We are back in the book of Jonah this morning. I think the page number for the few Bibles may be incorrect, so I'll just quickly scan it. It says 726, but I think that might put you in the New Testament. And Jonah's not in the New Testament. At least the book of the Bible is. So I'm so sorry. I don't know. Jonah, Micah, Nahum. Go left. from the Gospels and you'll find in the Minor Prophets. And we're gonna be looking more specifically at Jonah in chapter one verses 11 through 17 as we close out this chapter. On the last episode of Jonah, when we tuned in to our regular scheduled broadcast two weeks ago, We left Jonah in the middle of the storm that has been brought on because of Jonah's own disobedience to God. He had been tasked in the first pages, the first verse of Jonah chapter one, to go to Nineveh because the evil of Nineveh had come up against the Lord. And instead he rebels. and goes the exact opposite direction of where he's supposed to go. He wants to go to Tarshish instead, the farthest known point of the ancient world, at least to Jews. And as a prophet of God, this is ironic at best, sadly ironic. He's privileged. who have access to the Word of God more than most people of Israel, certainly more than the non-believing, Gentile, non-Jewish, pagans, add any adjective, people who don't know God. He has access to the Word of God. He is a mouthpiece for God. That's what the prophets were. They would speak on behalf of God. God would speak through them. They would say, thus says the Lord. That was the mark of a prophet. As God's covenant lawyers, Jonah has this access. He has this proximity. He's close to the things of God. And yet, his heart is not in alignment with God's heart. God, who has created all people in His likeness and in His image, has ordained. This is stepping back to the story of redemption, where this is all fitting together. He has ordained His Son would come and die and receive as an inheritance for a redemption accomplished the nations. A people drawn from every tribe, tongue, and nation. That's something that we, in our perspective here, our vantage point, we can see more fully than even Jonah could, than even the prophets of old could. though they could see in types and shadows of where the story was going. We can see where this was pointed to Christ in all these different places within Scripture. We can see the end of the story. We have that vantage point. And though Jonah doesn't have the same information, the same perspective exactly as we do, he had enough to know that God has a heart for pagan people. He has enough to know that there is going to be some kind of gathering of people. He didn't have the picture of Revelation, where the great crowd of witnesses are casting their crowns, praising the Lamb that was slain. He didn't have the great commission to go into all the world and preach to nations. But he has enough to know that God has a heart for the sojourner, for the foreigner. Look at these hints that preceded Jonah and a couple that come after. Abraham, the father of nations, is called from a distant land to leave his country and go to the place of the Lord and show him. The people of Israel are told to care for the foreigner and the sojourner when they're among them because they were once foreigners and sojourners in the land of Egypt. And the law of God provides many statements like that, many provisions how to care for the Gentile that lives among them. And there are hints of this, stories that are contemporary and before Jonah that hint at that. Consider Ruth, the Moabite. a Gentile. Consider Rahab, also in the lineage of Christ, living among the people of Jericho and the people of the land, not an Israelite. Consider Naaman, the Assyrian captain, coming to the prophet Elisha to be healed. Isaiah 49, God himself would say that Israel would be a light to the nations. Jonah knows this. He has access to much of this. Not the things that came after, but what came before in God's redemptive plan and what's in the canon. He's a prophet. And yet, Jonah is more satisfied, more content to hold closer, to have affections for who he was in his ethnicity, than who God is in his heart for the nations. Remember in the questions the mariners, the sailors, ask him. And he doesn't respond in the order. What he responds, the first thing he says is, I'm a Hebrew. who he sees himself as. That's his identity. That's what he cares for. That's important information. I get that out first. That's what he believes that they need to know. I'm Hebrew. And this is where we find Jonah. He's among the foreigners on the ship, headed in a place that's opposite of where he's supposed to go. He's supposed to go to these foreigners, and now he's among these. And in this episode we find two big ideas, two main points. Like last week, like two weeks ago rather, here again we have a picture of what repentance isn't. And it's not what Jonah's doing. That's not repentance. What Jonah's doing is the opposite. Here again Jonah will show us what not to do Even though it's mixed with some language that seems pious, it seems righteous, it seems there's some truth in that, which could be misleading. Secondly, this portion of Scripture has much to confront us with this question. What do we do when detestable people are saved? What do we do when gross Stinky, filthy sinners come to faith. How do we make sense of that? What do we do with that information? We know the Sunday School answer. Welcome into the family of God, so on and so forth. But how do we feel when it's someone we know and detest? Not that person. Not those people. Not that person that you can't stand. I mean, people that are like, have killed other people. People that smell like filth. Literally, the serial killer who professes faith in Christ toward the end of his life. What do you do with that? When they repent and believe the gospel that you were there first, This is my family of God. Go find your own. What do you do with that? So let's read this text together. Let's pray for the Holy Spirit's illumination too. Not that we would just understand this text like it was some sort of exegetical puzzle, but that the Lord would shine light on the darkened places in your life and in your heart. Let's pray. Well, rather, let's read the text and we'll pray. Verse 11, then they said to him, what shall we do to you that the sea may quiet down for us? For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. And he said to them, pick me up and hurl me into the sea, then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you. Nevertheless, the men rode hard to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them. Therefore, they called out to Yahweh. Oh, Yahweh, let us not perish for this man's life and lay not on us innocent blood for you. Oh, Yahweh, have done as it pleased you. So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea and the sea ceased from its raging. And then the men feared Yahweh exceedingly. They offered a sacrifice to Yahweh and made vows. Verse 17, and Yahweh appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for this divine resource that you have given us that we have access to just pages and pages of God. So Lord, forgive us when we neglect it. when we neglect where and when You have spoken, that You have spoken. And so Lord, we ask that now, in this time, in this place, in this sermon, that You would speak to us. You would reveal the sinful places of our hearts and tighten the screws on sanctifying us and making us more and more like You. Lord, I pray for the unbeliever present. that they would hear the Gospel, and it would penetrate their heart, and You would take that dead person and cause them to live. Give them Your heart, Lord. In Your name we pray, Amen. Verse 11, Then they said to him, What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us? For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. The sea rage, the other translations say. Recall with me, church, that the sailors believed that Jonah, they believed Jonah's word, that he was running away from the Lord. And in a way, they are believing in minuscule They are believing the preaching of the reluctant prophet, the runaway prophet. They are believing in what he is confessing with his mouth, that this is why this storm has come. And there's a sense of faith in that. Will it be saving faith we wonder? We need to keep pressing into the story. Verse 12, he said to them, pick me up and hurl me into the sea, and then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you. There in the span of just two verses, you get the sea mentioned four times with one more reference to the next, and the storm, the tempest, is referenced four times as well. It's repeated. I wonder what the emphasis is here. It's on the storm. These are seasoned sailors. These are professionals who know what they are doing, and they're scared. This is the kind of storm that they fear. This is the kind of storm where you want to beeline it for the shore and get out of. This is the kind of storm, picture waves from the movie A Perfect Storm, where mountains, millions and millions of pounds of water can come crushing down on their little boat and there would be no more. It's the kind of thing that has them petrified. What are they going to do? It's the kind of storm where God is going to get the attention of His wayward prophet. He is going to get through to Jonah in His display of disobedience. It's like He's putting on show-and-tell and saying, I'm sovereign over the storm and the ocean, Jonah. How much more am I sovereign over you? Verse 13. Nevertheless, the men rode hard to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them." Literally, it's saying they dug into the sea. There's a desperation in that. And notice that the men here at this moment, though Jonah tells them what to do, they have more care for Jonah than Jonah. They care more for his life than he does for them. Even when Jonah tells them that the only recourse that you guys have is to throw me over, that'll be it. And it's at this point where the general revelation of God, where the law of God is written on man's heart, is more apparent to the non-believing, pagan, Gentile, non-Jewish sailors than it is to the prophet of God, who literally knows the law, the written law. we really get to see Jonah's disobedience at this point. This is still Jonah disobeying. This is still Jonah not repenting. This is still Jonah running from God. And when Jonah says to them that the solution is to throw him over, that'll solve it. He's half right and all wrong. There's truth in that. He's right that the calamity has come upon him because of him. That's true. It's true that he is fleeing from the Lord. That is also correct. But his answer shouldn't satisfy us when he says, throw him overboard. Jonah is deceiving the sailors and thinking that this is the making them think that this is the only way that they are to be saved. He's telling a half-truth, or as the saying goes, all half-truths are full lies. Now remember when the sailors first asked him a series of questions, and he answered in the wrong order. He emphasized who he was, a Hebrew. When they come to him and ask him a second series of questions, that first series should send us a cue how to interpret this one. that this, whatever he answers, it's not gonna be correct. It's gonna be off just a little bit. So what should Jonah have said? And they said, well, what should we do, Jonah? Well, this is what he should have done. He should have gone as a, what should, maybe we should ask, what does real repentance look like for Jonah in this moment? And the answer to that is to ask this question. What was Jonah supposed to do to begin with? Where was he supposed to go? He's supposed to obey the Lord and go to Nineveh. So this is what it should look like. And they ask him, what should we do? Verse 11, Jonah should have said, take the ship back to Joppa. I must go to Nineveh and preach to them. That's what he should have done. That's what he should have said. But he says, throw me overboard. He would literally rather die than go to Nineveh. Church, that's a hard heart. That is a disobedient heart. That's like when you have two kids playing, little Bobby's there, and his brother comes and takes his toy. Bobby's not playing with it, but Bobby knows that's his toy. So what happens, Bobby comes and takes the toy away. And now both kids are fighting. The mom comes and say, hey Bobby, can you please share your toy with your brother? And Bobby says, no, I can't share my toy with my brother. So mom says, well then fine. I will take away the toy from both of you. And in Bobby's heart, he's thinking, good. I would rather my brother not have it and me not have it than him have it. That's Jonah. He would rather keep the message of salvation Keep the task of preaching to Nineveh. Somebody else could do it. Then, go and do what he should have done the first time. You'd rather not share with these pagans that are with them. You'd rather not preach to them a message that will result in salvation. And I suspect, church, that we're more like that than we care to admit. More than we realize. I suspect that we are more selective in our evangelism of others because, in a sense, we know how powerful this message is. And we're pre-screening. Who's going to come to church? Do I want them in my life? Because I know the implications. I can plot this out. If they become a Christian, they need to join a church. They need to join a church. This is a natural place for them to go. If I see this person, I want to see them at potlucks and community groups and Sunday school. And I don't want to share my life with that person. This is a sad place where Jonah has a chance to kill himself in a way. He would rather die than be obedient. And that's an advantage he thinks he has, right? That in death there's an escape from the task. If he dies, he doesn't have to be obedient, which just underscores the hardness of Jonah's heart. And notice that Jonah doesn't offer to take up the task for them. What needs to happen? Throw me overboard. Okay. Do it. Go ahead Jonah, help yourself, help the ships, save us and throw yourself overboard. So why doesn't he do that? Why doesn't he offer to lighten the load of the ship with his own poundage? I think what we see here is the pattern of Jonah's disobedience, Jonah's rebellion, is that he cares more for the appearance of being a righteous prophet and a Hebrew more than actually following God's law. In which case, I think the answer to that question makes more sense that Jonah wants to be innocent of his own blood. He would rather have his blood on the sailors' heads than on his own hands. He would rather have their guilt of his death upon them than himself. That is the epitome of self-righteousness and of false piety. Jonah asking to be thrown into the sea is still not repentance. It is still running from God. And in Jonah's mind, you can see he's thinking, I'm close to being off the hook. I'm close to being done with this mission. I'm going to be out of here. Get off this rock. He's going to escape this task in death. He's not going to have to go to Nineveh. When I was in the School of Infantry, that follows right after boot camp. before a Marine goes to the fleet. That's like the time where it begins to settle in, like, this is real, I just signed up for four years, plus another four-year contingent commitment. You're like, crap. My life is not my own. And there's all kinds of crazy stories of people injuring themselves to get out of military service. I knew one guy, this is a separate story, he didn't want to go on a third deployment, deployed twice in four years. And so he had his friends throw a wall locker over on his shin and broke his tibia, fibula. Oh, messed up thing. This crazy story, when I was in SOI, one guy wanted to damage his hearing so that he would be medically separated. So he got several, where does this go? He got several fog horns, stuck his head in a metal trash can, and blew it for over an hour. Not only did he lose his hearing, but he didn't get medically discharged. Not only did he not get medically discharged, because this was not a service-related accident or like getting hurt on the job, he's gonna get no VA benefits from that. So what does he have? Four years of service out of him, destroyed hearing, and he looks pretty foolish, doesn't he? Church, we will never outrun God. even though we will try to do foolish things to get away from Him. Take insane steps to try to ignore the call of God in our life to repent or to do some other thing He's tightening the screws on. We'll even engage in heinous sin to get out of God's law or God's call to ignore Him. And yet, God will still accomplish what He sets out to accomplish. He will still call as He pleases. And you still have to deal with God no matter how far you run or how much you delay in your life. So church, are you trying to outrun the Lord? Maybe you don't think of yourself as running, you're just trying to outweigh Him. outmaneuver him to do the right thing. Perhaps that's a person that you've sinned against, and you're just like, you know what? They're gonna be dead in a few years, and it's gonna be easier when they're dead to confess of the sin against them. Or maybe you're thinking, well, they're gonna move away, and then it's like, well, do I really have to repent of this? Do I really have to? This seems messy and tedious. Maybe I just have to outweigh that person. And even as that sin gets more and more distant in the past, it remains that sin. It remains unconfessed, unrepented from, as if there's some sort of statute of limitation that God has for you to confess sins. No, you still must confess your sins. And to that person, appearances of being a Christian, of being righteousness will become important. They can always be tempted to be important. To look like you belong. To appear as though you are an upright Christian, faithfully attending. And perhaps, when you've been in that place long enough, it will become shockingly apparent to you that your disobedience has turned toxic in your life when that gross person comes to faith. And your first reaction isn't, praise be to God. but detestation. Being repulsed. Them? A person who is so unlikely to repent in your eyes. That's on the fringe of society. That's what the next verses bring our attention to. Look at v. 14 with me. Therefore they called out to Yahweh, O Yahweh, let us not perish for this man's blood. and lay not on us innocent blood, for you, O Yahweh, have done as it pleased you. So they picked Jonah up and hurled him to the sea, and the sea ceased from raging. And then the men feared Yahweh exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to Yahweh and made vows. Notice here, I translated here to draw our attention to it even easier than what your English translation probably has. Their manners are now calling upon the covenant name of God. In verse 6, the captain says, call out to your God, indicating that they were still calling upon their gods, little g, plural, to be saved. And now they're calling out to the God, the only God, the God of sea, and the God of dry land, the God of everything, that commands everything. And then this is followed by this three-tiered, this three-layered indication that these men have converted. This is what they do. They fear Yahweh. Secondly, they offer sacrifices to Yahweh. And third, they make vows. This is a shorthand way to describe what true belief and true conversion looks like. So let's unpack each of those terms, each of those items in turn. The first thing, they feared Yahweh. This fear, certainly there is fear here. We went from storm and raging sea, tossed Jonah overboard, and it's sea-quiet down. And there is fear of this deity. Certainly that is present. But this fear, I think, is to be most understood most neatly as worship. Awestruck wonder. This is not the same kind of fear or being wowed like Nebuchadnezzar. Remember when Joseph came to him, interprets the dream, and he goes, wow, your God is really great. Takes little Yahweh like it's an adding to his pantheon among many gods. And then what does he do? He makes a giant statue to himself. Has he converted? No, he had not. That's not what's going on here, though. They feared Yahweh. They don't add Him to the pantheon of items. And there's more to add to this because of everything else that they do. I think one indication is the double use of the covenant name of God. Yahweh. Yahweh. This is the mark of worship. And worship churches is a mark of any true believer. You cannot be a believer. You cannot be a Christian and not worship the one true God. That would make you a non-Christian, a non-believer. And you can summarize all of life is about worship. You are made to worship. You are hardwired to worship. Your affections are naturally called and drawn upon to worship something but post-Genesis 3. It's been affected. No part of you has not been disoriented so that you want to worship the creation or something within the creation or yourself rather than the creator. And the story of redemption is about restoring that, correcting that, taking false worshipers of self and things found within the created order and making them a people to worship God and God alone. Until that point, you will be like, as John Calvin said, our hearts are a factory of idol-making, just one after another. Efficient, idolatrous, always finding the new and shiny thing to draw your affections toward. to look at that person or yourself or that image or hobby and orient your life as that thing in which you will worship as though it's your God. And what redemption does through Christ Jesus is orient our affections toward Him and Him alone. The whole of the Christian life is doing that, taking what's out of orbit and putting it into orbit around the heart of God. And when that happens, church, what the Lord cares about begins to become your own, cares and loves. Secondly, they offered sacrifices to Yahweh. So not only do they worship God, calling upon his name twice, they now offer sacrifices. It doesn't say how this is, as though they had a makeshift altar or something on there. Evidently there was some kind of livestock on board. That's not a stretch. They just came from Joppa, a Jewish port city. They had cargo. We know that Israel traded with many nations in the ancient world. So it's not a stretch of the imagination to see that there was some kind of livestock on board to sacrifice. And a sacrificed church, just remember just what that means from the earliest pages of Scripture. The shedding of blood symbolizes the covering of sins, for the remission of sins. Here these men are making a sacrifice. They're admitting their sin to this specific named covenantal God. Church, there is no God, excuse me, there is no gospel if sin is not preached. If it's not preached against with sin, sin must be dealt with. Our sin must be removed. If you go to a church that never exposes sin, never talks about what stands between you and reconciliation of Christ Jesus, I fear you'll be at a church that has no gospel. A church without the gospel is not a church. They may say good things about God, but without the gospel, it could not be God's redeemed people. So what is it that God saves us from? Why is it important to preach against sin? Because we need this to be dealt with in order to be reconciled with Christ Jesus. We need it to be removed. We need it to be covered. And God requires that it must be punished. And there we get to the heart of the Gospel, don't we? In that Christ Jesus took on the sins of the world. Stood as a substitute for all of His sheep. totally paying for the sins past, present, and future. Covering you with the blood of Christ as you lay hold of it in faith. You need Christ as your substitute. There is no one out there that does not need to be redeemed. To say it another way, there is nobody that has not sinned All of us are sinners. All of us have offended God. And we need that offense taken from us. And that's why the cross was necessary. It's because sin had to be punished and dealt with in some way. And Christ voluntarily went to the cross. Voluntarily hung there for His sheep. Well, it's a pretty convincing case here, I think, if all we have is they feared the Lord, they feared Yahweh, they made sacrifice to Him, they confessed His covenant name. I would think that's enough to say they converted, but there's more to that. Look at this, third, they made vows. Vows are solemn pledges of commitment. When you make a vow to God, it is giving your word, your loyalty to do something, or just a vow generally. And there are provisions for this in the Old Testament. Somebody made a foolish vow. There's a way to get out of that. A way for that to be nullified. If you made a vow to God, though, He expects you to keep His Word. Make a pledge to Him. You're expected to fulfill it. Let your yes be yes and your no be no. But it's more to it than just a mere commitment. Given that these sailors had feared Yahweh, that they just sacrificed to Yahweh, these vows are to be understood as forsaking the gods, their previous gods, and worshiping the one true God of Israel. Did they have all the information? No. They didn't have all the pieces. They didn't have a copy of the book of the law. Though, ironically, they had a prophet on board who had more information and knowledge about God than they did. But they had enough. And that's what you need, church, in saving faith. You need enough, a sufficient amount. They were given a sufficient knowledge to believe in God and to be made right with Him. And so when the sea calms down, it vindicates the truth of the situation, that because Jonah, that this calamity had truly come upon him because of his disobedience. And even though Jonah doesn't intend to, he doesn't set out to do this, doesn't care to, doesn't want to, He inadvertently preaches to these sailors. And through his wayward ministry, they become converted, even in his rebellion. I don't know if it would have pained Jonah to know that 10 seconds after falling into the ocean and drowning, that the sailors just came to faith. But it fits his character that this is how, that's how he would have reacted. Like, really? Them, Lord? I wonder about that for us, for evangelizing people, for sharing the gospel with people that we don't generally care for, for difficult neighbors. Many of us know what that's like. And you can see where things are going to go when you start to reach out for them, how it's going to disrupt your routine, your comfort zone. And that person, you just keep taking steps back. They stand too close to you when they talk and their breath smells like they brushed it last year. We've all been there. Some of us have been that person. Y'all brush your teeth before coming to church. But a repulsion of another person shouldn't lead us to be surprised when they become converted, when someone comes to faith, when somebody receives a mercy from God that he so freely gives and gushes upon his people, when the unlikely convert comes to salvation. We're more like Jonah than we care to admit. Perhaps we're reluctant to share the gospel with someone because they might be offended. That's a real fear, a real barrier to overcome, a real challenge. Perhaps we're hesitant to tell our friends and neighbors about God because we don't want to receive ridicule. And third, perhaps we don't share the gospel. We hold fire on proclaiming the gospel because we know, with right knowledge, the power of the gospel. and that it could save them, and that would mean I have to share this church with them. I've got to share heaven with that person? No thank you. And if we do that, church, we've mistaken the righteousness of God, our righteousness for the righteousness of God. We get them swapped and we misunderstand. But we're not saved by our own innate righteousness, are we? We could not be. We are saved onto Christ's righteousness. We are not given any righteousness until we have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit. And there's this great exchange between Christ and ourselves. Our sins placed upon the sinless Son of God and His righteousness closed upon the repentant sinner. That's the only righteousness we can ever have. None of our own. Only His. And we're not God. We're not the standard. The standard of God has not changed. God will receive anyone who professes faith in Him. He sets the bar. He sets the standard. Not us. And churches, in moments where we feel repulsed, stagnant in our faith, standoffish, where we cringe when certain people Come to faith. At that church, that's when we need to be reminded how repulsive we were wallowing in our sins. Rebels before the throne. Committing divine treason. Worthy of an eternal punishment. Separated from the benevolent presence of the Son and in the presence of the Father's burning wrath for eternity. That is our default before we're saved. That's where we're headed. That's what we deserve. And church, you are not saved because Christ looks at you and says that. There's something so special and innate about that person. So it's something about them that's righteous. That's why I'm going to choose them. There's nothing about us innately that causes God to want to save us. So why does God save anybody? for His good glory and His pleasure. And be thankful for that because if there's something about you that the Lord looks through the quarters of time, so many problems with that. One, it implies He's taken in knowledge and God knows all things. Or one is that there's something, the other thing is that there's something so good about you that's like a passive workspace righteousness. Look how savable I am. Look how awesome I am by myself. And we're not. We're not. And yet, God, being rich in mercy, because of His great mercy, lavishness, His love, His kindness, His richness, His righteousness upon those who profess faith in Him. That even while we were still sinners, that means even when we were at the worst, most unsavable, disgusting place we could be, even when we were there, Christ died for us. And if that doesn't cause your heart to just melt of like, why me? Why is there anything about us that makes us so glorious? There's nothing. And yet in God's sovereign good pleasure, still saves so many. Still is going to have a great crowd of witnesses from every tribe, tongue, nation of people. People you didn't expect to be there. People who didn't expect you to be there. You're going to get to share heaven with so many wonderful people of Christ's flock. Because God is rich in mercy. It's an act of mercy that He appoints the preaching of the Word to convert sinners. Because it allows us time. Time to turn. It's an act of mercy that He sent Jonah the prophet to a pagan and evil city to repent. It is an act of mercy, church, that we have any sort of time. And He did not crush us, and He has a right to crush us because we are His. Remember, church, when the unlikely convert converts that you were unlikely to. So Jonah gets thrown overboard. The sea ceases its raging. The unlikely sailors are converted. And if you're reading the story for the first time, you're thinking, I can't believe it. Jonah just got out of it. He just, he didn't kill himself, but he kind of did. How's he going to survive that? We're thinking he's, and Jonah's probably thinking that, I'm out of here. I don't have to go to Nineveh. And that's like this post-credits scene. Watching the movie and suddenly you see the hero's not dead yet. Here's a turn that we weren't expected. It's verse 17. And Yahweh appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights. Here, the protagonist, the hero of the story didn't die. He's going to be back. And this signals something miraculous. A fish really swallowed him? Who was expecting that? No one. It also signals here's another thing that God is sovereign over. Pay attention to that. A point, a point, a point. It comes up again in Jonah several times. He is sovereign over everything. And even though Jonah thought he had his escape, he's getting out of his duty, he's home free, and as he's plummeting toward the depths, an unlikely and unexpected turn takes place. And He's not off the hook. Let's pray. Father, we thank You for this true book of Scripture, which causes us to reflect so much on our own hard hearts. Lord, I pray that we would be wowed, not by just the majesty of the style of this book, but by the fact that even the reluctant sinner is bringing about converts for Your glorious purposes. O Lord, we give You praise for when we were so far from You and we heard the Gospel. We thank You for using the Holy Spirit to regenerate our lives, our hearts, and give us a heart of flesh, Lord. Lord, I pray we would be confronted afresh with the majesty of God who converts sinners Unlikely, disgusting people like us, when we wallow in our sins and repurposes, refits us, makes us alive for your glorious purposes. Oh Lord, as children of God, as brothers and sisters in Christ, would you bring us closer together? Would you cause our hearts to orbit more and more around the heart of God, which is a heart to bring more people into your kingdom and bring more glory to you and your son? That's our prayer, Lord, to be more like you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.