If you would, turn to page 328. 328, Close to Thee. Thou my everlasting portion,
more than friend or life to me. All along my pilgrim journey,
Savior, let me walk with Thee, close to Thee. Close to Thee,
close to Thee, close to Thee. All along my pilgrim journey,
Savior, let me walk with Thee. Not for ease or worldly pleasure,
nor for fame my prayer shall be. Gladly will I toil and suffer,
only let me walk with thee. Close to thee, close to thee,
close to thee, close to thee. Gladly will I toil and suffer,
only let me walk with thee. ? Lead me through the vale of shadows
? ? Bear me o'er life's pitful sea ? ? And the gate of life
eternal ? ? May I enter, Lord, with Thee ? ? Close to Thee,
close to Thee ? ? Close to Thee, close to Thee ? Thank you. You may be seated. Good morning. I'll be reading
out of Hebrews chapter 10, starting with verse 1. Hebrews chapter 10. For the law,
having a shadow of good things to come and not the very image
of the things, can never, with those sacrifices which they offered,
year by year, continually, make the comers thereunto perfect.
For then would they not have ceased to be offered, because
that the worshippers once purged should have no more conscience
of sins? But in those sacrifices there
is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not
possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. Wherefore, when he cometh into
the world, he saith, sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not,
but a body thou hast prepared me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices
for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, lo, I come, in the
volume of the book it is written of me, to do thy will, O God. Above, when he said, sacrifice
and offering and burnt offering, an offering from sin thou wouldest
not, neither hadst pleasure therein, which are offered by the law.
Then he said, lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away
the first, that he may establish the second. By the which will
we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus
Christ once for all. And every priest standeth daily
ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can
never take away sin. But this man, after he had offered
one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of
God, from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his
footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified. What are we going to add to that?
Whereof the Holy Ghost is also a witness to us. For after that
he had said before, this is the covenant that I will make with
them after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws
into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them. And
their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where
remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.
having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by
the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath
consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh. And having an high priest over
the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full
assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil
conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold
fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for he is faithful,
that promised. And let us consider one another
to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling
of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting
one another and so much more as ye see the day approaching.
Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for assembling
us here together this morning to hear your word, hear your
word preached. We ask that you'd open our hearts
that we would receive it, that you'd give us your spirit to
hear, to understand. We ask that you'd be with Eric
as he brings the message. We ask that you'd give him what
he needs and continually be with him from week to week in his
studies. We ask that you'd be with us
as a congregation. We thank you for all that you've
provided for us, and we ask that you'd continually provide for
us in all that we need. We ask that you'd grow us in
love and knowledge of each other and the
Lord Jesus Christ. We ask this all in his name.
Amen. Morning. All right, we're gonna
be in Jonah, chapter two. Jonah, chapter two, and it's
just a chapter with 10 verses, but we're gonna look at this
second chapter here, and it's, Jonah's recording the account
of his prayer. It's an account of what he prayed
to the Lord when he was in great distress and could not deliver
himself. And at the end of the chapter,
we see the Lord's gracious deliverance, his answer to Jonah's prayer
in delivering him from the belly of hell, as it were, where he
could not escape himself. So this chapter, it describes
the soul affliction, a soul heaviness, a burden of soul which brethren
are led into. They go into heaviness and difficulty
and trouble. And they're often weighed down
with this heaviness, if you will. The Lord makes his people a sensitive
people to to what he's teaching us, and he makes us sensitive
to suffering, and we do suffer, and we do come into trouble,
and we do come into affliction, especially when we're touched
with a feeling of separation from our God, and when we feel
that we're not near the Lord, or that the Lord's not near to
us, and that troubles us, and that concerns us, and it hurts
us, and it weighs us down and especially when we think of it
as something as a result of what we've done foolishly, right?
When we've come into sin and done foolishly or been unbelieving,
find ourselves unbelieving of the Lord. And so it weighs us
down and it troubles us. And so if it's not for sin, there's
still times where we as believers suffer and we feel down. We go
through hard and dark times and feel the heaviness of shadows
keeping us in what we feel is in the dark and shut out from
the light and the warmth of the countenance of our God. There's a separation that we
experience at times and it's usually from ourselves, but the
Lord brings us into these things and it's for our good and it's
for our conservation, our consolation. So here in this chapter with
Jonah, we see a similarity of our own sinking down, right? We see Jonah was thrown overboard
from the ship and he's now in the raging wrath of of the sea
of God's wrath there, and he's sinking down, down, down to the
bottom until the Lord sends a great fish big enough to swallow him,
and he's held fast by this fish being kept inside of it, and
he can't deliver himself. It's as if a man or woman were
to go to the grave and be held by its power and its strength.
deliver ourselves. Well, that's where Jonah is.
He can't get himself out of this. There's nothing he can do when
he's held fast in the whale's belly. And so, knowing that Jonah
had just been made a type of Christ and salvation in the previous
chapter, we saw that. What we see here is that this
is that sign that Jonah was made unto us, that he would be buried,
if you will, shut up three days and three nights in the whale's
belly, which pictured our Lord himself going to the grave for
his people and held fast there for three days and three nights
till he should be raised again. And so we may recognize here
that these sorrows which are described here by Jonah are sorrows
which afflicted our Lord as well. that he felt the suffering, he
suffered for his people. We're told in Hebrews 4, 15,
for we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with
the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted,
like as we are, yet without sin. And so, our Lord, he suffered. He felt the sorrow and the pain
and suffering under the wrath of God when He made atonement
for His people, when He wrought our salvation and made a covering
for our sins. And so this affliction and this
sorrow that we feel, even if it's the result of our own sin,
this suffering that we feel, it's never punishment for the
believer. It's never in punishment. It's
not God's getting you because you sinned against him. Believers, however, are made
tender to it. We're made to feel it. We're
made to suffer it and to know that what we've done doesn't
please the Lord. But whatever the reason is for
the affliction, they're sanctified afflictions. These have been
sanctified to us. These are coming to us for a
purpose and it's for our good. These afflictions and these sorrows,
these troubles and sufferings that we feel are sanctified to
us. They're for our good and oftentimes
they turn us again to the Lord. They cause us to look away from
what we were looking at in this world and trusting in or just
happy with And it turns us again to the Lord. And we'll see that
in the scripture here this morning. I've titled this, The Troubled
Believer. The Troubled Believer. And what
I want to first look at with you is the fruit of affliction. The fruit of our affliction.
Jonah, we know, had been walking in rebellion against God. He was fleeing from the presence
of the Lord, and he gets in the ship, and he's fallen asleep
down in the ship, completely oblivious to the wrath of God
raging round about him. He's not even aware of it. That
is until the appointed time when God woke him up. He laid asleep
until that time when it pleased God to wake him up. We don't necessarily ever read,
well we don't read in chapter 1 of Jonah ever having prayed
to the Lord during that time. I don't doubt that maybe he said
something, said a few words when the shipmaster said, pray to
your God to perhaps deliver us. Maybe he mumbled a few words
during those events. Once he was tossed into the sea
of God's wrath and he was sinking down in that ocean and swallowed
by that great fish, we read there in verse one, Jonah 2.1, then
Jonah prayed. Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord
his God out of the fish's belly. And if we're honest, that's typical
of us as well. We see troubles, we come in,
into trouble and you see them and you begin to pray and you
begin to think about the Lord and you lift up a few prayers,
but it isn't until you're fully in it and you really begin to
see the impact of it, then you pray. Then you know, all right,
I've gone through plan A. I've executed plan B. You may
even have a C, a D, and an E, and nothing is going to save
you. Nothing's going to remove you
from this trouble that's now upon you, and you're fearful.
You're afraid, and you don't know what to do. It's in those
times that we then pray to the Lord. And you can compare it
to those times when this is not a good thing and I see something
coming and you pray, you lift up a prayer to the Lord. But
when you're in it and you're surrounded by a sea, overwhelmed
by the waves and just being knocked about and tumbling over and over,
that's when you then begin to pray to the Lord. And that's
what it says here. Then Joan having been swallowed
by the fish, then he prayed. to the Lord and he prayed out
of the belly of that fish and that's really a picture of us
praying out of the belly of our trouble. When you're completely
enveloped and wrapped up in it and you don't know what you're
going to do, you don't know how you're going to help the situation,
especially when it's something very personal to you and something
very near to you. Whether it's a personal affliction,
a sickness that you feel, something happening to you or to one of
your children, you feel it then. You're scared for them and you
think this could be bad. Lord, I don't know what to do.
And that's when you really are moved to pray out of the belly
of your trouble. In Psalm 78, verse 34 and 35,
we read, when he slew them. when he slew them, then they
sought him and they returned and inquired early after God
and they remembered. They remembered that God was
their rock and the high God their redeemer. And so I'd say Jonah
now is remembering God. He's been brought face to face
with his God now and he's remembering him and he's praying with great
emotion and great feeling and the spirit of need. He can't
see. He's not divided here. He's not
thinking, well, I'm still going to be trying this other plan
out over here, and maybe that'll save me. No, he's shut up. He's
fixed now in this position, and he can't get out. And that's
how it is with us. When we're completely shut up
and our way is hedged in and we can't get out, like we're
trapped in a whale's belly, that's when we really begin to pray.
And it says, verse 2, he says, I cried by reason of mine affliction
unto the Lord, and he heard me. Out of the belly of hell cried
I, and thou heardest my voice. Now this isn't part of his prayer. He's still relaying, right? Now he's been through this whole
event here and now he's back home and he's recording what
the Lord has revealed to him and taught him here. And he's
telling us, I began to pray to the Lord. And then it's as if
he's just brought right back into that moment and he says,
and thou heardest my voice. Like he's remembering how the
Lord heard him while he was there in the belly of hell, he calls
it, in his hell, in his distress that he could not get himself
out of. And so the Lord had mercy upon
him in that time of affliction. And so he's crying out from this
belly of hell. And it's a comfort to us that
even if we're there in that belly of affliction, and we know that
it's because of our own doing, like Jonah, who was in active
rebellion, willful rebellion against God and the knowledge
of God. Yet he was in that trouble and
yet he tells us, but you heard me. And that's a comfort because
most often we're in that belly because of something we've done
or we feel like I'm getting my just desserts here in this. And
yet he tells us, you heard me Lord. There's no place that I
can be that you can't hear. even when I'm greatly afflicted
by my own fault and my own deeds that have put me here. And so
God heard him when we were made to remember him, and that's what
the Lord's doing. He's making us to remember him,
to come to ourself as the prodigal son did, right? When he came
to himself, he remembered. What am I doing here? Why am
I flopping about here? I can't save myself, but there's
one who can hear me, even out of the belly of this trouble
that I'm in. And so even when we're overwhelmed
and in way, way over our head, your God, believer, you that
believe God, he hears your cry. He hears your cry. And that's
what he's telling us here this morning. He hears your cry to
him. And so even in the midst of that
troubled sea where, you know, sometimes we rise up on waves
of hope and other times we find ourselves down in lulls of despair
and misery, all the while our God remains faithful and he hears
his people. All right, now the next thing
that we see here is the blessings that our God gives to us in his
son Jesus Christ. That's where all our blessings
are found in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now he says in verse three, for
thou, right, he shows us that it was God who brought us into
the affliction, he allowed us, right, even if we can see what
we've done to get ourselves there, it's still the Lord who allowed
us, who brought us into that, for his purpose, a good purpose,
to save us, for his people. And it says, for thou, verse
three, hast cast me into the deep. In the midst of the seas
and the floods compassed me about, all thy billows and thy waves
passed over me. And so he's confessing, what
we're brought to confess is, Lord, you've done this. your glory, to bring me to this
point, to remember you, to pray to you like I had never prayed
before or have ever prayed so few times. Because we're usually
so confident in ourself, but the Lord breaks us down and brings
us to nothing in ourselves so that really all we have is the
Lord and we have no strength of our own. And so it's not for
punishment, it's for our good. And even as it's for our good,
it'll be for good of our brethren at some point. You'll be able
to comfort those who are afflicted like you are today. You'll be
able to remember and seeing how the Lord has delivered you and
be able to share that comfort. Even those who are struggling
and are having great difficulty, the Lord is still able to You
know, one day it doesn't feel like it, but even in the few
words that you say, right, if you're afflicted or hurting,
even the few words that you say comfort other brethren. You know,
you might think that you're not saying anything, but the Lord
is able to use those words and just your honesty in confessing
what's troubling you, the Lord's able to use that and help you
and help another who hears and knows what you're going through
just in seeing the faith that he's given you. And that doesn't
mean to put on a show, right? Not to put on a false show, but
even your honesty, just admit it. It hurts. It hurts. I'm overwhelmed. I'm struggling. Even that, you'd be surprised
how the Lord is able to comfort and instruct another believer
who's maybe denying the pain they're feeling as well. So the
Lord does this that he may be gracious to us and he hears us.
And that's because of what Christ did for us. He willingly took
the place of his people. He willingly suffered in the
place of each of his children and bearing their sin and taking
their place and dying their death and so Our Savior did this that
we might be dealt with in kindness and in faithfulness from God. He bore this so that God would
deal with us in mercy and in grace and kindness. That's why
one of the great benefits of what our Savior accomplished
for us, that we're not being dealt with in punishment and
in just judgment, but rather all these things are for our
good ultimately. You know, the psalmist, in many
places, the psalmist speaks very similar. And one of the psalms
that I think is most near to Jonah chapter two is actually
Psalm 42. And I would encourage you, as
you remember this chapter, that you would read Psalm 42 either
today or sometime this week when you're looking at Jonah two. Write that down and remember
Psalm 42 because it's very, very similar in structure and actually,
that it says it's for the sons of Korah, that psalm. And it was David, most likely,
we believe that David wrote this with the sons of Korah in mind. And if you remember, Korah's
rebellion and most of his family was destroyed. But it says in
Numbers, I think it's Numbers 11, it says that there were not
of Korah's family. There was a few. And you can
imagine just the pain and the suffering. What a type of us
who have rebelled against God and done despite the spirit of
grace and feel so guilty and hurting over how we think we've
offended God. And yet there's a psalm written
to encourage those sons of Korah and their rebellion who are overwhelmed
with that sense of guilt and trouble. and pain, and it should
be an encouragement to us. And so Psalm 42.7 says, deep
calleth unto deep at the noise of thy water spouts, all thy
waves and thy billows are gone over me. And that's what our
Savior first felt for us, right? When our sin was laid upon him,
he felt the waves and the billows of the judgment of God. You know,
if you've ever swam in the ocean and you like to get out there
in the surf, like out farther where the waves are hitting you
and there's a wave that ever knocks you off your feet when
you're not expecting it and you go tumbling underneath that toe
and whipped around and your face is smashed into the sand and
it's all around you and everywhere and you're just trying to get
your footing and you're still tumbling in the surf there. And
that's what He's saying, just wave after wave, I got beat upon
beat upon beat and it just kept coming and overwhelmed me and
took me away. Our Savior endured that first
for us. He endured that, that pain and
that suffering. and made a sacrifice of himself
to put away our sin. But our God still uses these
things to teach us. They're sanctified sorrows. They're
for your good. They're not for your punishment.
They're for your good and for your comfort to know that even
from the belly of your trouble, our God hears your cry. He's brought you into that to
cause you to pray out to him like you've never prayed before,
to see that Lord, I need you to remember him and have that
fellowship and that relationship with him unlike we would naturally
do if left to our own strength and power and always could get
out of things as we would think to get out of them. Our Savior,
even in the midst of that, He remained faithful to the Father.
He didn't sin. Christ did not sin. He remained
faithful even while He bore the sin of His people. As He bore
it as our substitute, as our sacrifice, He remained faithful
to the Father. And that's why we're received
of God. And this is what Jonah actually
says and confesses. He says, verse 4, Jonah 2, 4,
Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight. If I'm being honest,
I feel cut off from you, Lord. Yet, I will look again toward
thy holy temple. And so it's true that we do feel
cut off, and the Lord will allow us to feel cut off. But there's
always that hope that I will look again toward thy holy temple. And the holy temple is Christ.
That's who we're looking to. That I'll look again to Christ,
and that's what the Lord is doing. You know what? The prophet Jeremiah,
he saw many horrible things. I mean, he was treated shamefully
by his own people. He warned them of the judgment
of God, and they despised him. They even threw him down into
a miry pit and fed him the bread of adversity, which means he
was only eating enough calories to be starving to death. And
he was just eating bread and filthy water. And he witnessed
the destruction of the city, the pillaging and the plundering
and the murder of his people. and saw great, horrible things. And he said in Lamentations 3,
17 and 18, thou hast removed my soul far off from peace. I forgot prosperity. And I said
my strength and my hope is perished from the Lord. And so there are
times where we forget that warmth, of the fellowship of our God.
We do have very dark days sometimes. We do have difficulty. And don't
beat yourself up over that, because, I mean, we're made to mourn over
our sin, yes, but when you come into that darkness, it is for
the purpose. God allows you to come into that
hurt and that suffering and that pain, and yet, The fruit of the
Spirit is that even in our despair, we know that there's one hope,
and that's the temple, the Lord Jesus Christ, that we're to look
to, and that our God gives us strength to look to Him and believe
Him. And so it may be terrifying for
us, and we may feel overwhelmed by the Lord, but it's meant to
turn us again to Christ and to look to Him and to believe Him
for His great work. And so, you know, oftentimes
we beat ourselves up when we're overwhelmed and when we're in
darkness and when we're suffering in that way, but you forget that
the fact that you're crying out to the Lord and that he's made
you to cry out to him and confess your need and just be sorrow. Feel the sorrow. That's a blessing. There's many who sin and just
go off in their sin and don't worry about it. They don't even
think about it. They just go off and they're able to just
push through any twinge of their conscience and just seal it off
with a hot iron and just go off into their sin. But if you're
brought low and you're humbled by it and you're confessing to
the Lord and asking Him for mercy and for help, that's That's a
sign of his mercy and grace towards you in turning your heart to
look to him. And so he was made to say that
he was made to look again toward thy holy temple. And the fact
that we would look again means that we once looked before, but
now we weren't. We fell into some sin or some
folly, but now again we are looking to the Lord. And that's the work
of the spirit of God to turn us again to him, to look to him
and to stop trusting in self-deception and stop trusting in idolatry
and trusting vain things that cannot save us or help us. And
so in all of it, our union with Christ doesn't change, right? Even if it feels like it's changed
for us, even if we feel like we've changed or it's changed
in some way and there's no, It's not the same anymore. It doesn't
change. It's always the same in Christ,
and he always deals with us faithfully as a God and our Savior. And
he does that because he's redeemed us with the precious blood of
Christ. That's how we're saved, not because of what we do or
don't do or how strong our faith is or how weak it is. He does
it in his grace and mercy toward us. All right, and so now, In
his painful experience, Jonas states in verse five, he says,
the waters compassed me about, even to the soul, to the depth
closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head. And so again, you know, it's
frightening to us when we see our faults and our folly and
our fears, like weeds, these things come around and they just
shut out the light of God. It makes it so we don't even
remember that fellowship and that sweetness of friendship
with our God. But though we forget, our God
remembers. And that's what we see here.
We see God's remembrance in verse six. He says, I went down to
the bottoms of the mountains. The earth with her bars was about
me forever. And when you're hurting, doesn't
it feel like forever? Doesn't it feel like this is
it? I've done it now. It's over. The Lord won't, this
is it. I've cut myself off. And that's
what Jonah's saying. I was down there forever, for
good. I was done. It was over between
me and the Lord. Yet, he says at the end of verse
six, yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption Oh, Lord,
my God. And so we see that, though, from
our perspective, we feel like we've done it now and the Lord
has cut us off. And it may really feel like we've
done this for good forever. But we see there that the Lord
is gracious to his people and though they sink down very deep
for a very long time, he's able in grace and in mercy to raise
them up again and to give them a sight of Him and to feel His
power and grace in their heart once again. Paul would say in
2 Corinthians 1, 8, and 9, for we would not, brethren, have
you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were
pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired
of life. We thought we were gonna die.
in Asia. We thought these people are going
to kill us and this is the end of our ministry. It's over here. And it was Paul and those with
Paul and they thought they were going to die. But he says we
have the sentence of death in ourselves that we should not
trust in ourselves but in God which raises the dead. And you
know when the Lord does touch us and deals with us in a manner
where we feel it, and we hurt, and we feel like we're gonna
die, and this is it for me. When the Lord does restore you,
when you speak to people like that, and you know people that
have thought it was it for them, aren't they able to be such a
comfort to you, and an encouragement to you, in that when they are
able to speak from a point of grace and kindness to you, And
rather than dealing with you in judgment or harshly, They
know what sinners they are and what God has done for them. And
so they're able to speak to you. Even if you've totally messed
things up horribly, they're able to speak to you in love and in
patience and in kindness. And that's what the Lord does
for us so that we would learn how to speak to one another in
fellowship and be peaceful with one another because we're brought
to see, I mess everything up and I have an ability to ruin
anything and have and yet it's those things that keep us humble
so that when another offends us or stands against us we're
able to turn and be gentle. toward them when we remember
how the Lord's been gentle and gracious to us through it, all
right? So our Lord is using these trials and sufferings to wake
us out of our slumber, all right? He uses these things to make
us to see you're in love with the world, and you're just embracing
the world, and it's sinking you down. And so the Lord, when he
brings you into affliction, it hurts the flesh, but if it delivers
you from the love of the world, then it's a good thing. And the
spirit in you will confess that and say, yes, Lord, it was painful
in the flesh, but I see what you did and it's for my good. And it doesn't always mean that
it's going to be easy, the affliction, or that everything's going to
turn out well. There's many brethren among us that that could tell
you there's things that never go away. There's things that
we feel for the rest of our lives here in the flesh, but he gives
us grace to accept it and grace to trust him and to serve him
and trust him and know that it was for our good, even though
it was painful in the flesh. And so we're brought to see the
danger that we've fallen into. In verse seven, he says, when
my mind fainted within me, I remember the Lord. And my prayer came
in unto thee, into thy holy temple." So that what we have to confess
is that it's the Lord, it's the Spirit of the Lord that caused
us to faint. And it's the Spirit of the Lord that caused us to
remember Him. And it's the Spirit of the Lord
that gave us that prayer and caused us to cry out to Him. The Spirit did that and then
it's the blood of Christ that takes that prayer as weak and
as feeble as it is, who takes that prayer and is the incense
by which that prayer is made sweet and acceptable to our God
and why He hears us, why He delivers us. Because He's doing the whole
thing. It's all in His purpose. And then verse eight, Jonah says,
they that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. And so our God is gonna deliver
us from serving two masters. He's going to bring us to serve
him and look to him alone. And Jonah was trusting a lying
vanity, right? He thought he could really get
out of the presence of the Lord when he fled. from the Lord. When he left that land, he thought,
well, this is where the Lord reveals himself to the people.
I'm going to get myself out of that land so that he won't talk
to me anymore. I'm just going to flee away to
Tarshish. But it was a lying vanity. He couldn't flee from
the presence of the Lord. And so whatever lying vanity
we're holding onto, if we're the Lord's, he's going to strip
that from us and cause us to look to his son alone. And then
he says in verse nine, but I will sacrifice unto thee with the
voice of thanksgiving, I will pay that that I have vowed, salvation
is of the Lord. And so in the end, he brings
his children to see that God has done this. When the Lord
has dealt with us, when we've sunk low and we know we've done
wrong, or even just sorrow, and been hurting and troubled and
in pain, when the Lord brings us back, when he raises us up
and shows us that his hand is in him, we're going to know and
confess salvation is of the Lord. We're not just going to say it
in a token way, but we're going to know it and confess really
salvation is of the Lord. If I had my way in the flesh,
I would have been a dead man. But the Lord, in grace and mercy,
determined to show kindness to me and be gracious to me instead.
Instead of what I would have done, and the Lord brought me
back and saved me. The Lord moves then to deliver
Jonah, right? And it's in a sense that even
his flesh has to admit, the Lord did this. I couldn't have delivered
myself, right? He's shut up in the grave, as
it were, and he can't even move. There's nothing he can do to
get out. And I can only imagine how terrifying that must have
been for him. But the Lord delivers him, and
it says, verse 10, the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited
out Jonah upon the dry land. And that's a picture, brethren,
of our Lord himself being delivered from the grave. He was raised
up from the grave by the power of God. He rose up from that
grave and it couldn't hold him. anymore right and so our Lord
did this and it's it declares to us right we don't just speak
of the resurrection just for the sake of having another doctrine
we speak of the resurrection of Christ because it declares
to us that everything Christ came to do he accomplished it
and God receiving God, he justified him by raising him from the dead.
When he was raised up, he was justified in the Spirit. It declared
to us, God has received his sacrifice. He's put away your sins, child
of God, who has no hope or works of righteousness to save yourself.
Christ has accomplished the work he came to do. And so it teaches
us that if God raised up, Christ and He shall raise me up to hope
in Him and believe Him against hope, against what this flesh
thinks or tells me. God is able to raise me up and
I shall be justified in His sight because of Christ and His righteousness
and making me righteous as well. And so it's a testimony then
to our troubled spirit and the pain that we feel that we may
continually look again and again and again to the temple, which
is Christ. You may look to him and trust
him wholly. because he's done this work for
you, to have mercy on you, so that God is able to be kind and
gracious to you, all because of what Christ has done. And
so be encouraged. We're told that when Christ was
raised from the dead, he ascended up to heaven. And we're told
in Acts 321, whom the heaven must receive until the times
of restitution of all things which God hath spoken by the
mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. And the
encouragement to me is that when it says the heaven must receive
Christ who ascended up, that wasn't that one time receiving.
But all who come to the Father in the blood of Jesus Christ,
the heaven must receive them. We must always be received when
we come in Christ. And so you who come to God the
Father, you who come to God in Christ's blood, having no hope
but Him, He says He shall receive you. The heavens must receive
Him until the time of the restitution of all things. So be encouraged,
brethren. Though you be troubled and sorrowful
and hurting today, believe your God that He has done it for a
purpose, for a purpose. It's for your good. He's turned
your heart to look to Him and believe on Him. And so I pray
that you would be encouraged and as you're encouraged, Just
be honest with one another and it'll encourage them too. When
you've suffered and hurt, even in it, he's able to use that
testimony and comfort his people. So believe him and look to Christ
and trust him. All right, let's pray. Our gracious
Lord, we thank you, Father, for your mercy and kindness to us
as we see it here revealed in your word. That though we are
sinners, and though we are full of folly and foolishness and
often get ourselves into trouble, and even there's times, Lord,
where we can't explain it, but we come into darkness and a troubled
mind. Lord, we ask that you would continue
to have mercy upon us. Cause us to look to Christ and
to be received in Him. and Lord, that you would turn
our hurting hearts to behold your grace and mercy, that we
too may confess salvation is of the Lord and really mean it,
Lord. We pray, Lord, that you would
be with us this day. Indeed, bring to our minds the
comfort of Christ and the glory of his salvation. It's in Christ's
name that we pray and give thanks. Amen. Well, let me just say that We were thinking it might be
nice to actually get a thank you card together where we just
sign it and we'll give it to the owner, Kelly, just for allowing
us, even in this space, because it's nice, actually. It's a pretty
nice space. Even the little kids' names, right? Yeah, it'd be nice.
Anybody that can sign their name or put an X, that's fine. That's
what you can do. All family. Yeah, just put...
Throw in some coffee. Yeah, maybe some coffee there.
Might be nice. So yeah, good folders. Little
decaf there. But yeah, so we were thinking
it might be nice. I have a couple cards that we
could do. I kind of am partial to this
one, but I don't care which one it is, but I thought this one
might be nice or something like that. It's nice, but I'm a sucker
for these blank cards and a nice picture. I didn't bring them
all here, but those, anyway. So I think that's a good idea. If you guys agree, that would
be nice to do. And because, I mean, I know for a fact that they want
us to be successful here. They said to me, I met them last
week, Kelly, and with Steve, the property manager, and they
want us to be successful. They actually want us to take
over the whole place, but I don't think it's going to be for the
same price. So. That'd be $825. Did you mention Darvin too, right? The thank you card for Darvin?
Yeah, that's right. And so we're going to fill out,
I didn't fill it out yet, but yeah, we'll fill out a thank
you card for Darvin as well, because he gave us a pulpit.
And Brian drove up. Yeah, they drove it up. So we're
going to work that in for now. Are you going to write a little
something nice on there? Yeah, I'll do that one, and then we'll
sign that one after. I can do it that way if you want.
Can you mention Brian a little bit special? OK. Thank you. I don't have the right words,
you do. Sure. Well, at least you're rememberable,
which is good. All right. I'd rather you close
this in a hymn. Let's all stand and sing a closing
hymn, 224. I know in whom I have believed. 224. I know not what wondrous grace
to me he hath made known, nor why unworthy Christ in love redeemed
me for his own. But I know whom I have believed
and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I've committed
unto Him against that day. I know not how this saving faith
to me he did impart, nor how believing in his word brought
peace within my heart. Whom I have believed and have
persuaded that He is able to keep that which I've committed
unto Him against that day. I know not how the Spirit moves
convincing men of sin. Revealing Jesus through the Word,
creating faith in Him. But I know whom I have believed
and have persuaded that He is able to keep that which I've
committed unto Him against that day. I know not what of good
or ill may be reserved for me. Of weary ways or golden days
before his face I see. But I know whom I have believed
and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I've committed
unto Him against that day. I know not when my Lord may come
at night or new day fair, nor if I'll walk the vale with Him
or meet Him in the air. But I know whom I have believed
and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I've committed
unto Him against that day. Thank you.