Challenging. It's untangled. All right, if you want to turn to Jonah chapter 1, we're going to not so much pick up off where Tommy left, because I'm not sure what Tommy's wanting to do here. He's going slowly through the book of Jonah, and so he's really good at looking at the historical context and showing those things. I just wanted to do something a little bit different, but give like an overview of chapter one. Just look at chapter one, see how we can apply the book of Jonah chapter one to our lives. Look at, you know, some questions as we go through Jonah, as we look at this chapter. And so I'll start off looking here with just a probing question, a couple of probing questions. If we look at Jonah, we look at his life, it brings up a couple of questions for me. Are you content, am I content, are you content with the situation, the call that God has on your life right now, where you're at, whether you're married, whether you're single, You're an employee, an employer, whatever situation that you're in, are you content? Are you content? If you're married, are you content with the role that God has given you, either as a husband or a wife, to lead or to submit? If you're single, are you content? What if that's for the rest of your life? Are you content? What role has God given you in that singleness? If you're a parent, raising children, and the instruction and admonition of the Lord, or if you're an employee, if you're a student, if you're a boss, if all of you are children of somebody, and the list can go on and it'll go on. So the question is really, as we look at this, are you content with God's call on your life, even if it means hardship, sorrow, suffering, if it means dying to self, And then really, as we look at Jonah in chapter one, I was talking to some brothers last week. It is, I think there's a section in here, at least chapter one, it's a very dark chapter. It's a very depressing, dark chapter in the Bible. So maybe start thinking, after a particularly rough week, with whatever situation or stage of life God has called you to, have you ever thought about throwing in the towel? And so those are a couple of questions just to, are you content and have you ever thought about throwing in the towel, quitting this relationships, quitting a marriage, quitting a job, quitting life? And I ask these questions that are some probing questions because, This is what Jonah has struggled with. We see this coming out of the text, and hopefully we'll be encouraged as we read it. So let's go ahead and read chapter one. We're going to read chapter one, then we'll pray. We'll do a brief background, and then we'll dive in. Jonah chapter one. 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.' But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord. 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. 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. But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep. So the captain came and said to him, what do you mean you sleeper? Arise, call out to your God. Perhaps the God will give you a thought to us that we may not perish. And they said to one another, come, let us cast lots that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us. So they cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. Then they said to him, Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation? 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 and the dry land. Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, what is this that you have done? For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord because he had told them. Then they said to him, what shall we do that the sea may quiet down for us? For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. 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 the Lord, O Lord, let us not perish for this man's life and lay not on us innocent blood, for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you. So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. And the Lord 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. Oh, Heavenly Father, we come to you in the name of Christ and by your Spirit, and as we read your word and we read this chapter of the story of Jonah, we see many things. We see your sovereignty, your presence. We see our sin. We see Jonah's sin. So, Father, as we look at this book, as we look at this chapter, Father, would you make application to our heart? Would you help encourage us? in this midweek journey in our Christian walk. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. So before we really kind of start digging into it, just, I'm gonna try to go quickly here, this brief background of Jonah's fascinating life. Of course, Jonah's considered a prophetic book, but it's interesting that it's considered a prophetic book, because anybody know how many words of prophecy is in the book of Jonah? five words of prophecy. Jonas' call to Nineveh, his rebellion, or their rebellion and calling and preaching, he preaches five words. That's it. So it's an interesting book of a minor prophet that has five words of prophecy. The rest of the story is about his rebellion and God's grace. And so after Jonas is swallowed up by the fish, And we'll see, you'll see when you read it when we get there that he erupts into a psalm of thanksgiving. He's been spit out on dry land and then he ends up obeying God's call as you guys know. And then we learn at the end of the book how he really feels. Nineveh repents after only five words of prophecy. And we see Jonah sulking because he knew that God would be merciful. And we hear that, we see that God asked Jonah, do you do well to be angry? And what is his reply? I do well to be angry. And he's angry enough to die. After he had already in some sense died. I think there's, Tommy mentioned this and I agree. I think there's hope for Jonah. The fact that we're reading the book of Jonah, we're doing a Bible study on the book of Jonah. And Tommy mentioned that Jonah would have to tell this story for it to have been written down. So whether he authored it or not, it's obvious that he is a part of the telling of the story. And for me, I think the way that the story is told with such attention to sin in his life and attention to God's providence, my opinion, can't prove it, that Jonah ended up getting it. He ended up, I think, if you want to use post-New Covenant language, that he was saved, that he was a redeemed man at the end. That's just an opinion. And really, we looked at, Tommy talked about the only thing we know about Jonah is recorded in 2 Kings 14. We're learning about Jeroboam II, the king of Israel. He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. Jonah was used by the Lord in prophesying to restore the border of Israel. to help Israel being destroyed from our enemies. And that's important. As Jonah's identifying as a, where he is a prophet, he's identified as a prophet. He is here, having been recorded in the Bible as helping to defend the border of Israel. And so now we have Jonah called by God, to go outside of the border of Israel. He was protecting against foreign invaders before, and now he's sent to these foreign invaders. And so that's really significant. Jonah was, if you want to use our terms today, a patriot. He was maybe a Jewish nationalist, if you will. He was a prophet that would have taken a considerable amount of ownership and dedication to the ministry that he has been called to. of Old Testament prophets and prophets in general, Sinclair Ferguson says that there are three inestimable privileges of a prophet. That's service, a sense of destiny, and spiritual fellowship. So Jonah has all these three and Ferguson goes on to explain that Jonah was a man of these privileges. He was a man who served God, who served God out of a sense that he was destined by God to be a prophet and as a prophet who enjoyed a unique sense of special spiritual fellowship with God. And so this is the background into which we read Jonah, knowing about Jonah, knowing about Nineveh, knowing about the prophet. And so we don't have so much time to look at chapter one, but so I want to look at chapter one with maybe three different kind of lenses. looking at this idea that God's word as given to Jonah was very clear, that God's word was clear. And we see also that Jonah is full of fear and bitterness, and this fear and bitterness leads to sin. And then we'll also see at the end that God is a God of mercy and of grace. So those are kind of the three categories or lenses, if you will, that I want us to look at Jonah chapter one. So he had a unique, as a prophet, a unique and special fellowship with God. So how did the word of God come to Jonah? Very first verse, or second verse, the first word of the second verse, We see, it says, arise. So knowing that Jonah's a prophet, we read this word arise, it reminded me of something, it reminds us, I think, of something about who prophets are, that maybe we tend to gloss over. The prophets were not always receiving a special revelation from God, that there wasn't just constant special revelation from God. that there was a time and a place, and this was the time and the place that Jonah was told to arise, to go. And this is the word of God coming to Jonah. He didn't have a dream. He didn't have a vision. Here the word of the Lord, it's clear of what he should do. It wasn't obscured. It was simple to understand. But he just disobeyed it. I think that's a lesson for us. We have God's written word, more sure than a prophet's, and he disobeyed it. It's clear. We have his word. Jonah had his word. It wasn't obscured. There was this beautiful simplicity given to Jonah in this command. Get up, go here, do this. He was told that command a couple more times. He was given that kind of list of commands. Get up, go here, do this by the captain of the ship. And then one more time by God later in the book. So God's word's clear. It's clear for prophets like Jonah. I remember when I was really young in the faith, without any theological understanding really, I used to desire to hear God's audible voice. I don't know what I was fixated on. If I could hear him speak like he spoke to the prophets, then I would have confidence in what I was doing. was being called to do, should I break up with my girlfriend or not, is really what I was concerned about at that time. And so, but the amazing reality, as we mentioned, is that God's word is clear, not just for prophets, but it's clear for you, it's clear for me, and it's even more clear in his sure written word for our instruction. So, you know, if we think about this, His fleeing, Jonah's fleeing wasn't rooted in a misunderstanding of God's word. Misunderstanding his commandments. Jonah fled because he was afraid. He fled because he was discontent. He fled because he was angry with what God had called him to do. We can't blame it on God's word because God's word is clear. When we see that fear and bitterness had led Jonah to sin, led him to really destruction. As we mentioned, Old Testament prophets were called to prophesy to rulers of Israel who were doing evil on the side of the Lord, but what were they never called to do? I found this interesting studying. They were never called to leave Israel. They were never called to leave Israel, to travel east, to go to one of the most formidable and violent cities Leaving Israel to go to a foreign land was unprecedented. So when you read verse two, which says, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for the evil has come up before me. Your heart, as a prophet or someone in the Old Testament, as a Jewish person, in ancient Israel, it should skip a beat. That he's going, in some sense, into a city of destruction. There's many people that have compared this to, you know, a Jew, a rabbi going to Nazi Germany or whatever kind of expression that you want to compare his going to Nineveh or being called to Nineveh, to publicly call someone like Hitler to repentance, for example. And he would have certainly been afraid of physical harm, but the other aspect is, there's another aspect to his reluctance is, It just was an unheard of, an unthinkable thing for a prophet to go to a pagan city. It was just unheard of. I mean, there was, sure, in Assyrian and Babylonian captivities, when people were there, prophets prophesied, but they're prophesying to their own people. They're prophesying to their own people. They're not called out from their people to go do those things. Douglas Stewart, a commentator, says that their prophesying was in the context of a believing community. And so, can you imagine Jonah's mind, why in the world would God call me to do this? When you think about this in the New Testament, you have Paul with the Gentiles, the Judaizers trying to circumcise the Gentiles, and Paul has to write and be explicitly clear what God has called him to do, which was he was an apostle to the Gentiles. to go, that they're included. They had to come to a big understanding in Galatia with Peter. He was called to go to somewhere outside of the house of Israel. And so this is a very similar, maybe even more extreme hesitancy on the part of Jonah. But there was something that was supposed to override all that, we mentioned it, is when the word of the Lord came to you, When the word of the Lord comes to a prophet, he was supposed to proclaim. That's what prophets did. They heralded, they proclaimed the word of God. But not this time. Jonah hears the word of God. He hears the command of God to go to Nineveh to repent, to command them to repent, and he fled. You could think that maybe his reputation was at stake. You know, Israel, he saw himself as a prophet. Israel saw him as a prophet to Israel. He wanted to continue to be considered as a prophet to Israel. And I'm sure the people of Israel thought this was crazy. I'm sure it wasn't just Jonah. You know, if they heard this, that's crazy. I wonder if he told anybody, but I think from the text, he just, he hightailed out of there. The Syrians were, their enemy. He was averse to preaching to it, he's fearful of this great task, valuing his reputation, valuing his office, more than what God was calling him to do, so he fled. Couldn't work under these conditions, you might say. He might say, I'm a prophet to Israel, that's my calling, I'm not a prophet to Nineveh, of all places, my job is to uphold God's reputation in Israel, to defend the homeland, as we read about in 2 Kings. And so he essentially says, if you want me to do this, I'd rather not be a prophet. So I think about that in light of that first question we asked at the beginning, Like, are you content with God's call or the situation that you're in in life right now? Are you content with what God has called you to do? Do you hear God's clear word, and are you content? If you're married, brothers, Ephesians 5 looms over us, because it's such an overwhelming task. How do you love your wife as Christ has loved the church, how do you give yourself up for your wife? It sounds great on paper, but in the trenches, what are you doing? We have God's clear word. The same for wives, respecting and submitting to their husband's leadership. The single life even, singles are not called to a life of selfishness. It's not a license for selfishness. Paul, he was single. He was not characterized by selfishness, but he was characterized by selflessness. He poured himself out because Christ poured himself out. So whatever position you're in, are you content? God has called you to use your marriage, your singleness, your jobs, whatever, as a child, as a parent, for his glory because of what Christ has done for you. But it looked like Jonah forgot that. And we often forget this. So you think about texts in Philippians, Philippians 2 reminds me of this text, Philippians 2, do nothing of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. But each of you look not only to your own interests, but also to the interest of others. And we often read that and think about what the other person isn't doing. We're very self-absorbed. Why don't they do that? Why can't they consider my interests? So we hold on to bitterness. And I think that's, brothers and sisters, the first step that Jonah is taking. He's arising, so he arose, and he rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. Except it wasn't those annoying Ninevites that Jonah was running from. He was running from God, he was operating out of fear. Paul Tripp, he wrote a book called Dangerous Calling, which is really geared towards pastors, you get the title Dangerous Calling, but there's a section of it that I felt was applicable. He says that fear can overwhelm your senses. It can distort your thinking. It can kidnap your desires. It can capture your meditation so that you spend more time worrying about what others think about what God has called you to be. Fear can use you to make bad decisions quickly and fail to make good decisions in the long run. It can cause you to be demanding rather than serving. It can cause you to run when you should stay and stay when you should really run. Fear can make God look small and your circumstances loom large. Fear can make you seek from people what you will only get from the Lord. Fear can be the soil of your deepest questions and your biggest doubts. Your heart was wired to fear because you were designed to have a life that is shaped by fear of God. But horizontal fear of man, rather, horizontal fear cannot be allowed to rule your heart because if it does, it will destroy you and your ministry. And this is precisely what happened to Jonah, and it led him down to the pit of destruction. Look at the rest of verse three. The second part, it says, he went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord. So we see this kind of movement of going down. He's beginning in verse three. It's really this constructed in a rapid kind of fire pattern where he's arising, he goes down, he found this, he paid this, then he went down. The idea here is Jonah is just on the move. He's booking it. He's hightailing it. And then where is he going? He's going to Tarshish. Some, we don't really know where this is. Some interpret this as just the open seas. A conceptual term for, like I'm going to Timbuktu. He's going to Tarshish. And whether it's a real place or not, you get the same idea. He's hitting the open seas and he is Hit and dodge, blow and dodge. Every time that Tarshish is mentioned, it's away from the presence of the Lord. So he's going down, down. This understanding of going down is tied to this slippery slope. You read about some in the Psalms. You read about this slope that goes down to Sheol, this pit of destruction that leads to death itself. Of course, Sheol doesn't always mean that, but in this case, we have Jonah going to Tarshish away from the presence of the Lord. He goes down to Joppa, and he finds a ship and goes to the open seas. He then pays a fare. He goes down into the ship to go with him to the open seas away from the presence of the Lord. So there's this, emphasized idea, repetitively emphasized idea that Jonah is both moving away from the present floor with each step he takes and moving further and further down towards destruction, down to Joppa, down to the ship, down eventually under the water and down into the belly of the great fish. So we have Jonah fleeing on the open seas, headed towards destruction, as we learn in verse two and three. You know, theologically, we know that we can't escape the presence of God. But for a prophet like Jonah that would have, he would have known that, in a sense, but there's a sense in which he was a prophet of Israel. And in Israel is where God speaks to Jonah. His attempt to flee, one commentator says, is not entirely illogical. He says, since Israelites never heard God's word except through Israelite prophets, they probably assumed that God revealed himself only to Israel. God, or Jonah, the ardent nationalist, therefore attempted to flee to a place where no fellow believers would be found, hoping that this would help ensure that God's word would not come to him again. If he stayed in Israel, he could expect to hear more from God, but if he left, he might hear nothing further. Of course, we read this, we think that's ridiculous. And I don't know, I don't know Jonah's mind here. But it's helpful to understand some of this history and potential understanding that why is he fleeing? He knows he can't get away from the presence of the Lord, but maybe if he just goes far enough, God won't give him a decree, is the idea. God won't tell him to go to Nineveh. God will stop speaking to him. If he's away from the people, if he's away from Israel, he would stop speaking to Jonah. Turn to Psalm 139. Psalm 139. We'll look at verse 7 through 12. Where shall I go from your spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me and the light about me be night, even the darkness is not dark to you. The night is bright as the day for darkness is as light with you. The reality is, is that Jonah, no matter how hard he tries, cannot outrun God. And that's something I think he'll be thankful for in the end. I think he is thankful for in the end. So this idea here, however, is that he's fleeing to these open seas, the opposite direction of Nineveh and away from the presence of the Lord. This reminds me of how fear produces hiding of sin, it produces fleeing. I think about someone entangled in sin who avoids attending corporate worship on Sunday morning. because that's where the fellowship of the brethren are. That's where the light is. That's where, if they show their face, maybe in God's house, their sin might get exposed. Someone might ask a question. The preacher might look at them, might preach something. Another member might dare ask, how are you? I think when people are living in sin like this, they don't want to be a part of a community of believers. They don't want to be in a place where they might hear the word of God. At the very least for Christians, it's attention. You don't want to be exposed. They want to hear that they are in sin and they need to repent. Don't hear me say that I think this is the reason why not everybody comes to Wednesday. I know there's a lot of reasons why people can't come to Wednesday, people can't come to Sunday nights, or people don't stay in fellowship for long with one another. We live busy lives. This is the world that we live in. We're busy. But there is a sense in which the less contact we have with people, the more we kind of blend in, people don't really know us. We can hide that way. Tripp says that proud people don't welcome loving warning. They don't welcome rebuke, confrontation, question, criticism, or accountability because they don't feel the need for it. And when they do fail, they are very good at erecting plausible reasons for what they said or did, given the stresses of the situation or the relationship in which it was done. Pride leads to fleeing. So you might not be going down to Joppa. We're not on the high seas. We're not looking to higher ships to get away from the presence of the Lord. But there's a question. Do you avoid accountability? Do you avoid reading or hearing God's word? shared through his people. Do you isolate yourself from those God has graciously given you to speak into your life? Do people here know you? And so as Jonah set sail, the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea. And you all know what happens next. The mariners, the Sailors become afraid. They try to invoke special blessings from each of their own pagan gods. And so once that didn't work, they threw out all the cargo to lighten the load, to prevent the ship from sinking. And when that didn't work, what do they do? They go look for Jonah. And this is the scene where Jonah goes further down towards the pit, towards Sheol, towards the water. Look at verses five and six. 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. But Jonah had gone into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep. So the captain came and said to him, what do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call out to your God. Perhaps the God will give a thought to us that we may not perish. So I think the author here is trying to paint a picture. Jonah's moving further away from the Lord and further down toward this pit of destruction. He's gone to Joppa, to the boat, down into the hull of the boat, presumably underneath the waterline. And the text is suggesting that he is really almost just given up. The ship's in a windstorm so bad that cargo is being thrown out of the boat, and Jonah isn't worried about himself or the lives of anybody else. What do you mean, oh sleeper? And so we hear from the captain of the ship, as we read in verse six, he's concerned. Tells Jonah, go call out to your God. But Jonah remains silent. Why would he not want to pray? He's in so much rebellion that he won't even pray to God to ask Him to cease destruction to save his life or keep the sailors life. Think about that kind of place. Why would you not pray? Most live prayerless lives, unfortunately. But most will pray out in distress. Something happens, they're about to die, I'm praying. I think because Jonah knows that if he does, God's gonna save him. He will no longer be able to despair. He will no longer be able to be angry. Maybe that's why we don't pray. We don't ask God to change us, to kill our pride, so that we would stop living selfishly. We don't pray that we would become strong spiritual leaders of our family, that God would help us to kill sin. We dare not pray for holiness. Instead we just ask, where's the line? How can I get by? And hopefully you're not like Jonah, but if you're like Jonah, maybe eventually you get to a place where you don't pray at all. Pending destruction is coming and you don't pray. So he was prayerless to the point that he didn't care if he died. Death was knocking at the door. He remained silent, laying down asleep in the belly of the ship. You know it's bad when a pagan has to tell you to pray. I don't care what God you're praying to, this pagan says, just do something, you faithless person. That's kind of funny, a pagan saying that. And so this last ditch effort, what do they do? This manners, they cast lots to see whose fault it was, pointing the fingers and it lounds upon Jonah. And so they confront him, they interrogate him. And they asked Jonah, they said, tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? What people are you? Who are you? It must be something pretty bad. They want to know why. Why is this storm happening? Jonah says, I'm a Hebrew. He says, and I fear the Lord. the God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land. What did he leave out? That he's a prophet. He leaves out he's a prophet. He leaves out his occupation. Why is this significant? He's one step away from going down into the pit, and now he's not identifying anymore as a prophet of Israel. I mean, they kind of knew this when they asked God to call out to, or Jonah to call out to his God. But now it's clear that he has stopped identifying as a prophet of Israel. I preached Jonah chapter one to a group of local pastors once a few years ago. And this was where Jonah was about to submit his Monday morning resignation letter. He had been fleeing for the presence of the Lord, frantically trying to figure out what to do. Or that the sailors had been for the storm was getting worse and worse. They're trying to figure it out. But now we're at the point here where Jonah had enough. He was done. He couldn't take it anymore. And Jonah realized, I'm the cause. I'm the cause of the storm. He knew that God was after him. But in his own mind, God cannot use him anymore. He was good for nothing. So he believed that he failed and he deserves to die for his disobedience and sin. And that's ultimate escape for him, death. That's the best thing, is that he would have misery and then he would die. So what does he say in dramatic fashion? Here, I'm trying to find it. He said to them in verse 12, 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. He is beyond quitting. Jonah is despairing of life itself because in his mind his ministry has failed. He is no longer identifying as a prophet. And so if he couldn't be a prophet, What's the point? What am I doing? What worth do I have? What point do I have? I think this is one of the darkest times, I think, in the book of Jonah. This is essentially ready to take his own life. Some of you were here a few years ago, and I mentioned to you, one of my former pastors did that, took his own life, gave up. And one of his last sermons, he confessed there were large parts of his life that he didn't think he was living to the glory of God. And so when I read verse 12, I can't help but sense that Jonah was experiencing some of that same turmoil. Like Jonah, this pastor didn't have any major scandals, anything outward. Similarities are only that he's fled from the presence of God in fear and anger and sadness. Jonah kept going down, down, further down into the pit of self-pity until finally he despaired of life itself and begged for the sailors to let him incur the judgment of God that he deserved. Maybe not many of you are there at that point where Jonah is at. Maybe some of you have been. Maybe you've just thought about quitting the task that God's called you to, the place in life that God's called you to. You're frustrated with your marriage. You want to quit. You're overwhelmed as a parent. You back away. Frustrated with being single. Maybe you're taking care of a sick loved one. You're tired. So overwhelmed with life that you just, I'm done. And you become prayerless. If anything's for certain, fleeing the presence of God in your daily life, in your devotions, in your prayer life, in your church relationships, it's a surefire way to make yourself go down to the pit. More than that, fleeing the ordinary means of grace, the preaching of the word, the sacraments of baptism and Lord's Supper, we're only gonna lead you down to destruction. away from what you think is away from God. Sadly, the pagans on this ship valued the lives of others in a way that Jonah himself didn't. They tried to row to dry land to preserve his life, but in the end they weren't able to, as the sea grew more and more tempestuous. And they threw him into the sea. plead with God not to hold this guilt on them. And then Jonah got what he wanted. He disobeyed God and went away from the presence of the Lord down to the depths of Sheol. So we have this first category. If we look at Jonah's life, God's word is clear. It's very clear. His commandments are clear, they're sure. And then we have this other lens to look at Jonah's life that operating in fear and bitterness leads to sin, leads to destruction, leads to death. But then we have redemptive side of Jonah chapter one that we can look at and we see that God is a God of mercy and grace. Whenever all seems lost, God's mercy and grace redeem that which is previously deemed useless. That's the beauty of the gospel. Something doesn't seem like it can be redeemed. It can't be restored. But now we see what the gospel does. We see this even with the conversion of the sailors. Once they see that God of Israel was in control this entire time, what do they do? They sacrifice to the Lord and they vowed to the Lord. Now we don't ever know what happened there. But they were caught out and cast in lots of pagan gods earlier. And now they sacrifice to the Lord and vowed to the Lord. And even in an otherwise useless man, so it seems, God's using this circumstance to, I think, bring the gospel to the nations, bring his sovereignty and power and glory to the nations. Working salvation in front of the pagans or for the pagans right in front of Jonah's nose. We also see God's grace for Jonah. He was fleeing from the clear commandment of God to rise and go to Nineveh. And he deemed his life and ministry useless. But what happens in verse 17? This iconic verse, Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. Can you imagine what he must have been thinking as, just hurl me over. I caused this, it'll stop. Just throw me over. I mean, I don't even imagine he kicked and screamed or, you know, Have you seen this video of this guy doing like a bungee jump in a chair? And he's like, let me tell you something. Have you seen that? Nevermind, anyway, he's afraid. He's trying to hold on, you know. Let me tell you something. He doesn't want to go. I don't think, that's the opposite, I think, Jonah. He's like, hurry it up. Hurry up, throw me over. Throw me over. But God is, in his mercy, causes a great fish and the depths of the sea to swallow up Jonah. So you can see God's mercy, His gracious plan from the start of the story, really, when God calls him to go to Nineveh to preach. Preach to these pagans. Arise, go. His purposes for you don't necessarily depend upon you. He is gracious and merciful. And it's encouragement, it's not a license to sin, but it's encouragement that despite our sinfulness, if you are God's, he has redeemed you, he has called you to a place, he will enable you by his word and by his spirit to do what he's called you to do. If he has ordained that you do these things, it's gonna happen. Despite his rebellion. So we're faced, you know, with this with our own lives. To think about these things. One of the reasons he fled, we'll hurry it up in Jonah 4, verse 2. He prayed to the Lord and said, O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? This is why I made haste to flee Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster. And again, verse 3, what does he say? O Lord, please take my life from me. for it is better for me to die than to live. But even he still receives mercy. We're reading the book of Jonah. God doesn't abandon him in the depths of the sea, and he's abiding with Jonah. We may not be physically fleeing from God, purchasing, I guess, again, a passage on a ship, sailing the high seas, But don't we avoid what God has called us to despite clear and simple direction from his word? Don't we get disgruntled and bitter and discontented with the situation God has placed us in? Brothers and sisters, if we learn anything, fear leads us to sin. We're prone to wonder just as much as Jonah. but we can have confidence because God is a God of mercy and a God of grace. So thanks be to God that he encourages us, that he comforts us in our weaknesses. Even in the depths of the sea, with the billows rolling over us, even though we throw ourselves in, he abides with us. If we are his, there's nothing that can separate you from his love. Nothing. It's Christ Jesus who rescued us while we were yet sinners. And through faith in Him, His death on the cross, He has paid for our sin. His resurrection, by His resurrection, has reconciled us to God. So in light of this, what must we do? Place your faith in Him. Daily repent of your sin. Place your hope in Him alone. And then serve God out of gratitude. Jesus himself, I was talking to some brothers last week, reminded me, Jesus himself was in the boat with some men. And a violent storm arose. But Jesus calmed that storm. And he got thrown into the sea. And that's an amazing Savior that we have. And like Jonah, he was in the depths of Sheol for three days, but not because of his sin. He was in the depths of Sheol because of our sin, that our sin put him there on the tree. He didn't suffer for his own sin. Jonah went down, but Jesus set his face up to go to Jerusalem, to die on the cross. that he might redeem us. This text, when we close, reminds me of John 15, Jesus in the true vine, where Jesus tells his disciples, I am the vine, you are the branches, whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like branches and withers, and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I've spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full. Over and over and over, he says, abide in me. He wants your joy to be full. He wants you to know the love with which he has loved you in the gospel. Finally, I'll just advocate for a hymn, one of my favorite hymns. It's called Abide With Me. It just says, Abide with me, fast falls the even tide, the darkness deepens, Lord, with me abide. When other helpers fail and comforts flee, help of the helpless, abide with me. Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes, shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies. Heaven's morning breaks and earth's vain shadows flee, and life and death, Lord, abide with me. Before I pray, I just wanna encourage you to not flee, to be here with the people, to don't rebuff any kind of rebuke. The word of God is clear. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your goodness and your mercy. We thank you for the gospel. Father, would you help us to see our sin, but Father, encourage us with your amazing grace. Father, thank you in Jesus' name we pray.