Was the great fish God's judgment or His rescue?

In Jonah 2, Jonah prays from inside the belly of a great fish. Dr. Toby Holt asks whether that fish was God's punishment — or His surprising means of rescue.

Having fled from God and been thrown into the sea, Jonah should have drowned. Instead, God sends a great fish to swallow him — not to destroy, but to save. God sometimes uses dreadful circumstances to bring a stubborn heart to repentance. From the darkness, Jonah remembers the Lord, turns from idols, and declares: "Salvation is of the LORD."

Questions this study answers:

1. Was the fish judgment or mercy? It was mercy. The fish was God's means of rescuing Jonah from drowning and bringing him to repentance.

2. Why does God sometimes allow hard circumstances? To turn stubborn hearts back to Himself. The fish was God's loving way of getting Jonah's attention.

3. What does "Salvation is of the LORD" mean? That rescue comes from God alone, not from ourselves or our idols. That truth is the turning point of Jonah's story.

"But I will sacrifice to You with the voice of thanksgiving… Salvation is of the LORD." — Jonah 2:9 (NKJV)

Dr. Toby Holt is President of New Geneva Theological Seminary, and his sermons have been downloaded more than 1.9 million times on SermonAudio. Find more verse-by-verse Bible teaching at newgeneva.org; support this ministry at newgeneva.org/give.

Alright, let me ask you a thinking question as we begin this morning.

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When you think of this story, you think of Jonah.

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Now he's been thrown into the waters in chapter 1 because he disobeyed.

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He ran from God. God says, go to Nineveh. Go preach there.

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And he says, no way. He says, no dice. Not going to do it.

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He runs. He goes to Joppa. Gets on a boat. Tries to sail towards Tarshish.

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He tried to flee from God. He tried to run from God.

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He didn't care at all about the Ninevites.

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So here's the question. Do you think that Jonah, being swallowed by this whale, this great fish,

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is that a form of God's judgment upon Jonah, or was this unique circumstance a means of Jonah's

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salvation? In other words, did the whale show up because God was angry? Was God done with the

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prophet at this time? Well, of course not. We've read how this plays out. We know that's not the

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case. The whale was not there to harm Jonah. The whale was there to help him. And what a unique

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form of help it was. You know, sometimes when bad circumstances threaten to swallow us alive,

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sometimes when bad things come on our radar, things we would never call down upon ourselves,

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sometimes when bad circumstances happen in our own lives, we tend to think that God must be angry

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with us. Something happens that we don't like. It may not be a whale. In fact, I hope it's not.

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But some other circumstance might befall us, and our thoughts in those moments may well be that

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God must be angry with me. This circumstance, as terrible as it is, like being swallowed by a whale,

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at first glance might look bad. And yet, how often does God use bad circumstances to ordain good and

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wonderful ends, good and wonderful outcomes? Sometimes, oftentimes, terrible circumstances

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like being in the belly of this great fish are actually God's means of rescuing us, God's means

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of providing for us, even if we don't have the ability to see that or to notice that at the time

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in which it is occurring. God can ordain circumstances we would never call down upon

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ourselves in order to save us, rescue us, redeem us, restore us. That's what we see in today's text.

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We see something that at first glance sounds miserable, being swallowed by anything, whalefish,

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you know, shark, snake, all that sounds dreadful. And yet, and yet, this occurrence, as dreadful as

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it sounds at first glance, is meant for a greater good, meant for Jonah's rescue. He's going down

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below the waves of the sea. The billows are cast over him. The weeds are building up around his

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heads. He's going down to the moorings of the mountains. He says, I was sinking, but then God,

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you heard my prayer, and you did something about it. You heard my prayer, and then you rescued me

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using a means I would never have guessed in the moment that I prayed it. All right, with that said,

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let's go ahead and look now. Jonah chapter two, as we usually do, I'm going to look at verses one

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through two and then work our way through the balance during our time. Verse one. So then Jonah

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prayed to the Lord his God from inside the fish's belly. And he said this, he said, I cried out to

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the Lord because of my affliction and he answered me. Out of the belly of Sheol I cried and you heard

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my voice. Now, as we've implied here, you know, the most fascinating thing about chapter two of

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Jonah is that it even exists. Honestly, think of what he did in Jonah chapter 1. The prophet,

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the man of God, is given a commission, given a mandate that will help untold thousands of people,

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and yet for selfish reasons and out of hatred for Nineveh, he runs, he tries to avoid God,

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he goes as far places he can possibly go. With that said, the greatest mystery, the greatest

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wonder about Jonah 2 is that it even exists, that Jonah ever survived chapter 1, given the way that

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he offended a holy God, given his disrespect, given his hatred for the Ninevites, you would

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think it was possible, probable, likely that God would have just dealt with him right there. And

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yet, and yet we have a chapter two. We have chapter two, verses one and two, where Jonah is inside the

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belly of this fish, this traveling air pocket. You have a man who's drowning. God ordains, decrees,

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prescribes this whale, this fish, this traveling air pocket to swallow him, to cradle him in its

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belly, where miraculously he's able to survive. Again, Jonah had, in chapter 1, had acted in a

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way that suggested he didn't deserve anything but justice. And instead, from the very start of

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chapter 2, we see grace. We see that God was not done with Jonah, even if Jonah had attempted to

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be done with God. Now, with that said, in verses 1 and 2, it seems like Jonah recognizes this.

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He says, oh God, I was in this terrible estate.

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He likens it to Sheol, and he says, even from there I prayed, and you answered me.

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Verse 2, I cried out, and you answered me.

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In other words, God hears the prayers of even the most guilty individual.

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God hears the prayers of the guilty man, even who is wrapped up in seaweed, falling to the depths of the sea.

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Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice.

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This morning, it has got to be encouraging to us.

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By way of application of this text to you and I and to others we know that are running from God even right now.

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It's encouraging to know that even when we've sinned, even when we've attempted to run,

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even when we've gone to places that we ought not go, even when we've done things that we ought not do,

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that does not necessarily mean that God is done with us.

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And there's no place we can run, there's no place our loved ones can run,

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those that we might be praying for this morning that is so far removed that God's grace can't

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reach them. And if you want proof of that, look at Jonah in the belly of the beast. Let's look at

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verses three through six. For you cast me into the deep. He's reminded here that God, God ordained

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the circumstance. It's not happenstance. It wasn't an accident. It wasn't just the mean sailors on

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the boat. He says, you, you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas. The floods surrounded

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me your billows your waves passed over me and then i said i've been cast out of your sight

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and yet i will look again towards your holy temple the water surrounded me even in my soul the deep

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closed around me weeds were wrapped around my head i went down to the moorings of the mountain

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earth with its bars closed around me forever and yet you brought me up you brought up my life from

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the pit oh lord my god in verses three through six jonah is reliving his experiences within the

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waters he's describing the death that he almost died now as we said a few moments ago that the

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reason jonah had been cast into the waters by the hand of god himself is because he had been fleeing

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from god to the city of tarshish and so god caused this great storm to come upon the waters the storm

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wasn't a coincidence. It wasn't an accident. It wasn't happenstance. God ordained the storm.

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He does that. Sometimes storms will come around us. They're not accidents either. Well, he's ordained

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a storm to descend on the small boat. And at that time, God used a number of means to educate

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everyone on the boat that the reason why there was a storm was because of this guy Jonah. And that if

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he was to be thrown into the waters that the storm would dissipate. So in last week's reading,

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we saw that God's wrath necessitated a sacrifice. Put a pin in that if you would for a moment.

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God's wrath necessitated a sacrifice if anyone was going to survive it. And that's what we saw

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in chapter one. Conceptually, I hope that's not new. If you have sinned against a holy God,

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the wages of sin is death without the shedding of blood. There's no remission of sin. Throughout

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scripture, we see that guilty parties are dealt with. Why? Because not only is God good and loving,

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but he's also just, and he has to deal with sin. He has to deal with iniquity, or he wouldn't be

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just. With that said, in Jonah's case, if God's wrath was to be satisfied, then Jonah had to die.

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At least that's the conclusion that the men on the boat came to. It's a conclusion even Jonah came to.

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And as the waters churned around the boat, everyone realized that. The sailors, remember,

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they had tried to take Jonah back they had struggled valiantly to try to get in the land

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but you can't fight against a storm brought about by God and so that wasn't going to happen now

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before I go any further I'll make another observation in a very real sense you can put a

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pin in this too because this is a theological truism that carries over in a number of other

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passages but a very real sense the waters of Jonah 2 the waters gathered around Jonah the billows and

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the waves and all this. This typified what? God's what? Wrath. It typified. When there was waters,

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remember what happens near the end? In days, you hear a pouring out of God's wrath. Think back to

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Noah. The rains come and the flood comes, and that typified what? God's wrath. I heard it back there.

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God's wrath. That's why there was a flood. It wiped out all of mankind. God's wrath came down.

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You have the same thing here in Jonah. God's wrath is typified in the waters. Revelation, you read

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about God's wrath being poured out. With that said, interestingly, if you think back to Noah, what

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happened? You have God's wrath poured out. The sea of fury is poured out upon mankind, but not all

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fall under that wrath. Some are spared, most specifically Noah and his family. Now, what was

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the tool, what was the means by which Noah was spared? The ark. We got that one real quick. The

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ark. So you have Noah spared by the ark. The wrath that would otherwise consume him, drown him,

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flush him out, he's spared because God made provision. God told Noah to build it, but God

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made provision for him to survive this deluge that typified God's own wrath. He provided the

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means of his rescue and redemption through the ark fast forward not too far but fast forward

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into the book of jonah what do you have here you have the waters all around he's sinking he has no

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hope at all in himself or in the sailors or anything and yet he prays and what does god

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provide for him he provides this this fish this whale this means of rescue from the waters that

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typified his own wrath now if you start fast forwarding even further perhaps into the new

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testament you'll see that when god's fury ultimately is poured out upon the created

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realm ultimately is poured out upon the wicked we too need an ark a whale we need some means

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some vessel of our rescue and of our redemption and what is the means that god has provided for us

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jesus as i always say that's a safe bet when answering a question from the pulpit

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jesus jesus is the means the ark the whale these things typified the christ that was to come

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when the waters of god's wrath fall down upon mankind there's a singular means by which we

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will have hope there's a singular means by which we'll be saved is the person and work of jesus

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christ and jesus himself noted it when he prophesied and said just as jonah was three

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days and three nights in the belly of the beast so must the son of man be three days and three

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nights in the ground in the grave he prophesied the same thing because he was speaking to the

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same concept you and i have a problem the problem is sin the wages of sin is death and yet god has

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provided a means for our salvation these things in the old testament as simple as the whale here

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they spoke to a greater truth shadows types anticipated something far greater and jonah

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recognizes. He recognized that the whale was not a means of judgment against him. It was his means

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of rescue and hope. And so he said this in verse 8. He says, you've brought up, brought up my life

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from the pit, O Lord. Okay, let's look at verses 7 through 9. When my soul fainted within me, I remembered

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the Lord. My prayer went up to you into your holy temple. Those who regard worthless idols forsake

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their own mercy but i will sacrifice to you with the voice of thanksgiving i will pay what i have

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vowed salvation is of the lord all right as i saw in last week's study in chapter one the prophet

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jonah had gone to some great lengths to break fellowship with his god he had chartered a boat

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the place where he chartered was called joppa he charges this boat in joppa he goes out to tarshish

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as we saw to try to flee from the presence of the Lord and last week we talked about God

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as omnipresent and you know one of the conclusions of God being everywhere is that there's nowhere

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you can go that he is not and as we saw last week Jonah should have known that you know we use the

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analogy sometimes if we were here on the coast and you got your favorite coastal radio station or

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what have you and you enjoy it and then you say you know what I'm going to drive up to Hattiesburg

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or I'm going to go to New Orleans or what have you and the further away you get from your home base

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the more that signal from your favorite radio station tends to wane. The signal strength goes

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out and ultimately it's gone. Jonah had attempted to do the same thing. He thought, if I could just

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try to get out of God's jurisdiction, maybe the signal will at least be weak there. I can flee

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from God's presence. But of course, God is not a localized God. God is not like the gods of the

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pagans. Remember the pagan gods? What a silly bunch they were. If you lived in Canaan or Moab,

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or you're a Philistine or an Amorite or what have you,

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you worshipped a god of stone and marble and such,

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and the god you worshipped had a limited jurisdiction.

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You had the gods of the Canaanites, you had the gods of Amorites or what have you.

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There was gods of local people groups who had local jurisdictions.

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Sometimes you had gods of the frogs and the fields and the like.

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Well, this god, the god that is real, the god that Jonah was trying to run from,

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He is not contained within a single jurisdiction.

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Rather, his power and his authority are worldwide.

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Now, Jonah had learned this the hard way in chapter 1,

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and he realized you can't ignore God, you can't run from God.

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It doesn't work that way.

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By the time we get here to verse 7 of today's reading,

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it's clear he had had a change of heart.

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His soul's fainting within him, he says.

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He's under the ocean's billows.

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And finally, there, it says that he remembered the Lord.

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He had done his darndest to keep his thoughts away from the God of heaven.

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You know, it's kind of kept his head down and did his thing.

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Well, here, finally, when his situation is so dire, he remembers.

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Looks up to God's golden throne, so to speak, and he prayed to him, and God responded.

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Isn't it interesting how this works?

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We can be so hard-headed at times.

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God can use all sorts of mild things to try to nudge us into place,

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You know, nudge us to spend more time in his word, nudge us to be closer to him, nudge us to church or to prayer or what have you.

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He can do all these sorts of very kind, gentle things.

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However, we don't respond to that in as much as we respond to hardship, in as much as we respond to difficulty, in as much as we respond to dark circumstances.

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There are far more people seeking out God's word, God through prayer, his church or what have you, through difficult circumstances than that which is good.

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we see that here. Finally, he's in the belly of the beast after having tried to run from God,

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and it's there that his heart breaks. He says, there, I remembered. I remembered the Lord.

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In your own life, have there been situations where God has used undesirable circumstances

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to bring you closer to him? Why would he do that? Why would he use those sorts of things?

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Well, in my experience, it's because so often we won't pay attention to anything else.

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Sometimes you need a divine two-by-four, so to speak,

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in order to prompt you to do what you ought to have done the whole time.

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That was certainly the case of Jonah.

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And he got more than a divine two-by-four here.

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It took a lot.

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This is a hard-headed guy.

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And we'll see how hard-headed and maybe even hard-hearted he was in Jonah 3 and Jonah 4.

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But at the very least, he was hard-headed and God used extreme means,

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extreme means to get him to the point where he remembered and prayed towards God.

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now let's let's pretend for a moment though what if what if what if jonah had gotten on the boat

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and the skies and the seas had been crystal clear what if the waters have been smooth they were

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drinking mai tais on the dock and just having a great time and they made it all the way to

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tarshish without a single cloud in the sky let's say he gets to tarshish and he settles in maybe

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he finds a spouse maybe he finds a pot of gold you know all sorts of things that are going on

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that seemed desirable. In the midst of all those creature comforts, in the midst of circumstances

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that to him probably would have seemed pleasant, do you think at that point from Tarshish he would

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have ever come to his senses, gotten back on a boat and gone to Nineveh to do what he should

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have done to begin with? Well, probably not. If Jonah had gotten his way, at least as we see it

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here, he probably would have stayed in Tarshish, probably would have remained unreconciled to God,

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at least for a long season, and he would have been of no use to the thousands of people in Nineveh

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who needed a prophet, who needed someone to come and speak to them, the oracles, the words

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of God. If Jonah had gotten his way, a lot of people would have suffered as a result.

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We know God ordains everything, so we know that's not how this works. Jonah was never

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going to get to Tarshish. But with that said, theoretically, if he hadn't gotten there,

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things would not have worked out well, maybe for him, but not for all those others. Thank God that

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he doesn't always listen to what we tell him we want. How many of our prayers are us just

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prescribing to him the things we want him to do? Thank God that he doesn't always listen to those,

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or at least he doesn't respond in the way that we tell him to. Thank God that he's got a good and a

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better plan. God has a decree, he has a plan that's often good, even if we don't recognize it in those

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moments. Whatever the case, from the watery depths, Jonah again, he reconciles us, he prays, his prayer

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goes up to God's holy temple, it says in the text. God hears the prayer, the chorus, he brings forth

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this whale as the preordained means of his salvation. Now, I want you to notice in verse 8

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that Jonah contrasts God's power and grace. God says, okay, God, you heard my prayer, you responded,

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you saved me, and he contrasts that response to the so-called gods of the pagan nations.

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Specifically, look at the shady throws at these idols here. He says this, he says, those who regard

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worthless idols forsake their own mercy. You know, if Jonah had prayed to Poseidon while he was

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beneath the waves, Jonah would still be beneath the waves. If Jonah had prayed to Poseidon while

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beneath the waves, that would have done him no good. If Jonah had prayed to Poseidon beneath

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the waves, he would still be beneath his waves. The bones would still be rotting there. To appeal

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to a non-existent God to appeal to an idol is to forsake the mercy of the true God and the one God

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who's in a position to aid one in the same way if you substitute anything we don't have Baal and

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Asherah per se we have other idols in our day and age and if you substitute those if you even

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substitute your own strength and your own virtue in place of Christ's mercy it won't work out well

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for you now speaking of those who regard worthless idols that brings us back to the Ninevites who

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God had sent Jonah to in chapter 1. It's possible that it's the Ninevites he had in mind when he's

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throwing shade here. He says, oh, those who turn to idols, they forsake the true God. I think he

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loved God. I think he hated his fellow man, at least the Ninevites. Whatever the case, Nineveh

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was a city that, as we'll see next week, it was entrenched in idol worship. When people say that

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Nineveh was bad, it was bad. It was bad in the way that it was like a stench arising from planet

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earth to the nostrils of God. It was bad. So what did they need? What did the Ninevites need? If the

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Ninevites had forsaken God's mercy the way Jonah implies here, if they were in danger of the

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outpouring of God's wrath in the same way Jonah had experienced, what did they need? They needed

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him. They needed a prophet. They needed a preacher. They needed someone to open their mouth and tell

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the people that they were standing on the train tracks and the train was coming through. They

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needed a prophet. They needed a preacher. Now, Jonah knew that, I think intrinsically, but the

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problem is this. He didn't want to be that guy. I think he knew they were lost. I think he knew

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that they needed grace, and I think he knew that they needed someone to go and warn them, but

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he didn't want to be that guy. Jonah's views, his theology, was hypocritical, because Jonah was

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trying to withhold from the Ninevites the same grace and forgiveness that he needed himself.

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Whatever the case, the Ninevites needed someone to preach to them.

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They needed someone to point them to a real God who transcended all their idols.

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All right, let's look at verse 10 as we look to wrap up now.

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Verse 10.

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So the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.

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You know, we don't usually think of the book of Jonah as a book of miracles.

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Well, this is only four chapters long.

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and if you were to add up the miracles in the book of Jonah just in the first two of these four

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chapters you see a whole bushel of them you see at least seven let me identify what they are

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just in the first two chapters you see this you see God brought about a violent storm out of

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nowhere God brought about a furious storm that wouldn't go away came out of nowhere swamped this

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boat that's number one that was supernatural number two remember the sailors cast lots they

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were trying to figure out all right who did this so they use the only means they really knew how

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when they're pagan minds, and they cast lots to identify who is the guilty party. Well, guess what?

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The lots pointed to Jonah. This, too, is a miracle. God used even those means to identify his will.

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Number three, the sea was calmed when Jonah was thrown overboard. I've been out in the gulf. I

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know this much, that just falling into the water doesn't necessarily make the storm go away. But

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here, that's exactly what happened. Number four, a whale comes out of nowhere under the water. What

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timing what what wonderful timing this was he's under the water he's sinking to the bottom

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this whale big fish whatever it was comes along and swallows him up what timing and that's

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miraculous but then on top of that it swallows him and i don't know how this works but it doesn't

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digest him he's not consumed in a way that would end his life there's something miraculous going

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on there number five or six or wherever i am here jonah's heart was reconciled to god in these

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moments. That may be one of the greatest miracles we see in this text, is that this hard-hearted

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guy's heart was reconciled to God, at least for this moment. And then finally, this whale, it's

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got like GPS. It just heads over to the coast and just drops him there on the beach, alive and

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healthy and, I guess, reasonably well. There's all sorts of miracles going on here. Let me ask you,

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as we close this morning, does any of what happened to Jonah seem like it happened by the hands of a

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god whose hands off like a god who stands back and just watches from afar of course not in jonah's

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life and in your life god is not passive in jonah's life and your life god is not a passive bystander

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sitting here with his divine hands folded just watching to see how things turn out that is

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absolutely not what we see in jonah or in anywhere in scripture instead we see a god who is hands-on

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he hasn't called you to be an ambassador for his kingdom he hasn't called you to be a priesthood

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of believers and then stood back wondering if you'll do your job this morning god may be nudging

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maybe in polite and gentle and easy ways but maybe nudging you to go to nineveh so to speak

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maybe nudging you to do something take some action that you've been unwilling to do thus far and my

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encouragement to you is if you hear the still small voice of god nudging you to do something

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that you're slow to do, don't wait until he brings in the whale. Don't wait until he uses

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more significant means to prompt you to do what you ought to do. This morning, if you're a born

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again, blood-bought child of God, if you're an ambassador for Christ, know this, you have been

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sent every bit as much as Jonah was. And I'll bet there's been more miracles that have occurred over

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the years of your lifetime to sustain and make your life possible, your ministry possible at

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moment than just the seven that we mentioned in the life of Jonah. So the question is this,

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are you going to Nineveh? Whatever Nineveh is in your life and in your context and in your call,

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are you going to Nineveh? Or are you resting with your feet up in Tarshish, maybe waiting for the

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boat in Joppa? I submit this, if you don't think that God hasn't sent you to someone, you're not

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looking hard enough. If you don't think God hasn't sent you to someone or someones to share the

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life-giving gospel of Jesus Christ, then you're not looking hard enough. And the same is true of

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us corporately. The same is true of us as a church. Are we committed to seeking out the salvation of

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those outside of our doors, and are we willing to do what it takes to reach them? If you look around,

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this whole world is one big Nineveh. If you look around, you don't have to look far, this whole

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world is one big Nineveh. The world is desperately lost, and judgment is on the horizon. With that

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said, let's not sit idly by as individuals or as a church while that judgment approaches.

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Let's do something about it. We'll talk more about that next week. Let's pray.