The Lord of Salvation
Download MP3If you would open your bibles to the book of Jonah. It's page 923 in my bible. Feel free to use your concordance. It's one of the minor prophets, and one of the shortest books in the bible, so it's hard to find. And we're looking at Jonah for a number of reasons, and, this morning, I was struck by a new one, as I was going through Luke.
Jeffrey Heine:And in Luke chapter 11, Jesus, he has an interesting conversation with a woman, and she says, blessed is the mother who bore you. Blessed is the are the breasts that nursed you. And Jesus looks at her and he says, no. Rather, blessed is the one who hears my words and does them. Says, I tell you this is an evil generation, and no other sign but the sign of Jonah will be given them.
Jeffrey Heine:And it's interesting because when when when she said, you know, blessed is the mother and all this, Jesus says, there are no insiders. There is no religious insiders when it comes to me, not even my own mother. And blessed is the one who hears my words and obeys them, Which if you remember was Jesus's concluding argument for the Sermon on the Mount. And it all came out here's the sermon on that, the concluding argument. Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and don't do what I say?
Jeffrey Heine:Why do you build your life on sand instead of the rock? And then he ties that into Jonah. Says, you want to understand what I mean by this? You need to understand the sign of Jonah. And so we've been looking at Jonah, and Jonah is really just the Sermon on the Mount fleshed out.
Jeffrey Heine:And we're gonna begin reading. We're gonna pick up, and we're gonna read some of what we did last week. We're gonna read starting in verse 7 of chapter 1, and we're gonna read all the way through chapter 2. 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.
Jeffrey Heine:Then they said to him, tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? What people are you?
Jeffrey Heine:And he said to them, I'm a Hebrew. I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea in the dry land. Then the men were exceedingly afraid, and said to him, what is this you have done? For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the lord because he had told them. Then they said to him, what shall we do that the sea might quiet down for us?
Jeffrey Heine:For the sea had grew more and more tempestuous. And he said to them, pick me up and hurl me into the sea, then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you. Nevertheless, the men rode hard to get back to the dry land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them. Therefore, they called out to the Lord, who Lord, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not on us innocent blood, for you oh Lord have done as it pleased you. So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging.
Jeffrey Heine:Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish 3 days and 3 nights. And then Jonah prayed to the Lord, his God from the belly of the fish, saying, I called out to the Lord out of my distress and he answered me. Out of the belly of Sheol, I cried and you heard my voice. For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me.
Jeffrey Heine:All your waves and billows passed over me. Then I said, I am driven away from your sight. Yet, I shall again look upon your holy temple. The water is closed in over me to take my life. The deep surrounded me.
Jeffrey Heine:Weeds were wrapped around my head. At the root of the mountains, I I went to the land whose bars closed upon me forever. Yet you brought up my life from the pit, oh Lord my God. When my life was fainting away, I remember 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.
Jeffrey Heine:But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you. What I avowed, I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord. And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land. Pray with me.
Jeffrey Heine:Lord, we ask that you would honor the very reading of your word, that through your spirit it would prick our hearts. Lord, we ask that your spirit, he would come and that he would teach us. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, but Lord, let your words remain, and may they change us. In the strong name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.
Jeffrey Heine:For those of you who are transplants here in Birmingham, who moved to Birmingham from someplace else, you probably noticed within the 1st few weeks, a number of things in Birmingham are different. One of the first things I noticed was that nobody here uses turn signals. I mean nobody. People change lanes. I'm not even sure if they're aware that they even exist, and so that was one of the things that I had to get adjusted to.
Jeffrey Heine:The other was that everybody is super polite. I mean everybody asks everyone how they're doing. I'm running. People are coming the opposite way, and as they're running by me, they say, hey, how are you doing? And it's not like you can stop and have a conversation, and not like they really want to know, I guess, but they're so polite that even when you're running, they ask how you're doing.
Jeffrey Heine:If you're from the north, you've noticed a lot of changes. You notice that every bumper sticker is crimson or orange or has the number 3 on it. And for the longest time, I didn't even know what the number of 3 represented. I had to ask somebody, what does the number 3 stand for? Dale Earnhardt, for those of you who don't.
Jeffrey Heine:Some of you didn't. I'm proud of you. Also, if you're from the north, it probably didn't take you long to recognize that this is a very religious culture. It's extremely religious. A matter of fact, did you know that there are 259 registered churches in a 5 mile radius of this church?
Jeffrey Heine:259 churches, just the registered ones, were not registered, you know, that are in a 5 mile radius of this church. It's very religious, and you would think you would think that in such a religious city that, you know, it'd be heaven on earth with all those churches, you don't have to go, you know, a few blocks away, and you realize that's not the case. I I found that people here and everywhere, they're usually very religious, but like Jonah, they have a hard time understanding the gospel. They're religious, but that doesn't mean they understand the gospel. You know, many of us here, we're not even certain of our own family, if they're Christians.
Jeffrey Heine:A lot of times when when I get to, you know, to have lunch or breakfast with some of you, I ask, you know, are your parents believers or are your siblings believers? And one of the most common responses I get is, I think so. I'm not really sure, but I think so. Which is a pretty amazing response when you consider what you're asking. Has this has this person recognized the lordship of Jesus?
Jeffrey Heine:You're like, I think so, but in the south it is so cultural. Everybody goes to church. Christianity is so culture, cultural. Everybody, you know, they they act good. And so, it's kind of hard to tell what's really in their heart.
Jeffrey Heine:And so people say, I don't know. I don't even know with my own family if they're Christians. I do know they're good moral people, and it was the same in the 1st century. If you remember Jesus's Sermon on the Mount, you know, he always addresses 2 different types of people, and you don't ever make the mistake of thinking he's talking to those who are not religious and the Christians. Those are not the 2 groups of people.
Jeffrey Heine:The 2 groups of people are the very religious and the Christians. And he looks at the people who are very religious, the people who pray, the people who sing, the people who try to obey the law, and he says, you know what? Your road leads to destruction. You've got to understand the gospel. You're building on sand.
Jeffrey Heine:A couple of weeks ago, we we saw that most people are religious. They're good moral people, because of fear and pride, and we walk through that. You know, Jonathan Edwards, he called that common virtue. Most of us were were virtuous because of fear and pride. You know, we're we're scared of getting caught, scared that somebody will punish us, so we're good, or we're proud.
Jeffrey Heine:We we think of ourselves as better than those sinners over there. We're better than the thieves, better than the lazy. We're better than that. And so either fear or pride drives us to be good moral people. The problem is your heart's unchanged.
Jeffrey Heine:And fear and pride, although sometimes they might keep you in check, fear and pride also might lead you into sin, and we see that in the life of Jonah. Where fear and pride once kept them in check, now it's fear and pride that actually lead them away from the Lord. Because now, you know, the Lord tells him to go to Nineveh, and naturally, he would be scared. The Ninevites, the great city of Ninevah is this huge pagan city. A horrible evil violent people.
Jeffrey Heine:This would be the equivalent of, you know, during World War 2, God telling someone, I want you to go to Berlin. March right through Berlin. Go up to the Nazi regime, and tell them to repent. You'd be a little scared. You pretty much you would know that's a death wish.
Jeffrey Heine:I'm gonna die if I do that. And so he hears that, and he runs, but even more than fear, pride is what kept Jonah from obeying the Lord, because he thought he was better than the Ninevites. They don't deserve your grace. I do, but they don't. And so the fear and the pride that once kept Jonah in check, now it's the same fear and pride that now drives him away from the Lord, but his heart never understood the gospel, and this was a person who was a prophet.
Jeffrey Heine:He probably preached on things about grace, yet it hadn't impacted his heart. You know, fear, it leads people to become very religious. You you see that in the sailors here. They're scared to death, and, you know, sailors aren't the most religious people in the world, but now they're all crying out to whatever god they can name. Save us.
Jeffrey Heine:You saw this after 911. After 9/11, the synagogues, the mosques, the churches were packed. People all around America became very religious, Very religious. All calling out to whatever God they knew. Here in this story, when these sailors realize that it's not working, that they're calling out on every god, but none of them are answering, they go and find Jonah, and they're like, what are you doing sleeping?
Jeffrey Heine:Get up calling your god. Maybe your god will work. Okay? That's the one god we haven't tried. Maybe your god will work.
Jeffrey Heine:Get up here. And interestingly and interestingly enough, Jonah doesn't pray. He has yet to say a word. People are dying, you know, or just about to die, and he's silent. Now after they cast lots and all this, they realized Jonah is the reason for the storm.
Jeffrey Heine:And in verse 10, they look at him, they say, what have you done? In Hebrew, this is the exact same question that God asked Adam when Adam sins in his hiding. What have you done? And Adam, you know, he thought he could disobey God and go run and hide Put on little fig leaves. Jonah thinks he could disobey God, and he can run to Tarshish and hide, and all Tarshish is is fig leaves.
Jeffrey Heine:What have you done? You can't hide from God. The the sailors, they asked Jonah what they're to do to avoid being killed, and Jonah says, well, you gotta pick me up and you gotta throw me overboard. And to their credit, the these pagan heathens here, they're like, no. We don't wanna do that.
Jeffrey Heine:They're actually showing a little more ethics than even Jonah. They're actually praying. Jonah's not doing anything. They're actually trying to save themselves. Jonah's doing nothing.
Jeffrey Heine:They they they start rowing towards shore frantically, which means they're panicking. I don't really know anything about boating or sailing, I I know nothing. But I do know in the middle of a storm, you don't try to go to shore. You'll just crash on the rocks, but they're so desperate and they're just panicking. Finally, they realize it's no no use.
Jeffrey Heine:So what did you say? You know, we gotta pick you up and throw you over. And they do. In verse 15, it says, they picked up Jonah, and they hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. Then the mere men feared the Lord exceedingly.
Jeffrey Heine:That's pretty strange. I mean, these guys are scared when the storm starts, which you would think so. The storm grows, and it says they're they become even more scared. And then when the storm stops though, you would think, the storm stopped. We no longer have a reason to be scared.
Jeffrey Heine:But the storm stops, and it says they were exceedingly scared. Because they realized they had just witnessed probably the most real thing in the universe. They had just finally met God, Their eyes are opened here, and it says that they feared the Lord exceedingly, And to fear the Lord here, it means that they worship the Lord. What you're seeing here is they're converted. They're converted, and I think this is what converts them.
Jeffrey Heine:As they see that Jonah gives up his life for them. He throws himself in to this wrathful God, this God that's bringing waves of wrath and judgment, and when he self he sacrifices himself by throwing himself into the wrath of God and it calms, something registers with them. And in light of this sacrificial act, they worship the Lord. And I think this is part of the sign of Jonah to which Jesus refers. You know, it's the the story of Jonah is a is a sign, or you could say it's a pointer.
Jeffrey Heine:The story of Jonah points to Jesus. He's there pointing to Jesus and saying, look at Jonah. He sacrificed his life to appease the wrath of God, And Jonah was a sinner. Jonah was disobedient, and Jonah really didn't give up his life. He was swallowed up by a fish.
Jeffrey Heine:But when you look at Jesus, who he calls himself greater than Jonah, this is one who lived totally faithful and obedient to his father. He took on the full wrath of his father, and he was swallowed up by death itself. Jonah points to Jesus. He's a sign, and this begins registering with them. In verse 17, we read that the lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah.
Jeffrey Heine:And Jonah's in this belly of this fish for 3 days, 3 nights. Gosh, it's one of the reasons we did our Heidelberg Catechism on the providence of God and that He governs and controls all things because God created this fish before, you know, Jonah ever even sinned here. He had the fish in just the right spot at just the right moment when he knew Jonah would be cast out, and so you see the sovereignty of god all over this. You put this fish there to rescue Jonah. I think this is another reason why the Lord refers to this as a sign because really, and you know, you tell this story to people, gosh, they just kind of roll their eyes and like, that's you believe that?
Jeffrey Heine:Jonah, swallowed up by well lived? And it's this exact same reaction you get when you talk to him about the resurrection. Yeah, I believe Jesus died, was buried for 3 days, and he rose back. It's just as miraculous more miraculous. It's one of the reasons Jesus points to that.
Jeffrey Heine:You think Jonah is hard to believe? You think Jonas is Jonah is miraculous? Look what's gonna happen to the son of man. Even more so. Now the advantage of being in the belly of a fish is you got a lot of time to think.
Jeffrey Heine:I'd imagine that there's not really much you can do in the inside of a fish. There's no TV, no Ipod, no, you know, nothing to eat. I'm imagining he can't even move his arms. I mean, it's just darkness. He's in a fish, and all he could do is for 3 days think.
Jeffrey Heine:No distractions. It's amazing what happens when you actually take time to think or when God forces you to. I think a lot of us, I could actually, really use at times in my life being swallowed up by fish, and for 3 days being forced to do nothing but think. And this thinking leads Jonah to actually pray, and this is the first time he actually calls out to the Lord. Let's look at his prayer.
Jeffrey Heine:Verse 1 sorry. Verse 2 says I called out to the lord out of my distress, and he answered me. Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice. Now notice that this prayer, this song says, I called out the Lord out of my distress, and he answered me. It's 3rd person.
Jeffrey Heine:He answered me. Now to the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice. It moves to 2nd person. And what you do is you see this shift in Jonah. This once kind of impersonal, once distant god, the one he just kind of vaguely knew about He, now it's you.
Jeffrey Heine:You're doing this in me. You have heard my voice, and it says he's crying out of the belly of Sheol, and and Sheol isn't just you know, the place, it doesn't mean just death. It's it's the waiting place. A lot of half of the times in the Old Testament is translated as hell actually, but it's it's the waiting place for the wicked in which they wait there before they are judged and so what you see here is Jonah finally sees himself as this. I am wicked, and I am awaiting judgment.
Jeffrey Heine:I am in Sheol. That's what's happening to me. He finally is seeing that I'm no different than the Ninevites. I'm just as guilty. I'm just as wicked deserving judgment.
Jeffrey Heine:And Jonah could have before told you he was a sinner, he was a prophet after all, and he could have said, yes, I'm a sinner. You know, we're all sinners, but this is the first time he feels it, which is a world of difference. And then over and over again, you you you keep getting this phrase, and Jonah went down, or Jonah's in the deep. You know, he goes down to Tarshish. He goes down to the belly of the ship.
Jeffrey Heine:In chapter 2 verse 3, he's cast into the deep. Verse 5, the deep surrounded him. Verse 6, he went down, and you keep getting this picture that Jonah, as he disobeys god, is going down, down, down, down. His life is falling apart, and he's spiraling down until finally he hits absolute bottom in verse 6. He cannot go any further.
Jeffrey Heine:Says at the roots of the mountains, I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever, yet you brought up my life from the pit. God took Jonah down to the farthest possible point he could go, and that's where some of us need to go. And what we do when we get to that point, you find like the psalmist says in Psalm 139, Behold in Sheol, I make my bed in Sheol, and behold, you are there waiting. And I like the imagery there of, I went down to the land whose bar is closed upon me forever, and what he sees is sin and death are like a prison. It's this way.
Jeffrey Heine:He's in jail. Sin and death, he's there, and it's like a prison. It is closed in on him forever. And whenever I read that, I think of the, the imagery Jesus, you know, when he he gives Peter, when he says, you know, I'm giving you the keys to the kingdom. Here are the keys.
Jeffrey Heine:And the church has been given these keys to unlock the prison of sin and death. We go with this message and we unlock it, and we can release people like that who've sunk in the farthest possible place they can in life. We have been given the keys to release them through the gospel. Then we come to verse 7 through 9, which are I could say without hyperbole, some of the most important words in all of the Bible. It's a summary of everything the Bible teaches is in this prayer right here, Verses 7 through 9.
Jeffrey Heine:Look at verse 7. When my life was fainting away, I remember the Lord, and my prayer came to you into your holy temple. And Jonah says as he's losing consciousness, I mean the last bit of oxygen is about to leave his brain. He is about to pass out. He remembers the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:That's enough, and the Lord saves him at the last possible moment. And then it says he prayed to God in his holy temple. And notice Jonah, he doesn't just pray to the Lord, but he prays to the Lord in his temple. You see the same thing in verse 4 when it says, yet I shall look again upon your holy temple. Not just I'm not I'm not gonna look upon you.
Jeffrey Heine:I'm not gonna just pray to you, but I'm gonna pray to you in your holy temple. His thoughts, it's very strange. The guy is about to die. He he is this far from death and he's thinking of the temple. He's not thinking of the temple like this is where the Lord lives.
Jeffrey Heine:No. He has met the Lord here in Sheol. He is, he's not thinking that. He's thinking of, this is the God of sacrifice. That is what the temple was.
Jeffrey Heine:That's what the temple represented is you were a sinner, and you went to the temple, and you made sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice to try to appease and make atonement for your sins, and he is thinking at this moment, I need a sacrifice. I need a sacrifice. No one comes to the Lord apart from sacrifice, and I have sinned against the Lord. Then you get to verse 8. Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake the hope of steadfast love.
Jeffrey Heine:In Hebrew, there's only 5 verses here. I mean, 5 words here. They're extremely hard to translate. Probably half of you here after I read that were like, It's not in my Bible. You know how good poetry, it it has words that can mean 2 different things?
Jeffrey Heine:Sentences that can have all these nuances? Well, this is a very poetical statement here, and unfortunately, when you translate it, you you have to pick 1. You have to pick it means this or it means this. You can't get the nuances there. You can't get the double meanings that are there, and really, it means these two different things.
Jeffrey Heine:You can translate this verse this way. Those who cling to worthless idols will abandon their loyalty to them. If you cling to worthless idol, you will abandon your loyalty to them. And this means if you cling to an idol like money or your reputation or your your family, and when the storms of life come and they rock you, you're gonna see that idol for what it is, worthless. And you once have spent your whole life so loyal to these things, loyal to them, and you're gonna abandon them.
Jeffrey Heine:You're gonna forsake them, because you will see them for what they are. Those who cling to worthless idols will abandon their loyalty to them. Another way you can translate this verse is those who cling to worthless idols forsake the covenant love that could be theirs. They forsake the covenant love that could be theirs, which means that when you cling to this worthless idol, you're pushing aside the eternal love of God that is waiting there for you. Waiting.
Jeffrey Heine:This verse means both of those things. The main point being when the storms of life come, you're gonna realize your idols are worthless, and that you are building on sand. Now let's look at the rock that we can build on verse 9. But I with a voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you. What I avowed I will pay.
Jeffrey Heine:Salvation belongs to the Lord. Jonah says his life is now gonna be marked by thanksgiving. Said thanksgiving. You recognize salvation is a free gift. I can't earn it.
Jeffrey Heine:I can't do anything for it. I can't ever pat myself on the back, think I'm better than other people. It is simply a gift in which I am thankful for. And then you get these summary statement, I think of all the Bible right here. Salvation belongs to the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:It's the theme of the Bible. Salvation belongs to the Lord, in which there's nothing we can do to save us. God alone saves. It's the theme of the bible. He saves by sheer grace.
Jeffrey Heine:You cannot do anything to earn your salvation. You are no better than the Ninevites. This is the gospel here. The Lord saves, and he saves by sovereign grace. Let me tell you, this is how you know if you really get the gospel.
Jeffrey Heine:Because I mean all of us in here, we've heard the gospel, and you know this is why it's so good for us to go through Jonah. These are things we've heard. We're praying in the backroom beforehand, and we're like, you know we're gonna we're gonna hear a message we've already heard, but what we need is to get in here. You know you've got the gospel when you're able to get up and go to Nineveh. When you could go to the people that hate you.
Jeffrey Heine:The coworker that steals your work, when you could go to the neighbor that just annoys the daylight suddenly blasts loud music, you know, just rude all the time to you, You could go to them in love. You can look at the lazy poor, and instead of thinking, you're just so laser there because you're just you do nothing. You could look at them with compassion. They you're no better. You're no better, and so you can offer them love.
Jeffrey Heine:You see yourself as a fellow sinner or as Martin Luther said, I'm just one beggar telling another beggar where to get bread, but we're all beggars. And to the extent that you can do that is how you know you've understood the gospel. You can understand you know you've understood the gospel because when you receive it, and when you have supposedly encountered the presence of the Lord, he always calls you out. Abraham. God Abraham experiences god, and and God says, Abraham, alright.
Jeffrey Heine:Now I want you to go. Moses experiences God, and he he receives his grace. And so God says, now I want you to go. Isaiah, he he encounters God. He says, that's great.
Jeffrey Heine:Now I want you to go to people who are never ever ever gonna listen to you. Jeremiah experiences the Lord, and he says, alright. Go. Over and over when people encounter the Lord, and they understand grace, God says, now I got a mission for you. Go and love your enemy.
Jeffrey Heine:Go and love people. That's how you know that you understand the gospel. But I have found that Christians would rather sing about God's love than share God's love. They'd much rather get together and they think the sign of us having experienced God's love is that we sing about it. God says, no.
Jeffrey Heine:The sign that you have experienced my love and you understand my gospel is that you share it to everyone. Share them the love that you have received. Now Jonah's just beginning to understand this. It's a process. Don't be discouraged if you're only this far along in it.
Jeffrey Heine:He's working in you. Pray with me. Lord, I pray that You would break down the cultural Christianity we have. That you would break down the morality that we have that's based on fear or pride, and that You would actually change our hearts with the gospel. We are sinners, saved by sheer grace.
Jeffrey Heine:Lord, if you need to take us to the depths of Shield to show us that, do it. And I pray that we would share with the world the love that you have given us. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
