Good morning. Please open your Bibles to Jonah chapter 1. I've been trying to decide whether I should read the whole chapter first or if I should just read it as I go. I think I'm going to choose option B. I'm going to read the chapter as I go through it to save a little bit of time. Thank you for bearing with me. I'm excited to preach this series to you. First time I've ever done this. But I am very excited and grateful for this opportunity. Thank you also to the elders for trusting me to do this. Let's first go to the Lord in prayer. Lord, it seems at this moment as if the entire world is standing at a precipice, looking into a deep chasm of darkness. But Lord, we know that you are on your throne and there is nothing that is happening or will happen in this world that is not under your sovereign, almighty control. We know that you love us. We know that you planned this from the beginning of the world. And we thank you, Lord. You are so good to us. Thank you for your word. We pray that it would do its work in our hearts, as it always does. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Well, this morning we sang a song about sending us out, that we would be his hands and his feet. And today we're going to hear about a man who was supposed to go out. He was sent by God, but he refused to go. So we're going to spend time in Jonah today. I think most of us will be able to relate to Jonah in many ways, as Dick and I were discussing this morning. There's a story that my sister Chris and I used to ask my grandma to tell almost every time we saw her when we were kids. And it was a story about how my dad, he probably told you this story, I don't know, how he was not allowed to cross Main Street. He had been told never to walk across Main Street. It was a busy street, and my dad was five years old. So, behind my grandma's back, he goes down, crosses Main Street, goes to his cousin's house, and they get this great idea that they're gonna look in the gas tank with a match to see how much gas is in there. So you can imagine what happened. Thankfully, he survived. But he came home, And his aunt had seen the incident and had called my grandmother in advance and she was standing there waiting for him. And she said, and we loved this part of the story because her face lit up as she told us, she said, I told you never to cross Main Street. And he said, I didn't, I jumped. We just love that part. We love the punchline. In the family of God, we have a lot of stories that we love to hear over and over. And Jonah has to be near the top of the list of those stories. And as I thought about Jonah sitting outside Nineveh at the end of the book, waiting for God to rain down judgment on Nineveh, it occurred to me that this was a book that could speak to us in a very poignant way in our current circumstance. And it's also fitting that it's during Missions Week. I had no idea it was gonna be, or Missions Month rather, that fit in really well. I'm sure I can speak for all of us when I say that We've shed tears, probably spent many hours in prayer about what our country is going through. We've watched the entire world, as I was praying earlier, descend further and further to a state of all-out war against God. I'm sure all of you can feel this happening. There's been many Christians that have been warning about this for a very long time, going back decades. Worst of all, I think, is that this These destructive philosophies that are wreaking havoc in the world are invading the church. There are, I'm not going to name names today, but there are many men who are, I would consider them going off into false gospels today. And it is a very sobering thing. It's like a demonic accelerant has been cast on the fire and it's just exploding. When the book of Jonah was written, God's people were in a similar, maybe even worse, situation. They were surrounded by ruthless enemies. For many decades, the Assyrians, whose capital was Nineveh, the Assyrians would invade them and destroy their towns. And I'm going to get into that in a minute, what they would do. But they had a small time when God gave them a reprieve from that, which we'll talk about. But instead of repenting and trusting God for deliverance, They became complacent, if you can imagine. They became complacent, self-sufficient. They became pleasure-seeking. They became bitter toward their enemies. Does this have a familiar ring to anyone? I know it does to me. The book of Amos was written during this period and Amos 6, 1, the Lord warned them saying, woe to you who are complacent in Zion and to you who feel secure in Mount Samaria. I heard that phrase Mount Samaria. I'd never heard that before. Usually we talk about Mount Zion, right? Mount Samaria was where there was unbelieving worship going on in Israel. And I think that's a type of unbelief. Their hope was no longer in God, but was in their own strength. They had grown comfortable. Their borders had been enlarged to, I think it was one of the largest that Israel had ever been. It stretched all the way up past Damascus, which is, is that in Syria? I don't remember. But it's quite far north and all the way down as far as you could go. Their borders had been enlarged. But instead of taking this as God was giving them a time to repent, they took it as vindication that they were in the right. Guys, we need to be thinking about this right now. What is God telling us in the church? God has given us a time of peace, but we might be descending into a time of persecution in the church because of our disobedience. Not only were they complacent, but they eagerly waited for the destruction of their enemies, which you can see in Jonah's attitude. In Amos 5.18 it says, woe to you who long for the day of the Lord. Why do you long for the day of the Lord? That day will be darkness, not light. It will be as though a man fled from a lion only to meet a bear. As though he entered his house and rested his hand on the wall only to have a snake bite him. Sometimes I put my hand under my chair at home and the cat grabs onto it. Will not the day of the Lord be darkness, not light, pitch dark without a ray of brightness? While they waited eagerly for the day of the Lord, they didn't realize that they themselves would be wiped out by the very people that Jonah was sent to preach to. Israel was under the law. And when they failed to keep the law, which they had promised to do, they found themselves under its curse. They were like Pompeii sitting at the base of Mount Vesuvius, living their happy lives, not realizing that they were in the path of destruction, the wrath of God. Who are the Ninevites? Ninevites were, that was the capital of Syria, as I said. They were just north of Israel, near Mosul. Maybe you saw that in the news a few years ago, when ISIS was going through that area. Their area was much bigger than what ISIS controlled. It was basically the eastern part of Turkey all the way through the Fertile Crescent, all the way down. It was the largest kingdom of that day. but they were far worse than ISIS when they conquered people. Their signature mark when they conquered a city was to build a large pile of human heads at the entrance gate of the city. And the remaining survivors would be tortured in order to pressure the neighboring cities into paying them tribute. They would often cut off the hands and feet and noses and ears of their captives. or they might gouge out their eyes and pry out their tongues from their root, if you can imagine. Often their prisoners were slowly flayed alive. They would skin them. And then when they were done, they would set them on fire. And then they would take the skins and they would hang it over the city gates to terrify the neighboring cities to pay them tribute. We know this because they carved, they made memorials of it and they carved it. to glorify their evil. No one would grieve for Nineveh in the day that they were destroyed in judgment, which the word of the Lord predicted in Nahum. Into this scene comes the word of the Lord to Jonah, a very unwelcome word. Verse 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. Something about Jonah that I didn't know. If you remember in Second Kings, I think it's Second Kings, there were the schools of the prophets. and they would go around prophesying, and it's kind of like today's seminaries. During the time of Elijah and Elisha, there was a time of revival in the land. There were preachers preaching the word of God. Jonah could very well have been part of that group. But now he's a little bit older, possibly set in his ways, possibly he's grown complacent with the culture. Maybe he had family that fought against the Assyrians. Maybe he lost loved ones to the Assyrians. It doesn't tell us, but what we do know is that he had a deep-seated bitterness toward them. What do you think the word of the Lord is? Have you ever thought about that? Is it like a book floating through the air to Jonah? That's not what it is. I thought, as I thought about this, I thought, is it like getting a letter from the president? Maybe kinda. Meredith's family has a funny story. I'm not gonna tell the whole thing, but her grandfather was supposed to go fight in the war, and they got a letter from the president telling him to stay home. That's a really funny story. I'll tell you sometime. I don't have time today. But I was thinking about that. It would be kind of like that, but it would be more like that if the letter had written itself. And the letter had walked, walked to their house and told them, the word of the Lord is not just words on a sheet of paper. The word, first of all, it's the word of the Lord. It is not the word of man. Lots of people like to think that the word that we have is stuff that men came up with. These are just the words that a man thought up. But 2 Peter 1.20 says, no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man. But men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. 1 Peter 1 also indicates that the prophets themselves inquired about the things they were prophesying about. That means they often didn't even know what they were saying. They knew what they were writing, but they didn't know what it meant. Okay, and I think that is critical in understanding what's going on with Jonah here. Secondly, God's word is authoritative. We don't have a choice. when he commands us, Jonah didn't have a choice. And I think that's why he ran. Next, God's word is living and active. The word came to him and spoke to him. He heard the word speaking to him, okay? God's word is living and active. It is sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and of marrow. and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. The word is the Lord himself. You ever think about that? John 1, 1, what does it say? In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. This is the Lord coming to Jonah. The Lord sent Jonah with a message. God doesn't just send us out to say whatever we want to say. He gives us his own message. He tells Jonah to call out against it. That's not a very pleasant message, is it? It's not a happy message. There's not a lot of gospel in his message. You would think that Jonah would be like, all right, let's go. He doesn't like the Ninevites. That's not what he does. But just because a word from the Lord isn't pleasant to hear, doesn't mean it's not effective. The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. I used to not like that verse. It used to really bug me, because I thought we should only preach, we should be emphasizing the gospel, which we should, but we can't preach the gospel and not the law. If you don't have the law, you're not gonna know what you're saved from. Isaiah 511, my word that proceeds from my mouth will not return to me empty, but it will accomplish what I please and I will prosper where I send it. The word of the Lord prospers because it's the word of the Lord. It is not even dependent upon Jonah, which is really comforting to me actually. This was comforting to me as I prepared the sermon. Why was Jonah sent? Their evil has come up before me, it says. In another place, we see in Genesis 15 that the evil of the Amorites was not yet complete. God spoke of the Amorites. God was waiting until their wickedness got so great that he had to judge them. Guys, God is not pleased with the death of the wicked. He wants them to repent. That's why he takes so long. Sometimes we're, like Jonah at the end of this book, we're waiting around for God to just hurl down fire on his enemies. But God is patient. And we are not called to do that. We are called to proclaim the word. But there is a limit to how far a nation will be allowed to descend into wickedness. And actually Nineveh was not far from that point. It was only a generation before they were wiped out. Even more today. Remember that story in Acts when Herod Antipas was eaten with worms? That was a sign to us that in previous days, God was gonna overlook the sins of the Gentiles, but not anymore. You wanna know why we have wars today? Why we have pestilence and all these things? It's because the Lord is reigning and he's calling every man to repentance. You would think Jonah would leap at the opportunity to go, but he knew something about God. He knew something that really bugged him. Jonah rose and fled to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, verse three. 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. That last phrase is extremely sobering. Joppa was one of the primary ports in Israel, and if you were to go there today, you can still see the remains of it. It's just south of Tel Aviv. It was an extremely important seaport, so much that every time there was a war, the country that would come in to take over Israel would take that port. and the ships would go across the Mediterranean. The place that Jonah chose to go to was as far away as he could possibly go. Tarshish was on the outside of Spain in the Atlantic Ocean. And that too was an important seaport. It was the place, it was the port where they would get their copper and their tin from which they made bronze. You've heard of the Bronze Age. Tarshish was extremely important for that. And you know where they got their tin from? They got their tin from a very, a very mysterious island to the north of them, which we now call Britain. But in that day, it was a wild, savage place that hardly anyone knew about. And so Tarshish was about as far as he could go. So that's, you can imagine what's going on in his heart. What did he have to leave behind? Did he have a family? Did he have parents to take care of? Did he have children? It doesn't tell us, it just says he left. At first glance we might think, how could a prophet think he could leave the presence of God? You ever thought about that? Why would he think that? Now sin does cloud our judgment. We do pretty stupid things when we're under the bondage of sin. We forget very obvious things. Like when we turn the light off, God can still see us. But I think there's much more to it than this. Remember what happened to Balaam when he was supposed to, he was being paid by, was it the Amorite king? I don't remember now, to curse the Israelites. He goes up there and he stands over them and everything that comes out of his mouth is a blessing. That's because someone who is a true prophet of God can only speak what God gives him to speak. Jonah knew that. He was a prophet. He had had a time, there was a time earlier when he proclaimed that Israel's borders would expand and they did expand. but now he's told to do something that's not a popular message to preach. And so Jonah hatches a plan. He knew he couldn't keep from preaching to them if he went, so he hatched a plan. He thought to himself, I'll go so far across the world that God can't use me. He'll have to use somebody else. There is no sadder state of a child of God, especially one that's called to preach, who refuses to go, and not only refuses to go, but flees the presence of the Lord. I think this is a lot more common than we like to think it is, fleeing God's presence. If someone wants to pursue a sin, they remove themselves from the body of Christ. They go off in their own way to do their own thing because the word of God is the light that lights our path, but it also exposes us for the sin that we're committing. And someone who wants to delight in sin doesn't want anything to do with that. So fleeing the presence of God isn't like going out of the world as if God isn't there. It's fleeing the influence of the word on our life and fleeing the influence of godly people around us who might rebuke us and remind us what we've left. He left his communion with the Lord. He was no longer walking with God and he went down, down, down into that ship. He went down to Joppa, down into the ship. Christ is our life. To leave Christ is to embrace death for our soul. Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Colossians 3 says, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. For God's children, falling into sin and fleeing God's presence brings about a deep sadness. We're not made to be apart from God's word. We're made to live on it. When David fell with Bathsheba, An entire year went by before he repented, before Nathan came and pointed his bony finger at him. And during that time, David writes about, he writes about later what he felt like, that his bones have broken. And he says in Psalm 51, let the bones you have broken rejoice. Month after month, no joy in God, no power over sin, only guilt. to a child of God that is absolute misery. Like David, spiritual dryness had drained Jonah of his strength. He couldn't even be awakened in this incredible storm. We're going to read about that in a second, but think about that. I've never been in a ship like that. I've seen them in movies. But you can imagine this wooden ship. He's down in the base of it and it's creaking and groaning. And each wave, the waves are so huge that the sailors themselves recognize it's the hand of God. These are guys that go all across the Mediterranean to the farthest reaches that they could possibly go. And they recognize it was the hand of God. Not even that kind of storm. I can't even imagine his bed was very comfortable. What was he sleeping on? It's not like he brought a select comfort with him, you know. He's on this creaking ship. Nobody can wake him. There was one time when we had a tornado going through White House when we used to live out there, and I tried to wake Maddie up. I could not get her up. That was terrifying. I cannot imagine what these guys were going through, trying to wake him up. Satan can take your salvation from you. can't take your salvation from you, but if he can trap you in sin, he can lull you into spiritual sleep, sleep that is very difficult to awaken from. And it is going to take something radical usually to wake you up. You guys probably, I always talk about Pilgrim's Progress, but there's one part of that story that I'm thinking of is that he's walking along the narrow path and he sees the grass along the side and it looks very comfortable. And he starts to walk through it and it feels good on his feet. And so he keeps walking and he doesn't realize that the narrow path is getting farther and farther away. That's kind of what Joan is doing here. And then he looks up And suddenly there's a giant standing before him, the giant despair, who beats him and puts him in his dungeon. And he doesn't realize what's happening until weeks later he remembers that he has the message in his pocket, it's the gospel. The gospel is the key to getting out of despair, which we'll talk about. I'm sure there's someone today in this room or maybe listening online who has fled the presence of God. You know exactly what I'm talking about. I want to ask you, what have you gained? What have you gained from allowing your sin to overcome you? Are you better off today? Satan means to keep you there. This is exactly where he wants you. Sin has promised you happiness. but what has it actually delivered? Is the momentary pleasure worth the lifetime of misery? But don't think the Lord's just sitting there waiting for you to respond to him. Oh no. Verse four. But the Lord hurled a great wind on 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. Brothers and sisters, if you're not willing to repent, you better buckle up, because it's going to get pretty rough. Remember those car seats that the kids have They would sit in the back seat with their little steering wheel. You ever see those before? That's how I imagine Jonah right now. He thinks he's driving, but he's not driving. God is driving the situation. The Lord himself hurled a storm. The great shepherd of the sheep left the 99 and he went out in that Mediterranean and he went and grabbed Jonah by the scruff of the neck. Actually, he uses shepherd's crook, which is a lot more uncomfortable. For some wandering sheep, spiritual depression is the storm. I struggled with that for years until I realized, and I still struggle with it from time to time, but spiritual depression can easily come upon a Christian when he falls into sin. It's extremely painful, but for others, it requires a major storm. For others, it can be a broken marriage, maybe a wayward child, ruined businesses, ruined health. For all those things, for a child of God, that's a shepherd's crook, yanking us back. But these things are not the end for a Christian. For one who belongs to our great shepherd, God uses these things to bring us to the end of ourselves, causes us to wake up and realize what we're doing. They empty our minds of the things that we take pleasure in. They kick out the crutches from underneath us. I remember when my dad was dying. Now, he wasn't in sin, but it's a good example, so I'm gonna use it. My dad was dying, and my uncle came in the room and told him the score of the Tigers game. And my uncle meant really well. My dad said, I don't care about that anymore. He was close to death. When you are that close to death, you realize what is important. He had no care about that. He was about to meet the Lord. It's like wiping the steam off a mirror when you got out of the shower and you're trying to look at yourself and you can't see it. The Lord throws a trial in your life and suddenly things become very clear to you. And the captain came to him in verse six, what do you mean you sleeper? I can imagine him saying, what is the meaning of this? Arise, call out to your God. Perhaps the God will give a thought to us. Notice he says the God, he's not, he's not quite there yet. He's terrified, but not quite enough. Call, perhaps the God will give a thought to us that we may not perish. God graciously will use the clear vision of others to cut through our sleep and awaken us. You can probably all think of someone in your life that spoke a very hard thing to you when you needed it. The sea captain is about to die and is giving, having no trouble seeing that Jonah has failed in his duty to pray. What a heavy rebuke this is to us as Christians. Brothers and sisters, we have been given a privilege to pray, to call out to God for the plight of the world around us. The world around us is perishing. God has given us a privilege to pray. We must stay awake. Don't get lulled to sleep by the things that so easily entangle us. There's great reward for casting our cares upon him. I ask you a question, this is something I struggle with. Have you ever regretted turning off your phone? Have you ever regretted closing your laptop and going before the Lord in prayer? There's such great eternal reward for doing that. They said to each other in verse seven, come, let us cast lots that we may know whose account this evil has come upon us. Even the world is aware of the divine nature of their predicament. They're innately aware of their sin and guilt as well. They don't just want the storm to be over. They want to know who did this, who caused this. So they cast lots and it fell on Jonah. And they said to him, tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation and where do you come from? Where is your country and of what people are you? And he said to them, I'm a Hebrew and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven who made the sea and dry land. And the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, what is this that you have done? For the men knew he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord because he had told them. Imagine this scene, this creaking ship going up and down in the waves. And these men come down into the hold of the ship. Apparently they're done throwing stuff overboard. And they're wondering, why is this guy asleep down there? And they come down there and they demand to know what is his problem? Where do you come from? What is your country? What people are you? and then they cast lots to figure out, oh, I'm sorry, I got that backwards. So once they cast lots, do you know what casting lots is? It's like rolling dice, okay? I don't recommend this for deciding who should be judged for something, okay? But they did, and God directed it, and consider that for a second. This ship's going up and down. God's controlling the wind, the waves, the rolling of these lots, every single thing is under His divine control. Don't be overwhelmed by anxieties of things that's going on today. God is in absolute control of every single thing, as He was in the casting of these lots. They asked Jonah these simple questions in desperation. In the words they spoke to him, something happened to them that they were not expecting. All he said was, I'm a Hebrew and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven. He made the sea and the dry land. This terrified them. Have you thought about that? One little sentence. This isn't because Jonah was some great preacher. It's because he was telling them the truth. truth that they needed to hear. And they were struck with terror. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. God delivered faith to these men. And the response was terror. And they must have thought to themselves, if God holds his servants accountable like this, what is he going to do to us? We're pagans. We don't even know him. We're gonna have to face this God. He created us. God's word does not return void. Don't be afraid to use it. It accomplishes exactly what God intends. In verse 11, they said to him, what shall we do? that the sea may quiet down for us. 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 this great tempest has come upon you. This reminds me of the jailer that came to Paul, or is it Peter? I think it was Paul, and said, what must I do to be saved? These men were immediately asking, what do we need to do? Jonah has one more card up his sleeve. I don't think he's quite there yet. I think we'll see in chapter two, Jonah's repentance, but here I believe Jonah knows that if he's dead, he can't go to Nineveh and these guys will be spared from the storm because he knows the storm is because of him. So he tells them to throw them overboard, throw them overboard. 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. Do you hear this? These men who suddenly feared God are hesitant to cast Jonah into the deep. They're probably thinking to themselves, if he's running from God, maybe Jonah's solution isn't from the Lord. That could be what they're thinking, but we see later that they're scared. They don't want to do something unjust. They don't want to be held accountable. They suddenly recognize God as their judge. They're beginning to fear God more than the storm itself. This is the heart of true faith. If you fear God more than you fear Antifa or the Chinese communists, that is evidence that you have true faith. God is the judge of the world. The sea became so strong that they couldn't get close to land. At this point, something truly incredible happened. More miraculous than the storm or the great fish who was on his way. Look how completely and instantly they changed. They call out, oh Lord. Do you ever call out to the Lord that way? You probably do when you're by yourself. in the dark in your room. Maybe God wakes you up at night to pray and the passion flows from your heart and you say, oh Lord, that little word, oh, carries such, such meaning. It's a desperate cry. It's humble. It's intensely personal. By his spirit, we cry out, Abba, Father. It is a work of God. They worshiped God by acknowledging him as the Lord. And they say, let us not perish for this man's life. They acknowledge God as their only hope of salvation. And they say, lay not on us innocent blood. They even recognize, think about this, from one sentence, suddenly they realize it's God's right to bring his creatures to justice. Only a child of God can think this way, assuming, and they also assume that God is just, that he would be just in punishing them. They have been completely emptied of their self-righteousness. They humbly approach him. Oh Lord, they say, you have done as it pleased you. Do you know something of this faith? Then rejoice, for your redemption draws nigh. Then they hurled him into the sea, and instantly the storm ceased. Up in Canada, Meredith's dad has a saying he likes to say about the lake in the morning. When we're cutting across the lake, it's completely smooth. He always says, it's like glass. It does look like glass. That's what I imagine. They went from this incredible, terrifying storm to suddenly everything is at peace. And what is the result? Yay! No, that is not the result. They feared the Lord exceedingly. Think about that. The storm was over and now they're even more scared. So they made sacrifices. They sought forgiveness for their sins. The Lord doesn't make us terrified just so that we stay terrified. Like Wampa said this morning, the fear is so that we might come to him and find rest for our souls and find forgiveness. God is the only one who can do that. And then they made vows. Why would they make vows? Have you thought about that? You might think, well, we shouldn't really make vows. These men had an inward desire to walk in holiness. This is definitely an act of the Holy Spirit. Maybe you're like Jonah. Your sin has overcome you and God has hurled a great storm into your life and has overwhelmed you with grief. Maybe you have convinced yourself God doesn't care about you. Maybe you've convinced yourself that God hates you or that you've gone too far. You fear that he won't take you back. But do you know why Jesus tells us to forgive one another 70 times seven times? Because that's what he does. Because that is what our Lord does for us. And don't be afraid, don't fool yourself. The author of the storm hurled it at you so that you will return. He's pursuing you. God has bound himself to this promise. Draw near to me and I will draw near to you. It is not he who left you. It's you who left him. He's never far away. But you say, I can't even do that. I can't even, I'm so weak. I can't even look at him. I can't look to him. I felt that way before. He also says a bruised reed he will not break. A smoldering wick he will not quench. If you have even a tiny little flicker of desire to be near him again and you're in sin, that is evidence of the Spirit's work in you. Come back to him. He's there waiting. Did God sacrifice his only son for your sin? for your eternal life so that you would spend the rest of your life earning God's affection? If your eternal life depended upon one drop of your own righteousness, then Christ died for nothing. Look to your Savior and live. Cast yourself on His mercy. You haven't enough sincerity? Well, welcome to the club. I don't either. Cast that on him too. Lord, I don't have enough sincerity. Sanctify me. Change me. You may say that's great and all, but I'm a pretty good person. What about the baby killers out there? Or the Marxists who are burning down our cities? What about them? I'm a lot better than those people. Yes, you probably are pretty good if you're comparing yourself to that standard. But is that the standard by which God evaluates our guilt? Honestly, who doesn't think they're a good person? Proverbs 21 says, All a man's ways seem right to him, but the Lord weighs the heart. Do you think it would be a good idea if lawmakers suddenly did a survey of all the jails and asked all the criminals what the laws should be? That's what it's like when you think that we can decide what God's law is. We're not the lawmaker. We're the lawbreakers. God has his own standard, which never changes, and it's summed up by Jesus in Matthew 22. He says, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. It's not merely external conformity, like many of us like to think. It's in the heart. This is what God demands. This is the righteousness that he demands of us. This is the first and great commandment. The second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets. How do you stack up to that standard? I don't stack up very well. Lest you have a glimmer of hope that you've somehow accomplished this by some miracle. Romans tells us plainly, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that seeks for God. Trying to be justified by our own goodness or ignoring God's law altogether, which most of us do today, is like these poor sailors trying to row to shore. They're trying to get there. They think they can get there through the storm. That's like thinking that you can jump to the moon. There's no way we're gonna get there. What we face because of our sin without Christ is far more terrifying than a raging storm, and that is what the sailors recognized immediately. Each of us must give an account of himself to God, Romans 4, 14, 12. Can you imagine what it will be like to stand before a judge that knows not only your thoughts, but every intention of your heart? If you think you're pretty good, you're probably not even considering that. The intention of our hearts is also being weighed in His balances. Acts 17.30, the times of ignorance God overlooks. But now he commands all people everywhere to repent because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed. And of this, he has given assurance to all by rising him from the dead. There is a judgment day coming. And you know what proves it? Christ rose from the dead. God's not sitting by passively. He's not offering you salvation. He's commanding that you believe it. He's commanding that we repent and believe in him. If you're listening online or sitting in this room and you've never believed, he's giving you another chance. You have a chance right now to repent and trust in him. Like these sailors, there is one who has been thrown into the face of the storm for you. Romans 5 says, while we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps a good person would dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, even more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. God saves us from his own wrath that we deserve. Christ was thrown into that storm for you. Don't think you can row to shore. You're not going to make it. Trust instead in the one who was thrown into the fury of God's wrath for you. You can't face his wrath and survive. Receive him. He is your life. He is your hope. If you do, the captain of your salvation will bring you safely to shore. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, We thank you and we worship you. Thank you for sending your only son to be our satisfaction for your wrath that we deserve. We are sinners, Lord. We do not deserve your patience and your kindness, but you have lavished it on us through your son. We thank you, Lord. We praise you. We pray that you would help us to use our time wisely, to be obedient to you, and that we would not turn away to our own fleshly desires. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.