Jonah chapter one. Let's read from verse 10. And then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, why have you done this? For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord because he had told them. And they said to him, what shall we do to you that the sea may be calm for us? For the sea was growing more tempestuous. And he said to them, pick me up, throw me into the sea. then the sea will become calm for you, for I know that this great tempest is because of me." Nevertheless, the men rode hard to return to land, but they could not, for the sea continued to grow more tempestuous against them. Therefore they cried out to the Lord and said, we pray, O Lord, please do not let us perish for this man's life and do not charge us with innocent blood for you, O Lord, have done as it's pleased you. So they picked up Jonah and threw him into the sea and the sea ceased from its raging. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly and offered a sacrifice to the Lord and took vows. Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Heavenly Father, as we look back at the Old Testament prophets and the lessons they have for us, Lord, we thank you that we can do that. That this is true history. This is not history that man has written and rewritten and rewritten and rediscovered and changed and altered all the time. This is your history. These are things that have happened to your people over time that have been kept in your inspired word for us to read and to learn from. And Lord, that is truly a blessing. And it's truly exciting to be able to do this. And Jonah is an exciting character. And the story is truly interesting. and has great lessons for us. And so Lord, as we consider the lessons of this evening, we pray that your Holy Spirit as always will be involved in teaching us what truth there is in this word and applying it to our lives. And Lord, we pray that we will focus at this time and that Lord, we will come away better equipped to face tomorrow and everything that comes with it. And that Lord, we will become a better Christian to your glory. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Why have you done this? Or as it can be translated, what have you done? What have you done Jonah? That's what sailors were saying to him. God is God and man is man. Even the sailors who worshiped anything and everything that was called a God understood this. How can you turn against God and run? How can you possibly disobey a God? Especially in such an open and defiant way as Jonah was doing. It was shocking to them. It was beyond belief for these sailors. And it should be the same for any and all Christians. What have you done Jonah? So just as a reminder, Jonah was a prophet of God. This doesn't make him a special man. It rather, it just makes him a man with a special or an important task. To be a prophet for God, to talk on God's behalf, is what the prophet was supposed to do. And God spoke to him at the beginning of this book. How he did so, we're not too sure, either directly or through another prophet. It doesn't really matter. However, God chose to communicate his words to Jonah is not so important. But Jonah heard the message very clearly from God. And he chose to turn and run. He chose to disobey the will of God. He didn't want God's will to be done. He didn't like what God was saying. He had no intention to obey God in this. He knew what God wanted. He didn't want what God wanted. He wanted what he wanted. And he turned and he ran. He had no compassion for the people of Assyria. And some might say, yes, as you read history and you see how they treated folks around them, especially how they treated their God's own people. Some might say, well, I agree with him. There should be no compassion for these people. They were truly wicked and evil people who did some very awful things, but he wanted nothing good to come to them. And God wanted Jonah, as he's ordained prophet, to go to the people of Nineveh, Nineveh being the capital of Assyria, and warn them against their sins against God. But instead of obeying the will of God, Jonah chose to rather run from the will of God. And he left on a ship for the town of Tarshish, which was in the opposite direction of where he should have been going. But God is not mocked. God is not a man that we can contend with. God is not at the same level as us so that we can affect his plans or make him change his will. So God used what he created the sea to capture the attention of something else that he created. That is the man Jonah. And this is where we find ourselves tonight. The storm is breaking all around the ship. The seasoned sailors are in great fear for their lives. They understood that this was no ordinary storm. And Jonah had been awakened by the captain and was being questioned about what was going on. And the sailors had cost lots to find out who the guilty party was. They recognized that there was something extraordinary going on here. And that the guards In their eyes, there was multiple gods, were unhappy with somebody, and they needed to find out who it was. And the lot had fell on Jonah. And Jonah finally decides to speak out, to say something. After falling asleep during the storm, and at the prompting of their questions, he finally tells them of his foolishness. And they cannot believe what he has done. And the title of this message is just that, what have you done Jonah? Now, even though the sailors did not know the true God at this point, they knew the concept of God. So does all mankind. Romans three, sorry, Romans one tells it makes us very aware of that. For the wrath of God in verse 18 is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. The sailors knew that there was something called God. Of course, they worship the wrong God, but they knew. They called him a different name maybe. They didn't have faith in him, but they recognized who God is in relationship to mankind. They understood that God is here and man is here. They recognized that man must obey God and do as God wants. They recognized that. They didn't know exactly how this was to happen. They didn't know how to appease this God. No one had really told them. But they recognize the need to do this. Later in the passage, it seems that the sailors, their understanding of God had grown to the point where they had some faith in him. Possibly it implies in verse 16, when it says that the men feared the Lord exceedingly and offered a sacrifice to the Lord and took vows. As it would seem to be very difficult for them to have done this on a ship that they'd already thrown all the cargo overboard. It's quite reasonable to believe that this occurred when the sailors got off on land. So their life was no longer being threatened. And it is here that they took what they understood from Jonah. They understood from the revelation of God themselves as they went through the storm. They recognized that the God of Israel, Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, was a mighty God. And they sacrificed to him and made vows to him. So God used this occasion to teach the sailors something that Jonah already knew that there's only one God. And he does as he pleases. And this brings us to our first point this evening, and that's the sovereignty of God. Now, of course, the subject is big. You can preach on this for many sermons. But the sovereignty of God is so evident in the story of Jonah. And there's no simpler yet effective definition of God's sovereignty than what we have in Psalm 115 verse three, where the Psalmist writes, he says, but our God is in heaven. He does whatever he pleases. He does whatever he pleases. And this sounds very similar to something that we've already read in this passage this evening. And that was in verse 14, where the sailors were crying out to the Lord. And they said, we pray, O Lord, please do not let us perish for this man's life and do not charge us with innocent blood for you, O Lord have done, have done as it pleased you. They recognized that this God, this mighty God who was doing all of this around them, was doing as he pleased. So they recognized the sovereignty of God. Our God does whatever he pleases. Now, men may say the same. They may say, well, I do as I please. And it's a sign of complete arrogance when they do that, I believe. But can the same be said of God? Is he arrogant? We'll answer that question just now. To do whatever you please is the goal of all mankind. Is that not true? This is what happened at the fall. It's the original sin. And this is what hinders our relationship with God each and every day. We want to do as we please. Romans 3 23, a verses that we know very well says for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But have you ever considered that this verse speaks of everything or everyone doing as they want to do And thus sinning against the only one who can do as he wants to do. Sin is acting like God. Sin is saying, well, I'm sovereign. I will make my own decisions. I will do as I please. That's really what it is. And so every time we sin, that's what we're doing. We're making ourselves God. We're saying, I will do as I please. And I will ignore the one who can do as he pleases. And as I've already mentioned, that's exactly what the original sin was. In Genesis chapter 3 verse 1 and 6, when we read that the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, has God indeed said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, you may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree, which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, you shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die. Then the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die for God knows in that day you eat of it. Your eyes will be opened and you will be like God. You'll become a God. You will do as you please. You can do whatever you want. It is your will that will be done and no one else's. Mankind's greatest desire is to be like God and do as they want to do. And we can see that all around the world that we live in. Society wants to do as they want to do and who has the right to tell them otherwise They want to be sovereign in their own world And their own life This is the desire of the devil is not that's what caused him to To to fall he wants to be as God He wants to be above God. He wants to be the one who called the shots. He wanted to do as he pleased and And so he is so, so happy when man follows his evil example. Yet there's only one that can be sovereign and that's our Lord. Job understood this in 40 chapter 42 verse two. He wrote, or he said, rather, I know that you can do everything as he speaks to the Lord and that no purpose of yours can be withheld from you. God has the right to do as he pleases because he can do everything. It's not only him wanting to do everything, he can do everything. He can do as he pleases when he wants to. He's all-powerful. In fact, he's the only one that has the perfect characteristics to allow him to be sovereign. He's all-powerful. He's all-knowing. He's all-loving. He's all-righteous. He's all-holy, all-good, all-just. He's ever-present. He's never-changing. All his characteristics align to the fact that he's sovereign. He can do as he pleases when he wants to. He's perfect in every way and thus he's allowed to do as he pleases and he's able to do as he pleases. 1 Chronicles 16 verse 26 says, For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the Lord made the heavens. You know, in our desire to do as we please, we want to worship who we please. We want to idolize who and what we please. And of course, self is our greatest idol. Self is our greatest God. We want to be God. We desire to worship ourselves and we do that. It's a constant ongoing battle every day. We want to worship ourselves. We want the best for ourselves. We're lazy. We want to do as we please. We want all the money in the world. We don't want to work for it. We want all the pleasantries in the world, and we don't want to have to do anything for them. We want to make all our own decisions, and so on, and so on, and so on. I don't need to tell you what you do every day, because every day you battle with those same problems as I do. Some small, some big, some more often, some less. It doesn't matter, but they're all really in the same ballpark. We want to idolize ourselves. We want to be God. But the Lord made the heavens. This again refers to the fact that God is sovereign. He's made everything, including, as Jonah told the sailors, He made the sea and the dry land. He not only made the seas and the dry lands, He does whatever He pleases with the seas and the dry lands. And we see that so clearly in this short book. Psalm 135 verse six says, whatever the Lord pleases, he does in heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all the deep places. And the sailors on board the ship heading towards Tarshish recognized this as evidence that Jonah's God was sovereign and they feared him greatly. But we recognize the same happened years later with the disciples of Jesus. I don't need to remind you but it's interesting to go back and have a look in Mark chapter 4 verse 35. The disciples just getting to know who this Jesus was and on the same day the scripture say that when evening had come he said to them let us cross over to the other side. Now when they had left the multitude they took him along in the boat as he was the other little boats were also with him and a great windstorm arose and the waves beat into the boat so that it was already filling but he was in the stern asleep on a pillow and they woke him and said to him teacher do you not care that we're perishing then he arose and he rebuked the wind and said to the sea peace be still and the wind ceased and there was a great calm And he turned to his disciples and said to them, why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith? What was their reaction in verse 41? And they feared exceedingly and said to one another, who can this be that even the wind and the sea obey him? Who can this be? This was not normal. This was God. he is sovereign. He does what he pleases when he pleases because he can control everything. Now the fact that God is sovereign should excite us because he's so loving and he's good. Our God cares for us but it should also bring fear to us because it highlights the great difference between God and man. between God and us. It highlights how powerful and great God is compared to our feebleness and our almost complete insignificance when we consider who God is. When we read what Paul says to the Ephesians, we understand more of his sovereignty. When he says in chapter one, verse 11, it says in him also, we have obtained an inheritance being predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things. according to the counsel of His will. He does as He pleases. He does not only do as He pleases in creation and in His existence, but He also makes sure that His will is worked out in the life of mankind, ultimately, and especially in the life of Christians. His sovereignty is worked out in our life, and that will excite some, and it will scare others. As Christians, we should always remember His sovereignty. And this should keep us from making such silly mistakes in our lives. It should keep us on the right path. There's only God, one God, and He is sovereign. 1 Corinthians 8 verse 6 says, Yet for us there is one God, the Father of whom are all things, and we owe and we for Him, and one Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things and through whom we live. We must live for this one sovereign God and not for self. We must obey him and do as he pleases and not try and do as we please as Jonah tried to do. You know, when faced with the sovereignty of God, we are blind if we do not come to the recognition. We don't come to realize the fact that he commands and all else and all others must obey. He does what he pleases, but always for a righteous and a good purpose. Now we are truly arrogant when we believe we can act sovereignly, that we can be as God. We are complete fools if we ever state that he is arrogant in his sovereignty, as some and many have done throughout history. Mankind has called God arrogant because of his sovereignty because he is God is the only one able to be sovereign and he's Sovereignty is evident throughout the story of Jonah God made sure that his ship was waiting for Jonah down at the harbor God sent the storm and he controlled the storm God made sure the lot fell on Jonah God prepared a fish and And we will see so many more examples of how God simply just controlled everything throughout this story of Jonah and the Ninevites. But my second point is the running man or the running of man. God's sovereignty means that he will achieve his goal. His will, his plans, all these will ultimately happen as God wants them to. That's because he's God. Things will ultimately result as God planned them to. So why run from his will? Jonah ran when he heard what God's plan was for Nineveh. He wanted nothing to do with it. But God didn't only have a plan for Nineveh. He also had a plan for Jonah. And Jonah thought he could outrun that. It was foolish. Enough to try and run from God He was the prophet of God or he was a prophet of God. He wasn't that there wasn't anyone but he was a prophet of God Now as I said earlier didn't guarantee he was a great theologian Didn't understand it didn't didn't mean that he was completely perfect in understanding of whose God was in his character Including his sovereignty, but he did understand God's sovereignty and it's from his own lips as we will see You know, when God was eventually merciful to the people of Nineveh, Jonah got upset. We know this. If you've read the story of Jonah, I'm sure you have. In Jonah 4 verse 1, after he's been to Nineveh and after they have Repented and God has been merciful to them. It displeased Jonah exceedingly and he became angry So he prayed to the Lord and said ah Lord was not this what I said when I was still in my country Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish for I know that you are gracious and merciful God slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness One who relents from doing harm. I know that you do as you please And yet I turned and ran. He doesn't put that in his prayer. And when the sailors approached him and said, what must we do for this to end? He told them to throw him overboard, which could be a further attempt of him running from doing God's will, but we'll look at it again now just now. But Jonah wasn't the only one who tried to run from God's will. The sailors did the same, but we can excuse them for this. In Jonah, in our passage, chapter 11, verse 11, sorry. Then they said to him, what shall we do to you that the sea may be calm for us? So the sea was growing more tempestuous. And he said to them, pick me up and throw me into the sea. Then the sea will become calm for you. For I know that this great tempest is because of me. nevertheless the men rode hard to return to land but they could not for the sea continued to grow more tempestuous against them now the question must be asked there's many questions that you come to mind as you study the book of jonah but one of the another question is was jonah's request to be thrown overboard more concern for the welfare of the sailors, or a request made due to the voice of his conscience. He understood he needed to be punished for his disobedience, or was it a further attempt to run from the will of God, as I've already mentioned. And in fairness to Jonah, it might be a bit of both. It's difficult to say because the text doesn't really answer that. Everyone's left to put their own ideas there. The one thing we can ensure of is that if Jonah had any compassion, it was reserved just for the sailors and not for the people of Nineveh. He never showed any compassion for them, even though he went through with God's mission for him, he did so reluctantly and he got very angry when he, when the result came back as he, as he understood it to come back, he knew it would come back. It was the sailors that wanted to go back to shore. Not Jonah. It wasn't Jonah who wanted to get back to shore so he could get back to his mission for God. It was Jonah that desired to die rather than to repent and go through with the mission. And why did Jonah tell them to pick him up and throw him into the sea? And why did they eventually have to pick him up and throw him into the sea? Why did he not just simply jump into the sea? Again, the text doesn't answer this directly. Perhaps he was too frightened to jump over into the sea. So he thought, well, you guys just throw me out, throw my eyes, you pick me up, throw me in and it's done with. Or perhaps he didn't want to be guilty of killing himself, which went against the law. Life belonged to God and not to man. Even Saul didn't want to kill himself. He asked one of his soldiers to do it for him. Now, if he was more concerned about his conscience, then maybe being thrown overboard was him recognizing that the death penalty is what he deserved for his disobedience. He deserved to die for disobeying God. Maybe Jonah saw another way out of doing God's will, as I've said already, and that was suicide. And the only way he could know, because the only way he could know there was a fish waiting for him is if God had told him, and I don't think God told him anything about the fish. So when he jumped over the boat, he wasn't waiting for a fish to save him. I think that was just as much of a surprise to him as it was to us the first time we ever read the story of Jonah. And it's very interesting to see that the very people that Jonah could have led to salvation, but went to sleep. People that he was supposed to lead to salvation, but rather went to sleep. They were doing their best to save him. They, here are these wicked Gentiles who, when he said, well, the solution is throw me over the board. They didn't say, all right, cheers. They did their best to get the boat and everybody on that boat to shore. And they worked hard to do it. It was a valiant effort. They tried hard to get back to land. It was no just simple, um, show. Uh, they worked hard. They dug in deep. and try to get that boat to shore. But the more they tried, the greater the storm was. They couldn't outrun God. The harder they rode, the wilder the winds blew and the more tempestuous the sea grew. It was not long before the sailors recognized that God was greater than them and that their feeble efforts to row against the storm, which is that they were feeble, meaningless, had no value. The sailors efforts to run were for good and noble reasons, yet they were still running against the will of God and thus it was in vain. And if we think about our lives, we know all about trying to run from God's sovereignty. We have the daily challenge to submit to his sovereignty rather than to attempt to make our life sovereign. To say, well, we have the right to do as we please and to do our will and do what we want to do. We so want to be independent from each other and from God. And this is something of our idea of how we run away from God, trying to be independent from Him. But we can't be. Many suppress the knowledge they have of God's sovereignty so that they can ignore Him. Many others define God in their own terms in an attempt to have a codependency relationship with God, thus creating a God that needs them as much as they need Him. It's a buddy-buddy system. I'll give you, you give me. I'll have my own desires and get what I want and you get what you want. And so as long as I can design a God like that, then I'm very happy in my religion and don't tell me what to do. Now running from his sovereignty comes in many different forms. I've mentioned some and I leave you with a challenge to think of other ways. And of course, there are many other ways that we can attempt to run from God's sovereignty to run from fulfilling his will in our lives and in the lives of others. And so I leave you with that challenge to think about that at some time. God is sovereign and he's the only one that can be sovereign. When we attempt to ignore His sovereignty and impose our own sovereignty, as if we could, we are not only fools, we also end up with such dire consequences to doing that. And that's the third point, the result of running. Jonah was attempting to run from the God that was sovereign. He wanted nothing to do with God's will, and he chose to run from Him. And then came the storm. And this was just the first of many negative consequences of Jonah running from God. It would have been so much easier for everyone if Jonah had just submitted to God's will right up front. But so many times we don't understand this. We forget about this and we run and we try and do our own things and the results are terrible. The consequences are terrible. If we think about it, Jonah resigned his position as prophet. He quit his job. He effectively quit his job. He said, I don't want to be a prophet for you. I'm not going to Nineveh. I'm out of here. And he ran in different directions. And I cannot tell you how many people I know that have lost so much because rather than doing the right thing, rather than doing the wise thing, rather than doing the smart thing, which was in the will of God, they chose to rather quit their job. Instead of doing what God expected of them, they rather quit their job. And the consequences of such an action will usually last for the rest of their lives. They'll never truly recover from such a poor decision. Jonah left his home. He packed up and he was willing to rather live in a foreign land than minister where God wanted him to. And it's a prickly subject in South Africa because we sit, we see it across all economic groups. Many are trying to get into South Africa, and many are trying to get out of South Africa for the same reasons. And if for now we just concentrate on the middle class, they are eager to leave South Africa whenever an opportunity arises. They're ready. Opportunity arises, and they're out. And this is not necessarily wrong, except if they're doing it for the wrong reasons, and that's something that must be discussed Hopefully with their pastors and with their elders and and much decision to be done but one of those wrong reasons is when they coat the decision to leave as If it's a calling from God to leave their home and and to leave to go overseas They say well, you know the job the job came up I Was offered a job overseas. So therefore must be from God and I got the visa, must be from God. I got the tickets, must be from God. I sold my house, it must be from God. But isn't that exactly what Jonah did? He went down to the harbor, he bought a ticket, must be from God. I got on the boat and it went, sailed off in the other direction, must be from God. Just because you get a job offer somewhere, locally or internationally for that matter, or internationally or locally for that matter, does not mean it came from God. Just because you got that job opportunity does not mean it came from God. It could have, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't mean that just because it came about, it came from God. You need to think it through. You need to, you need to look at the, uh, at where that came from and what it means to you, what it means about what you have to give up. Uh, does it affect your, your life spiritually? Does it affect your family? Does it affect your, your work in the ministry? And you need to answer those questions seriously, because just because a job came up doesn't mean it's from God. And people jump overseas as soon as they can because the job came about. Therefore, it must be from God. And they believe that they're leaving the country to fulfill God's will. But in the meantime, their move has far-reaching consequences that hurt not only themselves and their family, sometimes for many years to come, but also upsets their church family and disrupts the church family and the ministry that they were involved. And so as much as they think they're in God's will because the job came up, they're not doing God's will. and therefore God's not being honored and they are in effect running from God's will. They're pulling a Jonah. They're doing a Jonah. And there are far more consequences, more serious consequences to running from God's will. Jonah lost contact with God. Before this, God spoke to him and he served God in whatever ministry that he was given. That ended. You know, the captain came down to Jonah and he asked him, pray to your God to help us. But there's no evidence that Jonah did this. His prayer life was hindered. He would no longer pray or worse, he could no longer pray to the God that he said he feared. But as we discussed last time in Jonah, I think it was obvious that he's lost his fear of God as much as he said, this is the God I fear. He'd lost that fear. And the consequences or the cause of this was his disobedience. He was unable to pray. Like we were just looking at in 1 Peter 3 verse 7. If you don't deal with your wife correctly, if you don't live with them correctly, you don't do well with them correctly, then your prayers could be hindered. Further, for those that remember Job's friends, they started off well. They started off very well. But they ended up on the wrong path in helping Job They might have been saying some correct things on the surface and in certain contexts, they were right. But in the context of Job's life, they were far off. They must have known it because God held them responsible for their silly and often very hurtful words. And in Job 42 verse 8, God says, now, therefore, he's speaking to the friends. He says, take for yourself seven bulls and seven rams. Go to my servant, Job, and offer up for yourself a burnt offering. And my servant Job shall pray for you, for I'll accept him, lest I deal with you according to your folly, because you have not spoken to me what is right, as my servant Job has." He refused to hear their prayers until they had made right with Job and that through Job they had made right with God. Their prayer life had ended. John also lost his ability to care for others as We have already seen he had absolutely no love for the Ninevites And he did not show immediate concern or love for the sailors on board the ship that was destined for disaster We are giving him the benefit of the doubt that he talks of being thrown overboard may have been a concern for them 1 John 4 7 however says beloved let us love one another for love is of God and everyone who loves is born of God 1 John 4 earlier in 1 John chapter 3 it says, in this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest. Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother. Galatians 5 verse 22 says that love is the fruit of the Spirit. Matthew 22 37 says you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment and the second is you shall love your neighbor as yourself. We ought to love those around us. We ought to love those even if they're not lovable. We need to love those Ninevites in our lives. And Jonah didn't want to do that. We need to love those Gentiles. Oh, hey, we're Gentiles. But anyway, we need to love those non-Christians. But Jonah failed to do this. He'd lost that. One other result we see of Jonah fleeing the will of God is he wanted to give up his life. He wanted to end his life. Rather than agreeing with God and do the will of God, he wanted to die. Give up. kill himself, end it. That's an awful result of running from the will of God. And the last result we see of Jonah fleeing the will of God is him losing his testimony. And as a prophet of God, he should be telling others about God in his words and in his actions. Yet he stands before the world, before those sailors that needed to know the God that he represented, and he stood there a failure to them. who didn't share the word, who wouldn't pray for them, and rather wanted them to throw him overboard to end everything. His testimony was destroyed. And the passage ends with the desperate sailors praying to God for forgiveness for what they're about to do, and then they throw Jonah overboard. But Jonah was saved by the very God he wanted to avoid. And that's always the exciting part of Jonah, the mercy and the grace and the love of God that comes throughout this book as well. For a sovereign God, many religions claim that they have, or some religions I should say, claim that they serve a sovereign God, but their God has no concern whatsoever for man. And yet this, our God, the only sovereign God, is willing to be ready to catch those that fall because they've turned away from his will. He's waiting for them. He prepared this fish. He was waiting for Jonah. Not to punish him, but to save him. Yes, the desire was there still for God's will to be done and was done, but he saved. Jonah again. Now we might not have great fish waiting to snatch us up from certain death, but God shows his grace and his mercy to us in many smaller and simpler ways each and every day. If we only look out for them, we will see that God's always working there. He's always working out in our lives. His grace and his mercy flow. We only seem to notice when we think That something went wrong, you know, just a little side note here. It's not in my notes. But we often get disrupted. Our life gets disrupted so much when something goes wrong in our minds. And we think that God's let us down. But God's mercy and his grace are always there to catch us and to keep us. we can thank the Lord for that. Now we'll spend more time discussing this wonderful great fish next time that we're in Jonah, but let's conclude now. Our question to Jonah was, what have you done? Now Daniel, another prophet, who you know, wrote the following words, the words of Nebuchadnezzar. When Nebuchadnezzar came back to his senses, remember he was doing well, but he was doing too well. And he got very proud of himself. He says, well, I'll do as I want to do. And next thing he was on his all fours eating grass in the, in the, uh, in the felt because he was a fool. And after the Lord, uh, recovered him from this brought him back out from this Nebuchadnezzar said this in Daniel 4 verse 35. He says, all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing. He does according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can restrain his hand or say to him, what have you done? We can say to Jonah, what have you done? We can never say to God, what have you done? Because God is sovereign and he can do and will do as he pleases, even if it's not how we want the outcome. No one dare ask the question of God, what have you done in my life or the life of somebody else or an event in the world? What have you done? He can do as he pleases. No one else. And when faced with the sovereignty of God, we are blind if we do not come to the recognition, as I said earlier, that He commands. And all else and everything else must obey. And if we fail, or rather, when we fail in this regard, and in effect, we run from His will, the result is always bad. It's always negative when we run from God's will. So let us do our best to learn from the lessons of Jonah and live our lives to do the will of him who created the wills and created us and controls everything around us for his purpose. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are a sovereign God who does as he pleases. You are in control. You do as you please and you're the one who is allowed to do as he pleases because you are God. You're all-powerful, all-knowing, ever-present, all-wise, all-loving, all-merciful, just, faithful, never changing. And so Lord, we thank you for your sovereignty. The fact that we want to be sovereign, we must recognize is there all the time trying to trying to live, to take over our lives and to make us stand against you. And we pray Lord that you will continue each and every day to give us the power, the strength to chase away from that, to ignore that, to repent of that and to rather follow you and always be seeking to be obedient to your will and not our own. Thank you for the story of Jonah. the lessons of Jonah, and we look forward to the lessons that are still to come. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We are grateful that you have chosen to listen to one of our sermons, and it is our prayer that you will be provoked to deepen your walk with Christ through this message. This sermon was recorded at Calvary Baptist Church, Sunny Ridge, Jermiston, South Africa. 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