Summer of Jonah 2019 Part 1, Episode IV: Learning In A Strange College - [Jonah 2:1-10]

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

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Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Ever ask the question, why do we preach the

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Bible at Bethlehem Bible Church? Why is Bible preaching important? Well, I could probably give you lots of reasons.

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If we don't preach the Bible, then we preach about ourselves, maybe psychology, maybe book reviews.

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And so the best thing to do is to preach the Word. Why do we preach the Bible? Because the Bible says, preach the

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Word in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and doctrine.

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We also preach the Bible because it's good for you to know who God is. Where else can you find out about the holiness of God?

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Where can you find out about the love of God? How can you know the details of Christ Jesus and His salvation?

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The Bible reveals the answers to all of life's major questions.

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I was on the plane this week, a few planes this week, and I flew from Memphis to Atlanta, then

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Atlanta to Manchester on Ebola air. It was a nice flight. And I sat next to a guy from Atlanta to Manchester, and we talked for about two and a half hours, and we talked about nothing but the

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Bible and nothing about... I mean, nothing but the Bible and nothing but salvation. And I said, before I got saved, before I studied the

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Bible, I didn't know why I existed, what the purpose of life was, what happens when you die, how do you get to heaven.

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I didn't know the answer to one of those questions. And I said, it's not because of me, but because of the

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Holy Spirit and His Word. I said, I know the answer to every one of those questions. What about you?

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Are you going to go to heaven? Well, he didn't know the answer. So we talked for quite a while, and we discussed a few things.

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And then at the very end, he said, you know what? This world is so chaotic, so crazy, so full of confusion.

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Who knows how the thing will end? And I literally pointed at him.

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We were friends by now. Great guy. I said, I know exactly how it ends.

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And he said, I knew you'd say that. I mean, the depth and the riches of Scripture, we just have it all.

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What's so good about verse -by -verse teaching? I mean, I've watched enough Fox News in the last week to just make anybody crazy.

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And I tell you what it will do. It'll make you afraid. You can't even go out of the house. I mean, it is so bad out there.

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And I think, you know what? What do I need instead? I need to be washed by the Scriptures. I need to think biblically.

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I need to look through the world of my health issues, my job issues, my children issues.

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Certainly don't have any wife issues. That's not an issue. But I need to see everything through the lens of Scripture.

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How does God see history? How am I to see myself? How am I to see everyone else?

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And how do I see God? So let's take our Bibles and open it up to the book of Jonah because that book helps us do that very thing.

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How do I see the world through God's perspective?

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And you're going to see in the book of Jonah the sovereignty of God, the supremacy of God, the love of God, the grace of God, the holiness of God.

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Everything about the book of Jonah just preaches, to use the song we just sang, how great is our

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God. And we need to walk by faith and not by sight. We need to walk by trusting

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God, not by Fox News. I don't care if you watch news or not, but I'm telling you, if you watch 20 hours of news per week and you read your

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Bible 15 minutes a week, there's going to be a problem. So we're going to go through Jonah chapter 2 today, verses 1 through 10.

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Thomas John Carlyle wrote, I was so obsessed with what was going on inside the whale that I miss seeing the drama inside Jonah.

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And you're going to see today there's going to be a flicker of his repentance. There's going to be a little flash of his partial repentance found in the belly of the fish.

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And these are going to be great verses because they will answer lots of theological questions.

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Now, you know, chapter one, if I'll use Wiersbe's outline again, it was go.

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Remember, God tells Jonah to go preach to the Ninevites of all people.

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And Jonah said no, because Jonah knew that God was gracious and compassionate and full of kindness and long suffering.

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And he knew that through the preaching of the word, these Ninevites would get saved.

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And then they would be blessed by God because they would respond correctly to God. They'd be strengthened and then

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God would use a strength in Ninevite nation, a Syrian nation to chasten Israel.

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So Jonah said, no, go, no. And then God caused the storm. Remember, blow.

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And then finally, the mariners, the salt, the sea salts threw him out.

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And it says in chapter one, verse 17, and the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

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Now, let me read to you chapter two in its entirety. And before I do, though, notice if you have a text in front of you, even if it's an electronic text, there should be lots of white space on the left column and on the right column.

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You should ask yourself the question, why is chapter one's formatting in my English Bible? Why is chapter three's formatting?

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Why is chapter four formatting different than chapter two? And the answer is chapters one, three, and four are a story.

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It's a narrative. And chapter two is poetry. This is poetry. This is a praise psalm, an individual psalm of deliverance.

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And as you read this, as you hear it read to you out loud, you should start saying to yourself, you know what?

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There's a flicker of Psalm 120 in there. There's a little echo of Psalm 42 in there.

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That kind of sounds like Psalm 69. Jonah has learned the psalms, and they're coming out of him at this time where God has his attention.

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Let's go to Psalm of Jonah found in Jonah chapter two.

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Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, saying, I called out to the

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Lord out of my distress, and he answered me. Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice.

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For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me.

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All your waves and your billows passed over me. Then I said, I'm driven away from your sight.

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Yet I shall look again upon your holy temple. The waters closed in over me to take my life.

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The deep surrounded me. Weeds were wrapped about my head at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever.

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Yet you brought up my life from the pit. Oh, Lord, my God. When my life was fainting away,

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I remembered the Lord. And my prayer came to you into your holy temple. Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love.

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But I will sit. But I, with the voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you what I have vowed

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I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord. And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited

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Jonah out upon the dry land. Friends, before we go any farther, just tuck it in your mind that the

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Psalms give us the deepest, the richest, most comforting things in all the

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Bible. You show me someone in a trial, and I'll show you someone that's driven like a magnet to another magnet to the book of Psalms.

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And you can identify with the Psalms as David pours out his heart before God. Because there's an issue, there's an enemy, there's a situation.

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And one of the things about the book of Psalms, it just helps us so much. I think Jonah was a man steeped in the

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Psalms, and when he had to call out to God, that just came out of him. That's why many people,

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I don't do it every day, I read the Bible every day, but I don't always read five Psalms a day. But if there's 150

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Psalms, and there's 30 days in a month, how many Psalms should you read per day if you want to get through them all?

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Five per day. And do you notice, Jonah doesn't say when he's in the belly of the fish,

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I called out and I began to quote Nietzsche. I'm in a tight spot, and I'll call out, and I'll quote

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Sartre, and I'll quote Bultmann, and I'll quote Camus, and I'll quote Osteen, and I'll quote

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Rick Warren. Those are the people I'll quote. He was so full of the

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Psalms, like a sponge, you squeeze it and then drop it in the water, filled up, and it was an overflow out of his heart with the

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Psalms. It says in verse 1, then

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Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish. And he begins to pour out his heart before the

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Lord. He has his attention. The Lord has his attention. Prayed, notice, to the

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Lord his God, to Yahweh his God. Offering prayer in the belly of the fish, and God still hears it there.

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Yes, because God's omnipresent. You say, how long was he in the belly of the fish before he prayed?

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We don't know. Have no idea. And then it says in verse 2, here's what he prays.

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Now, some people don't think this Psalm could be in the Bible, this Psalm of Jonah, because there can't be a fish that can swallow a man, and so the liberals can't have a real belly of a real fish with a real

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Jonah in it, because they can't have a real Jesus being resurrected from the dead, Matthew 12. But he's in there, and he cries out to this merciful

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God. Look at verse 2. I called out to Yahweh, this covenant -keeping personal

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God, out of my distress. He answered me, out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice.

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Now, don't miss this. Here's what's going to be happening inside the belly of the fish. Jonah's going to experience the mercy of God.

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Jonah's going to experience the grace of God. Jonah is going to experience the kindness of God. Jonah's going to experience the patience of God.

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First -hand experience. So then he's going to get a little taste of how good

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God's mercy is, because he's going to be on a mission to tell other people, the Ninevites, about the mercy, grace, and compassion of God.

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Jonah comes to his theological senses and says, I call out to the Lord, out of my distress. The word is to bind up.

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The word is to constrict. The word is you're in a tight spot. There's nowhere to move. Sound like a belly to you?

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I don't know about you, but I hate closed spaces. I'm about as claustrophobic as you get.

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That's why I pushed the kids always under the bed and laid there and blocked them so they could have the same problems their dad did. Like, if I go to Six Flags and they lock that thing in on you so you can't breathe and you're on the ride and everything, man,

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I hate that. And here Jonah is down there constricted, bound. His word like an anaconda is wrapped around you, because it's a tight spot.

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And he calls out to God from the depths of Sheol. Do you notice the text? From the belly of Sheol.

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Now, Sheol could mean death. Sheol could mean hell. And this could be literal.

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Some people make this Jonah had to die in the belly of the fish so he could be resurrected, because it's similar to Jesus.

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He dies and is resurrected, Matthew chapter 12. But Jonah's an example, and everything doesn't have to be a perfect, symmetrical, one -to -one correspondence.

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And so Jonah most likely, it's figurative language of I'm at death's door. I'm as good as dead.

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If you were in the belly of the fish, you'd be saying to yourself, I'm a goner. I'm dead.

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And with poetic language, with a psalm of Jonah, that's what he was saying.

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But he knows even in the belly of the fish, down in the water, God hears him.

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He's actually calling out to the Lord out of his distress. I think he knows. I've been chastened by God. I've been disciplined by God.

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And it's my fault. It's not God's fault. And I am calling out that God would mercifully deliver me, even though I earned it, even though I caused all this.

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Punishment is not punishment when it's a believer. It's chastisement. And so Jonah says,

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I'm as good as dead, but God hears me. Psalm 88 says, I'm afflicted with all your breakers.

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Jonah, at the theological end of his rope, says, God, basically, thy will be done, whatever you want to do.

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Now, psalms were meant to be sung. I don't know if he sang it. It says in verse 2, the first word in verse 2, sane.

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But maybe he sang it. I don't know. I even sound good in a shower. And Jonah probably even sounds good if he's singing in the belly of the whale, good acoustics down there, true or false.

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In my affliction, I will seek you early, Lord. Isn't that a psalm?

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Isn't it amazing? Life just goes so well. You're on cruise control. Everything seems to be going well at work, at home.

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For ladies, often, it's work at home is the same place. And you're just cruising along. And all of a sudden, you're kind of like you're forgetting the

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Lord. You know, you ever drive a car, and, you know, they tell you in driving school, I don't know, every four seconds, look at the one mirror, then look at the other mirror.

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You're constantly looking around and making sure you see everything. Instead of looking at the mirror of God's Word, you don't look as often.

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You don't think about Him as often. And then there's trouble. And then what happens? We move to verses 3 and following.

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Jonah's going to have a little flashback, a little recollection, kind of a little recall.

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He's in the belly of the fish now, but he's going to recall what was going on between him getting thrown out of the boat, the ship, to when he got swallowed up.

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What was it like? Because he did not get thrown from the ship into the mouth of the fish.

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One man called this the watery horror and God's gracious deliverance.

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Verse 3, for you cast me into the deep. Wait a second. Stop right there. I thought it was the mariners who cast him in the deep.

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I thought it was 1, 2, 3, heave ho, keel hole. I thought they were the ones throwing him.

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But he knows the sovereignty of God. It's not the mariners. It's not the sea salts. It's not the people on the boat.

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This is God's doing. For you cast me, look at the text, into the deep, into the hearts of the seas.

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You can imagine. I don't know what the water was like, but the flood's surrounding me. All your waves and billows passed over me.

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It's engulfing me is the NAS. This is just like Job.

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Satan comes and afflicts him. His three friends come and afflict him with words.

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And Job says, you know what? The Lord gives, the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. I know

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God's sovereign over these people. This is like David. David realized the same thing in 2

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Samuel 16. Other people were after him, but I know God's sovereign over all that. He is not blaming the sailors.

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Verse 4. Just let me stop there for a second. He is not blaming the sailors.

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And if you have trials in life, if you have troubles in life, when you have these difficult times in life, remember, if there's a complaint against people, if there's a complaint against situations, if there's a complaint about how you didn't get this thing done right to you, the ultimate complaint is not toward the person.

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The ultimate complaint is the sovereign hand of God. God, you shouldn't have put me in this situation.

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You've got enough power to keep me out of this trouble. You've got enough kindness to kind of keep me out of this, but you put me here.

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And at least now Jonah has come to his theological senses. Repentance is good, even if it's a little late.

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Repentance is still welcomed by God. God, I know you did this to me. You're the one. I'm just going to pour my heart out to you.

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I can't hide from you. And then I said, I'm driven away, verse 4, from your sight.

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Yet I shall look again, see the flicker of hope upon your holy temple.

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I'm driven from your sight. NES, I'm expelled from your sight. What do you mean?

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God now can't see him. I guess it's like x -ray trying to go through lead. That the fish's stomach is like lead, and God has these x -ray laser -like eyes, and they can't go through the lead.

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God can't see what's going on there. You've got me out of your sight. Is that what he's saying? Well, this is a poem. Of course he's not saying that.

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Now, my dad, and I won't blame my dad. I'll blame me. When I was really bad, he would say to me,

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Michael, get out of my sight. What do you mean, get out of my sight?

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What does that mean? Well, for my dad, it meant get literally out of my sight, or you're going to get whacked. That's what that meant.

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The three of us kids, we all said, I call the seat behind dad's seat in the car. Why do you want to sit behind dad?

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Because dad can't hit back there. My poor brother, he was the littlest, Pat, nine years younger.

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Marcy, she didn't really get any kind of whacking or anything. But when my dad couldn't hit me, he took it out on my brother, and he would grab my brother's hair and just pull.

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And then, I don't know, I guess that's a new kind of discipline. And so, then my brother, he'd be going like this for the rest of the trip, just like this hair coming out.

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Get out of my sight meant literally get out of my sight. But what's the idea? What you're doing right now does not put you in my good favor.

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You're not on my good side right about now. It's not, well, I can't see you. God sees everything, but it's the language of favorable regard.

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And when God says to the prophet, go preach, and you say no, get out of my sight kind of thing is the language.

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And it says in the text, I shall look again upon your holy temple. It could be, I'll see

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Jerusalem again, that place where the divine presence is specially manifested. Or it might be, I'm going to get to heaven one day.

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I'll see heaven. Either one, he has the hope of the Lord in him. He's coming to his theological senses.

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This reminds me of our Lord Jesus. Hundreds of years later, when he said, him that comes unto me,

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I will in no wise what, cast out. Verse five,

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I can feel the water when he's outside the ship and not inside the stomach.

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The waters closed in over me to take my life. The deep surrounded me. Weeds were wrapped about my head.

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I think he's in the belly of the fish now. Nice turban,

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Jonah. Seaweed turban. At the roots of the mountains, he's going deep down.

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I went to the land, down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever. Yet you brought up my life from the pit.

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Oh Lord, my God. You know what this is like?

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This is like the opposite of birthing. Now, I don't know for sure, but the language tends to be like this.

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When you're born out of your mother's womb, you go through a very confined narrow space. A space that's so small that you get forced through it.

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And one of the things that evolution has come up with, by the way, I don't know how many billions of years it took for evolution, which is not a thing to figure this out, but that's beside the point.

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It's when you come out of the birth canal, your lungs get all the water, the amniotic fluid pressed out because you're squeezed through this narrow spot.

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And now it's like birth, except the opposite kind of birth, where who knows, Jonah's lungs could be full of water, he could be on the way down, you know, blub, blub, blub, down he goes, and now the fish comes and rescues him and through the throat, through the gullet, through the stomach, he's squeezed in.

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That's the language and probably the water gets squozen out of his lungs. Is that a word? You Florida orange juice people would know.

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I'm going to die, near death, and now I'm rescued. I wonder what it was like, kids, the slimy inside of a stomach, slippery, and I'm going to use a word now that I've never used in my 17 years of preaching at Bethlehem Bible Church, snotty, weird, phlegmy.

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That's what it was. See, now you're all awake. You can edit that out of the tape, Ben, if you'd like. Although that never happens.

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Last Saturday, I was talking to Wesley Blackstone and we were cleaning things and I found in my study a cassette tape.

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Remember what those are? Cassette tapes. And it said, Mike Avendroth with the writing of Wesley Blackstone and every time

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I said, take that out of the tape on a Sunday night, which was very often back in those days, he didn't take it out of it.

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He took it out of the tape and put it on a different tape and he gave me a collage of 30 minutes of my bloopers.

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So I don't trust people. The heart's desperately wicked, deceitful above all else. I don't even know if I can trust

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Ben, let alone Blackstone. The acid, the bleached out face, restricted area.

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What you cannot think about is like Pinocchio and Geppetto. Is that his name? Geppettio.

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Ge? Edit that out of the tape. Like a little fire, roasting marshmallows, hanging out, you know, in the belly of the fish there with Pinocchio.

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That's not what's going on. It's smashed in. It's tight. It's like death. It's like being buried alive.

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Verse 7, when my life was fainting away, it's never too late to repent.

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I remembered Yahweh. My prayer came to you.

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No longer out of your sight anymore. Get out of my sight. My prayer came to you into your holy temple.

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I remembered, Lord, you're faithful. I remembered you're kind. I remembered you're merciful. What I didn't like about you towards the

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Ninevites, I kind of like towards me. Thank you. Confidently approaching

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God. I don't care if you're in a lunar rover. I don't care if you're in a bathyscope. Your prayers are heard by God.

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And then he praises God. See it in verse 8. Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love.

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Well, what's he doing here? He's comparing. He's using contrast as a good teacher.

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I trust in the living God. I don't trust in the dead gods, the idol gods.

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Those mariners, when I first met them, they're all crying out to their God. It didn't do any good. I'm trusting in the real

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God. And so by comparison, he says, God is not an idol. He's not a God who doesn't hear.

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Psalm 115. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.

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They have mouths, but they don't speak. Eyes, but they don't see. Ears, they don't hear.

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Noses, but don't smell. Hands, but don't feel. Feet, but don't walk. And they do not make a sound in their throat.

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They don't talk. Those who make them will become like them. So do all who trust in them.

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Then the psalmist says, O Israel, trust in the Lord. He is their help and shield.

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O Aaron, house of Aaron, trust in the Lord. He is their help and shield. O Jonah, trust in the

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Lord. He is his help and shield. O Bethlehem Bible Church, trust in the Lord, for he is your help and your shield.

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He accentuates the difference between the vain God and the living God found in verse 9.

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Verse 9. Probably the key verse in all of Jonah. The key verse in all of Jonah is probably found in verse 9.

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And Charles Haddon Spurgeon said, It took a strange university, a strange college, to learn this truth.

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He had to learn this truth in the belly. I wonder if you've learned this truth.

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And now chapter 2 ends the way chapter 1 ends. Chapter 1 ended with pagans repenting and doing the right thing.

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And now Jonah repents and does the right thing. Faith without works is dead. Here are the works of a believer.

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Not to earn salvation, but because you are saved. But I, with the voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you.

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Why do you talk about sacrifice? Because the wages of sin is death. And then you have to have a substitute.

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You kill something in place of you. You sinned. You should die. And so then you confess that I should have died and I'll kill the animal instead because God has a great mosaic economy that gives us a flicker of what goes on when

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John the Baptist sees Jesus and says, Behold the dove of God.

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Behold the ostrich of God. No, behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

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And what does Jonah do? But with the voice of thanksgiving, I'll sacrifice to you. It's the language of sacrifice.

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What I have vowed, I'll pay. What's he saying? I'm sure he's saying, God, when you charge me and ordain me into gospel ministry, good news ministry,

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I told you I would go wherever you would send me. I would be like Isaiah. I see the glory of God.

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I see the holiness of God. I see my own sin. I've experienced divinely initiated grace.

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And my response is, Here I am. Send me. And I, Jonah, stood before you.

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And I saw your holiness. I saw my sin. I experienced grace. And I said, I'll go anywhere. I'll preach anywhere, any place, any time.

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And then I found out it was the Ninevites. And I said, no. And now I repent. And now

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I'll change. And now I'll offer a sacrifice for my disobedience.

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And what I vowed to go preach to Nineveh, I will. And now we come to the theme of the

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Bible. Yes, it's temporal in Jonah's case. But the spiritual truth is incredible.

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Often you'll have truths in the Bible. Redemption. God redeems

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Israel out of Egypt because the megaphone is shouting to you from the

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New Testament. It's not just a physical redemption. It's a spiritual redemption. And it's the same thing here.

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And here is the theme of the Bible. Here is the theme of Jonah.

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Here is salvation belongs to Yahweh.

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Salvation belongs to Yahweh. John Newton said of this, and can he have taught me to trust in his name and thus far have brought me to put me to shame?

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I made a vow and I'm going to keep it. Salvation belongs to the

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Lord. Maybe some of you know this hymn. I was sinking deep in sin, far from the peaceful shore.

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Very deeply stained within, sinking to rise no more. But the master of the sea heard my despairing cry.

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From the waters lifted me. Now, love lifted me.

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I better not sing anymore. Edit that out of the tape. Some of you don't know that hymn because you're not over 50 years old and love the

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Gaithers. But I know it. And I guess I'm over 50. Souls in danger, look above.

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Jesus completely saves. He will lift you by his love out of the angry waves. He's the master of the sea, billows his will, obey.

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He your Savior wants to be, be saved. The theme of the Bible is salvation belongs to the

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Lord. Jonah's experiencing it. And Jonah knows I'm about ready to get going to Nineveh because I have a message for them that salvation for the

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Jews and the Gentiles is from the Lord. Verse 10,

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And, N -A -S, Then. It's like the second he comes to his senses fully and realizes salvation is from the

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Lord, then God does something. And what does he do? The Lord spoke to the fish. Yahweh speaks to the fish.

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The Creator speaks to the creation. And it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.

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I mean, once he finally comes to the end of his proverbial rope. Okay, uncle, your will be done.

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Salvation belongs to you. It's about your glory in my life, not about my glory in your life. Okay, I give.

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Salvation is all about you. Glory is all about you. Salvation, glory, majesty, transcendence.

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This whole world is about you. And then God speaks to the fish.

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Now, when I was a kid, I watched a lot of Arthur Gordon Linkletter.

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Arthur Gordon Linkletter was known by another name. And what was his nickname? Art Linkletter. Who here remembers

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Art Linkletter? All right, everybody with gray hair. Amen. At least you got hair.

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Canadian born, American residing, TV personality, radio personality.

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He had all kinds of shows on. People are funny, house party. And he had a very popular show.

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And I usually don't let my kids say this word, but I'm just saying the name of a title in a book, I mean, in a

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TV show. Kids say the what? Darnedest things. Well, Art Linkletter asked a little child, what is your favorite story in the

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Bible? The story of Jonah and the whale and how Jonah was swallowed by the whale.

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Well, Art Linkletter. My kids say the darnedest thing. What do you think the lesson of that story is?

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I ask you the question, what's the lesson of Jonah? And the little child said, people make fish sick.

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You're getting closer. The theme is, the story is, just what was earlier stated.

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Salvation is from Yahweh and salvation belongs to God. That's the theme of Jonah.

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And the second it came to his mind, I mean, think about it, whatever tight space you're in, I'm not going to try to, you know, spiritualize the passage, but the principle is true.

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You're in a tight spot. You're seeing the world through your problems. And to use Grandma Evie's language that I love to lift is, you know, when you're looking at the world through your problems, everything's messed up.

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You're gazing upon your problems and you glance at the Lord. Jonah is written, like a lot of other books,

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Genesis 37 to 15. So you're gazing upon the Lord and you glance at your problems. And in the belly of the fish, he says, salvation is from the

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Lord. And then there's a release. Literally. And the text says, he was vomited out, spewed out.

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The word means disgorge. I mean, can you imagine? One man said, the fish was glad to do this.

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Three days of undigested Jonah. He's talking to an animal and the animal obeys.

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He's sovereign over everything. He's sovereign over the wind, sovereign over the mariners, sovereign over everything.

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Matter of fact, if I didn't think clearly, I'd say salvation belongs to the Lord. And the

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Lord opened the mouth of the donkey and she said to Balaam, what have I done to you that you've struck me these three times?

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Balaam said to the donkey, because you made a mockery of me. If there had been a sword in my hand, I'd have killed you by now.

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Donkey said to Balaam, am I not your donkey on which you have ridden all your life to this day?

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Have I ever been accustomed to do so? And he said, no.

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The God of the universe has animals talk, has animals obey, because salvation belongs to the

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Lord. When I was a kid, I loved the animal kind of people, the people that could walk with the animals and talk with the animals and do doctor doodle things to the animals.

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And I like mutual of Omaha's wild kingdom. Why? Because when you live in Omaha, mutual of Omaha's wild kingdom has it, especially if your mom works for mutual of Omaha.

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I'm like, mom, are you going to bring home an animal today? Different show. God, the

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Bible, the sovereign God, it's so obvious. I've said this 20 times and I have to say it more because I just can't get it through my skull half the time.

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You read Joseph, it's obvious God's in charge. You read Jonah, it's obvious God's in charge.

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You read Matthew about the life of Christ, it's obvious God's in charge. And then we have problems in our life and things come up and we're like, our theological house of cards just caves.

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It's so obvious in the scripture because it's not obvious in our lives. And the way you honor the

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Lord is to say salvation belongs to you. You're sovereign. You've ordained this. I want to think rightly about you.

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Help me worship you when I'm in trouble. Help me honor you when I've got a trial. Help me bow down to you and speak your praises even though my 10 kids are just murdered.

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Killed rather. Job. Salvation is of the

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Lord. It belongs to the Lord. I ask you the question, have you learned that? Have you learned that in a certain college? If you learned it from the

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Bible, salvation belongs to the Lord. And that means salvation does not belong to education.

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Salvation doesn't belong to church membership. Salvation doesn't belong to baptism. Salvation doesn't belong to being good.

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Salvation doesn't belong to my parents taught me. Salvation doesn't belong to the church, the culture, the reformation, mass, tradition.

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Salvation belongs to the Lord. Turn your Bibles to Titus chapter 1. Let's think about this for a minute.

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We've talked a lot about temporal deliverance in Jonah. Oh, there's some spiritual deliverance.

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I think those sea mariners from the language of the text seem to be saved. The Ninevites from the language of the text seem to be saved.

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But let's talk about your salvation for a minute. Now, if I were to ask you to tell me about your salvation, give me your testimony, what would you say?

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Well, I want you to incorporate this into your testimony. I don't mind, matter of fact, I love if you give your testimony and you say,

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I was under the law of God that said, do this and live and love God with your heart, soul, mind, and strength, your neighbor as yourself.

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And I just couldn't keep those laws. But there's a man, the God -man named Jesus, He perfectly obeyed in my place.

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And for all my sins, He died on the cross and was raised from the dead in great confirmation of what

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He's done. And you talk about the Savior. I love that. You've got to talk about Him. I don't mind that you say, you know, on 1989, on an

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October day, God opened my heart by the power of the Holy Spirit. He regenerated me.

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He made me alive. He gave me a new heart. He made me a new creation. He did all that.

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Matter of fact, you have to talk about that as a testimony. The work of Christ, the life of Christ, the work of the

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Spirit, the life of the Spirit. But I want you to even go farther back in time when you give praise and say to yourself, salvation belongs to the

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Lord. Titus chapter 1. Paul, a servant of God, a doulos, a bondservant, a slave, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, sent out by Jesus personally.

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Why are you in ministry, Paul? I'm in ministry for three reasons. One, for the sake of the faith of God's elect.

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In other words, I'm in ministry because I know there are elect people who haven't believed yet, but I know they will through the preaching of the

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Word. I'm in it for justification. I know God has chosen some and through preaching, weak as it might be,

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God often, regularly, wonderfully, saves sinners. Why are you in ministry,

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Paul? I'm in ministry for justification, for salvation of sinners. He goes on to say, and their knowledge of the truth which accords with godliness.

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Paul, why are you in ministry? I love to see people get saved. Paul, why are you in ministry?

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Number two, I love to see Christians grow. This knowledge of the truth which accords with godliness.

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I know Christians grow through the Word and I love to see them mature. Does Paul like church growth? Yes, he wants people in the church to grow, mature.

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Why are you in ministry, Paul? I love to see people get saved. I love to see them grow in Christ. By the way, don't you love those things too?

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I do. And then he says, in hope of eternal life. I'm in ministry because people get saved through preaching, people grow through preaching, and God glorifies people too.

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He won't lose one If God saves someone, no one, Satan, our people, can undo what

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God has done and God glorifies people. When God starts a good work, He finishes it and I'm in ministry for these three reasons,

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Paul said. I'm in it for justification, sanctification, and for glorification.

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That's why I'm in ministry. And then what does he say? Which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began.

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I just was on the island of Crete a couple years ago. You know what

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I noticed about the island of Crete? I talked to the people who lived in Athens. What do you think about the

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Cretans? And they didn't say these words, but they could have. They're evil, they're liars, and they're lazy gluttons.

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The name Crete comes from liar. What island do you live on? Oh, liar island.

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And Paul says, listen, Cretans may lie.

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Cretans might be Cretans, but God never lies. And God made a promise.

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Take a look at the text. He promised before the ages began. What does the text not say? The text does not say,

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He promised you. He promised the church. He promised Israel. He promised the seraphim.

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He promised the Nephilim. He promised Satan. He promised angels, demons. He just promised before the ages began.

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Who was in existence before Genesis 1 -1? Nobody. What was in existence before Genesis 1 -1?

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No thing, nowhere, no place, except the triune God, the

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Father, the eternal Son, and the Holy Spirit. Now, salvation belongs to the

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Lord. Calvary included, yes. The life of Christ included, yes. When I got saved, regenerated, converted, yes.

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But I want you to know that salvation belongs to the Lord even in eternity past. Look at the text.

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Promised before the ages began. From eternity.

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The Father, the Son, and the Spirit make a pact, a promise. Call it whatever you want.

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Use the text here. A promise. To whom did God make the promise?

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It was an inter -Trinitarian promise. Salvation belongs to the Lord. It makes 2

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Timothy 1 -9. Preach in technicolor.

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Saved us and called us with the holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus and the exact same words from Titus 1 before time began.

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It makes sense of Ephesians 1 even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before Him.

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In love He predestined us. Salvation belongs to the Lord. Have you learned the lesson?

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Have you learned that truth? Say, yeah, but I've got issues with responsibility, issues with duty, issues with freedom of the will, issues with puppets, issues with robots, issues with all these kind of things.

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Friends, all those truths are important to work through depending on the definition and how true they all might be or might not be.

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But all those issues cannot be figured out until you learn the lesson that Jonah learned in the belly of that fish.

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Salvation belongs to the Lord. And once you get that right, you get everything right, you'll say, how do

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I pray for an unsaved person? If salvation belongs to their will, you're smoked.

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If salvation belongs to the Lord, God save them. Open their eyes. God humble them. God give them repentance.

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Give them faith. God, like when you save me, would you save them? Salvation belongs to the Lord. How about when you praise

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God? You're like, well, I'm only going to praise God with part of my heart, soul, mind and strength because I, after all, let

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God save me. I made the initiation. I'm the one that did part of it. And so I'll take 20 % of the credit.

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I'll praise God with 80 % of my being. Because, you know, when I get to heaven, I'm going to fist bump God and say, you know, we did this.

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Salvation belongs to the Lord. Once you get that settled in your mind, then everything else, how does freedom come in of the will?

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Free agency, duty, responsibility, the next and the next. Friends, if you struggle with those issues is because deep down,

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I want to say it kindly, but you still haven't bowed your knee to the doctrine that says salvation belongs to the

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Lord. Show me someone that believes that and then they'll see these other issues in the light of that truth.

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If you've got a telescope and you put the eyepiece to your eye, you see some things down the street magnified and brilliant.

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And if you take it and reverse it, what do you see? When you put the big lens to your eye, what do you see?

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Answer? Your own eyelid. You see like your eyelashes.

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I think you're like some kind of, you know, female model or something with all these huge eyelashes. I mean, it looks like it's some kind of gross creature.

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And it is because you see yourself, the lens of the telescope that has the big lens here and the small one here is salvation belongs to the

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Lord. And then you see everything perfectly. John Newton said,

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I know that if God wouldn't have chosen me before the foundations of the world,

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He sure would have never chosen me afterwards. See, everything's tied up in that.

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Revelation 13, from the foundation of the world. Revelation 17, from the foundation of the world.

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Salvation belongs to the Lord. I love it. When the Lord comes back, it says He's going to be on a horse and on His thigh it has a name written,

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King of Kings and Lord of Lords. What's the language? What's the picture that your mind should picture?

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Well, if someone is up on a white charger and they have a robe and they have their leg up, the robe falls back and the thigh is eye level, so everyone will obviously know

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King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And for Jonah, you read the book and it's obvious, salvation belongs to the

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Lord. Martin Lloyd -Jones said, there was a great council between the Father, the Son and the Spirit. Do we realize our salvation was planned before the world was planned or created?

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It is a realization of this fact that makes a man stand on his tiptoe and shout out praise to God, chosen before the foundation of the world.

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Salvation belongs to the Lord. The three blessed persons in the eternal council were concerned about us,

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Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And then Lloyd -Jones says, and I close, let us get rid forever of the idea that salvation was an afterthought in the mind of God.

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It was not a thought that came to God after a man had fallen into sin. It was planned before the foundation of the world.

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Why? Because salvation... Father, thank you for our time.

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Thank you that you have even said, I will never leave you nor forsake you.

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How could you if you've planned this all? I think about the Lord Jesus, this commandment to die and to be raised from the dead,

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I receive from my Father. When? Eternity passed. It blows our minds.

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Eternity passed. We can't even remember a month ago, a year ago, a decade ago.

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But Father, your truth will last. Salvation belongs to the Lord. I pray for the saints today that you'd encourage them.

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I pray that you'd remind them again that all praise and honor and adoration goes to you. And Father, if there's anyone here who has not repented and believed on the

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Lord Jesus Christ, I pray that you would grant them such faith. I pray that you would give them no sleep or rest until they rest in you.

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Jesus. Visit bbcchurch .org