57.779 --> 00:33:06.210 proclaim from today and forevermore, salvation belongs to the Lord. Let us pray