WEBVTT

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 Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you, Father, that you could cause something written

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 over 2,700 years ago and still use that, Father, to speak very deeply into our hearts.

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 And so, Father, we ask that your Holy Spirit would bring your word deeply to us,

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 that it might change our hearts, and that we might be more and more disciples of Jesus who are gripped

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 by the gospel, learning to live for your glory. And this we ask in the name of Jesus, your Son and

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 our Savior. Amen. Please be seated. So, I have lots of conversation, not as many as I'd like. I wish I

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 had more opportunities to talk about Jesus with people who don't know him. I'm actually a very

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 reluctant and shy guy about that, but I'm trying to get confidence as I go along in my Christian walk.

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 But there's a phrase that people would say to me all the time after they maybe get a bit more

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 comfortable with me, they get her, you know, figuring out that I'm a Christian. And it's only been very

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 recently that I've actually been able to handle it very well. I just want to encourage you, don't wait

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 until you can handle things well, to talk about Jesus. Like, it's not the end of the world if you

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 can't handle something very well in the moment. But one of the things that people say to me very often

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 is, George, is my mic working all right? Yeah. George, you, you know, we all know, the person

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 will say to me, we all know that everything happens for a reason. That's what they'll say. We all know that

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 everything happens for a reason. And then they go on to tell about something that's going on in their

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 life. And they don't understand what the reason is. And I guess they hope that I'm going to be able

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 to, I get nervous when I see sound people walking around. Is it all right? No? Okay. So they say,

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 George, you know, everything happens for a reason. And this has happened to me. And I don't know why

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 that's happened. And for a long time, I didn't really know how to handle it. And I'm only now

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 beginning to realize a little bit about how to handle it. Because that idea sounds a little tiny bit

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 similar to something that Christians might say. But it's just really struck me that it often really

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 comes out of a very different worldview. Actually, it's a worldview, which is both common today,

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 but also very common in the story of Jonah, which we're going to look at in a moment.

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 It's very, very common for many people in our world to think that, believe in some type of karma.

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 I'm going to use the word karma to capture a range of ideas. What goes around,

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 comes around. What you give, you're going to get. There's this very, very common belief

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 that there's some type of moral structure to the universe so that when you do something which is

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 bad, there's going to be some type of bad consequence that's going to happen to you. And

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 that's just the way the world is. And it's out of that worldview, for instance, that people then wonder

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 why bad things happen to good people, right? Because if you're a good person, you're doing good,

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 you're giving good, then why on earth would a bad thing happen? Bad things happen to people who've done

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 bad because karma is real. There's a moral universal structure of how things work. And when bad things

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 seem to happen to a good person, it just doesn't make any sense. And so this very, very common,

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 modern idea was, in fact, very common in the time that the story was written. And believe it or not,

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 it actually has some very interesting and wise things to speak into this understanding that lots

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 of people have, that what goes around comes around. You get what you give and all of that. So it'd be a

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 great help if you turned in your Bibles to the book of Jonah. It might be hard for you to find it.

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 It's a wee tiny book. And it's sort of almost in the exact middle of your Bible. And my Bible,

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 if you sort of go to the middle of the Bible and just start trying to go very slowly towards the

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 right, you'll eventually come to it. And just before we start reading the story, just a few things.

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 This Jonah, parts of the story of Jonah is one of those things that many, many people are familiar

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 with. Jonah and the whale, very, very common type of idea, even amongst people who rarely go to church

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 or maybe even never been to church. They've probably heard the story, at least their understanding of

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 the story of Jonah and the whale. Jonah, we know from 2 Kings, prophesied during the time of Jeroboam

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 the second. So let's just say roughly that he prophesied around 750 BC. Jeroboam was the king

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 from 782 to 753. And let's say 755. If we said 755, we have a bit of an idea about it.

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 Lots of people don't think that they think that Jonah is just a bit of a parable. I'm going to treat

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 it as if it actually happened. And part of that is because if you just look at verse 1, in most of

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 your Bibles, they don't translate the original language fully. But the way that the book of Jonah

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 begins is, and it came to pass, or now it came to pass. That's how it begins. And it came to pass,

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 or now it came to pass, is the complete opposite of once upon a time. If you hear a story once upon

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 a time, you know that it's just a made-up story. But in the Old Testament, when a book begins with

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 now it came to pass, or and it came to pass, it means that the writer is claiming that this is a

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 fundamentally historical story. It's how 1 and 2 Samuel begins. It's how Ruth begins. It's how

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 Joshua begins. It's how Judges begins. And that's how the book of Jonah begins. And as well as that,

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 in the New Testament, Jesus talks about Jonah as if he's real. So, you know, we can talk about it over

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 coffee. But I'm going to be treating this as a historical story. It's a very simple story.

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 And the other way to think about it as we're reading it is, many of us like BBC series,

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 where you have four, a story may be told over a variety of episodes. So the way to think of Jonah

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 is four separate stories that make one big story. And without giving away the ending, I encourage you

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 to read the whole book for yourself. In a sense, it's actually, it really literally could be like a

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 BBC slash Netflix series, four separate stories that make one big story. Because the first story

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 ends with a cliffhanger. Jonah being thrown into the ocean and being swallowed by a big fish.

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 The second story is what happens inside the fish. And it ends with another type of cliffhanger,

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 Jonah being vomited onto the shore. The third episode, it'd be the very, very puzzling one,

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 because the third episode shows spectacular success. The type of success somebody like me

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 wishes that I could have, and I will never have it. But Jonah has spectacular success. But the problem

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 is at the end of the third episode, if you were watching this on the BBC, it'd go, one moment,

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 how come there's a fourth episode? Like there shouldn't be a fourth episode. It should end right now

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 with the great spectacular success. And the fourth episode is the one that keeps, not confusing you,

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 but all of a sudden it reveals a whole pile of stuff that's actually really going on in Jonah's heart

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 to make you reconsider a lot of what you've seen and heard in the first episode. So that's sort of

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 how the book of Jonah is structured. So we're going to look at the first story. The first episode,

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 which as you all know, because you've already heard it read, ends with a cliffhanger. Jonah being

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 thrown overboard, and rather than dying, a huge aquatic beast swallows him. So, but let's go to

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 the beginning of the story, and we'll just sort of look through it. Verse 1 of chapter 1,

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 now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, arise, go to Nineveh, that great

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 city and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me. But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish

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 from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid

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 the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.

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 Now, just sort of pause here for a second. It's very interesting. I've had lots of people say to

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 me over the years, I'd believe in God if he just showed up. Like, why doesn't God just appear to

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 me and speak to me? Then I'd believe him. And interestingly enough, that's exactly what happens

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 to Jonah. But his response isn't to fall down and worship the Lord. His response is to do the opposite

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 of what the Lord wants to say. It's just sort of interesting that many of us think that if a certain

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 thing like this happened, that would be all God has to do for us to believe in him. But when you

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 have a story of it actually happening to somebody, the result isn't what they, like my friends would

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 say is going to happen. It's the opposite. Jonah takes off. And Nineveh, it's very interesting.

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 Nineveh has indirectly been in the news for quite a long time because Nineveh is across the river

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 from Mosul. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that correctly. M-O-S-U-L, which was the center of ISIS.

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 This huge battle. Mosul is on the opposite side of the river from Nineveh. And that's the region

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 that God sends Jonah to go to. It's 800 miles northeast of Israel, 300, sorry, 800 kilometers

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 northeast of Israel, 355 kilometers directly north from Baghdad. And it was a cruel empire. It was a

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 powerful empire. Israel at the time was a vassal state of Assyria. And God says, it's an evil place.

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 I want you to go and speak to them on my behalf. And Jonah's response is to go to Joppa. And Joppa

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 is right beside what we now call Tel Aviv. It's in the city of Jaffa, which is right beside Tel Aviv.

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 And Jonah goes there and he goes and he gives approximately at least a year's worth of money

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 to the ship. They don't know where Tarshish was exactly. Some people think it was Carthage.

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 Some people think it was Spain. But wherever it is, it was going to be as far away in the opposite

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 direction as Jonah could go. So he obviously had some means. He sells up what he has. He's going to be

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 gone one way, a year away, a year's worth of travel away from where God wants him to go.

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 And so that's what he does. So what's going to happen? I mean, that's the story. I mean,

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 it's a bit of a surprise. Lots of people would say, if God just would show up, I'd believe in him.

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 We have a story where God does show up and the response is not to believe in him, but to do the

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 opposite of what he says. So what's God going to do? Well, that begins to be seen in verse four.

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 But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea. Jonah's in the boat. And there was a mighty tempest

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 on the sea so that the ship threatened to break up. Then the mariners were afraid and each cried out

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 to his God and they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them.

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 But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep.

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 Just a little tiny thing. It doesn't make good English, but when it says here,

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 then the mariners were afraid and each cried out to his God, the word God there is plural.

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 So these are pagans. They don't just believe in one God. They're in deep trouble. So they would call

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 out to this God and that God and that God. They're trying to get through a little bit of a checklist,

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 each of them, to see if by calling out to their God, that God is the one responsible for the problem

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 and will stop it. And they call out to their gods. But Jonah is asleep. Now, what we're going to see

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 in a moment here helps to bring this out. But there's, in a sense, what we need to understand

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 here, there's two, it's the opposite. You know, there's that old thing about the Lord holding you

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 in the hollow of his hand. It's part of that Irish blessing. You know, may the road rise up to meet

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 you and the wind be at your back and may the Lord hold you in the hollow of his hand. And it's an

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 image of a person being very secure and asleep in the Lord, the hollow of the Lord's hand.

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 But that's not the image which is at work here. The image that is at work is that Jonah has descended

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 into the sleep of denial and oblivion. It's the same type of an issue, not that Jonah is drunk.

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 It's the same type of thing that a person facing lots of trouble and their response is to go out and

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 get hammered and get so hammered that they fall asleep. And it's that type of sleep, the sleep of

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 denial, of not walking towards your problems, not dealing with your problems, not being at peace,

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 but in fact being in denial and oblivion that Jonah's in. So what's going to happen? Well,

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 verse six, so the captain came and said to Jonah, what do you mean you sleeper? Arise,

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 call out to your God. Perhaps the God will give a thought to us that we may not perish. And in the

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 original language, the way it's spoken by the captain, the pagan captain, is it can either be

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 indignation? Like, how dare you choose oblivion when we're in this problem? Or it could also mean

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 just they're shocked. How on earth could anybody sleep when the ship is banging around and storming

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 around? The captain could mean either one of the two of them, or maybe he means both of them. He's

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 both indignant and completely and utterly gobsmacked that anybody would be able to fall asleep in this.

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 But in a sense, within the logic of the book, once again, Jonah is not dealing with his life.

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 He's fleeing from the presence of the Lord, and he's fleeing from the presence of the Lord. And when

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 you flee from the presence of the Lord, you're going towards oblivion. You're going towards denial.

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 And you're just, it's like an ostrich sticking its head in the sand. I don't know if that really

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 happens, but it's, you know, something which we're familiar to thinking about. So the captain

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 confronts Jonah, says, you've got to get up. We've got to deal with this. The storm is going to kill us.

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 We're all going to die. So what happens? Well, verse 7 and 8, they said to one another, this is the crew,

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 come let us cast lots that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us. So they cast

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 lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. Then they said to him, tell us on whose account this evil has come

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 upon us. What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people

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 are you? And just sort of pause here for a second. So what the pagan sailors have done is they've gone

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 through a very, very proper religious type of process. They begin by praying that to each of their

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 different gods, as many gods as they can think of, praying, hoping that one of those gods will hear

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 and stop the storm. So that's not working. So what are they going to do? Well, remember I said,

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 I have people coming up to me in Starbucks, or they talk to me in Starbucks or other places, and they say,

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 we all know that everything happens for a reason. That's exactly how they think. Sort of a bit of a shock

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 to think that somebody in the year 755 BC thinks the exact same way as a hip, cool, postmodern

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 barista in 2019 in Ottawa, but they think in exactly the same terms. Everything happens for a reason.

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 But unlike hip, postmodern baristas in downtown Ottawa in 2019, they're not troubled with the problem

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 of evil because they would just say in Jonah's time that the god is probably justifiably angry.

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 And what goes around comes around, and you get what you give. So somebody here has offended a god,

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 and we got to figure out who has offended the god so we can do, help the god do to that person what

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 that person deserves. That's just how they would understand what's going on. So they cast thoughts.

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 It's the ancient way. Today, of course, actually, I shouldn't say that. Many, many, many, many people,

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 you go to chapters or indigo books, and you'll see all sorts of rows and rows and rows and rows and

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 rows of books about how to cast spells and how to do those types of practices. You take a course in it,

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 University of Ottawa. The more common secular thing, of course, is we would do some type of

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 statistical analysis or some type of model. I'm going to be really naughty. But all of this whole

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 claim on climate change is a variation on casting lots. They've done a statistical model to know the

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 future. Now that I've stopped being, I'm going to stop being naughty. I've probably lost half of the

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 room. Last time I made a comment about climate change, I got a very angry email by somebody that

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 never came back to the church afterwards. So I hope you come back again. But in the ancient world,

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 they didn't believe in using statistical models to know the future. They thought to know the future

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 or to figure out what the gods were going to do or how do we know the gods will is they would cast

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 something like lots. It would be like throwing dice today. And they'd have a process, usually with yes,

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 no question, to try to figure out what's going on. And so they do that. They want to know what the

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 gods are thinking so that the storm will stop. And it ends up that they figure out that it's Jonah.

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 Now, in the question that they have to Jonah, they don't actually think that Jonah's at fault at first.

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 Because it could simply be that the gods controlled the lots so that Jonah could now say,

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 ah, I know what the answer is to the problem. And I don't know if he'd been a really bad guy,

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 he could say that guy over there, he cursed whatever some god and that's why the problem's

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 happening. And then maybe they would have thrown that guy off the thing. But we don't know what

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 Jonah's going to say yet. But the other thing they do is it's a diagnostic question because in the

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 ancient world, very similar to today, in the ancient world, not only would there be a god connected to

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 a little region, but there'd also be a god, at least one god connected to your country. And there'd

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 probably be a god connected to your occupation. So they're talking to Jonah and say, okay, Jonah,

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 we have to figure out why is this big storm happening that's going to kill us. So just, okay, let us,

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 we're going to work with you, help you to try to figure out your primary god knowledge. So let's

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 tell me about where you're from and your occupation and all of that so we can try to get a bit of a

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 sense and you can communicate to us the god or gods that have been offended so we can deal with this.

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 So Jonah, if he'd been very unscrupulous, could have, in theory, said, that guy right there, I saw him

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 do this and that's obviously anchored this god, which is why we have the problem. But how do you

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 does Jonah answer? Well, we see that in verses 9 and 10. And he said to them, verse 9, I am a Hebrew

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 and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven. By the way, in the original language, the way he says this

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 indicates pride. You can't capture it in English, but in the original language, the word order shows

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 that he's pretty proud. Basically, he's saying, you dumb people believe in lots of gods. I know that

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 that's not true. I believe in the Lord. I'm a Hebrew. That's how they would have refused. Today,

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 we would talk about people being Jewish. The word Hebrew is rarely used, but back then it was Hebrew.

00:20:36.600 --> 00:20:40.420
 As an aside, a friend of mine that I've had lots and lots of conversations with,

00:20:40.420 --> 00:20:46.539
 the way he'd been coming into the same Starbucks as I had for quite a long time. And one day,

00:20:46.620 --> 00:20:51.759
 he saw me reading the Bible and I was reading the book of Hebrews. And he came up and to me,

00:20:51.800 --> 00:20:55.560
 he said, you're reading a book called Hebrews? And I said, yes. And he said, I've seen you here

00:20:55.560 --> 00:21:00.120
 reading the Bible many times. And I said, I read the Bible. Yes. He said, well, I thought I would

00:21:00.120 --> 00:21:05.680
 introduce myself because you're reading a book about Hebrews and I am a Hebrew. That's what he said.

00:21:05.680 --> 00:21:12.840
 I am a Hebrew. And that's how I met my friend Tzvi. But we don't usually use that word, but he,

00:21:12.960 --> 00:21:17.640
 we'll go back to verse nine. And he said to them, I am a Hebrew and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven.

00:21:18.039 --> 00:21:24.900
 And when he says the God of heaven, he's now used pagan language because in the pagan world,

00:21:24.900 --> 00:21:28.259
 there would have not only been gods, but there would have been a hierarchy of gods. It would have

00:21:28.259 --> 00:21:32.779
 been as if there's gods that were privates and gods that were corporals and guards that were

00:21:32.779 --> 00:21:38.399
 gods that were sergeants. And there's ultimately a general or a five-star general, if you're an

00:21:38.399 --> 00:21:43.379
 American. And he said, in a sense, the Lord is a five-star general or four-star general.

00:21:43.720 --> 00:21:50.099
 That's when he says the God of heaven. He's trying to say a five-star, a five-star God.

00:21:51.059 --> 00:21:56.119
 And then the men, verse 10, sorry, I am the, I fear the God of heaven who made the sea and the dry

00:21:56.119 --> 00:21:59.359
 land. Verse nine, then verse 10, then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him,

00:21:59.359 --> 00:22:05.659
 what is this that you have done? For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord

00:22:05.659 --> 00:22:13.099
 because he had told them. So the narrator, the writer tells us indirectly that Jonah takes

00:22:13.099 --> 00:22:21.379
 responsibility for the storm. He's fleeing from the presence of the Lord. The pagan sailors are smarter

00:22:21.380 --> 00:22:31.360
 than Jonah. They realize that, well, how, Jonah, how, if you know that the Lord is made all of the water

00:22:31.360 --> 00:22:36.700
 and all of the land, how is it you think you can actually flee him? Like if you just have the God

00:22:36.700 --> 00:22:42.140
 of King Edward Avenue, you can go to Bronson and flee the God of King Edward Avenue. But if you have

00:22:42.140 --> 00:22:47.080
 the law of the God of all of Ottawa, it doesn't help you if you go from King Edward Avenue to Bronson,

00:22:47.079 --> 00:22:53.419
 still Ottawa, that God's still in control. So they can't figure out why Jonah is so foolish

00:22:53.419 --> 00:23:00.439
 to think he could flee from the presence of the Lord, but the Lord is also the Lord of the water.

00:23:02.359 --> 00:23:08.179
 Now, there's a thing here which isn't as obvious in the English, but it's more obvious in the original

00:23:08.179 --> 00:23:14.599
 language. When I was in Eganville, a little tiny place, if you left here and there's no rush hour

00:23:14.599 --> 00:23:21.879
 traffic and there's no marathon race weekend, if you leave here, you can be in Eganville in about

00:23:21.879 --> 00:23:27.019
 two hours. But when I was in Eganville, I don't know if it's still the same way now,

00:23:27.799 --> 00:23:30.859
 everybody in town could have told me the church they don't attend.

00:23:32.779 --> 00:23:37.719
 Okay? Because, you see, most people in Eganville on a Sunday morning wouldn't go to church.

00:23:37.720 --> 00:23:44.600
 But they wouldn't just say they didn't go to church because they were tribes. You see, there

00:23:44.600 --> 00:23:48.299
 were all the Anglicans who didn't go to the Anglican church and there were the Baptists who

00:23:48.299 --> 00:23:51.779
 didn't go to the Baptist church and there's the Catholics who didn't go to the Catholic church.

00:23:52.200 --> 00:23:56.500
 But you'd never find a Catholic going to a Baptist church unless it was a funeral or a wedding,

00:23:57.100 --> 00:24:01.319
 you know, and vice versa. So most people didn't go to church, but they all knew who they were.

00:24:02.339 --> 00:24:06.940
 You know, they'd all know, oh, I'm an Anglican. So in other words, it was my church that they didn't

00:24:06.940 --> 00:24:14.420
 intend. Just a bit of an aside. Ask me about it at a coffee. I'm from Montreal and then I was in

00:24:14.420 --> 00:24:20.440
 Ottawa. It took me six years of being in the church to discover that the most influential person in the

00:24:20.440 --> 00:24:27.000
 church that would undermine council decisions was a person who only came to church about once every

00:24:27.000 --> 00:24:35.320
 three years. Because I didn't understand how tribes worked in a place like Eganville. So she was a

00:24:35.319 --> 00:24:41.639
 very, very, very, very, very, very powerful person in that tribe. Sort of irrelevant that she actually

00:24:41.639 --> 00:24:47.259
 never went to church or gave any money. But she was very powerful. It took me six years.

00:24:48.139 --> 00:24:54.119
 All of a sudden I had this good grief. I hope I didn't look shocked. Like, why do you care what she

00:24:54.119 --> 00:25:02.259
 said? To which one old timer said, well, George, you'll move away. We have to live with her for the

00:25:02.259 --> 00:25:07.240
 rest of her life and she had lots of power. Anyway, so what Jonah's saying here is, doesn't mean he

00:25:07.240 --> 00:25:12.420
 actually fears the Lord. Doesn't mean he actually is believing or observant or anything. But he's very

00:25:12.420 --> 00:25:21.200
 proud of the fact that the God that he doesn't worship or trust is this one. And that's what he says

00:25:21.200 --> 00:25:31.220
 in the original language. Now, the pagan guys, they're familiar with the fact that you might

00:25:31.220 --> 00:25:36.860
 not actually give lots of sacrifices or do things to the different gods. But they have a very practical

00:25:36.860 --> 00:25:41.880
 problem in front of them, which is the storm is going on. And they now understand that they have

00:25:41.880 --> 00:25:47.319
 a problem with this guy who's angered the Lord, a God that they'd never heard of. Now they have a new

00:25:47.319 --> 00:25:52.500
 God that they've heard of and he's angered this God. And so they have to figure out what to do.

00:25:53.159 --> 00:26:00.619
 So verse 11, they ask him and then they said to him, what shall we do to you that the sea may quiet

00:26:00.619 --> 00:26:08.579
 down for us? For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. He said to them, pick me up and hurl me into the

00:26:08.579 --> 00:26:15.659
 sea. Then the sea will quiet down for you. For I know it is because of me that this great tempest has

00:26:15.660 --> 00:26:20.880
 come upon you. Now we don't think of it very much in our modern world, but what is it that we say?

00:26:21.540 --> 00:26:29.960
 What you give, you're going to get. What goes around, comes around. And we don't sort of really

00:26:29.960 --> 00:26:33.980
 on one level think about it. We think about it happening to other people or occasionally about

00:26:33.980 --> 00:26:41.000
 ourselves. But in this ancient world, they took that very literally, that the God of the land and

00:26:41.000 --> 00:26:47.380
 the sea is mad at Jonah. And so there has to be some type of an action of giving of that person

00:26:47.380 --> 00:26:53.460
 to God with a punishment that that God would say is deserved for that man's offense.

00:26:54.519 --> 00:26:58.539
 And that's how Jonah answers. He answers like a person of the ancient Near East.

00:26:59.319 --> 00:27:05.259
 He answers like a postmodern barista. Not quite, actually. We haven't quite figured that part out.

00:27:05.259 --> 00:27:11.879
 Well, how do the men in the boat react? Well, the men in the boat, they have to be very careful

00:27:11.879 --> 00:27:20.160
 because they know that sometimes the lots don't work. And they don't want to do something that

00:27:20.160 --> 00:27:26.579
 angers another God. So they're going to have to try to be a bit practical about this. And so what they

00:27:26.579 --> 00:27:32.680
 do is, well, you see that in verse 13. Jonah says, you ought to throw me in the water. But in 13,

00:27:32.680 --> 00:27:38.580
 they say, nevertheless, the men rode hard to get back to dry land, but they could not,

00:27:38.660 --> 00:27:43.920
 for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them. Therefore, they called out to the Lord,

00:27:44.840 --> 00:27:51.180
 O Lord, let us not perish for this man's life and lay not on us innocent blood. For you, O Lord,

00:27:51.240 --> 00:27:59.779
 have done as it pleased you. So they picked up Jonah, hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from

00:27:59.779 --> 00:28:08.059
 it's raging. So they want to cover their bases because maybe Jonah didn't tell them right,

00:28:08.139 --> 00:28:12.200
 the lots didn't work right, but they know that if they kill an innocent man, they might anger some

00:28:12.200 --> 00:28:17.960
 God and they could be in big trouble. The sea could just be as bad, maybe even be worse. But they try

00:28:17.960 --> 00:28:21.460
 and they try and they try. There's no way around it. So they hurled Jonah into the sea and the sea

00:28:21.460 --> 00:28:26.639
 stopped. So they know what? The Lord is God. The Lord is God.

00:28:26.640 --> 00:28:33.220
 He probably is that high king of heaven, the God of the heavens.

00:28:35.780 --> 00:28:40.600
 And so their response, well, that we see in verse 16.

00:28:43.780 --> 00:28:49.980
 And in the original language, there's an intensity which can't be captured in English.

00:28:49.980 --> 00:28:59.140
 Then the men feared with fear the Lord exceedingly. And they sacrificed sacrifices.

00:28:59.940 --> 00:29:05.480
 And they vowed vows. That's sort of what its language is. It's a language by using the same

00:29:05.480 --> 00:29:11.400
 word twice in the original language. It's a matter of intensity. That they feared the Lord with fear.

00:29:11.559 --> 00:29:18.279
 That they sacrificed with sacrifices. That they vow with vows. Because they aren't going to die.

00:29:18.279 --> 00:29:25.279
 They're going to live. And this Lord, the God of heaven, is obviously a real God. Because the storm

00:29:25.279 --> 00:29:33.720
 miraculously stops. And what happens to Jonah? Jonah gets thrown overboard. And in verse 17,

00:29:33.799 --> 00:29:39.139
 and the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three

00:29:39.139 --> 00:29:44.480
 days and three nights. And now the episode ends. And you have to watch the next episode to see what

00:29:44.480 --> 00:29:51.400
 happens next. And the word for fish isn't actually accurate. What really it means is aquatic beast.

00:29:51.480 --> 00:29:56.360
 A beast of the waters. So it's a large beast of the waters that swallows Jonah.

00:29:57.000 --> 00:30:01.440
 So what's going on here in the story? A few minutes to sort of wrap it up. On one hand,

00:30:01.599 --> 00:30:06.819
 we go through the story slowly. Because the reason I go through the story slowly with you is this.

00:30:06.819 --> 00:30:12.740
 It's far more important for you to hear the story than to hear my words. The story will have its own

00:30:12.740 --> 00:30:21.099
 power. But if you, and here's this, it's a wonderful graphic from Amy, isn't it? This is the graphic for

00:30:21.099 --> 00:30:29.619
 our sermon series. You can see Jonah falling. And the series is called No Other. If you could put up

00:30:29.619 --> 00:30:34.559
 the first point. I'm not going to spend much time with it. But the reason that I've called the series

00:30:34.559 --> 00:30:43.179
 No Other, the story of Jonah, is because the Lord is God, there is no other God. And because there is

00:30:43.179 --> 00:30:49.899
 no other God, there is no other when it comes to people. That's going to be one of the big messages

00:30:49.899 --> 00:30:54.859
 of the book of Jonah, is that all the way through the book of Jonah, it's going to be very obvious

00:30:54.859 --> 00:31:01.500
 there is no other God than the Lord. You see that in this story. The Lord is the one who's able to stop

00:31:01.500 --> 00:31:06.640
 the storm. It completely and utterly gobsmacks them. Whether it means they end up worshiping the

00:31:06.640 --> 00:31:11.339
 Lord and renouncing paganism, we don't know. They fade from the story. But it gobsmacks them

00:31:11.339 --> 00:31:16.839
 that obviously the Lord is the Lord. And that's the first thing. And the other thing about it is,

00:31:16.880 --> 00:31:21.240
 as we all know, there's a very common problem that's talked about over the last 20 or 30 years

00:31:21.240 --> 00:31:26.960
 in our languages. There's a problem of treating people as the other. And the other,

00:31:26.960 --> 00:31:32.279
 if I treat somebody as the other, it means that I can be afraid of them. It means I can

00:31:32.279 --> 00:31:38.819
 fight them. I can do things to them. I'm threatened by them. And in this story, part of what's going to

00:31:38.819 --> 00:31:44.440
 be happening in all of Jonah is as the story develops, and it flows very, very clearly. If in

00:31:44.440 --> 00:31:50.539
 fact there's only one God, and that one God is the creator of all things, then in a sense,

00:31:50.539 --> 00:31:58.839
 every human being is equal. There is no other. And so Jonah is to see that these pagans can

00:31:58.839 --> 00:32:01.839
 understand a little bit about the Lord. And we're going to see it with Nineveh. And all the way

00:32:01.839 --> 00:32:07.440
 through the story, it's going to be developed to lose this fear of the other. And this fear of the

00:32:07.440 --> 00:32:14.539
 other is connected with understanding that there is no other God except the Lord. But more significantly

00:32:14.539 --> 00:32:22.819
 for us, just to try to connect it to our life, is the fact, it's amazing.

00:32:24.920 --> 00:32:31.700
 It really is amazing how many people that you talk to that basically do believe that what goes

00:32:31.700 --> 00:32:39.139
 around comes around, that you give what you get. A book that sold millions and millions of copies,

00:32:39.299 --> 00:32:43.559
 The Secret, was all about giving certain types of thoughts and practices so that the universe

00:32:43.559 --> 00:32:49.279
 would reward you in particular ways. And of course, in Eastern religions, the idea of karma is,

00:32:49.399 --> 00:32:57.179
 that's the religion of 1.3 billion Indians and, I don't know, 1.5 billion Chinese is that basic

00:32:57.179 --> 00:33:05.700
 idea of karma, of there being these just desserts to your actions, that there's a reason for everything

00:33:05.700 --> 00:33:10.539
 that happens. And the reason comes not because there's some sense of God's providence,

00:33:10.539 --> 00:33:16.740
 but the reason for everything happening is because you're always doing these things and you're going

00:33:16.740 --> 00:33:22.099
 to have these consequences that come from them. And it sort of sounds like a Christian idea, but it's

00:33:22.099 --> 00:33:28.859
 the opposite of a Christian idea. And it's a very, very common thing in our culture, this idea of just

00:33:28.859 --> 00:33:33.740
 desserts. It's very interesting that at a time when lots of people would say they believe in moral

00:33:33.740 --> 00:33:41.059
 relativism, at the same time they believe that there's a basic moral structure to the universe.

00:33:42.019 --> 00:33:46.799
 In fact, I have never talked to anybody who really does believe,

00:33:47.160 --> 00:33:50.579
 at a practical level, that there's no moral structure in the universe.

00:33:52.740 --> 00:33:58.579
 Even people who want to emphasize that there's no right and no wrong, before you know it,

00:33:58.579 --> 00:34:07.099
 they've added the word ought, or you need to. Or they have their own particular pet things that

00:34:07.099 --> 00:34:14.480
 are like anchors about right and wrong. But there's several problems with this idea of the moral

00:34:14.480 --> 00:34:19.579
 structure. And that's part of it comes when people come and ask me, well, George, everything happens

00:34:19.579 --> 00:34:26.900
 for a reason. And then they say, but there's something going on in their own life that doesn't fit with

00:34:26.900 --> 00:34:32.860
 that. Basically because they believe they've been a good person and something bad has happened to

00:34:32.860 --> 00:34:39.139
 them. And they hope that I'm going to be able to explain to them, almost like the pagan sailors

00:34:39.139 --> 00:34:44.240
 trying to figure out who we'll be able to be. Maybe they think I'm going to be like a Jonah. The lot

00:34:44.240 --> 00:34:49.579
 goes to me and I'll be able to tell them, ah, well, you did this and this and this. And that's why this

00:34:49.579 --> 00:34:56.780
 is happening. It's not maybe as conscious of that, but it's a very, very powerful idea. And so there's

00:34:56.780 --> 00:35:02.280
 several problems. One of them is the whole question of why is this happening to me shows

00:35:02.280 --> 00:35:06.260
 us that we know that in the real world, bad things don't always happen to bad people.

00:35:06.780 --> 00:35:16.580
 Idi Amin. Terrible, terrible, terrible man who did terrible things in Uganda died in his bed.

00:35:17.940 --> 00:35:24.660
 I think he died in Saudi Arabia. We all know that it doesn't, just desserts don't always happen

00:35:24.659 --> 00:35:31.799
 on this world. But there's another bit of a problem as well. And that is the very same people

00:35:31.799 --> 00:35:36.739
 who believe that there's a moral structure to the universe, they tend to believe one of two types of

00:35:36.739 --> 00:35:41.859
 understandings of the universe as well. One of the ways to understand the universe is

00:35:41.859 --> 00:35:50.039
 what we learn in university about a naturalistic account of human origins.

00:35:50.039 --> 00:35:59.480
 And in that world, which is what science teaches, if Jim's not here today, his wife Helen is here

00:35:59.480 --> 00:36:04.759
 today, she can tell you what happened when in the House of Commons it was suggested that there was an

00:36:04.759 --> 00:36:14.500
 MP who actually didn't believe in evolution. Stockwell Day got crucified. As much as a person can be

00:36:14.500 --> 00:36:20.739
 crucified in Canada after the year 2000 for publicly coming out that he doesn't believe in naturalistic

00:36:20.739 --> 00:36:27.059
 evolution. It's the common belief in our culture. But you know what? At the heart of naturalistic

00:36:27.059 --> 00:36:35.860
 evolution is this. Blind, irrational scientific laws with no purpose, no intention, just blind scientific

00:36:35.860 --> 00:36:45.300
 laws combined with blind scientific chance to create a world where the strong eat the weak

00:36:45.300 --> 00:36:50.180
 and the strong survive. Therefore love one another.

00:36:52.180 --> 00:36:56.820
 That makes no sense. It's completely and utterly irrational.

00:36:56.820 --> 00:37:09.140
 If you have a world of blind, irrational scientific laws and blind, irrational chance that culminates in a

00:37:09.140 --> 00:37:16.340
 world where the strong eat the weak, how on earth can there be a moral universe? Makes no sense.

00:37:17.140 --> 00:37:24.660
 If you have the eastern world view and in the eastern world view you have the idea that all is one.

00:37:24.659 --> 00:37:31.539
 You picture the ocean. Go to Halifax. Go to Vancouver. You see the large oceans. Go on a cruise and you see how

00:37:31.539 --> 00:37:37.699
 large the ocean is. And in those basic world views it's as if at one time there was just one. It would be

00:37:37.699 --> 00:37:45.299
 like the ocean. And it was just the ocean. All was one. But there is some tragedy at some point in time in

00:37:45.299 --> 00:37:53.379
 the past. And out of that tragedy difference emerges. And the difference that emerges ends up being you and me

00:37:53.380 --> 00:37:59.220
 in rocks and trees. But the way to solve that is at some point in time through karma or through

00:37:59.220 --> 00:38:04.820
 different spiritual disciplines or whatever is to get back to merge once again with the one. The

00:38:04.820 --> 00:38:11.539
 fundamental image is as if you were a drop of water and finally that drop of water returns to the ocean.

00:38:12.260 --> 00:38:19.059
 And in the ocean where all is one, the ocean is beyond good and evil. There is ultimately no good and no evil.

00:38:19.059 --> 00:38:25.539
 There is just the one. In fact, a moral shaped universe is an inherent contradiction

00:38:26.659 --> 00:38:33.059
 within their understanding of how things will be, how things came to be, and how things will come to an

00:38:33.059 --> 00:38:43.380
 end. Yet for most people, including in countries like China and India and in coffee shops, we have this

00:38:43.380 --> 00:38:49.380
 overwhelming sense that there is a moral order and a universe. But there's an even deeper problem.

00:38:50.260 --> 00:38:56.980
 Because if you just merely have a moral order and a universe, and you just have these blind laws of

00:38:56.980 --> 00:39:05.860
 justice, well, every single one of us has a basic sense that we don't want justice to stop being just.

00:39:05.860 --> 00:39:12.180
 But if there's just justice, that's always like a mechanical process.

00:39:13.620 --> 00:39:19.460
 Where on earth can there be compassion or mercy? If you could put up the point, please, that would be very helpful.

00:39:21.780 --> 00:39:33.300
 Karma is pure justice without mercy and grace. With the Lord, there is pure justice at peace with pure mercy and grace.

00:39:33.300 --> 00:39:50.100
 You see, at the very heart of the Christian story is the Christian story that all things were originally one.

00:39:50.900 --> 00:39:57.140
 It denies the idea that everything that comes to an existence has come to existence as a result of blind,

00:39:57.139 --> 00:40:05.699
 irrational, purposeless laws connected with blind, purposeless chance, connected with the strong eating the weak, so the strong survives.

00:40:06.339 --> 00:40:14.420
 Christians believe that what caused all things to be isn't a what, but a who. God is the one who's created all things.

00:40:14.420 --> 00:40:20.420
 And of course, he created things, and God isn't just God, it's the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,

00:40:20.420 --> 00:40:25.940
 that the very nature of God is not just that he is God and that he is just and he is good,

00:40:26.500 --> 00:40:32.460
 but that also that God is love, that for all eternity the Father has loved the Father.

00:40:32.780 --> 00:40:38.880
 And in some accounts, some Bible verses, it almost talks as if the Holy Spirit is that eternal love,

00:40:38.920 --> 00:40:43.579
 which is going back and forward from the Father to the Son, but it is a person.

00:40:43.579 --> 00:40:52.139
 And it is out of this world of not only goodness and justice, but also of love that all things came to be and human beings fell.

00:40:53.239 --> 00:40:54.819
 And that's why we have evil.

00:40:55.559 --> 00:41:01.480
 But that same basic sense that God has woven not only justice into the very fabric of the universe,

00:41:01.639 --> 00:41:04.099
 but also love into the very fabric of the universe.

00:41:04.759 --> 00:41:09.400
 And if you just have blind karma, just administering justice,

00:41:09.400 --> 00:41:13.420
 what happens fundamentally to people is what people hate about religion.

00:41:13.579 --> 00:41:21.059
 That somehow or another, in a world of karma, I get a pass.

00:41:21.519 --> 00:41:21.860
 Why?

00:41:22.759 --> 00:41:26.719
 Well, because I'm me, at the end of the day.

00:41:27.360 --> 00:41:28.400
 Like, aren't I charming?

00:41:28.699 --> 00:41:29.460
 Aren't I smart?

00:41:29.920 --> 00:41:30.639
 Aren't I nice?

00:41:30.779 --> 00:41:31.319
 Aren't I good?

00:41:31.380 --> 00:41:33.099
 Why shouldn't God give me a pass?

00:41:34.239 --> 00:41:37.279
 But if God gives me a pass just because I'm me,

00:41:38.279 --> 00:41:39.920
 then it's no longer justice.

00:41:40.480 --> 00:41:43.619
 And the fact of the matter is, is that I might say, because I'm me,

00:41:44.300 --> 00:41:46.960
 but my wife and my kids will roll their eyes.

00:41:47.440 --> 00:41:47.920
 Oh, yeah.

00:41:49.059 --> 00:41:51.000
 It's easy for him to fool the congregation.

00:41:51.180 --> 00:41:53.599
 You don't have to live with them or something like that.

00:41:53.680 --> 00:41:56.220
 You know, or the staff might say, well, it's all right for him to get up there.

00:41:56.480 --> 00:41:57.900
 You don't have to work with them.

00:41:57.900 --> 00:42:03.840
 You know, George, your poop smells just as bad as everybody else's.

00:42:07.019 --> 00:42:09.820
 But the Bible presents something very different,

00:42:09.900 --> 00:42:11.880
 which is seen very powerfully in the story.

00:42:12.160 --> 00:42:16.200
 In the story, you see these sailors believing everything happens for a reason.

00:42:16.320 --> 00:42:18.200
 You have this moral order to the universe.

00:42:18.199 --> 00:42:25.059
 But because the Lord exists, the Lord can intervene in justice in a way

00:42:25.059 --> 00:42:27.500
 that doesn't stop justice from being justice,

00:42:28.419 --> 00:42:32.519
 but is congruent with mercy and compassion.

00:42:32.919 --> 00:42:36.759
 It's a little bit of a mystery here in this particular story.

00:42:37.739 --> 00:42:41.239
 The sailors offer sacrifices to the God.

00:42:41.379 --> 00:42:47.159
 They understand that there's something has to die for the fact that they're able to live.

00:42:47.159 --> 00:42:53.000
 And Jesus, in the Gospel of Matthew, is going to connect Jonah's being in the deep,

00:42:53.059 --> 00:42:57.359
 in the belly of the whale, as a way to start to understand this profound thing

00:42:57.359 --> 00:42:58.879
 that God is going to do in the future.

00:42:59.059 --> 00:43:01.559
 In a sense, the story of Jonah presents as a riddle

00:43:01.559 --> 00:43:04.500
 that we have to wait until the New Testament to see the answer.

00:43:04.899 --> 00:43:08.960
 That at some point in time, God himself is going to deal with things in a way

00:43:08.960 --> 00:43:12.719
 where perfect justice is maintained,

00:43:13.279 --> 00:43:15.819
 but God's compassion and mercy is offered.

00:43:17.159 --> 00:43:19.899
 Because, you see, what's going to happen with Jesus

00:43:19.899 --> 00:43:26.859
 is what the Gospel says is, in a sense,

00:43:27.519 --> 00:43:30.960
 if God was to appear just before I gave my life to Jesus

00:43:30.960 --> 00:43:32.940
 and I was to stand judgment,

00:43:33.079 --> 00:43:36.019
 there would be this long list of all these things that I had done wrong,

00:43:36.139 --> 00:43:39.339
 all the things that the structure of a moral universe

00:43:39.339 --> 00:43:41.899
 would demand that there be some type of payment.

00:43:41.900 --> 00:43:45.000
 And the list would go on and on and on and on and on.

00:43:45.039 --> 00:43:48.539
 It would go into my thoughts and onto how I drive

00:43:48.539 --> 00:43:50.880
 and how I look at people and how I think about people

00:43:50.880 --> 00:43:53.000
 and the things I say and the things I say in secret.

00:43:53.160 --> 00:43:54.920
 It would go on and on and on and on.

00:43:54.980 --> 00:43:56.900
 And if you were there witnessing it, you would say,

00:43:57.320 --> 00:44:00.079
 George, there's no way that a man with that type of list

00:44:00.079 --> 00:44:01.559
 should be able to be married.

00:44:01.740 --> 00:44:03.059
 He shouldn't be able to be a preacher.

00:44:03.320 --> 00:44:05.400
 He shouldn't even be allowed to do anything

00:44:05.400 --> 00:44:07.780
 because you're a terrible person, George.

00:44:09.700 --> 00:44:12.500
 And as that long list is revealed

00:44:12.500 --> 00:44:14.480
 and God's justice is revealed,

00:44:14.720 --> 00:44:17.960
 and if I am to stand under it, I will be unmade.

00:44:20.260 --> 00:44:23.099
 Jesus comes and stands in my place and says,

00:44:23.260 --> 00:44:27.599
 that punishment George deserves can land on me.

00:44:27.599 --> 00:44:31.500
 That which will unmake George,

00:44:32.079 --> 00:44:35.619
 I will take upon myself that death that he deserves.

00:44:36.000 --> 00:44:38.239
 I will take upon myself that punishment.

00:44:38.679 --> 00:44:39.699
 I will take.

00:44:42.000 --> 00:44:43.400
 And that's the heart of the gospel.

00:44:43.539 --> 00:44:45.839
 That's why, you see, in the gospel,

00:44:46.019 --> 00:44:49.199
 you have the justice of God is perfectly maintained,

00:44:49.339 --> 00:44:54.659
 but his justice is at peace with mercy and with grace.

00:44:54.659 --> 00:44:57.940
 Without any type of contradiction.

00:44:59.759 --> 00:45:03.139
 And so the book of Jonah is revealing to us

00:45:03.139 --> 00:45:05.940
 that we understand that there has to be

00:45:05.940 --> 00:45:07.859
 a basic moral structure of the universe,

00:45:07.859 --> 00:45:10.199
 but the basic moral structure of the universe

00:45:10.199 --> 00:45:11.519
 presents with us a riddle.

00:45:12.980 --> 00:45:14.099
 That on one hand,

00:45:14.179 --> 00:45:17.139
 we don't want the moral structure of the universe to cease,

00:45:18.219 --> 00:45:19.319
 and on the other hand,

00:45:19.440 --> 00:45:21.940
 we have a basic longing and a yearning and a hope

00:45:21.940 --> 00:45:24.920
 that mercy and compassion is possible,

00:45:25.360 --> 00:45:26.980
 that grace is possible.

00:45:27.760 --> 00:45:29.039
 And only in the gospel

00:45:29.039 --> 00:45:32.240
 is that revealed that that fundamental longing

00:45:32.240 --> 00:45:33.579
 and yearning that we have

00:45:33.579 --> 00:45:38.220
 actually took on flesh and happened in history

00:45:38.220 --> 00:45:41.400
 and can be received by any one of us

00:45:41.400 --> 00:45:42.740
 with true power.

00:45:42.739 --> 00:45:43.939
 of schwanger.

00:45:44.359 --> 00:45:44.799
 Of all of us.

00:45:44.799 --> 00:45:46.419
 Let's בの方

00:45:46.599 --> 00:45:46.859
 It's not a way to mature.

00:45:47.619 --> 00:45:48.039
 We do ע flick the truth

00:45:48.039 --> 00:45:48.919
 of the world

00:45:49.279 --> 00:45:50.039
 and see how to use and save.

00:45:50.119 --> 00:46:03.500
 This is not the meaning of również

00:46:03.500 --> 00:46:04.139
 poetry.

00:46:04.519 --> 00:46:06.219
 This is grace to be taken

00:46:06.279 --> 00:46:07.839
 from the像 that is такой

00:46:08.000 --> 00:46:08.879
 grasshop r

00:46:09.139 --> 00:46:10.199
 and this is shallow

00:46:10.939 --> 00:46:11.839
 So let's stop