good to be with you again as we, I want to have us turn again to the book of Jonah. So if you want to turn there in your Bibles to follow along, I always recommend that. And we began going through Jonah chapter one last time I was here, two Sundays ago. And we considered the opening of Jonah verses one through three, and we learned about God's command to Jonah. And then his immediate response was to say no through his actions, trying to run away from the Lord. And today we're going to zoom in on the next section in the storm that God sends in response in verses 3 through 11. So I'm going to read today Jonah 1, 1 through 11. Give your attention now to God's word in Jonah chapter 1. Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me. But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it to go with him to Tarshish away from the presence of the Lord. But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea and there was a mighty tempest on the sea so that the ship threatened to break up. Then the mariners were afraid and each cried out to his God and they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep. So the captain came to him and said, what do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call out to your God. Perhaps the God will give a thought to us that we may not perish. And they said to one another, come, let us cast lots that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us. So they cast lots. and the lot fell on Jonah. Then they said to him, tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation and where do you come from? What is your country and of what people are you? And he said to them, I am a Hebrew and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, what is this that you have done For the men knew he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord because he had told them. Then they said to him, what shall we do to you that the sea may quiet down for us? For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. That's the reading of God's word. Let's pray and ask for God's blessing. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word through which we can know about you, our God. You've revealed yourself to us and have inspired the Scriptures, Lord. You've inspired chosen men by the Holy Spirit to write these words down, and so we thank you and ask that your Holy Spirit would also give us understanding of it. that your Holy Spirit would take away the hardness of our hearts that would resist your word and would stand over it in judgment. We pray that you would help us to sit under your word and to receive it humbly as your word, as what it truly is. Oh, Lord God, we pray, Lord, that even though we are weak, you would be strong among us and overcome all of our limitations this morning. The sin that we bring with us, and even perhaps weariness or illness. Overcome these things for our good and for your glory, Lord, that you might be glorified as your word goes out in a powerful way. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Well, as we open up this morning, I want us to think for a second about sleep. Sleep is a fascinating thing. We need sleep. When we sleep, we have dreams, good dreams, sometimes bad dreams. One of the interesting parallels the Bible makes, and the world at large makes, is comparing sleep to death. Comparing death to sleep. Shakespeare's Hamlet does this. There's the famous speech, for in that sleep of death, what dreams may come. The Bible uses the phrase, he slept with his fathers, to describe a person dying. sleeping with his father, so to speak. And so the one who sleeps is dead. But as Christians, there's a hope that we have in that comparison between sleep and death, because it reminds us that just as we wake up from sleep, we also have resurrection hope in Jesus. We have the promise that we will rise from the dead in Christ. John Donne's sonnet, Death Be Not Proud, this great poem, It says, for those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow, die not for death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, much pleasure then from thee much more must flow. He's taunting death, you could say, in the same way the Apostle Paul is. In another poem, why be afraid of death, asks, is sleep a thing to dread? Yet sleeping you are dead, till you awake and rise here or beyond the skies. In other words, as Christians, they should no more fear death than we fear sleep. I don't think any of us fear going to sleep, and so the point there being we shouldn't fear death. If we're in Christ, we have the promise of resurrection life. The Bible also uses this comparison on a spiritual level. Ephesians 5, which we read in the service today, talks about living in darkness and walking in the light, and it says, take no part in the unfruitful work of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things they do in secret, but when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible. For anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore, it says, awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. That last line there, Ephesians is talking about regeneration. when a person is hardened against God, dead in sins and trespasses, and God, by the Holy Spirit, gives them a new heart, new affections, new loves. When he takes away that heart of stone and gives a person a heart of flesh to give them ears to hear what God says, giving them eyes to see what God is doing. In Ephesians, there's quoting Isaiah, arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you, And so Ephesians is saying, if you're asleep, wake up with the light of Christ shining into your heart. Now, why am I talking about all this? You might wonder, how does this connect with the book of Jonah? When we come to Jonah this morning, we find him fast asleep in the ship's hold while the storms of God's wrath are crashing down around him. He's in the dark hold in this futile attempt to flee from God and God is going to wake him up. And over the course of this book is going to soften his hard heart. As I said last time, we should see ourselves in Jonah, which then poses this question for us. Do we need to wake up? Are you a sleeper living in darkness, fleeing from the presence of the Lord, not knowing that God's wrath is hanging over you? There's a great challenge for non-Christians in this, and yet this is also a challenge for those who are in the church, for believers, because we still commit sin. We still at times run away from God. We sometimes fall asleep to the reality around us. We're blinded by our sin. Or perhaps we simply need to thank God for waking us up from the darkness we were in and serving him with gratitude. We come into Jonah 1, we remember that God commissioned Jonah to go out to Nineveh to warn them to flee from the wrath of God, to come, arise, go, God had said. And Jonah arose and he went the wrong way. He went west, not east. And he went to a port on the Mediterranean Sea. The preacher in Herman Melville's great book, Moby Dick, points out that Jonah would have been a very suspicious figure, skulking around the docks there at Joppa. He says, miserable man, oh, most contemptible and worthy of all scorn with slouched hat, guilty eyes, skulking from his God, prowling among the shipping like a vile burglar, hastening to cross the seas, so disordered, self-condemning in his look, that had there been policemen in those days, Jonah, on the mere suspicion of something wrong had been arrested ere he touched a deck. How plainly he's a fugitive. No baggage, not a hatbox, valis, or carpet bag. No friends accompany him to the wharf with their farewells. Can you picture Jonah going down to this dock, his face set like flint on getting away from the Lord? We hear repeatedly in this opening that he's trying to flee from the presence of the Lord." Whoever wrote this book, by God's inspiration, clearly intends us to see the ridiculousness of Jonah and the ridiculousness of how we are when we're sinning, when we're trying to get away from God, when we're trying to close our eyes and our ears to what he says to us. God always gets his man. Do you really think you can run away from God? Our kids should be sitting here thinking, oh, silly Jonah, and yet How silly we are when sin has captured our hearts as well. Do you really think you can hide from God? Sinclair Ferguson notes that having run from the Lord, Jonah is now spiritually adrift. He's out to sea spiritually. The first time I was preparing this sermon, my son brought me a picture of an anchor and said, God is like an anchor from the book of Hebrews. Here in this story, Jonah has cut his anchor to God. He doesn't want to be anchored to God, and yet God will not so easily be separated from the person that he has chosen and set to be his servant. And verse four bears this out, beginning with those great words that we should love to hear, but God, but the Lord. But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up. Right there, this is telling us something about our God. He throws storms. He hurls storms is the language that the book of Jonah uses. And this probably isn't one of the lessons that we often think about from the book of Jonah, but do you see that God controls all of reality? He controls this world that he created. He hurls a storm with less effort than you and I would throw a Frisbee. Do you see that God also hurls storms for good purposes? He does this to direct his servant to go to Nineveh to save many people there. He does it to show his power to the sailors who will come to know of his power and even cry out to him. This should give us confidence. This should give you confidence when you're in the eye of a storm. in the storm of life. Remember the hymn, Be Still My Soul, as it reminds us the wind and waves still know God's voice and will respond to his command to be still. Verse five continues our story. Then the mariners were afraid and each cried out to his God, and they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the sea and had lain down and was fast asleep. What a contrast is made here between Jonah and the sailors and even with the ship itself. Contrasts are really helpful. They help us to see things. They show what's different. If you've ever changed the contrast on your television screen or your computer, you realize that you need contrast or else you have just a white screen. You can see words when they're black in contrast to the white. on a word processor, and contrasts help us to see what's going on with Jonah and what's going on in our own hearts. Notice, at first, Jonah is not like the ship. The ship itself is personified here. It's made to be like a person in verse four. Our English translations hint at this. It says, the ship threatened to break up. We don't usually think of objects threatening to do anything. Hebrew scholars here suggest the ship is not making anyone any threats, but it's terrified, as if an object could be terrified. The ship expected itself to crack up. And so you could say that in this story, the ship is, in a manner of speaking, terrified. And well, it should be of God and his wrath and his storm. This ship is acting more like a human being than Jonah, who's fast asleep. Jonah's peaceful sleep contrasts with just about everything else in this story. It's unlike the natural environment around him, the sea, the rain, the wind. It's unlike the ship itself, which has been called a nervous wreck. It contrasts with the sailors. And all of this is meant to show us and to scream at us that Jonah is not doing what he should be doing. Scholars debate when Jonah went down into the hold and fell asleep. It's possible that He went down and fell asleep just as the storm was starting. Perhaps it was earlier, but either way, his physical posture is reflecting the posture of his heart. He's asleep to the danger that God poses to him and to the people around him. He's put himself where he is. Our passage emphasizes, did you notice Jonah goes down to Joppa? He goes down into the inner part of the ship. One writer says that when all the world is in danger, the man who flees from the word of God seals himself in his solitude, willing neither to see nor to hear anything of what others are doing. He sleeps. The foreigners here are wiser than Jonah. They know that Life is more than just what it seems. They know this is not just a normal storm, but that it has the handprints of the divine, of the supernatural power all over it. They're even spiritual enough to know that you should first cry out to heaven for help and then try to solve the problem yourself. The sailors each cry out to their own God. Perhaps it's that they have the perspective of the men of Athens who will later have an altar to even the unknown God. They want to cover all their bases so they don't leave a God out of their pantheon. They may leave in many gods. And so they're saying, well, whatever God is doing this, we want to stop it. They try to do whatever they can to save themselves. They throw cargo overboard. They pray to their gods. You can notice the masterpiece that Jonah is, repeating words. They're hurling cargo overboard in the same way that God hurled the storm. The ship is a flurry of activity, and yet where's Jonah? He's isolated. He's on his own. He's separated from them in a sleep. Friends, have you realized and found in your own experience that sin separates you, not just from God, but from your neighbors? The crew realizes that Jonah's sleeping. Some suggest that he's snoring. And it's interesting, they don't even confront him themselves. They send their captain down. Verse six says, so the captain came and said to him, what do you mean you sleeper? Arise, call out to your God. Perhaps the God will give a thought to us that we may not perish. Notice that the captain tells Jonah the same thing that God had said to Jonah, arise. We keep hearing this word downward. Jonah has gone downward, away from God. That's what happens when you try to run from God. It's a downward spiral and he needs to raise up. He needs to arise. The evil, the calamity of Nineveh had risen up to God. And that's why he sent Jonah in the first place. And soon the sailors will learn that evil, calamity has also come upon them because of Jonah. There's a reminder here for us, a lesson. that there is no such thing as a victimless crime, a victimless sin. You know, we sometimes downplay our sin by thinking it doesn't really affect anyone else. This just affects me. No one will see this. This is a private sin, we think. And yet learn here that sin often affects the people around us, just like Jonah's trying to flee from God endangers these sailors. And the captain's words here are undoubtedly more profound than he realized or intended, because they get to the very heart of the message of the Book of Jonah, that salvation belongs to the Lord. Perhaps the God will give a thought to us that we may not perish, the captain says. Isn't it ironic that that's exactly what started this whole story, was that God had given thought to foreigners. That's what set this whole story in motion was God wanted to save people in Nineveh. God gave thought to Nineveh that they might not perish and he appointed Jonah to go to them. And Jonah has been trying to separate himself from foreigners. He's setting himself away from Nineveh. Here he's setting himself apart from these foreign sailors. But in this moment he's gonna perish just like them. He should have realized that he's not that different from the sailors. He, like them, is distant from the true God. He's a rebel against God, just as they are. He's not near to God, and he isn't so different from the sailors. And if he's not so different from the sailors, can you really say that he's that different than the people of Nineveh that he was called to go and evangelize? It's been said there are multiple ways to run away from God. whether you try to suppress the reality that there's a God, as Romans 1 talks about, or if you actively run away from God when you know better, like Jonah. One writer says, his sleep was a refusal to accept solidarity with them. There's a warning for us as Christians. We can't be puffed up in pride thinking that we're better than the people around us. Remember that hymn, How Sweet and Awesome is the Place? It's acknowledging God's unconditional election and it says, why was I made to hear God's voice? God's grace to us should humble us, not make us proud. We shouldn't think of ourselves as better than other people. God had indeed given thought to these sailors and to the people of Nineveh. They would not perish. And as the story goes on, you can just picture a groggy Jonah being woken up and the whole crew is huddling about to figure out how to fix this problem. They know a supernatural power is angry, but why? Each man must have been listing their sins in their heads. Their guilty conscience is making them wonder, is this because of me? Am I the one who has brought this disaster upon us? Because even pagans are made in God's image. They have a conscience. Verse seven, they said to one another, come, let us cast lots that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us. So they cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. They cast lots and the Bible doesn't tell us a lot about what this looks like. You could think about flipping coins or drawing straws, something that appears random but it gives a definite answer or pulling out a sailor's name and looking to the lot to give a yes or no answer and Jonah's, however it was done, was the one that was indicated. The lot, as in the case of Achan, was directed by God, and it fell upon the guilty prophet. Proverbs 16.33 says, the lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord. Look then at verse eight. They said to him, tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation? Where do you come from? Where is your country? of what people are you? And he said to them, I am a Hebrew. I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. Think about that response. It's been called totally ironic. He says, I fear the Lord. But if you fear the Lord, how can you sleep when you're a fugitive from God? What fear of God is Jonah evidencing here? Again, we're just like Jonah. And remember, not long after the book of Jonah comes the book of Isaiah. And Isaiah criticized, rebuked the people for honoring God with their lips, but being far from him in their hearts. And yet isn't the same thing true of us at times? Do we not do the same as Jonah? We say we fear God. We say we belong to him while we run away from something that he calls us to do. Something we don't want to do, something we don't want to give up. We say we love him, but our hearts can be far from him. Let us remember what Jonah here, that we can live in a way that where we claim the name of the Lord and yet we live in a way that invalidates that confession. When we're blinded by our sin, when we're recklessly pursuing a course of action that's contrary to God's word and instruction, notice That in Jonah's answer, he answers every question except for the one about his occupation. Did you notice that? It's a crucial question. We know that he's a prophet and that he's meant to bear the word of God to Nineveh. He's meant to speak what God is telling him, and yet he's running away from that calling. And so he doesn't even mention that to the shipmates. What a contrast there will be in the fullness of time in Acts 27 when the apostle Paul the apostle to the Gentiles, was on a ship in the same body of water, the Mediterranean, and encounters a storm and has frightened sailors. And like in Jonah, they dropped their cargo. What did Paul do there? He made the most of that opportunity and he declared the word of God. Jonah's words here are further ironic when you realize that his confession betrays the the foolishness of running away from God. He says, I fear the Lord, the God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land. God is not a localized God. This is the Lord. He's the supreme creator. You can't run from him. Jonah should teach us of God's presence and providential controls. We've taught my children from the children's catechism. Where is God? God is everywhere. Martin Luther comments, not only the ship, but the whole world becomes too small for Jonah. He finds no nook or corner in all of creation, nor even in hell where he might crawl in. Now you might think that finally understanding who's with them would have comforted these sailors. They finally understand a little bit more about what's going on around them. They know what they're up against. but it's no comfort to them. Look at verse 10. Then the men are exceedingly afraid and said to him, what is this that you've done? For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord because he had told them. Verse 10, those words that the sailors say to Jonah should ring in our ears. They say, what is this that you've done? Does it sound familiar at all? It's an echo. of God's question to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3.13. What have you done? There's different translations that render it differently. Why has thou done this? How could you do this? This is the question heard round the world, the shot heard round the world, and Jonah has no answer. Can he really answer them? If they want to know why is he running from God, can he really give them the true answer that he doesn't want God to be gracious to enemies. Can he admit that to these foreigners? That all he wants is for God to bring justice. All he wants is for God to strike sinners down. What irony there would be in Jonah stating that because if he really just wants justice from God, he better be ready for his discipline, his punishment as well. Here, he is getting what he wanted. He's getting God's justice, judging sinners. Friends, hear Jonah's guilty silence here and know that sin is indefensible. Sometimes we talk a big game and we justify our bad path. We try to justify our sinful behavior to our friends, and yet when God reveals himself, All of our excuses and our self-justification fall short, doesn't it? All we can do is, with Job, repent in dust and ashes. Picturing Jonah in the midst of this storm, I'm reminded of C.S. Lewis's fictional book, Till We Have Faces. It's set in a world of mythology, but all her life, the main character has complained about how hard her life has been, her lot in life. And yet when she finally gets an audience with the gods, her complaints are silenced. Jonah, knowing this storm is because of him, he's seeing the power of God, he can't answer why he's fleeing from the presence of God, and yet he knows all the reasons. And so they said to him, verse 11, what shall we do to you that the sea may quiet down for us? For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. Isn't it interesting that Jonah is woken up here and yet he doesn't weep. He doesn't cry out to God for help. He doesn't repent. He just states the facts. We don't hear about Jonah praying here. Everyone has come to the conclusion that Jonah is the problem and yet he won't stop and ask God for help. He won't stop and ask for the storm to stop. The sailors have to ask, what can we do, to you even, to appease God? And yet Jonah is so calloused and hard-hearted, the captain has told him to call on the Lord, and yet Jonah won't do it. Well, you're gonna have to come back next time, next Sunday, to hear about Jonah's response and what happens in the rest of the chapter. I'm gonna leave this one on the cliffhanger at verse 11. But I want you to think about what this reveals to us about God, and how Jonah reveals to us the folly of our own hearts, the sins that we commit. I wanna end today by reflecting on the New Testament's picking up of the book of Jonah, and particularly the storm. Just as Nineveh's evil or calamity reached God's attention, and he sent a servant to save them, your sin, your evil, has reached God's attention as well. There was nothing special about Nineveh that God would show at mercy. Perhaps God chose it because Nineveh's the least that you would expect God to save and show mercy to. In the same way, there's nothing special about you or me that God would show us mercy. We deserve justice and only justice. And so like those sailors, we should be fearful, exceedingly afraid of the Lord and his wrath. Afraid of the storm of God's judgment. The thought of hell should make us frantic like those sailors or like that ship threatening to break up. A nervous wreck. Hell is far more terrifying than we realize. Do you fear God? Do you see his power? Like those sailors, there's nothing that you can do to save yourself. The servant of God must act for your salvation. But to borrow the captain's words, God has given thought to you and to me that we would not perish. He sent his son on a mission of redemption, a mission of grace to enemies. And on that mission of redemption that Christ took willingly the opposite of Jonah, Jesus also fell asleep on a boat. Matthew 8 tells us, when he got in the boat, his disciples followed him and There arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves. But he was asleep, and they went and woke him, saying, Save us, Lord, we're perishing. And he said to them, Why are you afraid, O you of little faith? Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. And the men marveled, saying, What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him? God saves from death and Jesus used Jonah as a picture of his own resurrection as we'll explore in future Sundays. He announced he was greater than Jonah. He slept during a storm and the seafarers with him are panicking and they woke him up just like in Jonah. But amazingly Jesus calmed the storm because he's the God man. He wasn't on the run from God but he was faithful. in his mission of redemption that the Father had given him, crying out later at the cross, or crying in the Garden of Gethsemane, not my will, but your will be done. In that contrast between these two Jewish sleepers, in the middle of a storm, one writer says, one sleeps because he wants to escape from the will of God, the mission of redemption, the other sleeps because he's fully embraced the will of his Heavenly Father. What sort of man is this? Jesus Christ, he calms the storm, he calms the disciples down, he brings calm into your life so that you don't have to fear the wrath of God anymore. The storms of life have taken out their curse out on him in your place so that when you feel like you're in the midst of a storm of hardship and affliction. You know that you stand on Jesus Christ, the firm foundation. He is not sinking sand. You're not fearful because you know 1 John 4.18, there's no fear in love, for perfect love casts out fear, for fear has to do with punishment. Whoever fears has not been perfected in love. And you know God has loved you with that perfect love. Praise God for his grace. But if you haven't believed in him, God says to you now, awake, O sleeper. and arise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. There's rest in Christ. There's peace in him. Our souls can be still. We can lie down and sleep with our consciences cleansed in Christ. And so if you've rested on him for eternal life, for forgiveness of your sins, then join me and join the disciples in marveling at Jesus Christ. What sort of man is this? Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word that is a lamp to our feet, Lord, that exposes our hearts. Lord, we are sinful. We do things that harm others around us day in and day out. We sin against you in words, thoughts, and deeds. And so we ask for your forgiveness of our sins this day through Jesus Christ. We know that like these sailors, there's nothing that we can do to avert your anger. And yet you have provided a way for salvation by simply resting on Christ, believing in him, Lord, entrusting ourselves to him through faith, which comes to you with an empty hand. So, Lord, we come with nothing in our hands. We simply cling to your cross. Lord, help us to see ourselves in Jonah, to see the futility of running away. And Lord, where we would be separated from those around us because of our sin. We pray that you would reconcile us to yourself and to those around us. Help us to be those that bring grace to those nearby, to our neighbors, that we might be instruments of your grace and blessing to the people around us. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.