Show Notes
Jonah 1
Pastor Stephen Laurer
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] God and our Savior. Truly you are the rock of our salvation.
[00:00:05] We fly to you.
[00:00:07] We fly to you from our sin.
[00:00:11] We fly to you from temptation that you might deliver us. We fly to you from this world which hates us and would lead us astray. We fly to you and seek refuge from in you, from enemies that we cannot see.
[00:00:29] Greater and more powerful than us. But not greater or more powerful than you.
[00:00:36] For you have created all things, and in Christ Jesus you have delivered us from all things.
[00:00:42] So you are the rock of our salvation.
[00:00:45] We come to you now, O Lord our God, and we see you also as the rock from which streams of living water flow.
[00:00:59] We come to you because our souls are parched and thirsty. We come to you from a world that has nothing to offer us.
[00:01:08] But we thank you that you promise to satisfy our soul with living waters.
[00:01:14] Living waters that flow from your throne in heaven, from the throne of the Lamb.
[00:01:21] For we know that life flows to us from our Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:01:27] We ask now, Lord Jesus then, that you, by the power of your spirit, would pour out life, spiritual life to our souls. That we might be set free from our sin, from our doubts that we might be healed and comforted in our misery and in the sorrows of our souls.
[00:01:49] That in you we might find the food and the drink for our souls, that we might be built up and strengthened, our doubts taken away, our sins washed away. That we might know your love and your peace, and that we might live as your children, as those over whom you rejoice and delight. For Jesus sake. Bless us now as we come to you, Lord Jesus, in your word, by the power of your spirit and for your name's sake. Amen.
[00:02:24] Our sermon text this morning is from the Old Testament book of Jonah.
[00:02:31] We'll read together the first chapter. Jonah 1, you want to turn there?
[00:02:57] Hear God's word from Jonah 1.
[00:03:02] Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, arise, Go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.
[00:03:19] But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.
[00:03:25] He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish.
[00:03:31] So he paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.
[00:03:40] But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up.
[00:03:49] Then the mariners were afraid and each cried out to his God, and they hurled the Cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them.
[00:04:02] But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had laid down and was fast asleep.
[00:04:08] So the captain came and said to him, what do you mean, you, sleeper, arise. Call out to your God.
[00:04:16] Perhaps the God will give a thought to us that we may not perish.
[00:04:21] And they said to one another, come, let us cast lots.
[00:04:25] That we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us.
[00:04:31] So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah.
[00:04:35] Then they said to him, tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us.
[00:04:42] What is your occupation and where do you come from? What is your country, and of what people are you? And he said to them, I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea in the dry land.
[00:05:00] Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, what is this that you have done?
[00:05:05] For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord. Because they had told him, told that he had told them.
[00:05:14] Then they said to him, what shall we do to you that the sea may be quiet down for us?
[00:05:21] For the sea grew more and more tempestuous.
[00:05:26] He said to them, pick me up and hurl me into the sea. Then the sea will quiet down for you.
[00:05:34] For I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.
[00:05:39] Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to get back to dry land.
[00:05:43] But they could not.
[00:05:44] For the sea grew more and more tempestuous again against them.
[00:05:51] Therefore they called out to the Lord, O Lord, let us not perish for this man's life.
[00:06:01] And lay not on us innocent blood.
[00:06:05] For you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you.
[00:06:10] So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea.
[00:06:15] And the sea ceased from its raging.
[00:06:18] Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly.
[00:06:22] And they offered a sacrifice to the Lord. And made vows thus far. God's word. Please be seated.
[00:06:40] This is a passage that raises questions.
[00:06:46] Let's start with a question then.
[00:06:51] Does life ever feel tempestuous to you?
[00:06:55] That's a long word for saying stormy.
[00:06:58] Not just some rain clouds that are gray. That make life seem a little drab, but actually stormy. The wind blowing hard, the thunder rumbling, the rain driving, pounding on the roof and the windows.
[00:07:19] Life pounding on you with misery, difficulty, stormy relationships, health troubles.
[00:07:29] Some of you have been there. Some of you are currently there. Some of you. Some of you one day will go through the storms of life.
[00:07:38] And we tend to ask ourselves the big question.
[00:07:44] Why?
[00:07:46] Why?
[00:07:47] Why does life have to be so hard.
[00:07:51] Why do we have to go through these troubles?
[00:07:54] And we search for answers. Sometimes we find them, sometimes we don't.
[00:07:59] Sometimes we find them clearly in God's words. Other times we're left unsure.
[00:08:06] There is, I think, a kind of answer to that question about life's tempestuousness, the tempests and storms of life. There's one kind of answer here, and that is, I think, found in the truth that those storms are God's storms.
[00:08:23] The tempest comes from God, and it comes from God because he's pursuing us.
[00:08:31] This is one of the answers to the question of why. Why God do you make my life so stormy?
[00:08:39] It's because God is pursuing us in the storm. I want to look at that idea here as God pursues Jonah in this storm under three points.
[00:08:52] First, God's fugitive or fleeing from God.
[00:08:59] Secondly, God's tempest, and thirdly, God's salvation. So first, God's fugitive or fleeing from God. Secondly the tempest. And then thirdly, God's salvation.
[00:09:12] First, fleeing God, God had called the prophet, he called Jonah, and he gave his word to him. Now, he first called Jonah before he sent him to Nineveh, which you read about there in verse one and two. He actually first called Jonah to be a prophet to bring God's word to his people, Israel, who were rebelling against God, living in all kinds of awful sin.
[00:09:41] God had sent Jonah as a prophet to them, but now he sends Jonah as a prophet to Nineveh.
[00:09:48] Nineveh was the capital of the ancient empire of Assyria in modern day Iraq. So if you know where modern day Israel is, you know that God is, I guess from your perspective would be over here in the west, right along the Mediterranean is where Palestine, Israel is where Jonah would have been serving as a prophet. And way over in Iraq, across a bunch of deserts and a bunch of other nations, way over here was Nineveh, the capital of Assyria.
[00:10:18] And God was sending Jonah there to warn them of their wickedness and God's anger against Nineveh, that God was going to judge Nineveh because of her wickedness. That's what you find in verse 2.
[00:10:32] Go cry out against the great city Nineveh. Call against it, for their evil has come up before me.
[00:10:40] So his job was to go and tell the people of Nineveh, from the greatest to the least of them, that they were wicked and that God had taken notice of their wickedness and God was going to act.
[00:10:54] And of course, whenever God sends his prophets to cry against a people because of their sin, it's because he's calling them to repent of that sin, to turn from their wickedness and turn back to God. So implicit in every call of judgment is also a call to repentance.
[00:11:13] So even in the call, the crying out against Nineveh, there's implicitly a purpose of possibility, of salvation, of deliverance. There's a little bit of hope embedded in the message of judgment. It always goes that way all throughout the Bible.
[00:11:34] Now here we hit the immediate irony.
[00:11:38] The prophet that was called to turn people to God himself flees from God.
[00:11:47] But irony is supposed to kind of smack you in the face. It should be obvious.
[00:11:52] So we're left with the question. I said this is a passage, a story that leaves us with lots of questions. It's a very interesting story we're taught about Jonah and the great, great fish that we didn't read about yet as children.
[00:12:05] It captivates us, but it also leaves us with lots of questions. And here's the first one. Why would Jonah, a prophet of God, who knows about repentance and about hope, of salvation, why would he flee from God's presence?
[00:12:22] Now, the geography, east and west, North Nineveh is in the east, way in the east from where Jonah is. Jonah goes instead of to the east, he goes to the west. He goes down westward to the Mediterranean Sea to the port city of Joppa. And then he gets on a boat to go further west to Tarshish. So clearly he's headed away the opposite direction from Nineveh. But the thing that the story really emphasizes is not so much that he's going away from Nineveh.
[00:12:56] Even more than that, the emphasis three times over in the story is that Jonah is fleeing the presence of God, that Jonah is running away from God. That's the bigger issue here.
[00:13:10] Why?
[00:13:13] I think we have a clue. If we think about Jonah and his prophetic ministry, we begin to get a clue. We pull on this thread and maybe we can tease it out a little bit more. We get a clue as we think about Jonah and his prophetic ministry.
[00:13:30] Jonah, along with a couple other men, were sent as prophets about the same time in the middle of the 8th century BC. If you're looking for dates about the same time, all three of these prophets were called by God and sent to preach to the northern 10 tribes of Israel.
[00:13:47] Israel that was in rebellion against God. Not worshiping God, but worshiping false gods.
[00:13:53] And the other two men are Amos and Micah. And if you read the two books of those two prophets, Amos and Micah, you find them primarily preaching not just against Israel's sin, like Jonah also did, and calling men to repentance, but it's primarily a message of God's judgment against their sin.
[00:14:18] The famous phrase in the beginning of the prophet Amos is the Lord roars from Zion.
[00:14:26] God is like a roaring lion coming to devour his people.
[00:14:31] And why? The refrain over and over again in that first chapter of Amos is for three transgressions and for four.
[00:14:40] In other words, because of the many sins of God's people, God is coming to judge.
[00:14:45] Theirs was a ministry emphasizing the judgment, the wrath of God against Israel's sin.
[00:14:54] But Jonah's ministry to Israel isn't recorded in the book that we are looking at. If you read the book of prophet Jonah, all four short chapters, you don't find much, if anything about Jonah's preaching to the people of Israel.
[00:15:13] You find that in Second Kings, chapter 14, mentioned very briefly, verse 25 and 26.
[00:15:22] And there you find that when Jonah preached to Israel, God sent Jonah to Israel with a message of blessing, a message of goodness, kindness of God towards his people.
[00:15:40] And here's how those verses read.
[00:15:43] God restored the border of Israel from Lebo Hamath as far as the sea of Arabah.
[00:15:49] In other words, the borders of Israel were expanded, restored again to their former size. In other words, the nation of Israel has power and strength and prosperity, so it's able to expand its influence and reach. It's doing well under King Jeroboam ii. At that time he restored the border according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet who was from Gath Hepher.
[00:16:21] For the Lord saw the affliction of Israel was very bitter, for there was none left bond or free, and there was none to help Israel.
[00:16:31] Jonah's message that he brought, by contrast with Micah and Amos, the message that he brought to the people of Israel who were in sin and in rebellion against God. His message was God in his kindness and mercy is going to bless you, so repent and turn back to him.
[00:16:54] Here you have the two sides of the message of the Gospel. Both aspects of the truth of God's word represented in these three prophets.
[00:17:06] The justice and wrath of God demands that you repent and turn to him. The kindness, mercy, love and blessings of God demand that you repent and turn from your sin and futility to the God who truly gives you blessing.
[00:17:22] And guess what?
[00:17:25] All three prophets, both messages calling men to repentance, both of them failed.
[00:17:35] Israel didn't listen to either. They didn't listen to the message of God's wrath and his storm. And they didn't listen to the message of God's grace and his goodness and his gifts.
[00:17:54] What is it in man, in a person, man, woman, child? What is it in a man that rejects not just the wrath and the judgment of God, but also his kindness and goodness and mercy?
[00:18:12] You can talk to lots of people all around the world, all across our nation, and they'll tell you I couldn't possibly serve or love or worship a God who brings judgment and calamity, who sends storms, who does awful things. I couldn't worship such a God, they'll tell you.
[00:18:37] But the same people also reject a God who shows them goodness and kindness and blessings every day.
[00:18:48] God gives them life every day. Every day. The sun shines on them, the rain falls. There's crops that grow, there's food to eat, there's life, family, children to be enjoyed, work to do that's fulfilling. God gives all kinds of good gifts to people every day, and they reject that God too.
[00:19:10] What is it in man? Other words, this isn't just Israel 2700 years ago.
[00:19:16] This is people today.
[00:19:19] What is it in us that rejects both the severity and the kindness of God and refuses to turn and repent to such a good, merciful forgiveness, forgiving God?
[00:19:33] It's the very same thing that leads Jonah to flee the presence of God.
[00:19:39] It's the same thing.
[00:19:41] It's the same dark, hardened, sinful heart that drives Jonah to flee the presence of God.
[00:19:53] You see, Jonah is a picture.
[00:19:56] His life is the message that he brings to Israel.
[00:20:02] We have here, not a series of Jonah's sermons like we do with, say, the prophet Isaiah or Amos or Micah, his contemporaries.
[00:20:10] We have the story of Jonah. The message of the gospel, the truths of salvation are written for us in the story of Jonah's life.
[00:20:21] And it begins with a picture of the hardness of our hearts and a man who's known the kindness and mercy of God. He's even preached it to others. He's seen it fulfilled as God blessed and gave prosperity to Israel.
[00:20:39] And Jonah rejects it and runs from God.
[00:20:43] That's a hard heart, a darkened heart, and it's one that we all have now. It's the darkness of Jonah, then, and his heart that leads not just to him fleeing the presence of God, but it leads to a downward spiral in his story.
[00:21:03] He's going down.
[00:21:05] These first few verses here talk about him fleeing away from God, but as he flees away from God, he goes down he goes. He goes down from the presence of God. He goes down to Joppa, and then he goes down into the lowest part of the ship, the cargo hold, the very bottom of the ship. Down, down, down.
[00:21:26] His actions reflecting the state of his heart and him fleeing from God as a prophet, he carries God's. But we're arguing that as a prophet, he also, in his life, displays the very message he's called to carry.
[00:21:47] We have Jonah's story and his story and his life give us most of his message.
[00:21:53] And so Jesus in the Gospels calls this the sign of Jonah, the sign of Jonah. In other words, Jonah's life was a picture of the message he preached. His life is his sermon to you and me and his downward prophetic spiral.
[00:22:13] His downward pattern points us to the downward pattern of a different prophet, a greater prophet, a willing prophet, the Son of God, who went down from the presence of God.
[00:22:31] But he went willingly.
[00:22:34] God the Father saw the darkness of men's hearts, not just Nineveh and its wickedness, that drew God's attention, but it was the wickedness of all mankind.
[00:22:46] It was the wickedness of the world.
[00:22:48] It was the sin in my heart and in your heart. It drew the attention of God the Father.
[00:22:56] He saw us in darkness and he told his son, go, go and bring my light to men, women and children in darkness.
[00:23:07] And so the sun went down willingly, humbling himself, coming down to be the light of the world, to be the light that shines in the darkness, to be the light that becomes the life of. Of men.
[00:23:24] Jonah's downward spiral doesn't just point us to the sin and darkness of our hearts. It points us to the greater prophet and his greater humbling.
[00:23:34] The descent of Jesus, the Son of God who came to save.
[00:23:40] And we turn now to our second point, God's storm.
[00:23:46] Jonah went away. He fled down.
[00:23:50] And as he went down, God pursued him.
[00:23:55] God didn't miss Jonah's escape. He didn't happen to miss that. Jonah went the other way, went down far away.
[00:24:06] God saw it and he pursued him.
[00:24:09] We're told that God hurled a great wind at the prophet and at the sea. And it caused a great tempest, so great it would break the ship apart.
[00:24:19] Pretty serious storm in a little small wooden boat.
[00:24:24] The sailors see it too.
[00:24:27] They see this storm. They know all is lost.
[00:24:32] So in a desperate attempt, they throw all their cargo overboard. In other words, this voyage and its business, it's shot. Throw it away. We just need to save our lives. Perhaps we can lighten the boat and make it.
[00:24:48] But they Call on their gods. Now they're idolaters. They're not Jews who worship the living and true God. They're idol worshipers. They're pagans.
[00:24:59] They call on their false gods, we're told in verse five.
[00:25:06] Now their principle here is right. They're not all the way there, but they're on the right track.
[00:25:12] They know that calamity must be caused by the gods in their mind. Or the God who created and controls the sea and the storms.
[00:25:23] He brings this calamity, this storm. We need to call out to him for deliverance.
[00:25:31] They got the beginning of the principle.
[00:25:34] When God threatens judgment by his prophets, it's always a call to repent and to turn to him for mercy. Now they don't know who the God is that they're to be turning to. They're in the dark still about that.
[00:25:49] But they're on the right track.
[00:25:53] While they toss the cargo and cry to their idols, the prophet who carries God's word, the word of the Lord came to Jonah. The prophet who carries God's word, who knows about repentance and salvation and mercy in the living and true God.
[00:26:08] This prophet sleeps silent, listless.
[00:26:15] He carries God's word, but he refuses to bring it to bear unto salvation.
[00:26:23] God got the sailors attention, but Jonah ignores the clear. The clear message that even the sailors are beginning to get.
[00:26:34] That the divine has intervened and we need his deliverance.
[00:26:40] And so God pursues Jonah further. He sends the captain down to shake him awake.
[00:26:46] He shakes him awake. Jonah, call on your God.
[00:26:52] Perhaps he will hear and give deliverance.
[00:26:58] Seek His Father presence.
[00:27:01] Maybe he will save.
[00:27:05] But no surprise.
[00:27:07] The hardness of heart that drove Noah from God's, Jonah from God's presence continues to grip, perhaps even shroud him further.
[00:27:19] We hear no word of truth from Jonah's mouth. No cry against sin, no call to turn to God for deliverance.
[00:27:29] So God pursues him further.
[00:27:32] God causes the lot when it's cast. I don't know if they threw dice or if they drew straws. Whatever it was, God in His providence made sure, pursuing Jonah, that that lot would fall on Jonah.
[00:27:50] And so the sailors demand answers.
[00:27:54] We know God sent this storm. Now we know it's your God and that you're the problem.
[00:28:00] Tell us what's going on. Who are you? Where are you from? What do you do? What is your profession?
[00:28:07] And why in the world is this happening to us?
[00:28:11] You've got the answers. Give them to us.
[00:28:17] And finally, he's forced to begin to tell the truth.
[00:28:22] The prophet is forced to speak the truth.
[00:28:26] I serve Jehovah, the God of heaven, who made this sea and its storms and the dry land that we all wish we were on.
[00:28:36] And I ran from him.
[00:28:41] And I'm his prophet. And I refuse to speak his word.
[00:28:45] And I'm going to continue to refuse to speak his word.
[00:28:49] No repentance from Jonah. No call to repentance, no warning of impending judgment. The sailors obviously know this is what's going on.
[00:28:59] Still no truth.
[00:29:04] So God continues to pursue relentless pursuit.
[00:29:09] God, as it were, turns up the heat. Verse 11.
[00:29:13] What shall we do that the sea may quiet down for us?
[00:29:18] For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. God sent more and stronger wind to stir up the storm. Greater and stronger. Men were terrified, crying out for deliverance.
[00:29:34] He turns it up.
[00:29:36] I can't imagine how terrifying that must have been.
[00:29:42] How can we be saved from the storm? Throw me in the water.
[00:29:46] I'm the cause of this. Throw me into the storm and it will be quiet.
[00:29:54] Not what we expected from the voice, the mouth of the prophet who carries God's word.
[00:30:00] We expected repentance, salvation.
[00:30:05] The God who is slow to anger and abounding in mercy and loving kindness.
[00:30:12] No. Throw me in the waves.
[00:30:16] It's mysterious. Apparently it was mysterious to the sailors too. And so they turn and they row furiously. For sure.
[00:30:23] Perhaps they don't want to murder an innocent man. That seems to be on their minds. They plead for God's mercy that he wouldn't count his blood against him when they do throw him in.
[00:30:34] Maybe they also don't want to kill Jehovah's prophet.
[00:30:39] I don't know about that one.
[00:30:41] But I suppose if the problem is that Jonah is on board the boat in the middle of the ocean, instead of heading towards Nineveh, let's try to get him headed in the right direction. Let's row this boat as furiously as possible to get back to land so we can throw Jonah on the land and send him back to where he needs to go. And then maybe God will be appealing and will deliver us.
[00:31:04] And so I'm sure they rode like they never had before in their life and never would again in their lives.
[00:31:09] But all their own efforts could not save themselves.
[00:31:17] They're learning the lesson of grace.
[00:31:21] Our works do not save.
[00:31:25] Only God can deliver.
[00:31:28] Only God can save.
[00:31:33] And God pursues yet further the more furiously they row.
[00:31:39] A third time, we're told, God turns up the storm.
[00:31:44] If the first time it would threaten to tear the boat apart.
[00:31:49] Second time it got more intense. Now a third Time.
[00:31:53] This is it.
[00:31:55] This is it. They're at the end.
[00:31:59] They see that there is no hope, no other hope than for them to turn to the living and true God and to seek his mercy and forgiveness, plead his help and deliverance.
[00:32:14] And they turn to him and cry out for mercy.
[00:32:19] O Lord, let us not perish for this man's life and lay not his innocent blood on us.
[00:32:27] For you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you. And they do what the prophet told them to do in faith, trusting that God would deliver them, They tossed him, tossed the prophet of God overboard, according to his word, into the storm.
[00:32:51] God pursues sinners. That's what you see here.
[00:32:55] The storm that he hurls at Jonah and at the sailors is God pursuing sinners.
[00:33:03] That's one of the reasons he sends storms at you in life.
[00:33:08] Not that you would run away from him, but that you would turn and flee to him as the only safe haven, the only safe harbor where you can be delivered and saved from drowning in your own misery and sin. The storms of life are driving you to trust in God.
[00:33:31] Well, God pursued Jonah. And finally, as he turned up the heat on the sailors, God got Jonah exactly where he wanted him, right in the middle of the storm, with no boat. That's where Jonah needed to be. And that's for now where we're going to leave Jonah with his heart still hard and unrepentant.
[00:33:55] But God pursued the Gentiles, the pagan sailors, and because of his pursuit, they turned to him.
[00:34:03] Where can you go?
[00:34:06] Where can you go as you flee the storms of life? Where can you go as you flee sin and your own misery? Where can you go as you flee God, the one pursuing you?
[00:34:22] Where shall I go from your spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there.
[00:34:30] If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me.
[00:34:44] If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me and the light about me be as night, even the darkness is not dark. To you the night is bright as day, for the darkness is as light. With you, God will pursue you, he will find you. You cannot run from his grace. Your heart's dark and hardened instinct is to flee from him, to run and hide from him, like Adam and Eve hiding in shame in the garden.
[00:35:19] But what you need to do is turn and run to him.
[00:35:22] He sent his son down, down, down to Meet you, to find you, to deliver you. Run to him, he's pursuing you.
[00:35:38] Thirdly, we said we would look at God's salvation.
[00:35:43] God graciously pursued Jonah even as Jonah fled.
[00:35:48] And even as Jonah didn't want to speak the truth, didn't want to tell the gospel, God graciously used Jonah to bring the truth to pagan sailors who turned to God and found salvation.
[00:36:04] The prophet who refused to preach God's word to the Gentiles in Nineveh.
[00:36:10] God caused him to speak that word, and not just to speak it, but to live it out, to be a demonstration, a sign of the gospel to those pagan sailors.
[00:36:28] They tossed Jonah overboard, trusting that God would have mercy on them and save them.
[00:36:36] And as they saw Jonah's head sinking under the waves, they got to see a picture of the gospel. Jesus calls it the sign of Jonah.
[00:36:50] God's grace is going to have its way with hard hearted sinners. Whether it's Jonah, the sailors, just think how long it took for them, how much storm it took for them to finally turn to God and cry for mercy. And then look into your own heart and say, look man, how long has it taken me to seek God's help, his mercy with this sin or with that sin, or just with my life in general.
[00:37:19] God's grace will have its way with you, as it did with those men on that boat long ago. And the way he breaks hard hearts and makes them soft is through that sign that the sailors saw how Jonah said, hurl me into the sea and the storm will be calm.
[00:37:43] Unwilling, Jonah, still refusing to repent and to share the news of God's kindness, sinks into the sea.
[00:37:54] But unwittingly, he becomes a messenger of God's saving grace.
[00:38:02] In order to quiet the storm of God, God's prophet must go down.
[00:38:08] Down not just into the waves, down into the storm of God, down to become the very object and recipient of God's storm, sunk down to the bottom of the ocean of God's wrath.
[00:38:31] And so the prophet of God came and he entered the storm of God's wrath.
[00:38:38] As the Son of God hung on the cross, there as he hung on the cross, he bore the wrath of God for sinners.
[00:38:49] And there on the cross come together the messages of God's justice and wrath and of his kindness and mercy. Yes, God is angry with sinners for their sin.
[00:39:02] But God takes away that sin and his anger by putting it on his Son.
[00:39:08] That the wrath of God may be satisfied. And through faith in Jesus Christ, sinners might be delivered from their Sins.
[00:39:17] It's seeing the sign of Jonah and Christ hanging on the cross. That God changes hard hearts and makes them soft. That they would turn to him and be saved.
[00:39:30] It happened with the sailors on the boat.
[00:39:33] They saw Jonah sinking.
[00:39:37] They saw the waves being calmed, God's wrath and storm being settled.
[00:39:42] And they experienced God's salvation.
[00:39:47] That happened for the thief on the cross.
[00:39:50] He went to the cross with a hard heart. He mocked and he cursed Christ.
[00:39:56] But then, as he saw the Son of God dying for sinners, as he saw the justice of God being satisfied. And the mercy of God being extended to sinners, as he saw Christ suffer for him, his heart was changed.
[00:40:14] And he said, lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. There was another man that day. The Roman centurion who oversaw the crucifixion of Jesus.
[00:40:26] He ordered the nails to be driven into Jesus hands and feet. He ordered that cross to be stood up.
[00:40:34] He ordered the soldiers to stand guard. So that no one could come and take Christ down from the cross.
[00:40:41] And as he oversaw the death of the Son of God, as he saw Jesus breathe His last, finishing the work on the cross, paying for all of our sins, he saw Jesus breathe his last. And he said, surely this man was the Son of God.
[00:40:58] And he believed. And he was saved.
[00:41:04] The question that Jonah and his drowning asks for you is the question of the cross.
[00:41:10] Do you see God's love and his mercy poured out for you in Christ Jesus?
[00:41:17] See it and believe and be saved. Let's pray.
[00:41:27] Gracious, merciful, Heavenly Father.
[00:41:31] We confess the greatness.
[00:41:34] Just how hard our hearts are. Harder than rock, harder than steel or flint.
[00:41:42] So hard that we cannot break them.
[00:41:44] But we thank you that in Jesus you have broken the power of sin. And that through his death on the cross you have made a way for us to be saved. To be saved from ourselves and from our own darkness and sin.
[00:42:00] How we thank youk, Lord God. And we ask that yout would help us to see more of Jesus and His love and his goodness.
[00:42:08] Help us to see and experience more of youf grace. And we ask youk, O God, that by youy word, by youy Spirit, by this message of the Gospel, you would pursue us.
[00:42:20] For we confess that even though many of us have turned to youo and believed in Jesus, yet, like Jonah, we still have a lot of sin and a lot of darkness. And we need you to keep pursuing us.
[00:42:34] Please find us and set us free.
[00:42:39] Lord, we thank youk that yout grace is greater than all our sin. And that we can Rest in youn forgiveness and in youn love, and knowing that yout will accomplish what yout promised to do.
[00:42:52] Lord our God, we ask for many other blessings in this life.
[00:42:57] We need your grace as a church, that we would serve you together, that we would walk together in unity and in love. And that we would be a good witness to the world around us. We ask that you would bless us in these things.
[00:43:10] We ask and pray for the broader church sister congregations. We pray for the mission work in Levine. We ask your blessing on that installation service tonight and on your people as they're led by Pastor Johnson, as they work to carry out evangelism and the work of church planting there in Levine. We ask that you would bless that richly to your glory and the salvation of the lost.
[00:43:36] We pray for the OPC's General assembly that happens this week. We ask that you would use these meetings for the blessing of your broader church, that contentions might be settled and peace might be brought. And that your church would be blessed through wise and helpful decisions.
[00:43:55] Lord, we pray and ask that you would have mercy on our families, that you would protect our marriages from evil and from sin and from division, that you would restore and bring reconciliation in our marriages. And we ask that we as parents would be godly witnesses of your grace and goodness, of your forgiveness of sins to our children, that they too, might be brought up to know and trust the Lord Jesus our Savior. We ask that you would provide for the needs of all your people here. We ask that you would bring healing to those who are sick or recovering from injury or surgery. We ask that you would be near to those who are lonely, that you would comfort them, comfort those who mourn, be near to the elderly, grant them grace and strength even in their old age. And bless us as we seek to serve and care for one another as the body of Christ. That we might do so to encourage one another and build one another up. And that we might serve you to your glory. We ask that you would hear our prayers for Jesus sake. Amen.
