So you can sit right here. We're about ready to start. Let me
fire this thing. You can go stand right there. I don't really need to see it. I mean, if it's a nice facility,
it's more like it. I think that you'd be encouraged
to maybe stretch. There's a lot of positive things
about what you've done. But I mean, yeah, if you don't
want that, you don't have to. All the older men, no venom. Oh, hardback. Sorry, that was
kind of fun. Alright, we're going to begin our second
service, starting with number 50, Fairest Lord Jesus, number
50. Paris, Lord Jesus. Thee will I cherish, Thee will
I honor, Thou my soul's glory, joy and crown. through wind of blooming garb
of spring. Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer,
who makes the hopeful heart to sing. ? Where is the sunshine ? ? There's
still the moonlight ? ? And all the twinkling starry ghosts ? ? Jesus shines brighter ? ?
Jesus shines purer ? Son of God and Son of Man. forevermore be love. Our second hymn will be number
235. 235, pass me now. Pass me not, O gentle Savior,
Here I humble cry, While on others Thou art calling, Do not pass
me by. Savior, Savior, Here I humble
cry, While on others Thou art calling,
do not pass me by. Let me at the throne of mercy
find a sweet relief, healing there in deep contrition. Help my unbelief. Savior, Savior, hear my humble
cry. While on others Thou art calling,
do not pass me by. Trusting only in Thy merit, would
I seek Thy face. Heal my wounded, broken spirit. Save me by Thy grace. Savior, Savior, hear my humble
cry. While on others Thou art calling,
do not pass me by. Thou the spring of all my comfort,
more than life to me. Whom have I heard beside Thee? Whom in heaven but Thee? Savior, Savior, hear my humble
cry. All on others Thou art calling,
do not pass me by. Thank you. You may be seated. Morning, everybody. I'm going
to be reading this morning out of 1 John. It'll be 1 John chapter
4. I'm going to pick up in verses
6. 1 John 4, verses 6. We are of God. We are of God. He that knoweth
God, heareth us. He that is not of God, heareth
not us. Hereby we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone
that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not
knoweth not God, for God is love. In this was manifested the love
of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten son
into the world that we might live through him. Herein is love. Not that we love God, but that
he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our
sins. Beloved, if God so loved us,
we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth
in us, and his love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we
dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us his spirit,
And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son
to be the Savior of the world. Whosoever shall confess that
Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.
And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us.
God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and
God in him. Herein is our love made perfect,
that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because
as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but
perfect love catheth out fear, because fear hath torment. He
that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him because
he first loved us. If a man say, I love God, and
hateth his brother, he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother
whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? In this commandment have we from
him, that he who loveth God loveth his brother also. Lord, thank you for bringing
us together once again, Lord, and assembling us in this place,
Lord, as we look for a more permanent place. We ask that you guide
our hearts and our decisions, Lord, that you help us and give
us guidance on what we need to do. We pray this morning, Lord,
that you'd give your messenger the words to say to speak of
your son, Lord, that we could see his love this morning, Lord,
and that you'd give us the love and faith that you asked for,
Lord. We can't create it ourselves.
We ask that you'd give us this this morning. In the name of
Christ, amen. Good morning. All right, brethren,
we're going to be in Jonah chapter 1. Jonah chapter 1. And I want to look at verses
10 through 17 with you. Jonah 1, 10 through 17. And so
we come here. to the part of Jonah chapter
1 where Jonah is seen most clearly as being a type of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and the mariners themselves are become a type of the remnant
seed according to the election of grace. And so by the light
of God, we now understand that in Adam, all died in sin, right? And all came under the just wrath
of Almighty God. So that here we see these men
too have come under the judgment of God. That is when Jonah himself
rebelled against God, they all were came into judgment and condemnation
themselves being in the same ship as Jonah was. but like Christ did for his people
when he willingly offered himself up to the Father to make atonement,
to deliver the people, so Jonah will do the same thing as a type
of Christ and be made willing to be thrown in to the wrath
and fiery judgment of God there in the sea of God's wrath to
deliver the other men that were with him there in the ship. I've titled this message Jonah,
a type of Christ. Jonah, a type of Christ. And
we're going to begin first with these verses looking at the mariners. We'll see from the mariners here. Now, as I mentioned, the scriptures
declare that we all, we're all of one blood. We all came from
our father Adam. And in 1 Corinthians 15, 22,
we're told, in Adam, all die. In Adam, all die. And he's speaking about our sin,
right? We're told in Romans 5, 12, Paul
said that, as by one man, Adam, Sin entered into the world, and
death by sin. There was no sin in the world
until Adam sinned, and then right on its heels came death, just
as God said, in the day you eat of that fruit, that forbidden
fruit, you shall surely die. And so death passed upon all
men, for that all have sinned. Because it really is simple.
We were in Adam. Every seed, every man and woman
was in Adam. when he sinned. And so when he
sinned, corruption came over Adam as well as everything in
him, his seed in him, so that when he died, we died. When he sinned, we sinned. We're
all in it in that same ship together as it were. And so this truth
of our death is witnessed what we are now in Adam. It's witnessed
in Titus 3.3, for example, where Paul says, we ourselves, even
we who believe God now and trust him, he says, we ourselves also
were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving diverse lusts
and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating
one another. And so because of this fact,
because all men and women are like this, this truth is also
true of us. In Romans 118, the wrath of God
is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness
of men. And so it's this wrath of God
that's now pictured for us here on this sea, where this ship
and the mariners are, right? This storm that's come upon the
sea, which foretold the Lord sent upon them, right? The Lord,
in verse four, sent out a great wind into the sea, and there
was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to
be broken. And when that ship break, all
those men would have went down with that ship. They all would
have died and perished in their sins, right, because of their
relation there to Jonah, who at this point at least is picturing
Adam, if you will, our head, our federal head, Adam, of whom
we are his seed. right, for his corrupt seed according
to nature. All right, now just like these
mariners, if you look there at verse 5, we see that multitudes
of people respond to troubles and trials that we go through.
We respond the same way these mariners did in Jonah 1 verse
5. It says that there's a mighty
tempest sent by God. And so what happened? They became
afraid. They were afraid now because
the trouble came into their life. And they began to cry out to
their false god. They all cried out to their god.
And what happened? Nothing. It didn't change anything
for them. And so they took it to the next
level. Because their prayers didn't work, they began to examine
the wares that were there in the ship. Just like we do, according
to nature, we look at our behaviors and our actions and the words
we've been saying And we start chucking those things out, right?
Parting with all those sins and bad things that we were doing
that we think has incurred the wrath of God or brought the wrath
of God upon us to try and obtain some forgiveness, some peace
from God who's bringing this trouble on us. We learn, however, that these
behaviors don't deliver us, right? We don't deliver ourselves from
the wrath of God, right? If it's of the flesh, we may,
you know, oftentimes we'll go through troubles and then when
things simmer down and quiet down, we'll go right on back
to our lifestyle of what we love and sin and what we love in this
nature, right? But if it's of God, he's going
to keep it. going. He's going to keep that
upon us in order to turn us from self and to make us to seek Him,
right, to know Him. But what we see in all this with
these mariners there in verse 5 and what they've done and how
like it is to what we do ourselves, we find that they that are in
the flesh, Romans 8a, they that are in the flesh cannot please
God. So in other words, everything
those mariners did, getting afraid, calling out upon their false
god, throwing out their behaviors and all their wares and their
things of value, It was of the flesh. It didn't do anything
for them. It didn't save them or give them or cause God to
take it easy on them. Now, it would be utterly hopeless
for us if God were not the God of grace and mercy. And so what we see here in Jonah
chapter 1 is he sends a gospel preacher. He sends a man with
the word of God to reveal to these men the true and living
God. Beforehand, they're just flopping
around in religion trying to figure it out and hope that they
hit the mark by what they're doing in dead religion. But God
sends a gospel preacher to preach the word to them in Jonah. And
so the first thing that God does for his people is he traces out
for us to know that we are all sinners. We're all guilty of
the condemnation that we are under in Adam. We're all sinners,
all worthy of God's just condemnation and wrath. And so we've offended
God. Each one of us who now believes
God knows that I'm the sinner, and God is just to condemn me. I'm the one who offended Him,
and I desperately need His forgiveness and mercy. He makes us to know
that it's just of God. God is right to do it. So when
Jonah speaks to these men on the ship that are with him, what
he's telling them in truth is a picture for us of the declaration,
the proclamation of the gospel that God causes each one of his
children to hear for their needs to deliver them out of that darkness
and death that they're under. And so we get this new response
from them, a different response from them in verse 10. It's subtle,
but this is a picture of the gospel nonetheless. Verse 10.
It says, then, right after Jonah speaks to these men, then it
says, were the men exceedingly afraid, right? God grew. Remember when you heard the gospel
and suddenly God grew immensely in size and you became this tiny
little thing. Before it was you partnering
with God and you're doing your part and he's doing his part
and You have these visions that I'm this soldier for Christ,
and I'm this mighty warrior, and I'm going to be standing
though all my friends abandon me for the world, but I'm going
to do it. I'm going to stay strong. And
then you begin to see boom, boom, boom. The Lord shows you, you're
nothing. You're nothing. You have nothing
to boast of. And if it's not for his grace,
you're going down. Worse than your friends that
you're now pitying, you're the one who's going to be lower in
hell than they are. And so now these men hear it,
and they are exceedingly afraid. And they said unto him, why hast
thou done this? And that there is just a picture
of how we were, right? Why did I do that, right? Because some of us have. very
vivid memories of the things that we did when we suddenly
felt the condemnation of God. And we were like, why? Why did
I do that? Why did I continue doing this?
And why did I refuse to hear him? And why did I go on in those
behaviors? And we thought, I'm dead. God
is finally going to bring me to the just death and condemnation
that I so justly deserve. And we rack our brains, cursing
the day when we did that thing that brought such terrors upon
us. And we thought we were cut off, only to find when we heard
the sweetness of the gospel. that, wait a minute, Lord, perhaps
you don't hate me, but rather because you love me, you're showing
me now that all that hope I had was vanity. I was trusting in
my own righteousness till now, but you show me I'm nothing. I've got nothing to boast in
before you, and I desperately need your grace. and mercy. And so that's why we say, why
did you do this? I know I went through that. I
was miserable for a couple of years. Cursed in the day when
I did some particular sin that I thought was the one that did
it in for me and it was all over. But the Lord did it in mercy
to show me I wasn't trusting in Christ, I was trusting in
my improved behaviors over the years to now suddenly feel good
enough to call myself a Christian. That's what I was really trusting
in, not Christ, I was trusting in me, in my works, in my faith.
So the Lord in mercy broke that and destroyed that relationship
and put it to death. He killed it. Now the men, it
says, for the men knew that he fled from the presence of the
Lord because he had told them. Now, don't be distracted from
the words of the account. It's a picture, it's a type for
us to see what the Lord does in His people. And so, it's picturing
here that work of God which comes upon the convicted sinner in
bringing them from darkness into the light. God brings all his
people from hiding out in the darkness into the light of Christ. And we saw that in Adam. Adam,
when you read Genesis there, in Genesis 3, after they sinned,
they heard the voice of God walking in the garden in the cool of
the day. And what do they do? They ran
into... the woods and pull down some leaves quick to cover their
nakedness and to hide themselves from God. And that's where we
all are by nature. None of us can boast and say,
I've done this and brought myself into the light. No, God must
bring us into the light. John 3.20 says, for everyone
that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light,
lest his deeds should be reproved. And that's us by nature. I remember when I was a little
boy, I was the youngest, and so my brother and sister were
already grown up and they didn't play with me, but when my cousins
would come over, we'd have a great time. And I'd have one of my
cousins I was closest with and we'd be tearing it up downstairs,
just running around and banging into things and falling and just
screaming and having a great time. And then suddenly I'd hear
my dad, Eric! And he'd cry out. And I'd be
terrified, because his voice was booming and loud. And I didn't
even know he was home. When he was home, he was sleeping,
because he worked like two, three jobs all the time. So he calls
my name out. And I'm scared. And me and my
cousin both run behind the couch and hide from him. But he keeps
calling my name. My name's being called. I'm looking
at my cousin, and he ain't going, because his name's not being
called. So he stays there, but my name is called. And so finally,
after the third time, I knew if I don't go, I'm going to get
a whooping. I better go. So I went to him. Well, that's how it is with the
Lord, right? For his elect child, he calls
you out, right? He goes to you and says, Ken. Come here, right? And there's
another person where he doesn't say that to, right? He calls
out his people and leaves the others where they are so that
he's convicting whom he will, when he will, just as he did
for these sailors, right? These mariners here, they were
the ones on the ship, not the other guys, right? Not the guys
back in port. They were all fine. It was these
chosen mariners that got into that ship that day. And so we
see that in John 321, but he that doeth truth, right, he that
believes Christ, has faith revealed in them, looking to Christ, cometh
to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, or uncovered,
or made plain to us, that they are wanting God. Now God's done
this, not me. All that other stuff I was doing,
plain religion and nonsense, that's gone. The Lord showed
me that was worthless. But now He's brought me into
the light, and I have nothing to boast in. This is the work
of God. This is the finger of God, right?
You know there's been things in your life where that mark
is so precise on your heart that you can't deny that God has done
it. And He's shown you, I'm the guilty
sinner. Lord, I'm the guilty sinner.
And you know it wasn't you. It was the finger of God. He's
that precise. When He wills to be that precise,
He can be very precise on you and bring you to see that you're
the sinner. And so God does that to make
sinners, seek Him in spirit and in truth, right? To seek Him
out, to desire Him, to want to hear that gospel and to need
to hear that gospel because nothing else will satisfy, nothing else
will do anymore, all right? And so we see this seeking here
described in verse 11, Jonah 1 11. Then said they unto him,
what shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto us? For the sea wrought and was tempestuous. Or the sea wrought and was growing
increasingly tempestuous. It was getting worse and worse
and worse for them, all right? Now, we see this same behavior
traced out for us in other parts of Scripture, right? Maybe think
in the Philippian jailer, right? Who, he saw the mighty power
of God displayed, right? When that earthquake He had two
valuable prisoners, Paul and Silas, in there. And an earthquake
came and shook the place, probably woke him up out of sleep. And
then he sees, oh, the doors are off the hinges. Surely the prisoners
have escaped. And before they took his life,
his masters, he was about to take his own life. He was brought
to the end of himself. He knew he had failed in what
he was supposed to do. And yet, Paul called out to him
and said, don't take your life, we're still here. And that man
was brought to see the fidelity, the faithfulness of Paul and
Silas, who didn't run. And he heard them singing gospel
praises of the Lord there that night. And so he says, sirs,
what must I do to be saved? That's what we want to know,
the sinner. What must I do to be saved then, Lord? If all my
works are worthless, what must I do to be saved? How is this
so?" And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ continually,
not just the one time walking the aisle, but continually believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved in thy house. You'll be saved. The Lord has
done this work. And if He's done this work, you'll
believe, and you'll continue believing. You trust Him. You
stay right there in that fellowship in the gospel there. All right?
And the Lord will continue to reveal Himself to you. And He'll
teach you and show you that this light you're in was brought of
God. He's done this work for you. So this revelation of the
gospel now is seen in this next part of the account here where
we see more clearly that Jonah is made a type of Christ for
us. So he became a type of Christ
really from the moment he entered into the ship. When he entered
that ship, he was taking on there a type of Christ. He was going
in and joining himself to those marines, those men in that ship.
He became one with them. And we see they're all being
dealt with in the same way. They're all either going down
together or one is going to die for the rest of them. And so
we see Christ in this because Christ took upon himself the
likeness and the form, the likeness of our flesh. He became just
like us. fully flesh, yet without sin. The difference for him was that
he wasn't conceived of Adam's sin. He was still fully man,
but he was conceived of the Holy Spirit in Mary's womb. And so the reason why we know
he was not corrupt And the reason why that's important is because
Adam's seed is corrupt. It's defiled. If Christ came
of Adam's seed, he'd be corrupt, just like us, by nature. But Christ, the second Adam,
was conceived of the Holy Ghost without sin, yet fully man. All right? And so he became one
with us, just like Jonah here in verse 3. But Jonah went down
to Joppa, and he found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid
the fare thereof and went down into it. to go with them unto
Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. And so our Savior entered
into that ship with us. He became one with us. He took upon Him flesh that He
should be a suitable and fit, perfect sacrifice. The Lamb of
God come to lay His life down for you, His sheep, who have
no hope. or means of saving yourself. He laid aside His glory and became
weak and poor for you and me, sinners like us who rebelled
against our God. And so, as that Lamb of God,
He became surety for us. Meaning, He said, put the debt
on Me. I'll pay the debt of righteousness
that My people owe to you. I'll pay. I'll put away, I'll
pay for their sins by bearing the wrath of God and I'll pay
the price. I'll ransom their souls by the
death of myself." And so he was forsaken, remember, from the
presence of the Lord. He went down with us as we went
for the presence of the Lord, so he went and was forsaken willingly
of the presence of the Lord, that he might save us from our
sins. The scriptures declaring that
he was made sin for us, 2 Corinthians 5.21, for God hath made him,
Christ, to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be
made the righteousness of God in him. Next we read in Jonah
1 verse 12, And he said unto them, Take me up. This is now
speaking as a type of Christ. He said, Take me up, and cast
me forth into the sea, so shall the sea be calm unto you, for
I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you. So these words are words that
our Savior Himself spoke to us when He was here in the flesh.
He said in John 12, 32, that now is the judgment of this world.
This world's under judgment. And now shall the prince of this
world be cast out. And He said, if I, and I, if
I be lifted up from the earth will draw all men unto me and
so that Christ himself had to be lifted up and he was he was
lifted up and put there on that cross right that he should die
and make atonement and accomplish salvation perfectly for his people
and when his blood was shed our sins were washed away We were
made clean by the sacrifice of our Savior, Jesus Christ. And
we were made righteous by Him. And so when those men took up
Jonah and cast him in the sea, it's the same as when we cast
all our hope. We take that faith that our God
has formed in us and revealed in us, and we cast it upon Christ,
knowing that He's my only hope. I've got no hope except He saved
me. and wash me clean of my work,
and work this forgiveness for me. Otherwise, I'm hopeless. I'm going down with the ship. All right? So that faith is that
anchor of the soul which is cast upon Christ, which is all the
work of God. It's what He reveals and what
He's done for us in bringing us to the light, to see my God
has done this for me, and not me myself. All right? But these
men, just like we have to learn, these men had to learn that they're
not going to add anything to this work. This is Christ and
Christ alone. They're not going to be able
to lighten the load or make it any easier for Jonah. He has
to go into the sea of God's wrath. There's no other way around it.
And so that's what we see in verse 13. Jonah 1, 13. Nevertheless,
the men rode hard, they digged into that water hard, they were
doing everything they could to keep from having to throw Jonah
into the sea. They rode hard to bring it to
land, but they could not, for the sea wrought and was tempestuous
against them. It was tempestuous against them. So it is even with us, that when
we labor and try to help lighten the load, or I gotta do something
so it's not so bad for Christ, or I'm gonna now be some kind
of a co-equal to some measure with Christ. No, you're not.
And the more we try to add to it, the more we stir up the wrath
of God against us to show us, stop. Stop. You can't. You can't save yourselves. You can't do anything for yourself. It's Christ and Christ alone. That's how you're going to be
saved. Grow as hard as you want, but it's only going to get worse
for you. You ain't going anywhere. The
Lord is going to bring us to the end of ourselves. All right,
and so the work is finished. Price finished that work. He
did it. He did it all. There's nothing for you or I
to add. He's paid the price. You know,
even when it says back there, what verse was that there? All
right, I don't know. Let's see. Hold on. Let me just
look real fast. It's a picture of Christ because
he's the lamb slain from the foundation of the earth, right? It was determined
already. He got into the ship, it was already known what he
was coming to do. He was already determined to do that work and so that just
like that the works already finished the works were already finished
from the foundation of the earth there's nothing we're going to
add to it or make any difference in the matter all right so if
you're the lord's chosen seed you too we all are going to be
brought to the ends of ourselves we're going to be brought to
see There's nothing I can do in this work. Lord, it's all
of you and none of me or else I'm going to hell and I'm not
going to be able to change that. The Lord also does this because
He does this to bring us to see it's not just that He justifies
us, but He sanctifies His people fully. Everything that's necessary
for salvation, it's all fixed in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
anything we do isn't of us, it's of Him graciously working in
us by His Spirit, His power and glory for it. Paul said to the
Philippians regarding this, he said, we are the circumcision.
And I know that there's many people in religion that are cutting
the flesh, that are doing things under the law and doing what
they can to improve upon themselves and to make themselves more acceptable
to God. But he said, we're the circumcision. This is a work of the Spirit
of God to circumcise our hearts, but we can't touch it. We can't
do this, this work of grace. And we worship God in the Spirit
and rejoice, not in ourselves, but in Christ Jesus, and have
no confidence in the flesh. And the Lord turns us from that,
because what does religion do? They submit themselves under
the law, whether it's the law of Moses or the law of their
denomination, because they don't have confidence in Christ. They're
confessing Christ can't do it all. There's got to be something.
that's left for me to do. There's got to be something that
I've got to do to meet God somewhere in the way that this would be
made effectual. No. God's going to make us see
it's all of Him. Have no confidence in the flesh. All right? So now let's go to
verse 14 because we see this work is wrought in these men.
Verse 14. Wherefore they cried unto the Lord, and said, We beseech
thee, O Lord, we beseech thee, let us not perish for this man's
life, and lay not upon us innocent blood, for thou, O Lord, hast
done as it pleased thee. And you see what a contrast that
the cry of faith sounds like in these men, as opposed to the
words that the Jews were saying when it came time for Christ
to be delivered from death, right? They could have said, give us
Christ. Don't put him to death. But they didn't. And Pilate,
it says he was troubled by this. He didn't want to crucify innocent
blood. And he said, well, what should
I do with this one who's called Christ? And then answered all
the people. His blood be on us and on our
children. These mariners said, Lord, don't
make us guilty of His blood. Don't hold us guilty for that,
Lord. There is no other hope for salvation.
Have mercy on us. But these, with Christ, these
Jews, they said, His blood be on us. It don't matter. Put it
on our children. It's fine. That's good. We'll
take it. And so you see the difference
between religion and those whom the Lord is merciful to. So now in an act of faith we
read verse 15, so they took up Jonah and cast him forth into
the sea and the sea ceased from her raging. So Jonah there was
given as a ransom and the sea, the wrath of God, became still
and calm to the people. Still and calm. So that's what
our Savior has done for his people. We're all naturally under the
wrath of God, but for His people, when He gave His life and shed
His blood, the sea of God's wrath has become calm to us. We're
at peace with Holy God. He's merciful to us, and He's
good and gracious to us, and He's kind to us. He doesn't deal
with us as our sins deserve. In fact, we see His manifold
blessings every day. We see how, Lord, I don't deserve
this mercy. I don't deserve Your grace. I
don't deserve the abundance of provision You've given for me
and sustained my life and how You're provided for me. but in
spite of me you're gracious and merciful to me not for my sake
but for your son's sake who willingly sacrificed himself to put away
my sins all right and so that's all to bring us to nothing in
ourselves in our own estimation and for Christ to be made all
to us that's how he becomes all to us as we see it continually
his work all right so Now we see this display of the men's
response when that blood is applied, when that peace is brought. Verse
16 says, then the men feared the Lord exceedingly. They were
in awe of him. This is the true and living God
now that we're communicating here and these things, and they
offered a sacrifice unto the Lord, and made vows, so that
they served the Lord, seeing His display of power and glory
in their lives. He changed them, He turned them,
He gave them a new heart to seek Him, and they saw it all witnessed
in the substitute, dying in their place, the picture of Christ
dying in the place of His people. Alright, now next week we're
going to pick up in Jonah chapter 2, but our chapter here ends
with verse 17 where it says, Now the Lord had prepared a great
fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the
fish three days and three nights. which we know is a picture of
the burial of our Lord. He was laid in the grave three
days and three nights after his death. And it was this very thing
that our Savior calls our attention to in the gospel. In Matthew 1240, he said, for
as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly,
so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the
heart of the earth. And so Jonah was given as a sign,
a picture to declare to us the Savior, the Lamb of God. And that's what he did. And so
when you read Jonah, I pray that you remember that when you see
Jonah being cast in the sea, you remember your Savior cast
into the sea of God's wrath to put away your sin and how that
he was made an offering and accomplished our redemption. that the Lord
encourage you with this book, especially all the beautiful
types and pictures the Lord has given us there in His Word. Alright brethren, I pray that the Lord, anyone
that is suffering, anyone that sees their sin and that the Lord
is stirring their heart to turn them from their own works, and
their own go at religion, if you will,
to save themselves, that the Lord would turn your heart, that
He trouble you, but cause you not. Don't go on laboring forever. Seek the Lord. He troubles His
people to bring them to the end of themselves to seek Him. And I pray that the Lord would
indeed bless you and turn you to Him. Look to Christ. Call
out upon Him. He's a merciful and gracious Savior to all who
call upon Him, seeking mercy and forgiveness. All right, brethren,
let's pray. Our gracious Lord, we thank You,
Father, for Your display of mercy in Your Son, Lord, even pictured
here with Jonah. Father, we have nothing of ourselves. We are sinners. We're foolish.
We dwell in darkness, Lord, by nature, and cannot deliver ourselves
from that. We ask that you would have mercy
upon this people, that you would minister this gospel word to
the hearts of your people, and if any are yet in bondage and
in the prison of sin and in darkness to these things, that you would
stir their heart, that you would show them Christ, that they would
hear the voice of Christ calling them personally out from that
darkness, and that they would be brought into the light by
the power and glory of your Spirit and by the seed of Christ, be
made alive in Him to call upon you for mercy and forgiveness
and deliverance. Lord, we pray that you be with
your people, that you would indeed bless our hearts with your gospel
word. Encourage us, Lord. We thank
you for how you've been so merciful to us these many months now,
and even years, of how you are blessing your people and doing
such kind and wonderful things for us. We pray that you would
continue to bless us, to see your work. For it's in Christ's
name that we pray and give thanks. Amen. All right, so I asked Scott to
take the Lord's Supper today. So Scott, if you would, are you
able to hand, to distribute it? Yeah, yeah, would you both come
up? That'd be great, man. Since Levi
read earlier, I'll ask you, Scott, to pray when we come up and hand
them out. Yeah, let's pray and then hand
it out. Father, we come to you again
this morning thankful for the message that you've brought to
us. Father, we ask that you get that beautiful picture of Christ
that we just heard of and make it effectual to all the hearts
of your people. And Father, we ask that you guide
our decision-making process as we look for a more permanent
place. And Father, we ask that you give us the wherewithal and
the means to be able to to take care of all the things we need
to in relation to that. Father, we ask that you just
watch over and care for us, care for all your people throughout
the world that believe the gospel. Father, we ask that you watch
over all the pastors, especially our pastor, Father, as he continues
to bring the message. And Lord, we just ask that you
watch over and care for us in Christ's name.