Good evening, Trinity Baptist Church members, regular attenders and friends. This is Tim, your pastor, here again for another Bible study and prayer meeting online. I think it's day nine of the church in exile. Hopefully this all will be coming to an end soon, but so long as we're quarantined to our basements and living rooms, we're going to be studying God's word and praying together. And tonight we've come together again to study the Book of Jonah. We're gonna be looking at chapter two tonight, and we're gonna be praying together, and I've got some books as well. People seem to like the book recommendations last week, so I've got a few more of those. If those of you who are participating could just say hi in the comments, that would be really helpful. It helped me last week to know to whom I was speaking, so if you could do that again tonight, I'd appreciate it. And all night long, if you've got questions, comments, prayer requests, anything like that, feel free to put those comment section, and we'll try to respond to those. So let's begin with books. I've got three again for you tonight. All three of these are in the church library. Technically, they're not in the church library right now, if you know what I'm saying, but they are usually in the church library, and you should be able to get all of them easily off of Amazon. And they're really good ones that I'd recommend for your spiritual growth. None of them are really technical. I mean, any growing Christian would benefit from them. Let me just get to these. The first is entitled, Safe, How Can We Be Sure of God's Love? by Frank Retief. An issue that people come to talk to me about a lot is the issue of assurance of salvation. How do I know that I've been born again? And it's interesting how often people kind of know that the gospel is true, but the thing they struggle with is, have I been converted? Has God's Spirit caused me to be born again? This right here is probably my very favorite book on how can we be sure we are Christians. And a lot of it has to do with the author's tone. This is one of those areas where you want to be sensitive, you want to be careful, you don't want to come down heavy-handed and, you know, just kind of beat people over the head. And the guy who writes this, I think he's in his 80s, and he just comes across as a very caring grandfather. Wonderful Bible teaching really challenges you to believe that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Believe that for yourself. So if Assurance of Salvation is a deal for you, an issue for you, which I know it is for a lot of people, you might want to check out Safe by Frank Retief. Again, in our church library, but you can surely get it on Amazon, and it's not real big. You can see it's something you if you're a fast reader, but check it out. Another book I'd recommend to you, The Most Misused Verses in the Bible by Eric Barber Huff. Now the title will tell you right away what it is. A lot of verses that are commonly used in pop culture and even in Christian culture are abused. They're not used properly, they're not used in context. And you've got to think, God does not bless his word when it's twisted out of context to make it say things that it doesn't intend to say. Now, certainly God can work through curious sermons, he can work through verses taken out of context, but that's sort of a rare thing. God usually wants us to interpret his word correctly, and there are so many verses that have been taken out of context, twisted to mean things that they never meant, and this looks at, I think, 25 of them. examines how they ought to be interpreted. So, for example, judge not lest you be judged. That's one of the most famous verses to be twisted out of context. He deals with that one. Where two or three are gathered in my name. What does that really mean? Does that mean where two or three are gathered there's a church? You know, if I run into two or three friends at Walmart, is that a church? He deals with that. If you ask for anything in my name, I will do it. Is that really a blank check that I could pray for anything in the world, and God is guaranteeing to give it to me. So about 20 of these verses that are commonly misused. This book will not only teach you how to properly interpret those verses, but it will also teach you a model of careful Bible reading, so you can apply the principles that you get from this book to other passages with great benefit. But that's another one I heartily recommend, The Most Misused Verses in the Bible by Eric Barberhoff. It really ought to be about three or four times the size, but there's so many verses that are misused in the Bible. Again, just maybe think on that tonight. The Bible twisted out of context. It loses its power, its power to save, its power to transform. So we want to carefully interpret what the Bible says. The last book that I'm recommending to you is one of my favorites. It's called Evidence for the Bible. And again, the title will tell you exactly what it is. It's probably my favorite book on archaeology that supports the Bible. And the cool thing about this one, I'll see if I can open it up for you, it's kind of one of those glossy tabletop books with all sorts of colored pictures and diagrams and, you know, pictures of ancient manuscripts and, you know, scenes from Egypt, that sort of thing. If you find that sort of thing interesting, this is the book to get. Evidence for the Bible, and it goes through everything. Who's the Pharaoh during the Exodus? What coin Jesus used when he said, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. All sorts of stuff like that. Fascinating, and the pictures, I think, make it worth everything. So check out Evidence for the Bible if you're into that sort of thing. Well, that's it as far as books for tonight. I'm gonna try and do this to open up our Wednesday night prayer meetings and Bible studies so long as we're doing this, because I know that some of you like books, and maybe this will motivate people to tune in on time. Let me begin by just giving you a few announcements. First, we are attempting to try an actual worship service for this Sunday. Last Sunday we had more of a prayer time Bible talk, and that's certainly fine, God can use that, but at the same time we also benefit from more intentional times of trying to engage with God through a worship service. Things like prayers, scripture readings, singing of psalms, hymns, that sort of thing. We are working hard to try to pull that together for this Sunday. Now, we got some really interesting sort of limitations. You know, technologically speaking, we also got the limitation that you can't have more than 10 people in the building at one time. So we're working hard to try to pull this together. So please pray for the gathering this Sunday. It'll be me preaching to an empty room with maybe two or three others there running technology and whatnot, so it'll be awkward in that regard. But hopefully, by God's grace, that will be this Sunday. So please pray that God enables that all to come together. Another announcement. We're going to do another Bible Talk tomorrow at 9.30, again here on the Facebook page. We did one of these on Tuesday, and praise God, a lot of people tuned in. I was shocked how many people tuned in. But we'll do it again. We're going to try and do it every Tuesday and Thursday at 9.30. They're going to be brief. I'm going to try and aim for maybe 20-30 minutes. I'm really kind of modeling what devotions could be like. They're not complicated, we're not using any sort of curriculum or something like that, but we're just praying, read the word, what does the word say to us, and then we pray it back to God. So if that's edifying to you, plan to tune in tomorrow right here on the Facebook page, 9.30, and again, that's every Tuesday and Thursday. And with all of this, I'd really encourage you to invite your friends, be liking this stuff on Facebook if you find it edifying, send out the links to others. I have been absolutely blown away by how many people have tuned in. I think last Sunday's Bible talk prayer thing has been watched like 250 times or something like that, which is shocking. You never know who's gonna be watching or who's gonna be interested, but evidently people find this stuff helpful. So if you've got friends, relatives, even people around the world that you think might be edified by what we're doing here, please send out our information. Now, last week, if you remember, we did prayer time first, and then Bible study. Afterwards, the suggestion was made, why don't you do the Bible study first, and then the prayer time second, so that those who are joining us who don't attend our church could just, you know, kind of silently leave after the Bible study, and they wouldn't have to, you know, go through the prayer time. Now that sounds terrible, as if they don't want to pray, but truth be told, a lot of our prayer requests are congregation-specific, you know, praying for this guy, praying for this guy, and if you live in California, you might not have a clue who I'm talking about. So that's what we're gonna do tonight. We're gonna study Jonah chapter 2 for maybe a half an hour or so, and then in the time that we have remaining, we'll pray together, like we normally do on a prayer meeting. So if you got your Bibles, and I hope that you do, open up your Bibles to Jonah chapter two. Jonah chapter two. I'm gonna read Jonah two, and hopefully you got your discussion guide. We're gonna be walking through these questions, and please feel free to respond, ask other questions. Interestingly, I'm getting texts simultaneously as all of this is going on regarding the reading in Jonah, so I'm gonna try and respond to those as well. So I'm doing like five things at once here, which is kind of interesting. But let's read Jonah 2. We'll talk about it and see what God has to say to us. Before we do that, let's pray. Father God Almighty, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the way that you've spoken that we might know you. Please now by your spirit, open our hearts to rightly understand it, to apply it to our lives, to interpret it properly in context. Lord, as always, we pray for your grace that we would be doers of your word, not hearers only. For Jesus we pray, amen. All right, Jonah chapter two. This is the word of God. Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, saying, I called out to the Lord out of my distress, and he answered me. Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice. For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me. All your waves and your billows passed over me. Then I said, I am driven away from your sight. Yet I shall again look upon your holy temple. The waters closed in over me to take my life. The deep surrounded me. Weeds were wrapped around my head at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bar is closed upon me forever. Yet you brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God. When my life was fainting away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you into your holy temple. Those who pay attention to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love. But I, with the voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord. And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land." That's the Word of God. Now let me see if I can find my comment section here. I appear to have lost it. I really want to be responding to comments so far. So let me see if I can find it real quick. I apologize for kind of messing things up on you. If I can't find it, I'll just carry on. And if you've got comments, I guess just yell them really, really loud. And that way I can hear them and respond to them. This is one of my challenges. I'm not the most technologically astute man on the planet, so if something goes awry, I don't really know how to fix it, but I'll try my best. Here we go. Look at Jonah. Now, you'll remember, if you were with us last week, that Jonah is a prophet sent by God to the people of whom? The people of Assyria. The capital of Assyria is Nineveh. Nineveh was one of the biggest cities in the ancient world. Huge, huge, huge, kind of like New York City is today. They were pagans, they were very, very wicked. They would torture their enemies and do all sorts of unspeakable things. They worshiped all sorts of false gods, idols, Baal, Dagon, that sort of thing. And these are the people that God sends Jonah to, to preach. And again, that reminds you of God's love for wicked people, Gentile people like you and me. Now Jonah doesn't want to go. He flees from Nineveh and instead heads toward Tarshish, the exact opposite direction. God says, you're not running from me, I'm coming after you, sends this terrible storm, rocks the boat all over the place. The sailors, they try to get back to land, they can't get back to land. Instead, Jonah says, you gotta throw me overboard, I'm the reason for this storm. They throw him overboard, and all of a sudden, the water is as clear and calm and solid as glass. It's fascinating. And if you look at the very last verse of chapter one, the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. That fish, that was really not punishment for Jonah. You think about it, that was his salvation. Had Jonah been tossed around in a tempest in the Mediterranean Sea, he would have died. So this fish was really sort of like a cocoon of salvation that God used to save Jonah and to spare his life. Now the prayer we have in chapter two here might surprise you because so much of it doesn't sound like the Jonah we know from chapter one. Just based on Jonah chapter one, Jonah seems like this scoundrel, like this nasty guy. But chapter two, he seems to really evidence some deep spirituality, deep knowledge of God, love for God. We'll get to why that is a little bit later on. But just maybe keep that in mind. People aren't always what we assume they are. Just because we catch them on one day doesn't necessarily mean they have no love for God, no knowledge of God. Everybody has a bad day from time to time. But anyway, let's start walking through this prayer. And the first thing I want you to think about are the truths about God that Jonah assumes here. You know, what does Jonah know about God, assume about the character of our God here in this prayer? Well, first thing that you notice, he's continually calling God the Lord. Remember, I know we've talked about this before. L, capital O, capital R, capital E, that's the covenant name of God, Jehovah. This is Jonah's God. He's not just crying out to the big man upstairs. No, he knows the true God, the God of the covenant, the God of the Old Testament, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That's my God. What's more, he clearly sees that this God is sovereign over the natural order. He's the one that caused the waves to rise up. He's the one that caused the seaweed to tangle around his legs. I'm trying to catch some of the verbs here, but very clearly he sees the Lord as the one behind all of this. Look at verse 3. You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the floods surrounded me. All your waves and your billows passed over me. You know, Jonah does not have this sort of deistic view of God, where God's just sitting up in heaven and creation is taking place and God's not involved at all. No, Jonah sees God as actively, meticulously involved in everything. If it rains, it rains because God is causing it to rain. If it's sunny, it's because God is causing it to be sunny. If the wind is blowing, God is behind it all. And truly, that is the God of the Bible, the God who is really God. Don't imagine God as sort of this grandfather who's just chilling out up in the sky, and the universe is just kind of going on as it pleases. No, God is actively, continually, always involved in the universe, causing things to happen, bringing things to pass. The reason why it was sunny and warm today, God sovereignly planned for it to be sunny and warm today. If it rains tomorrow, like they predict, the reason for that is because God is the one who's gonna cause it to be rainy tomorrow. This is the way in which God interacts with creation, and we very clearly see that here with Jonah. What are some other truths about God that we see here? And I wish I hadn't lost my comment section. I'm not gonna try and waste too much time trying to find it. But anyway, what other truths about God do we have here? Clearly this God is a God who tolerates no rivals. Because if you look down to verse eight, those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love. And again, this is the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible, He's not comfortable being one of many. He is God and God alone. And if you don't worship him, you don't worship God. If you don't come to God the proper way, you don't come to God at all. Now, if you trace this theme throughout the rest of the Bible, this is what leads us to Jesus' statement when he says, if you don't come to me, you can't come to the Father. I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father but by me. Now, to us, we find that kind of offensive. I mean, you'd think that's strict. Shouldn't we have 10 ways to come to God? Well, here's the truth. If God gave us 10 ways to come to God, we'd want 11. If God gave us 100 ways to come to God, we'd want 101. Really, it's not that God is so strict. It's that we want to do things our own way, and we want to stand over God and tell God how to do things. So while, yes, God says, you worship me, you worship me alone, no idols, no competitors, it's only me and you come through Jesus. While on the one hand that really does feel strict in our flesh, the only reason why that feels strict is because we're sinful and we wanna be God and we wanna be the ones in charge. Can you see other things that this passage teaches us about God, that Jonah assumes about the character of God here? Look at verse nine, salvation belongs to the Lord. That's an amazing statement. I remember Spurgeon preached sermons on that little statement. Now he would go off in these long sort of meditations on the gospel, which are certainly wonderful, but in context the salvation Jonah is talking about here is primarily his rescue from death by means of God sending that fish. So clearly this song that Jonah composes in praise to God is filled with rich theology. Jehovah is the one and true God. He doesn't tolerate rivals. He's sovereign over all things. He's worthy of worship. Now, somebody texted in the question earlier today to me, was this a prayer of real repentance? You know, sometimes people can use flowery religious language and maybe even technically, theologically accurate language, and yet for that not to be motivated by true repentance, you know, just like the Pharisees, they'd often say true things about the character of God. How do we know that that's not the sort of thing that's going on here with Jonah? Is this just a prayer of hypocrisy? Well, a couple of thoughts on that. First, I highly doubt that the Bible would record this for us if this was just a hypocritical vain prayer. You know, this feels more like a psalm than it does like one of the prayers of the Pharisees. So just thinking about why the Bible contains what it contains, it would be very, very odd for this to be an insincere, false prayer for the Bible to include it. The other thought I think that sort of betrays the way in which we in the flesh can kind of waver so easily. You know, we can have our good days where we love God and sing God's praises and our hearts are fixed on the cross, and then we can have bad days where we're discouraged and frustrated and, you know, discouraging others and depressed. That's just who we are, this side of Adam's sin, and I think that's more of what's going on here. Chapter 1, yes. Jonah's in rebellion. Chapter 2, God has brought him to repentance, and he sincerely praises God for bringing him to repentance. But then if you keep going on in the story, when we get to chapter 4, Jonah's pretty grumpy again, and he's complaining again. And I think that really is just indicative of what it means that, you know, we are people who have the flesh and the spirit. The flesh is always warring against the spirit. And, you know, some days the flesh gets the upper hand, some days the spirit gets the upper hand. And much of the Christian life is to increasingly bring the flesh into subjection to the spirit, to kind of beat it down and let the spirit reign. Now, let's keep moving on here. Other questions for us to discuss. I want to talk about turning from idols. Where did that go? Look at verse 8 again. Now, something you need to keep in mind is that Conversion, becoming a Christian, includes turning from your idols. A lot of people don't get this. A lot of people think becoming a Christian is just like signing a card or nodding my assent to the Billy Graham prayer at the end of the rally or something like that. This kind of, yes, I agree. Realize in the Bible it's much more than that. Becoming a Christian involves turning from your idols, turning from those other sources that you thought were the source of your significance, the source of your identity. You're turning from those to the Lord and making the Lord your one and only God. To illustrate this, if you've got your Bibles there, turn over to 1 Thessalonians 1. I think this is another beautiful picture of conversion, but in 1 Thessalonians 1, look at verses 9 and 10. 1 Thessalonians 1, 9, and 10. Paul writes this. For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come. Now you see here the Thessalonians, who, like the Ninevites, were pagans, worshiping false gods, They hear the truth of God in the gospel, and they turn from their idols to embrace the true and living God, and realize that is part of what it means to become a Christian. Becoming a Christian, again, is not just reciting this prayer that your parents have you repeat after them, and it's not just signing a card, I commit my life to Jesus. You're turning from your idols and embracing, personally embracing Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Now, what does that mean? Don't hear me wrong. That does not mean that you won't struggle with sin. You'll struggle with sin every day of your life. I struggle with sin every day of my life. You'll be tempted, you'll do dumb things, you'll do sinful things, hopefully increasingly so as you mature, but every single day you'll sin a lot, sadly. What then does it mean to turn from idols? Well, it's this massive sort of attitudinal shift where I used to look at idols as wonderful, glorious, the reason for my existence, what life was all about, and I'm turning from all of those to embrace the true and living God, and specifically his son, Jesus. You know, you hear this often in old songs. They might sing, you know, I used to think life was about wine, women, and song, but I turned from that and embraced Jesus. Let's imagine that's taken place. I used to think life was all wine, women, and song. Does that mean after you've become a Christian, you won't be tempted by those things? Of course not. You know, from time to time you might be tempted, from time to time you might sin, but the entire sort of posture of your heart has changed so that you no longer seek these things as the source of your identity. You no longer see them as the reason for your existence. You've turned from all of that. So turning from idols, yes, it includes turning from things like worshiping little statues that, living for money, living for sex, living for, you know, whatever temporal pleasure is, you turn from that as the source of your identity, and you embrace God and His Son Jesus. That's what it means to turn from idols. Let me see, what other comments should we make here? I love the Lord's interaction with the fish, and like I mentioned last week, I think the fish is not, almost certainly not a whale. You know, this is taking place in the Mediterranean Sea, As far as we know, there aren't whales swimming around the Mediterranean Sea. And what's more, the word there, it just means great sea creature. It doesn't mean, you know, like killer whale or something like that. So certainly, it's probably a great big fish. You know, I like to picture some sort of gigantic catfish or the like. But look at what God does, verse 17. The Lord appointed the great fish to swallow Jonah. Now just ponder how fascinating that is. What did the Lord do to get the fish to swallow Jonah? I mean, there must have been some sort of almost like mind control or something like that, you know, for the fish to be in the right place at the right time to see Jonah and to see Jonah as sort of appetizing, but to not actually chew on him with his teeth. I know this is getting a little bit gross, but you know what I'm trying to say? The degree of God's sovereign control over this fish is fascinating for him to swallow Jonah to save him. But then if you go down to verse 10, The Lord spoke to the fish. Now, I find that fascinating because he didn't need to speak. He could have just, again, used that sort of sovereign mind control and caused the fish to have a stomachache, but instead he says, fish, puke Jonah out, and the fish obeys. And again, it's kind of irony, but whereas when Jonah hears God's command, go to Nineveh, he disobeys, the fish, when he hears God's command, he obeys. Again, it's that poetic irony that we see All throughout this book, the Ninevites are more compassionate than Jonah is. The pagans are more, the sailors in chapter one are more compassionate than Jonah is. The fish is more obedient than Jonah is. Really, really quite fascinating. Now, sometimes people ask the question, is Jonah a believer? I mean, how could a true believer do these sorts of things? You know, run from God, flagrantly disobey God, and then again, when we get to chapter four, we'll talk about this more and more in chapter four, But in chapter four, he's really quite displeased that God had mercy on the Ninevites. And you know, how could a true Christian be like that? Well, I think this again shows you the way in which true Christians have that flesh and spirit battle going on. And true Christians can do some really evil, awful, rotten things. It's not okay, I'm not excusing it, it's bad for the person, it's bad for their family, it's bad for society, it's bad for everybody. But truly converted people can do some really nasty things. But this reminds us of the way that we are saved by grace through faith, not by our good works. You know, you think about somebody like Jonah. If we were saved by good works, Jonah makes no sense at all, because he doesn't do any good works in here at all. Runs from God, is forced to go to Nineveh, preaches kind of half-heartedly, God converts the Ninevites, and then he's really ticked off. I mean, that doesn't sound like Mother Teresa or something like that. grace through faith alone. And let me tell you, that's the way in which anybody who's ever been saved has been saved. Only by grace through faith alone. You see, we are awful people. And just be honest with yourself. I mean, I think you know deep down that we're not okay. You know, you see these shirts sometimes and they say, you know, I'm okay. It's not the case. We know we're not okay. We know we've done sinful things, shameful things. We've broken God's laws. We've defiled our consciences. We've sinned against our neighbors, treated them terribly. We know we're not okay. And what's even scarier, we're not okay with God. God, our creator, God, the sovereign God that we see in this chapter and in this book, he doesn't take sin lightly. He hates sin. He promises to punish sin. A judgment day is coming, and deep down in our souls, we know that, even if we can't really articulate it. We know that we're gonna stand before God and give an account for our lives. And that is terrifying. That is scary. But here's the good news. God loved sinners. And what did he do? He sent his son, the eternal Lord Jesus. Jesus, who is God of very God, he comes down, he's born as a baby to the Virgin Mary. He lives a perfect, sinless life, obeying God in every conceivable way. He teaches, he performs miracles, he loves the poor, he confronts the Pharisees and the Sadducees. But then most importantly, Jesus, the Son of God, dies on the cross. And you gotta get this, he's dying bearing the judgment of our sins. You know, you could imagine kind of two records. You got my record of sin, sin, sin, sin, sin. Jesus' perfect life of righteousness. Here's what happens. On the cross, my record of sin, sin, sin, sin, sin is put on Jesus and he suffers for me in my place. And then here's what happens when I trust in him. His record of perfect obedience is transferred to me. So now when God looks at me, he doesn't see me with all my sin, sin, sin, sin, sin. He sees Jesus' record credited to my account. And that's how he can save and forgive wicked people. Because we're saved not by our good works, but by trusting Jesus alone. That's how Jonah was saved. That's how everybody in the Bible is saved. And that's how I have been saved. Only by grace through faith in what Jesus has done. If all of this is brand new to you, please seek out some answers. You can put questions in the comments, and I'll try and find them some other time and respond to them. If you want to email me or text me, but please make sure your soul is right with God. Otherwise, you will be terrified in this life, and it'll be even worse for you in the life to come. Now think about how we might pray this passage back to God. Again, unfortunately, I can't see the comments. I don't know where they went. Can you think of ways that we would pray this passage back to God? I mean, a few things that come to my mind. First, help us to see His sovereignty over all of creation. Because of our flesh, we have a tendency to shrink God. Just always keep this in mind. We have a tendency to shrink God, make Him smaller than He is, less glorious than He is, control less than He actually does. So pray that God opens our eyes, that we would see Him as sovereign as He truly is. What's more, pray that we fight against the flesh. You know, again, we've talked a good bit tonight about that flesh-spirit battle and the way that they go back and forth. Pray that God helps us put the flesh to death and increasingly be filled by the spirit. If you want to read Galatians 6, that's sort of a nice meditation on that theme. Can you think of other ways to pray this back to God? One last thing. Jonah prays this beautiful prayer of praise based on his deliverance from drowning. If that's the case, how much more ought we to sing similar songs of praise for the salvation God has brought to us through Jesus? You know, being saved from drowning is one thing. And I, you know, I don't want to drown. Nobody wants to drown. They say it's one of the most terrifying ways to die. But if that is if that motivates you to sing God's praises, how much more ought rescue from hell, forgiveness of sins, the indwelling Holy Spirit, how much more ought that move us to sing God's praises? Again, pray that God works in our hearts that we would praise Him as He's worthy. Well, that's about it that I've got for Jonah tonight. Again, I really apologize for this, for losing the comment section, but let me pray this back to God, and then I'll move on to our prayer time. Let's pray. God in heaven, thank you so much for Jonah. Thank you for how you had mercy on him, both temporally in saving him from drowning and spiritually in forgiving him of his sins. Lord, we do pray that you would open our eyes to see you as increasingly sovereign over all of life, over the weather, over sickness, over disease, over healing, over hearts and minds and everything. Please, Lord, help us to see you as on your throne, you ruling and reigning, you working all things together for good and help us to fight Lord, help us also to increasingly fight against the flesh, to crucify the flesh, to fight against those desires that would drag us into increasing sin. And please fill us by your spirit and help us to walk in the spirit. And also, Lord, increasingly move us to praise your name. Lord, if Jonah could praise you like this for being saved by a fish, how much more ought we to praise you for being saved by Jesus? So please fill our hearts with wonder, love, and praise to give you the worship that you're worthy of. Through Christ we pray, amen. Now, let me take just a second here to wet my whistle. And I'm gonna try again to see if I can find the comments section wherever in the world that went. Yeah, I'm sorry, but. Anyway, prayer requests. A few things that I'd encourage you to be praying for. You'll remember last week, we prayed for Mark, who is heading back to Australia. Mark is Patty's son, who had been visiting Patty for a couple of weeks. Well, he did fly back today, and as far as I know, he's still in the air. I think he left around three o'clock this afternoon. And if you understand flights to Australia, that's a good, you know, 15, 20 hour trip. So please pray for protection for Mark, Interestingly, he's gonna be in quarantine for two weeks when he gets back to Australia. So you might pray for him. Also pray for his soul. He doesn't know the Lord Jesus, so pray that God would use something that he sees or hears or reads to bring him to faith in Christ. Drew and Amber have requested prayer for their jobs. Evidently, their jobs have both become quite stressful in recent days with all that's going on with coronavirus, so please keep them in prayer. You could probably pray that for many, many people whose jobs have changed, they've become more stressful, they're different, maybe they're working at home, so pray for everybody in that regard, but especially for Drew and Amber who requested prayer. Tommy, as far as I know, is still in hospice, so pray for him, God's mercy on him. Definitely keep our nation in prayer. I mean, this is the weirdest time of my entire life, so pray that God has mercy on our nation, that he blesses our leaders with wisdom, blesses that coronavirus task force with wisdom. Pray economically, as that's become the big conversation for this week, you know, how is this, how are we going to fare economically? So definitely keep that in prayer. Also pray against this coronavirus. I mean, pray that fewer and fewer people catch it. Fewer and fewer people die. Pray that they get the respirators and beds that they need. Pray for protection for healthcare workers and nurses. We've got several of those in our congregation, so pray that God keeps them safe. But so much to pray for. I hope you're praying really throughout the day for these types of things. If you've got other prayer requests, put those in the comments, and I think I figured it out that even if I can't see the comments, you guys can. So maybe put anything in the comment section, You can grab those and pray for them for one another. Bennett from Ghana has requested we pray for his nation. Today was a day of prayer in Ghana for the nation. Their whole nation went on lockdown, similar to what we've seen in other countries. And interestingly, Ghana is a predominantly Christian nation. Now by that, they're not necessarily all like converted evangelical Christians, but they're largely Christians. So they as a nation are having a day of prayer. So definitely pray for Ghana and their National Day of Prayer and Fasting that Bennett sent to me. I encourage you to pray for that as well. Now, somebody texted me, and I thought this was thoughtful, but they said, how can we pray for our pastor right now? And I really appreciate you asking that. But a couple of things that you could pray for me. First, this whole experience has challenged me to think in ways that I've never thought before. I mean, I've really had to work outside of the box through this whole ordeal. I feel like I'm having to learn skills and abilities that I never toyed with. I find it kind of interesting that for years I kind of looked at Facebook with a skeptical eye, you know, can anything good come out of Facebook sort of thing. Now all of a sudden I'm on it every single day to communicate with my flock. So I find that a little bit Ironic, but you know, that's what's happened. So I mean, in the last nine or 10 days, I've had to learn all sorts of things and do all sorts of things that I've never done before. And what I've found is that that is quite mentally tiring. You know, my mind's just kind of spinning. How can we do this? How can we get that done? Is there a way to make this possible? So you might pray that God enables my brain and my mind to just slow down and get some good rest in the evening. So I'm not just always spinning and thinking constantly, and how can we make this happen? That's one thing that you can pray for. Also pray for Sunday service, that everything comes together. I'd really like to be able to do a more kind of typical worship service, but it's gonna be challenging. So you might pray for God's mercy that that comes together well. Well, that's it as far as prayer requests tonight. Let me lead us to God in prayer. God, our Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for our church family. Thank you for the way that you have brought us together by the gospel and given us a kind of love for one another. We pray that that would continue. We pray that you'd add to our numbers and that you bring us more families, more individuals. Most importantly, allow us to see people converted through our ministry. And we do pray that our church would grow. God, we bring before you Mark as he's flying back to Australia right now, keep him safe and allow him to get back without any problems at all. We do pray that his two week quarantine would not be too miserable. that you'd work in his heart and save him, convict him of sins and turn him from his idols to embrace the true and living God. And God, we do pray that you comfort Patty as she deals with saying goodbye to her son. God, we pray for Drew and Amber and for all those who are dealing with extra stress in their jobs right now. We pray that you would give them grace to persevere, help them to think and respond biblically. We do pray that this whole corona thing would come to an end very, very soon and that life could return to normal. We pray for your mercy on our nation right now. Lord, bless our leaders with wisdom. Bless them with courage. We do pray that the supplies that are needed would get to where they're needed soon. We pray, Lord, that fewer and fewer people would catch this coronavirus, that fewer and fewer people would die. We pray that they discover vaccines and other treatments that would be effective. And we do pray again, please, by your grace, bring this pandemic to an end very soon. Father, we pray for Tommy, who's, as far as I know, still in hospice. We pray your mercy on him, that he wouldn't suffer greatly. And we also pray that you'd work in his heart, that he would turn to Jesus and look to him if he's not. Father, for me, please give me the grace that I need to endure and to persevere. I pray that you'd help me to just kind of slow my mind down in the evenings and relax and to get some good rest. We do pray that you'd help us to pull everything together for Sunday, for a fruitful, edifying worship service together. And we pray, Lord, that that would go well and that you'd use that to proclaim your glory all around the world, especially in our community. Now, Lord, go with us this evening. Guard us from sin, help us to love those with whom we interact. Through Jesus we pray, amen. I'm about to let you go, but one more thing. We're gonna try a Sunday school for this Sunday. Now, it's gonna be interesting. It's gonna be one of those Zoom calls where everybody's gonna get to participate. If you could imagine Facebook Live, but instead of one guy that you're looking at, maybe 10 little pictures across the screen, kind of like, you know, remember the Brady Bunch when they had all the little pictures across the screen? It's kind of like that. But if you'd like to participate in Sunday School, please email or text me your information. We'll get you what information you need to participate, but I think it's going to be really fun. We're going to watch the same video together. It's going to be episode one of R.C. Sproul's The Holiness of God series, and then we're going to discuss it together for about a half an hour at 10 o'clock. Again, brand new. I've never done a Zoom call in my life, but all of a sudden we're getting this working. But if that's of interest, let me know and we'll get you the information that you need. Well, that's it for tonight. I know it's a little bit shorter, but that's okay. Sometimes shorter is better. Hope you all have a good night. I am praying for you. Please pray for me. Bye-bye.