WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.759 I confess, I'm not very handy at DIY things. In fact, I go so far as to say I am agnostic 00:00:08.759 --> 00:00:14.240 ! towards DIY things. As I go around my house, I just kind of close my eyes, I tend not to 00:00:14.240 --> 00:00:20.339 think about things. And normally I've got away with it. However, when I ignored the guttering 00:00:20.339 --> 00:00:25.560 that wasn't working and the downpipe that was dripping, when I ignored the bush that was growing 00:00:25.559 --> 00:00:32.679 very bushy, very near our front window, I kind of got what I was asking for really. It 00:00:32.679 --> 00:00:37.179 turns out that one of the windows, our front window, was really rotten. Not just a bit 00:00:37.179 --> 00:00:44.060 rotten, but completely rotten. And so a great expense, what I consider a great expense, we 00:00:44.060 --> 00:00:48.140 had to pay a carpenter, actually two carpenters, the first one did a great job, to come and 00:00:48.140 --> 00:00:52.539 tear out all the rotten stuff and fix it all up. Thankfully I've got a neighbour two doors 00:00:52.539 --> 00:00:58.519 down, who's a surveyor. And so he's made it his mission in life to make me care about 00:00:58.519 --> 00:01:03.200 my house, to make me care about the practical things I otherwise just wouldn't pay any interest 00:01:03.200 --> 00:01:09.140 to. And I've learnt from Paul that I need to pay attention to these things, because they 00:01:09.140 --> 00:01:15.180 do actually matter. They do have consequences whether I'm interested or not. They will come 00:01:15.180 --> 00:01:21.400 home to roost. Well, a lot of people are a bit like that with God, aren't they? We think 00:01:21.400 --> 00:01:26.560 we can ignore him. Perhaps we cry out to him in trouble, but for the most part we think 00:01:26.560 --> 00:01:32.060 we can just ignore him. My neighbour Paul, who has convinced me I need to be concerned 00:01:32.060 --> 00:01:36.820 about drain pipes and gutterings, I'm trying to convince him that actually he needs to be 00:01:36.820 --> 00:01:40.800 concerned about whether there was a God there or not. It's not just his wife's job, which 00:01:40.800 --> 00:01:47.060 is what his typical response is. Now as we look at this part of Jonah chapter 2, or Jonah 00:01:47.060 --> 00:01:52.219 chapter 1 rather, we're going to see a God who cannot be evaded, a God who cannot be 00:01:52.219 --> 00:01:59.340 ignored, a God who cannot just be dismissed, but a God who is real and who is there. What's 00:01:59.340 --> 00:02:04.820 a great lesson in this chapter is that we cannot ignore the unavoidable God. We cannot ignore 00:02:04.820 --> 00:02:10.640 him. However uncomfortable we may feel, however disinterested we might feel, here is a God we 00:02:10.640 --> 00:02:14.860 have to do business with. And we'll see why as we go through this story. We're going to look 00:02:14.860 --> 00:02:20.780 at it in four scenes. Scene 1 is the storm, verses 3 to 6. Scene 2 is the investigation, 00:02:21.480 --> 00:02:27.440 in verses 7 to 12. Scene 3 is the solution, in verses 3 to 15, and then we get the aftermath, 00:02:28.280 --> 00:02:32.760 in verse 16. So we're going to look at it in those terms. But the context here, of course, 00:02:32.840 --> 00:02:38.120 is we've got a man who is trying to ignore God. He's trying to run away from God. Jonah, 00:02:38.280 --> 00:02:43.100 he was a prophet, we're told in verse 1. He's a man who had experienced God using him. 00:02:43.099 --> 00:02:49.099 He'd heard God speak to him. He had the privilege of knowing the living God. Yet at this point 00:02:49.099 --> 00:02:56.799 in his life, he says, I'm not interested. I'm out of here. He's commanded to go east to Assyria, 00:02:56.900 --> 00:03:01.780 to the city of Nineveh, over the river from modern day Mosul in Iraq. And so what does he do? 00:03:02.419 --> 00:03:07.419 He gets on a boat and heads west to Tarshish in southern Spain. He's fleeing God. He thinks 00:03:07.419 --> 00:03:13.179 he can ignore God and just not do what God has told him to do. But this God is unavoidable. 00:03:13.239 --> 00:03:19.539 Look at verse 4. Look at this storm. But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea. And there 00:03:19.539 --> 00:03:24.839 was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up. So the Lord wanted 00:03:24.840 --> 00:03:29.340 to get Jonah's attention. Jonah couldn't just avoid God. He couldn't just ignore God. He 00:03:29.340 --> 00:03:34.620 couldn't just run away from God. The Lord brought circumstances in his life that were designed 00:03:34.620 --> 00:03:40.939 to make him sit up. And so he made other people sit up. Look at verse 5. Then the mariners 00:03:40.939 --> 00:03:45.819 were afraid, and each cried out to his God. And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship 00:03:45.819 --> 00:03:51.919 into the sea to lighten it for them. You see what God does? He hurls a storm onto the sea. 00:03:52.739 --> 00:03:58.019 The sailors can hurl cargo over the side. But this great unavoidable God is so powerful 00:03:58.019 --> 00:04:09.620 he can hurl storms around. He cannot just be ignored. He cannot be avoided. Whatever people 00:04:09.620 --> 00:04:14.519 like to do. You know, I think of some friends of mine who call themselves agnostics. 00:04:14.520 --> 00:04:21.740 Like I was a bit agnostic about DIY. I literally agnostic, don't know much about it. So these 00:04:21.740 --> 00:04:26.300 people claim to be agnostic. They don't know about God. And there are some agnostics who 00:04:26.300 --> 00:04:30.860 kind of hide behind that. Well, I'm sure it'll all be alright. I'm sure it'll work out. 00:04:33.199 --> 00:04:37.900 Well, you cannot hide from this God here, who is even in control of the wind and the waves. 00:04:38.699 --> 00:04:44.480 You cannot be ignored. What we see here is a God who pursues even people who run away 00:04:44.480 --> 00:04:50.540 from him. He pursues Jonah. And as he pursues Jonah, the mariners, the sailors get caught 00:04:50.540 --> 00:04:57.939 up in that. And they're afraid. These hardened sailors out at sea, they're terrified by this 00:04:57.939 --> 00:05:02.879 storm. At their own great cost, they're throwing all the cargo overboard. There was no Lloyd's 00:05:02.879 --> 00:05:07.920 underwriters there to pay for that. It was at their own expense to try and save their lives, 00:05:07.920 --> 00:05:12.060 to try and preserve the lives of passengers like Jonah. They would throw things overboard. 00:05:12.060 --> 00:05:18.019 You see, these guys are kind of, let's call them honourable agnostics. Look at verse 5. 00:05:18.519 --> 00:05:24.540 Each cried out to his God. Each cried out to his God. So the storm comes. They know they're 00:05:24.540 --> 00:05:29.740 in trouble. And they cling to any kind of hope they have. They all call out to their own 00:05:29.740 --> 00:05:33.420 God. Quite probably they were from different nations, from different countries, or different 00:05:33.420 --> 00:05:37.199 regions at least. So they would have had their own little gods that were worshipped in their 00:05:37.199 --> 00:05:40.840 areas. So that's who they're crying out to. So they're encouraging each other. 00:05:40.839 --> 00:05:46.679 So keep praying, one of these gods might do something. I don't know how you think about 00:05:46.679 --> 00:05:54.079 God or gods. Many people today think that there is no absolute truth, that perhaps every religion 00:05:54.079 --> 00:05:58.699 gets to God. I have one friend who's told me recently he's a follower of the Lord Jesus 00:05:58.699 --> 00:06:04.899 Christ and his spirit guide Buddha. I have to say, no you're not. That is not the way it 00:06:04.899 --> 00:06:09.479 works. Jesus doesn't give us that alternative. I think of another friend of mine, a colleague 00:06:09.479 --> 00:06:15.159 I used to work with, an old job several years ago. Delightful young lady, very smart. She's 00:06:15.159 --> 00:06:20.480 a natural sciences graduate from Cambridge University. And yet she's one of those superstitious people 00:06:20.480 --> 00:06:24.879 who I know. She'll touch wood whenever she says something. She'll even throw salt over 00:06:24.879 --> 00:06:29.720 her shoulder. She has little model Buddhas around the place. She'll go to a Christmas 00:06:29.720 --> 00:06:34.580 Eve service every Christmas. She'd often ask me to pray for her. Which my normal response 00:06:34.580 --> 00:06:40.140 should have been actually, Jenny pray yourself. You can pray yourself. Trust in Jesus, you can 00:06:40.140 --> 00:06:46.000 pray yourself. But you see she was like these sailors. She didn't really want to think about 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:50.160 the truth. But she'd cling on to anything that was out there that might give her hope. 00:06:50.740 --> 00:06:57.199 Like these guys praying to any God. Well, do you see where Jonah is? Are these sailors 00:06:57.199 --> 00:07:01.519 fearing for their lives, throwing the cargo overboard, crying out to any God that might hear them? 00:07:01.839 --> 00:07:08.660 What's Jonah doing? End of verse 5. But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship 00:07:08.660 --> 00:07:15.959 and had lain down and was fast asleep. Even with a storm, he's just sleeping. See, he 00:07:15.959 --> 00:07:20.819 ignored God's word. He'd rebelled against God's word. So now he's not even sensitive to this 00:07:20.819 --> 00:07:26.560 storm that God has sent to try and wake him up. Life's like that, isn't it? If we harden 00:07:26.560 --> 00:07:32.299 ourselves to God's word, if we try and ignore God's clear word, what he's written and what he gives 00:07:32.299 --> 00:07:38.159 us in the Bible, if we harden ourselves to that, then we'll become hardened to all he's doing. 00:07:39.399 --> 00:07:43.620 He may have to take drastic action to stop us avoiding him. 00:07:43.620 --> 00:07:49.000 Well, Jonah, the prophet, has fallen asleep. So what's going to get him to pray? 00:07:50.160 --> 00:07:52.280 Well, it's the pagan captain, isn't it? Look at verse 6. 00:07:52.600 --> 00:07:57.360 So the captain came and said to him, what do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call out to your 00:07:57.360 --> 00:08:01.699 God. Perhaps the God will give a thought to us that we may not perish. 00:08:03.560 --> 00:08:07.680 So here's Jonah, man who's had experience of the living God speaking through him. 00:08:07.680 --> 00:08:14.340 And yet he's so hardened himself to God, he's not even praying anymore. It takes someone 00:08:14.340 --> 00:08:18.699 who's not a believer in the true God to wake him up and say, let's get praying. Let's get 00:08:18.699 --> 00:08:27.879 praying. Maybe God will hear. So here's the storm. The storm was sent by God to bring his 00:08:27.879 --> 00:08:29.660 runaway servant back to his senses. 00:08:29.660 --> 00:08:37.240 When we get the investigation, the storm raging and Jonah now up on deck, the investigation 00:08:37.240 --> 00:08:39.840 begins. This is scene 2. Look at verse 7. 00:08:40.500 --> 00:08:46.320 And they said to one another, come, let us cast lots that we may know on whose account this 00:08:46.320 --> 00:08:47.540 evil has come upon us. 00:08:48.620 --> 00:08:52.740 So the sailors have sailed enough that they know this is a very special storm. 00:08:52.740 --> 00:09:01.419 And they believed in gods that could do things. And so they assumed that there must be a cause 00:09:01.419 --> 00:09:06.220 for this, there must be a reason for it. Now of course that's very different to our secular 00:09:06.220 --> 00:09:12.000 mindset of our world today, which teaches us that there are only material causes, only scientific 00:09:12.000 --> 00:09:19.799 causes, that we don't need gods to explain anything. And yet, how often do you hear someone 00:09:19.799 --> 00:09:26.719 say something along the lines of, I'm sure this must have happened for a reason, or maybe 00:09:26.719 --> 00:09:32.459 it's fate that this has happened, or maybe it's my lucky start. How often do we see people 00:09:32.459 --> 00:09:37.699 reading horoscopes? Because they're desperate, thinking that knowing there must be some meaning 00:09:37.699 --> 00:09:41.639 in the universe, there must be some reason for things happening to them, but looking in all 00:09:41.639 --> 00:09:47.759 the wrong places for them. Yet as soon as we think that there must be fate or reason or 00:09:47.759 --> 00:09:55.559 a purpose, that is an indication to us that actually we are hardwired as human beings to 00:09:55.559 --> 00:10:02.279 know there is a god in control of everything. If this universe only existed by random chance, 00:10:02.379 --> 00:10:07.659 just time and chance brought it all into being, then there could be no reason, there could 00:10:07.659 --> 00:10:11.360 be no purpose, there could be no meaning to anything, not even our thoughts, they'd just 00:10:11.360 --> 00:10:16.240 be random electrochemical interactions in our skulls. They couldn't mean anything. 00:10:16.240 --> 00:10:23.259 The very fact that we look for meaning and purpose in the world is because there is a great 00:10:23.259 --> 00:10:29.820 god who designed it all, who brings meaning and brings purpose. And as the sailors cast lots 00:10:29.820 --> 00:10:34.399 here, it's because they understand something of that, it's because they know there must be 00:10:34.399 --> 00:10:40.600 a reason behind what's happening to them. And they hope that somehow that will be revealed 00:10:40.600 --> 00:10:48.379 in the lots. Well the Bible presents us with a personal god, not just blind chance, not some 00:10:48.379 --> 00:10:56.159 impersonal god, not some pantheon of deities, but one god who is personal, who is in control, 00:10:56.159 --> 00:11:06.860 and who can give answers to questions. And so as the lots are cast, we find the lot goes 00:11:06.860 --> 00:11:12.740 to Jonah. Look at the end of verse 7. So they cast lots and the lot fell to Jonah. So the 00:11:12.740 --> 00:11:19.480 Bible tells us the personal real god, the creator god, is in charge of everything, even lots. 00:11:19.480 --> 00:11:25.600 So Proverbs chapter 16 verse 33 says, the lot is cast into the lap, but it's every decision 00:11:25.600 --> 00:11:30.840 is from the Lord. The Lord knows what the lottery numbers are going to be this week. He's not 00:11:30.840 --> 00:11:34.399 going to tell you, because he wants you to trust him, not the lottery numbers. But he 00:11:34.399 --> 00:11:40.159 knows. There are no surprises. And so Jonah is identified as the cause of this storm. 00:11:41.360 --> 00:11:45.300 And so the investigation hops up. Look at verse 8. Here comes the interrogation. 00:11:45.299 --> 00:11:50.199 Then they said to him, tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. Do you notice they're 00:11:50.199 --> 00:11:55.579 giving Jonah the benefit of the doubt? Well, maybe he's just going to tell us who the problem 00:11:55.579 --> 00:12:00.459 is. Maybe it's not actually him. Then the killer question Jonah doesn't answer. What is your 00:12:00.459 --> 00:12:05.479 occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you? 00:12:06.620 --> 00:12:13.259 Notice he doesn't tell them he's a prophet. He keeps quiet about that. But what he does say 00:12:13.259 --> 00:12:18.179 does incriminate him. Listen to his words in verse 9. He said to them, I am a Hebrew 00:12:18.179 --> 00:12:27.000 and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. Now what do 00:12:27.000 --> 00:12:33.939 you think? Do you think Jonah really feared the God of heaven, who made the sea and the 00:12:33.939 --> 00:12:40.819 dry land? Of course not. He just completely disobeyed God's word and got in the opposite direction. 00:12:40.820 --> 00:12:46.800 There he is sleeping peacefully on a boat in a storm, sent by that very God he claims 00:12:46.800 --> 00:12:51.620 to fear. The God who created the sea and the land. The God who is in control of everything. 00:12:52.680 --> 00:13:01.420 See, Jonah's problem here is he has the right words in his head. He can speak the right belief 00:13:01.419 --> 00:13:08.500 with his mouth. But it's not in his heart. It's not affecting his life. He's a hypocrite. 00:13:08.860 --> 00:13:14.500 He talks the talk, but he doesn't walk the walk. I don't know about you, but the self and that's 00:13:14.500 --> 00:13:19.599 my problem, isn't it? The self and that's my problem. I believe in a God who's in control 00:13:19.600 --> 00:13:26.320 of everything. And yet I'm so slow to pray about things. I believe in a God who's treated 00:13:26.320 --> 00:13:32.659 me with forgiveness and mercy and love. And yet I get so angry with other people. It's 00:13:32.659 --> 00:13:39.480 easy to walk the walk, to talk the talk. Much harder to walk the walk, isn't it? But here's 00:13:39.480 --> 00:13:44.879 Jonah. Oh, I fear the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land. But look at the sailors, 00:13:44.879 --> 00:13:50.100 look at their response. They have much more integrity, don't they? Verse 10, then the 00:13:50.100 --> 00:13:54.740 men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, what is this you've done? You serve the God 00:13:54.740 --> 00:13:58.820 who's in charge of all this? No wonder we've got a store. What is it you've done, Jonah? 00:13:59.600 --> 00:14:04.419 For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord because he had told them. 00:14:05.379 --> 00:14:10.879 See how scared they are now? They're realising they're harbouring a fugitive. It's like having 00:14:10.879 --> 00:14:15.360 an escaped convict in your car, unknowingly, seeing the police cars behind you, thinking, 00:14:15.720 --> 00:14:21.340 oh no, I'm in trouble now. Well, that's what these sailors are thinking. We've got this 00:14:21.340 --> 00:14:27.500 fugitive on board from this great and powerful God. We're in trouble. Notice how their fear 00:14:27.500 --> 00:14:35.159 changes as well. Back in verse 5, they were exceedingly afraid. They were afraid, rather, 00:14:35.320 --> 00:14:40.340 of the storm. They were afraid of being destroyed. Now they're afraid of this God who is angry 00:14:40.340 --> 00:14:46.580 with Jonah. So now they asked the right person the right question. Verse 11, then they said 00:14:46.580 --> 00:14:51.200 to Jonah, what shall we do to you that the sea may quiet down for us? For the sea grew 00:14:51.200 --> 00:14:56.680 more and more tempestuous. And it's now for the first time, Jonah seems to be coming to 00:14:56.680 --> 00:15:03.080 his senses. And Jonah wants to help these sailors. So he says this, he said to them, pick 00:15:03.080 --> 00:15:08.960 me up and hurl me into the sea. You hurled the cargo in before, now hurl me into the sea. 00:15:09.320 --> 00:15:14.600 And the God who hurled this storm onto the sea will take it away. Then the sea will quiet 00:15:14.600 --> 00:15:18.820 down for you. For I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you. 00:15:20.520 --> 00:15:28.080 Jonah realises it's his rebellion that's brought this storm. It's his guilt. And there's no way 00:15:28.080 --> 00:15:33.580 forward for Jonah until he admits he's running from God and he's wrong. There's no way forward 00:15:33.580 --> 00:15:39.680 for any of us with God until we admit that we're running away from him. Now it's not actually 00:15:39.680 --> 00:15:44.759 any sign that Jonah's sorry here. He just admits he's at fault. It seems he's ready to die. 00:15:44.820 --> 00:15:51.240 Just hurl me into the sea. You'll live. I'll be dead. But maybe that's what I deserve. 00:15:51.240 --> 00:15:57.340 Well that's the interrogation or the investigation. We've had the storm, the investigation. Let's 00:15:57.340 --> 00:16:03.600 look at the solution then. Scene 3, verse 13. Nevertheless, the men rode hard to get back 00:16:03.600 --> 00:16:08.700 to dry land. But they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them. 00:16:09.960 --> 00:16:14.360 You see, these men want to save Jonah's life. They don't want to just hurl this man into the 00:16:14.360 --> 00:16:20.000 sea. He's not just a lump of cargo. They value him as a fellow human being. They don't want 00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:24.759 him to die. They're really more honourable than Jonah is. Despite the trouble he's brought on 00:16:24.759 --> 00:16:31.460 them, they still want to save him. It's often the way, isn't it? How often do we hear people say, 00:16:32.860 --> 00:16:41.220 why is it that people who don't believe in God are actually morally better? Why is it the nicer 00:16:41.220 --> 00:16:46.379 people in my office are colleagues who have no religious belief at all? Whereas sometimes 00:16:46.379 --> 00:16:50.820 Christians can be really horrible to each other. Well, that's the case of Jonah, isn't it? 00:16:51.220 --> 00:16:55.700 It's Jonah the prophet who should know better. He acts pretty disgracefully throughout this 00:16:55.700 --> 00:17:01.200 story. Whereas it's these honourable agnostics, these sailors who don't know the true God, 00:17:01.600 --> 00:17:07.380 who actually are working much better, looking after him much better. But the Lord who controls 00:17:07.380 --> 00:17:12.000 everything is in pursuit. He's honing in on his man. Honing in on his man. He will not let 00:17:12.000 --> 00:17:17.980 Jonah go. Whatever the people do. Look at the rest of verse 13. Men rode hard to get 00:17:17.980 --> 00:17:21.559 back to dry land, but they could not. They were trying to save Jonah themselves, but they 00:17:21.559 --> 00:17:29.319 could not. Because what Jonah needed was not mercy from men, but mercy from God. And so 00:17:29.319 --> 00:17:34.240 then the sailors realise if they're throwing Jonah overboard, they need mercy too. Look at 00:17:34.240 --> 00:17:40.220 verse 14. Therefore they called out to the Lord, O Lord, let us not perish for this man's 00:17:40.220 --> 00:17:48.339 life, and lay not on us innocent blood, for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased. Can you 00:17:48.339 --> 00:17:52.160 imagine the tension they were feeling? They were told they had to throw this man overboard, 00:17:52.160 --> 00:17:56.980 and yet they know it's wrong to kill someone. And yet there's no escape from the storm unless 00:17:56.980 --> 00:18:03.440 they do it. And so they cry out in desperation for the Lord to have compassion on them. Don't 00:18:03.440 --> 00:18:08.960 hold us guilty for this blood, for you are doing as you please, Lord. What's their only 00:18:08.960 --> 00:18:17.299 hope? Not in their skill as sailors. They can't get to dry land. Not in their religious 00:18:17.299 --> 00:18:23.259 prayers, as they cried out to other gods that couldn't save them. That didn't work. Their 00:18:23.259 --> 00:18:27.259 hope is not in their own moral rightness, even though they've been pretty upright people 00:18:27.259 --> 00:18:31.980 all the way through this. Their only hope is that the Lord will have compassion on them. 00:18:31.980 --> 00:18:37.500 The only hope is that the Lord will have compassion. So verse 15, they've picked up 00:18:37.500 --> 00:18:44.380 Jonah, hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. The storm spilled straight 00:18:44.380 --> 00:18:55.180 away. Why? Because the storm came because of God's rightful anger against Jonah's rebellion. 00:18:55.180 --> 00:19:02.900 So it's only as the price seems to be paid for Jonah's rebellion, as Jonah is thrown into 00:19:02.900 --> 00:19:12.220 the sea, that the storm can still. This God who reigns over everything is rightly angry when 00:19:12.220 --> 00:19:19.799 people turn away from him, wreck each other and wreck his world as a result. That anger has 00:19:19.799 --> 00:19:25.180 been satisfied somehow. Well, the sailors knew that they just needed mercy because they could not 00:19:25.180 --> 00:19:31.460 satisfy that anger. So verse 16, then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a 00:19:31.460 --> 00:19:39.639 sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. That's the language of worship. So Psalm 116 verses 17 and 18 00:19:39.639 --> 00:19:44.940 ends like this, I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the Lord. 00:19:44.940 --> 00:19:49.960 I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of his people. These sailors who'd started by 00:19:49.960 --> 00:19:55.120 being kind of agnostic, praying to any God they thought might work, now recognize there is only 00:19:55.120 --> 00:20:01.580 one true God. They acknowledge that, they acknowledge they just needed his mercy, and now they worship 00:20:01.580 --> 00:20:10.700 him and fear him. Their only hope was this God will have compassion. And so they admit their 00:20:10.700 --> 00:20:16.700 guilt and trust him, and the Lord heard them. And as we'll see next time, this was not the end of the 00:20:16.700 --> 00:20:22.980 road for Jonah, either. The Lord had compassion and mercy on him, too. And so in the very next verse 00:20:22.980 --> 00:20:29.140 over the page, we'll read about the Lord sending a whale to rescue him. But we'll look at that next time. 00:20:30.100 --> 00:20:35.340 The question for now is, what did both the rebellious prophet and these kind of honest agnostics, 00:20:35.339 --> 00:20:46.359 these upright religious sailors, what did they both need? Answer? They both needed to acknowledge that the 00:20:46.359 --> 00:20:54.819 Lord is unavoidable, and to trust him that he'll be compassionate and merciful. That's what they needed. 00:20:55.879 --> 00:21:00.399 I've learned in the last year, I can't just ignore my gutters. Something bad will happen. 00:21:00.400 --> 00:21:09.160 Even more real, even more true, is this God who is unavoidable. He is there. We cannot avoid him. 00:21:09.640 --> 00:21:15.380 We can trust him to be compassionate. And he is a God who pursues us as he pursued Jonah. 00:21:16.540 --> 00:21:21.759 He pursues us, in some senses, through our circumstances as he did through Jonah. I remember about two years ago, 00:21:22.080 --> 00:21:26.660 sitting down with a man who had a successful career, had happily married two kids, 00:21:26.660 --> 00:21:30.180 but he was starting to ask questions for the first time in his life, 00:21:30.960 --> 00:21:34.620 because I met him for the first time the night before he went into hospital for a kidney transplant. 00:21:36.080 --> 00:21:38.060 And suddenly, with his health on the line, 00:21:38.640 --> 00:21:40.920 suddenly, in his own words, feeling his own mortality, 00:21:42.000 --> 00:21:43.840 he was open to asking questions about, 00:21:44.940 --> 00:21:47.200 okay, so is there a God there? Who is this God? 00:21:48.000 --> 00:21:50.480 So the Lord can bring circumstances into our lives, 00:21:50.480 --> 00:21:52.980 breakdowns of relationships, problems at work, 00:21:53.279 --> 00:21:54.940 health, all sorts of things, 00:21:55.140 --> 00:21:56.700 in his pursuit of us. 00:21:58.079 --> 00:22:00.980 But most importantly, it's not just the circumstances he sends, 00:22:01.480 --> 00:22:03.200 but he sent his son to pursue us, 00:22:03.279 --> 00:22:04.360 the Lord Jesus himself. 00:22:05.960 --> 00:22:06.440 Jesus said, 00:22:06.519 --> 00:22:08.299 I come to seek and to save the lost. 00:22:09.180 --> 00:22:09.839 And he did that, 00:22:10.339 --> 00:22:11.240 he pursued us, 00:22:11.539 --> 00:22:12.980 coming to earth to win us back, 00:22:13.079 --> 00:22:14.799 coming to earth to die, 00:22:15.200 --> 00:22:16.920 to bring, to still the storm 00:22:16.920 --> 00:22:18.779 of God's just anger against us. 00:22:18.779 --> 00:22:21.139 In this story here, 00:22:21.420 --> 00:22:22.359 Jonah was the guilty one, 00:22:22.440 --> 00:22:23.019 he was thrown in. 00:22:23.759 --> 00:22:25.539 Jesus Christ was the perfect innocent one, 00:22:25.559 --> 00:22:26.539 he didn't deserve to die, 00:22:26.799 --> 00:22:28.339 but he did die as our substitute, 00:22:29.779 --> 00:22:31.960 as he came to pursue us. 00:22:32.799 --> 00:22:34.319 So our hope is to acknowledge 00:22:34.319 --> 00:22:36.619 that God has sent his rescuer, 00:22:37.200 --> 00:22:39.460 to see his compassion in the Lord Jesus, 00:22:39.599 --> 00:22:42.119 who died in a place of rebellious people like me and you, 00:22:43.379 --> 00:22:44.220 and to trust him. 00:22:45.079 --> 00:22:46.980 The sovereign Lord is unavoidable. 00:22:46.980 --> 00:22:49.960 We must cast ourselves on his compassion, 00:22:50.759 --> 00:22:52.980 the compassion we see most fully in Jesus. 00:22:53.240 --> 00:22:53.680 Let's pray.