We're in the book of Jonah tonight,
Jonah chapter one. Now, God tells Jonah to go to
Nineveh, that great city, and cry against them for their wickedness
that came up before him. Now, Nineveh is the capital of
Assyria. And I would remind us that throughout
scripture, we see the Assyrians and the Jews, they never got
along. They hated each other. And we
see Jonah as being, as I've described to us before, how the Jews were
very racist people, very racist people against the Samaritans,
very much so. But Jonah would not have wanted
to go to Assyria because he was racist. He would not have wanted
to go preach. It would be like if we were living
in 1941 and the voice of the Lord came into one of us and
said, I want you to go to Berlin, Germany, and I want you to tell
them the truth. Well, it would take the heart
of the Lord in order for us to have a desire to do that, wouldn't
it? Jonah would not have liked them. He would have been reminded
of the captivity that the Israelites would have faced with the Assyrians
and the battles that they had faced. And yet, in spite of all
that, in spite of all that, God says, arise, go to Nineveh. Now, Jonah did not go to Nineveh
at first. He says, no. in his heart. He says, no, he rebels. He says,
I'm going to go the opposite direction, the complete and total
opposite direction that you were telling me to go. Is that not
us by nature? Whenever the Lord comes to us,
he must cause us, he must make us willing in the day of his
power. The good news is, is his people
will be willing in the day of his power. But until that time
comes, as I was praying earlier, I was asking the Lord to, make
our hearts, make the ground good ground, make it tender ground,
where the Lord's seed can be sown, that's the parable of the
sower, because if the seed falls on hard ground, the seed falls
on my rebellious heart without the Lord causing it to take root,
it'll be choked out, won't it? Yet when the time comes, when
the time comes for the Lord to reveal himself, when the time
comes when the Lord says live, we irresistibly wake up, don't
we? That's the good news of the gospel.
I can't mess that up. It's all according to his word,
his promise, and his will. So we're in Jonah chapter one,
and let's read a little bit of this. We're going to go through
the entire chapter tonight. Verse one says, Now the word
of the Lord came unto Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Arise,
go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for their
wickedness has come up before me. Jonah rose up to flee unto
Tarshish, from the presence of the Lord. That word presence
means the face of the Lord. Went down to Joppa and he found
a ship going to Tarshish, so he paid the fare thereof. Went
down into it to go with them into Tarshish from the presence
of the Lord. But the Lord sent out a great
wind. My margin says that that word
sent is cast forth. The Lord sent, the Lord cast
forth a great wind into the sea. And there was a mighty tempest
in the sea, so that this ship was like to be broken. When the
mariners were afraid and cried every man, then the mariners
were afraid and cried every man unto his God and cast forth the
wares that were in the ship into the sea to lighten it of them.
The Jonah was going down to the sides of the ship and he lay
and was fast asleep. So the shipmaster came to him
and said unto him, what meanest thou, O sleeper? Arise, call
upon thy God. If so be that God will think
upon us that we will, that we perish not. The Lord says, go,
and Jonah fled. Every step in rebellion is a
step away from the Lord. Only the Lord's people can take
a step towards Him. Did you know that? Because they've
been given the feet of faith to do so. Everything else that
men do is away from the Lord. Even though men try to get to
the Lord their own way, even though they try to worship Him,
He must be worshiped in spirit and in truth. He must send His
Spirit. He must reveal Himself. He must say, seek you my face
for us to approach Him. So Jonah says, I'm going to go
to Tarshish. And he goes down to Joppa. So he goes down to
Joppa to go down to Tarshish and gets into a ship and goes
down into the sides of the ship. It's down, it's down, it's down,
isn't it? Boy, that's us too, isn't it? We left to ourself. We just continually go down and
down. He's the only way up. The Lord
Jesus Christ is the only way up. Everything we do is down.
It's opposite of him. We're completely the other of
him. He paid the fare of that ship
when he got to that ship. I'm reminded that rebellion always
costs more than we can pay. Rebellion always costs more than
we can pay. There's a ship that is the ship of rebellion that
is enmity against God, and men are trying to buy their way onto
that ship, thinking they're at peace with God. Jonah obviously
thought he was at peace with God enough in order to fall asleep
on this ship, in order to sleep through a storm, a windstorm.
that was prepared by God. That's how comfortable he was
in his rebellion. And the message I'm wanting to
declare to us tonight is, I think we've talked about a wicked heart
recently. We've talked about a stony heart
of pride. And tonight we're going to talk
about a rebellious heart. But I've titled the message,
The Great Wind of Mercy. The Great Wind of Mercy. Jonah
was very content sleeping in the sides of that ship, and do
not fool yourself, but I must not fool myself into thinking
that just because I can rest means that I'm at peace with
God. What was he looking to in his rest? He was in open rebellion
against God, and yet he was content in that rebellion. I'm not going
to Nineveh. I'm gonna do it my way. The Lord
says, no, you're not. No, you're not. I'm gonna send
a storm. I'm going to send a wind of mercy. See, if the Lord had
never sent that wind, that ship would have arrived directly to
Tarshish where it was supposed to go. It was mercy when the
Lord sent the storm. It was mercy when they cast Jonah
overboard, and it was mercy when he spent three days and three
nights in the belly of the well. Do you see yourself as Jonah
going, willing to flee from the Lord, trying to flee from the
Lord, but you can look back and say, Lord, it's you that brought
me back to you over and over. All those storms that the Lord's
caused in my life has caused me to run back to Christ. It's caused me to flee back to
him. I've seen myself in the belly of the well. I've seen
that hell is what I deserve. And yet the Lord causes me to
confess. And then I see that death has
no hold on the elect of God because Christ put it away when he died. Christ conquered death. Christ
conquered death. Truth of our nature is, is that
we're rebels by nature, by choice, by practice. What is our hope? What's a bunch of rebels hopes?
I was coming up here to be your pastor and I think somebody mentioned
that we're just a bunch of rebels. That's all we are, so I'll probably
fit in pretty good then. That's what we are by nature,
isn't it? We don't boast in that as our righteousness, certainly
not, but we do see our rebel nature. We do see that left to
ourself, we'll choose rebellion of this flesh. Look back at the
very beginning, that's what started it all, was the rebellion of
Eve, the rebellion of Adam, that's what men do. It's so contrary
to God, it takes an act of mercy to wake us up out of our sleep.
born dead and trespasses in sin. That's the sleep I'm talking
about. And then even when we become believers, we're left,
our old man still falls asleep, doesn't it? Constantly, and the
Lord, the new man always looks to Christ, but it's a warfare
that takes place, and we have to come to this place and hear
this gospel in order for the Lord to say, wake up, wake up,
you're in a storm. You're in a storm. And we're
made to confess just as Jonah's going to confess. that the Lord
is the reason for the storm. Our hope is that God would make
us look to Christ, not our payment for salvation, not our payment,
not our fare to get on this ship of rebellion, but look to the
payment of the Lord Jesus Christ, not be in rebellion towards God,
but look to the payment of the Lord Jesus Christ that he made.
Our hope is that he's not going to allow us to pay our own way
that he paid. He paid for us, His people, His
elect. Just like Jonah, as I've mentioned
before, we're rebels from birth. We're rebels in society. We're rebels to the world to
some degree, but our flesh loves the world. Flesh loves the pleasures
thereof and the lusts thereof. We're rebels against God. And
let's not deceive ourself in thinking that we're not 100%
rebels right now against God, the creator of this universe.
Our old man hates God right this second. Every fiber of this flesh
is enmity against God. This is what the scripture tells
us. It tells us so they that are in the flesh cannot please
God because of this. And we've already heard about
the heart condition that we have many times these last few weeks,
but we need to be woke up, don't we? We need the Lord to have
mercy and blow his wind from heaven upon us, the Holy Spirit,
and wake us up out of our slumber, or we'll be left as a bunch of
rebels. and be destroyed. Ultimately, that ship would have
been destroyed had they not. They were talking. They were
afraid that the ship was destroyed. That's what the wording there
meant. But it wasn't destroyed because Jonah was thrown overboard,
wasn't he? It's a picture of Christ, isn't it? The storm is
God's wrath. Storm is God's wrath against
the rebels. And yet Christ, who knew no sin,
became sin, took our rebelliousness into himself, our pride into
him. owning it as his own and his
father executed him, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. And what did happen to the storm? Very second Jonah
was thrown in the water, it ceased. It says immediately. I love that
word immediately. That means right now, right then,
peace be still. Only the Lord has that kind of
power. Only the Lord can cause the fury of his wrath to be assuaged. And he did it by his own death,
didn't he? If left to ourself, we would
try to pay the toll of rebellion, like Jonah. We would go down
into the sides of the ship. After we went down to Joppa,
after we went down to the ship, we would go down to the sides
of the ship and we'd fall asleep. That word fast asleep means a
deep sleep. He was snoring good. He was very
comfortable in his rebellion. That pricks my heart to think
how comfortable I am in my sin. It takes the Lord to reveal unto
us the sinner that we are. because we love sin, the flesh
loves sin, it does, not the new man. And as the gospel goes forth
and the Lord declares unto us, it is finished, it doesn't make
us say, yes, now I can live like everybody else or however I want
to live, do everything I want to do, because we've been given
a new nature, haven't we? And the way that we want to live
is unto Him, that's our heart's desire, not for salvation, no,
because we loathe ourself now, we see the enmity that we are,
And yet he chose to take my sin into himself. He chose to take
your sin into himself. That's our hope. That's our only
hope. When we see that, we repent. We repent. Woe is me, Lord. I'm
a man of unclean lips. Lord, have mercy upon me, the
sinner. Lord, I'm sorry for what I am,
for what I do. I fled from you. I went down
to the side of the ship and I was snoring just fine. I didn't know
that what I, all that I had done. We truly don't. We truly don't
know all the sin that we are in His eyes. Christ did. Christ knew every thought that
His people ever had. He knew every ill intent of our
heart that we've ever had. He knew every, even the unknown
sin that we do, He owned it. He owned it and He put it away
by His own blood. How do we fall asleep? Well,
we take our eyes off of it. Peter was walking on the water
just fine, wasn't he? For a moment, Peter literally walked on water.
I still can't wrap my brain around that. Peter walked on water as
a man. He was looking to Christ. And
the second he took his eyes off of Christ, he began to sink.
The second that you and I take our eyes off of Christ, what
happens? We fall asleep. We fall asleep. And the longer
we stay in that state, The louder we'll snore, it takes the Lord
to say, wake up. Romans 13 says, and that knowing
the time that it is now high time to awake out of sleep. For
now is our salvation nearer than when we first believed. Now this
thing of sleep is a sign of rest. It's a sign that the work is
all done. But if we're resting in what we're doing, we're nothing
but a bunch of rebels against God still. We have to be resting
in Christ's finished work. There's where true rest lies.
There's where we can put all our hope is in what Christ has
done. What Christ has done. Left to ourself, we would fall
asleep resting in our rebellion. The spirit indeed is willing,
but the flesh is weak. Now when the Lord said that,
that's a lowercase spirit. I think I mentioned this Sunday.
Or maybe I'm gonna mention it this Sunday. I know I wrote it
down recently. It's a lowercase s. What does that mean? It means
that's the new man and the old man. The new man's willing, but
the flesh is weak. Aren't you glad for the restraining,
constraining grace of God that keeps you and keeps me from ourself? What rejoicing there is in to
think that we're sitting right here alive and well because of
God's providence. All that we need has been provided
for us, not just physically, but spiritually. And he hath
not utterly left us to ourselves. He hath not utterly left us to
ourselves. I'm glad it's not dependent upon
me staying awake. That's what I'm trying to say.
It's by his grace that he keeps us awake. It's by his grace that
he keeps calling us. He doesn't let us be cast by
the wayside. We're his possession. He's going
to continue to draw us. He's going to keep us. So it's
not dependent upon what we do. The disciples had a hard time
staying awake. Do you remember the account when the Lord was
praying in the garden of Gethsemane? He said, watch with me and pray. And he came to the disciples,
the scripture says in Matthew 26, and findeth them asleep and
saith unto Peter. I find it interesting that he
had several disciples there with him, but he looks at Peter. Because
Peter was the one that just said, I'll go with you all the way.
I'll die with you. And he chopped off the servant of the high priest's
ear, and he says, I'm ready to fight. Let's go. Then he ended
up dying him three times, as you know, to a little girl. But
yet right here, the Lord looks at him and says, could you not
watch and pray with me, Peter, for an hour? Could you not watch?
No, Lord, I can't. If it's dependent upon me to
pray, Lord, you're going to have to cause me to, remind me to.
I can't remember to do, and I can't do it to please you anyways.
Lord, you know that. You're gonna have to pray on
my behalf. Now, that's not an excuse not to pray. I'm not saying,
don't leave here thinking, okay, our pastor says we never have
to pray. No, we're commanded to pray. We're commanded to pray,
to seek the Lord's face, to call upon Him while He is near. We're
commanded to do that. But still the truth remains. Could you not watch with me for
an hour? No, not enough myself, I can't. I know I can't. I know
I can't. The Lord says, watch and pray. that you enter not into temptation.
The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Well,
I told you I wrote it down, but I didn't know it was tonight.
I thought it was last Sunday or next. Spirit indeed is willing,
but the flesh is weak. He told Peter, your new man wants
to, but your flesh is weak. Your flesh is enmity against
God. It hates everything about God. It's an open rebellion even
now. I didn't come to save your flesh. I come to give you a new
nature. And he did. And boy, there's
a warfare that takes place The only place that a believer truly
rests is under the sound of the gospel. That's the only place
we get to rest. As soon as we leave this place, something happens
and my mind's drawn right back to the things of the world, the
cares of the world. My pride gets in the way and I get angry
at circumstances and I want to take matters into my own hand.
What's happening? I'm falling asleep again. I'm going down
to the sides of the ship. I'm not looking to Christ, I'm
sinking again. No, he leads me to myself just
for a brief moment, long enough for me to have to cry out, Lord,
save me. Lord, have mercy on me, the sinner.
And he does, over and over. The believer's life is just a
big circle of rebellion and repentance, rebellion and repentance. That's
exactly what it is. It's the new man that repents.
The flesh doesn't own its own sin. The new man owns the sin
of the old man, and yet the new man has no sin in God's eyes.
It's amazing how he's done it so he gets all the glory in it.
That's how he's worked it. Lord asks the disciples, can
you not watch with me for an hour? He asks rhetorical questions
to make us think, don't he? Can you not do that? Well, I
thought I could. I thought I could, but I was
wrong. Lord, I was wrong, I can't. I
can't, you're gonna have to do it. There's something to be said
about our adversary that desires to rock us to sleep with the
cares of this world. There's something to be said
about that. Satan would love to rock you to sleep. He loves
to rock the world to sleep. The religious world is asleep.
It takes the Lord to wake us up, don't it? Aren't you glad
he does? How does he do it? By his gospel,
by the preaching of his gospel, his finished work for his people. He comes by and that wind from
heaven blows upon us. And the captain of our salvation
says, awake, awake. out of your sleep and call upon
your God lest you perish. And we say truth, Lord, I didn't
see myself as asleep. I didn't even know I was sleeping,
but now I see I was asleep and we repent. We repent again over
and over. Jonah would have never been awoken
lest the wind, the breath, that's the wind, the word wind there
is the same word as breath and it's the same word as spirit.
It's a picture of what the Lord does for His people every time
we gather together. He blows upon us. What does He
accomplish when He blows? Well, He blows all the dirt off
of us of this life with the washing of water by the word. He blows
life into us. I'm reminded of CPR when somebody's,
they're unconscious, they're asleep, their heart's still beating,
but they're not breathing. Boy, we come in here a lot of
times, our heart's still beating because the new man is incorruptible. We need the Lord's spirit to
resuscitate us again, don't we? I mean, I think I'm making sense
in that. Lord, I'm not dead again, but
I need you to breathe on me again, breathe life into me again. I'm
cold. I've grown so cold in my slumber and I've rebelled again.
Turn us again, Lord, we'll be turned. Don't leave me to myself
in this state. And the good news is, as he tells
us, in you hath he quickened. That means made alive. We were
dead in trespasses and in sin. He just calls us over and over
again. And he says, I've made you alive. And because I've made
you alive, it lets you know I bought you. You are mine. And he's not
going to leave us. And he's not going to forsake
us, regardless of the circumstance, regardless of how we see things.
God reigneth. He's still seated on his throne.
He's still sending his spirit to his people, breathing upon
them, causing them to live, causing them to breathe. He just wakes us up and shows
us we're about to perish, just like the Jonah here. Shows us
that it's our sin that's going to cause the death that we are.
And yet then he shows us, I put away your sin. He told Peter,
Peter said, Lord, I'm going to go with you all the way even
to death. And he said, get behind me, Satan. Get behind me, Satan. For Satan had desire to sift
thee as wheat. You know, Satan's desire to sift us as wheat as
well. What does he tell Peter? He says, Peter, I've prayed for
you that your faith fail not. Lord, cause it to be so that
you pray for us. Because if you pray for us, whatever
you ask for on your people's behalf will come to pass. Wake
us up. to the fact of our rebellion
and calls us to see Christ as our only hope and salvation.
Our only hope. Captain of our salvation. I said
that earlier. That's who Christ is. He's our
captain. It's his ship. It doesn't have
a rudder. It doesn't have a steering wheel.
It doesn't have sails. It moves according to his will,
according to his purpose. And yet, We see that the captain
of our salvation must say unto us, what meanest thou, O sleeper?
Arise, call upon thy God. If it be that God will think
upon us, that we perish not. That's why we come here, isn't
it? We want to hear the Lord say, wake up again and again.
We need him to. We need him to say, call upon
me again and again. For left to ourself, we'll sleep
all the way to Tarshish, won't we? All the way to Tarshish. I love the thought that whenever
the Lord went to Lazarus, I can relate to Martha, said, Lord,
if you'd have been here, our brother would not have died.
You're four days late. No, the Lord was right on time.
He was four days late. He's the only one that can be
four days late and right on time. He comes up to the tomb, doesn't
he? What did he say? Lazarus, come forth. Is that why you come here? That's
exactly why we come here, isn't it? Lord, I need to hear my name
called. I need you to say into me come
forth. I need to hear awake. Oh you that slumbereth and sleep.
I need to be woken up Lord, because I'm left to myself. I'm just
a rebel. A rebel without a cause just
to be at enmity against you with my fist. I'll I'll ride all the
way to Tarshish thinking I have peace with you, but I won't.
I don't have any peace. I'm a rebel, have mercy on me,
the sinner. Well, Jonah was made to confess
this in verse seven. And they said, everyone to his
fellow, come and let us cast lots that we may know for whose
cause this evil is upon us. So they cast lots and the lot
fell upon Jonah. Then said they unto him, tell
us, we pray thee for whose cause this evil is upon us. What is
that occupation and whence comest thou? What is that country and
what people art thou? And he said to them, I am a Hebrew
and I fear the Lord. the God of heaven, which hath
made the sea and the dry land. Then were the men exceedingly
afraid and said unto him, why hast thou done this? For the
men knew that he had fled from the presence of the Lord because
he had told them. Then said they unto him, what shall we do unto
thee that the sea may be calm unto us? For the sea rocked and
was tempestuous. He said unto them, 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.
Nevertheless, the men rowing hard to bring it to the land,
but they could not, for the sea wrought and was tempestuous against
them. 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. So they
took up Jonah, cast him forth into the sea, and the sea ceased
from her raging. Then the men feared the Lord
exceedingly and offered a sacrifice unto the Lord and made 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. In order for Jonah to save them,
he volunteered to die. He volunteered to die. He confessed
who he was, who he is, and what he had done. And that's the same
for every believer. When we see the wrath of the
Lord that we deserve, what is it you confess? What is it you
confess? You don't confess your merits,
do we? We don't confess our merits when we see hell, when the Lord
dangles us over hell and shows us that's what we deserve. What
do we confess? Truth, Lord, have mercy upon
me, the sinner. We cry out for mercy, don't we?
We don't justify ourself. Jonah didn't justify himself
here with these men. He said, no, I'm the reason that
this is caused. The only solution is somebody's got to die and
it's got to be me. I'm volunteering for you to cast me overboard.
Volunteering to do that. for you the salvation, this physical
salvation of these men. When the truth comes, when the
truth comes, we confess the truth. When the truth comes to a believer,
we confess the truth. This is exactly what happened
to David, and we see the picture all throughout scripture of this
happening. David had sinned with Bathsheba, and Nathan came to
him and gave him a story, an allegory of what he had done
with a new lamb, a little lamb that a rich man had taken cruelly
and they ate it instead of eating one of the many flocks that he
had. David said, okay, well, what's gonna happen to this man
is he's gonna, this man's gonna die. This is what's gonna happen
to him. Nathan said, you're the man, David. Thou art the man.
You're the one that took the lamb. What did David say? What was his confession? It's
the same as Jonah's. David said unto Nathan, I have
sinned against the Lord. See, I don't look to see, and
you don't look to see. When the Lord reveals you're
the sinner, we're no longer looking at each other saying, okay, well,
that one's the sinner, and that one's the sinner, or that, no,
it's this, I'm the sinner. Is that not true? That's what
we, I have sinned against the Lord. I'm the one that's in need
of mercy. I'm the one that's in need of
grace. David said, I sinned against the Lord. Nathan said, the good
news of the gospel, the Lord hath put away thy sin. Thou shalt not die. This is what
this great wind of mercy reveals. In the storm, we see this, the
wrath of God. We see it could be the trials
of life, whatever it is, but it always reveals the same thing.
The Lord hath put away his people's sin. We are made to believe that
we're the rebel that needs saving. That's why God's storms are necessary,
is to reveal that to us. Every single storm that the Lord's
given, every single one without exception is necessary. Did you
know that? We see the storm of God's wrath as being satisfied
by the death of Christ. But there's storms that we face
in life. There's warfare that we wrestle,
not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against
powers, against rulers of the darkness of this world, against
spiritual wickedness in our places. And what do they tempt us with?
The same thing they tempted Eve and Adam with. And what do we
do in our rebellion? We start wondering towards the
forbidden fruit again, don't we? We need to be brought back.
How does he do it? He gives us a storm. He gives
us a storm. Either you're in one, You just
came out of one or you're going to be going in one. If you're
a believer of the Lord, you can mark it down. Either you're going
into a storm, you're in one, or you're coming out of one.
That's just how the believer's life is designed, by great designs
of grace and mercy so that we're made to cry out, we're made to
confess, I have sinned against the Lord. And he says, I've put
away your sin. You shall not surely die. What
mercy, what mercy the storms of life are so that we see our
rebellion. Without the storm, Jonah would
have never woke up. He'd have slept all the way to
Tarshish. In mercy, the Lord sends a storm. What pure delights of sweet mercy
that the Lord does not leave his people to themselves. Now, there's two kinds of responses
whenever Men see this storm, the wrath of the Lord. They see
the circumstances. There's two responses, either
to confess, I have sinned against the Lord, as we just heard, or
men, just as these men do, look in verse five what they did. Then the mariners were afraid
and cried every man unto his God and cast forth the wares
that were in the ship into the sea to lighten it of them. Men
will hear that they're at enmity against God. and they'll try
to start lightening the ship. Now understand, in religion,
I heard this preached as we need to lighten the ship, the load's
too heavy. I heard that before. That is not the picture here.
It's a picture of freewill works religion, seeing the wrath of
God and thinking we can escape it by taking the things that
we're holding onto the dearest and casting them overboard. Taste
not, touch not, handle not. That's what these men did. They
cried upon their God and they said, we know what to do. We're
gonna lighten the load of the ship and the ship will bring us to
safety. That's what men do by nature, isn't it? They think
they can do better to escape. Now understand something, the
wares that they're talking about, this would have been a merchant
ship. They didn't have, maybe a queen in Egypt would have had
a little pleasure boat or something, but they didn't have any cruise
ships back then. This wasn't a cruise ship. This was a vessel
of work. This was these men's livelihood.
And they took the work that they were going to cash in on, and
they threw it overboard. But that still did not stop the
storm, did it? It still did not stop the fury
of God's anger and wrath. Why? Because nothing we can do
can please God. So why did Jonah have to die?
Because he was the sinner. He was the guilty one. He was
the one that had committed transgression against God. So what is our hope? Lord, if you cast me into the
sea, it's not gonna do any good. I can't satisfy your justice
or your wrath. The storm's gonna continue. The
storm will continue. Lord, you're gonna have to be
my substitute. You're going to have to have taken my sin into
yourself, and I'm gonna have to lay hands upon you and throw
you overboard. That's the picture. These men
had to throw him overboard. Why didn't Jonah just dive in?
Why didn't he just do a cannonball? If he knew it was gonna end the
wrath, why didn't he just splash on in? I'm gonna be speaking
on that on Sunday in depth, but I don't think there's anything
wrong with giving you a preview. They had to lay hands upon him
just just as. It's a type of us having the
Lord laid our sin upon his darling son and we were the cause of
his death. Do we see that? The very moment that Christ entered
into that water, the wrath of God stopped. Because God was
satisfied with his death in putting away our sin on the cross whenever
he entered into death. Death could not hold him because
God was satisfied with his son. He had no sin upon him. That's
why death couldn't hold him. It had no charge against him.
The glorious news of the gospel is, is he took his people with
him. He took his people with him all the way even into death.
He died, they died in him. When he was resurrected, they
were resurrected in him. That's our hope. That's our hope.
Lord, don't let us fall asleep on this ship and leave us sleeping.
Blow your spirit upon us and show us that you have entered
into death for your people. You fulfilled the covenant of
grace for your people. You took our sin, our guilt,
our shame, and you've given us your righteousness, your peace,
and the favor you have with your Father. You've given them to
your people. Now death can't say anything
against us. I love the thought that death
became nauseous. That's what happened to the whale,
wasn't he? Well, you don't vomit without being nauseous, do you? Lord, death couldn't hold him. Death couldn't hold him. Death
had to release him. We no longer look to our lightening
of the wares, do we? No longer look to what we're
doing. We've been made to know that we are the man. We're the guilty one and we must
have a substitute. I find it interesting that these
men cast lots. Now, if they were fishermen,
it doesn't say their occupation, whether they're fishermen or
whatever they are, their possessions that they had, the goods that
they were going to disperse, they cast overboard. Normally in a trade,
if you're in a business and you're sailing like this, or even in
a town, you'll get to know people of the same trade. Anybody that
has a profession that's here, you'll get to know some people
that do the same thing you do. You get to know them a little
bit. So as they're casting lots, I can imagine that somebody looks
and it says, well, George, I know that it's not you that's the
problem. And somebody else says, well, Bill, I know it's not you
that's the problem. And that's what men do in religion,
isn't it? Men need affirmation in religion saying, no, I know
the life you live is good enough. I know what you're doing is good
enough for God. Remember, you got saved. You already came down
and gave your heart to Jesus. You've already marked it down
and done this and that. This is what men do in religion. Several
people would come up and say, how do I know if I'm saved? And
I said, because you did this and you did this. That's not
what God says. Our only hope is that we were
in Christ and we can't get in him or get out of him. It's not
what we do at all. That's the rebellious nature
that we have, thinking we can lighten the load and do unto
him. We cast lots in religion and think that we're good enough
because we're not like so-and-so or we're not like this person.
The Lord says, no, I'll disannul your covenant. There's nothing
you can do to please me. Your only hope is that Christ,
Christ, our Jonah, was thrown overboard, bearing the sin of
his people, bearing the sin of his people. And the moment he
touched death, the wrath of God had been satisfied and death
could not hold him. That's our hope, isn't it? That's why we
come here, is to be woken up out of sleep and reminded again,
it's not about me, it's about him. It's not about what I do
or am going to do. It's about what Christ has done. Jonah confessed the truth to
these men. He told them, I'm a Jew. I'm
a Hebrew. I'm fleeing from God. I'm rebelling. And the men were exceedingly
afraid. And I find it miraculous that
at the very end of this, I'll tell you this in closing, the
very end of this amazes me that even in our stubborn, stupid
pride that we have and our rebellion that we are, our rebellion that
we're always doing, The Lord still calls his people. The Lord
still calls his sheep. We have evidence of that right
here. Jonah was at the right place at the right time for these
men to hear about the Lord. Capital L, capital O, capital
R, capital D. That's Jehovah, the sovereign
creator of this universe. And it says they made sacrifice
unto the Lord, Jehovah. And they offered up vows unto
him. They made vows. These men, they
believed Jehovah after this. Now, I do not recommend going
out thinking that you can live a rebellious life that's contrary
to what the Lord said and think, well, the Lord's gonna do whatever
he's gonna do. That's antinomianism. We don't
preach that here. There's consequences according
to the flesh. If you speed and you get pulled over, you're gonna
get a ticket. It's that simple. That's as simple as I can make
it. Thanks be to God. Thanks be to the Lord. He keeps
his people, doesn't he? He keeps turning us. He keeps
waking us up. We're over here snoring again,
day after day, and the Lord says, wake up. Captain of our salvation,
wake up, pray into the Lord, beg him. And we see that the
miraculous part is that the Lord's gonna get everyone that he's
already gotten in time, everyone that he already had in eternity,
written in the Lamb's Book of Life, he's gonna get them in time,
bringing them to the knowledge of the truth, despite you and
I, regardless of what we do. Thanks be to God, it's not my
responsibility to save my children. I can't save my children, I can't
save myself. There's a relief in that, isn't
there? To know that it's not what you do that's going to save
your loved ones. We can't save them. We can bring
them to the place where they can hear the good news of the
gospel, the one that can save them, the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's what we can do. We can see that we have this
sacrifice, just as these men saw. We can see that we have
a sacrifice that that caused the wrath of God to cease. What vows do we offer unto the
Lord? Well, we look to the vows that the Lord Jesus Christ made,
because every vow we would ever make will break. Is that not
true? Every vow I've ever made unto him, I've broken. Lord,
I can't, I'm gonna fall asleep if you don't keep me awake. I
can't watch and pray with you for one hour. Every vow I'll
ever make, I'll break. But Lord, he didn't. Christ didn't. Every vow that he ever made,
he fulfilled. And that is all my plea before you. Lord, send
your wind of mercy and wake me up. Not just now, but every day. Wake me up all the time. Don't
let me slumber and sleep. It calls me to see Christ, calls
me to call upon the Lord, calls me to see that it is truly finished. It calls me to rest all of my
hope in his, the Lord Jesus Christ's work. Amen. Father, thank you
that you send your wind of mercy to wake up your people. Lord,
thank you for causing us to rest in Christ. Continue to do so
and leave us not to ourself, we pray. In Christ's name we
pray, amen.