The Minor Profits

[0:00] If you haven't turned there already, would you do so please to the Old Testament prophet of Jonah, and we will begin our consideration of the minor prophets in a chronological fashion.

[0:14] And when you do that, we have to recognize, I think as most of the scholars agree, that of the writing prophets considered to be the minor prophets, Jonah is the earliest.

[0:28] And it seems that he had his ministry before the northern kingdom pulled away from the south. What they literally had was a secession from the Union, just like we had here in the United States in the 1800s.

[0:44] And that, of course, brought two kingdoms into being, and each one had their own prophets, and each one had their own kings, and so on. And as we engage the book of Jonah, I'm sure it's no secret to you to realize that this is probably one of the best known characters in all of the Bible.

[1:02] And it's also one of the most controversial. For a long time, people have argued over the validity of the prophet Jonah and of the ministry to which he was called.

[1:12] And a lot of suspicion has been cast upon him because people try to contemplate, well, what kind of a fish or whale could this be that could swallow a man, and he survives all this time, and then he's spewed up on the beach, and he goes about.

[1:28] And it's the stuff that mythology is made of, and that is the way many regard it, and they reduce it to mythology. But you need to give serious consideration to the reality and the truthfulness of the prophet Jonah, because if you do not, then you put none other than our Lord Jesus Christ into a very, very precarious position.

[1:52] Because it is quite obvious that Jesus believed in and referred to as an authority the prophet Jonah and the experience that he had.

[2:02] For even as Jonah was in the belly of the great sea fish or the great monster for three days and three nights, even so must the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights.

[2:13] Now, you either have to charge our Lord Jesus with ignorance or with perpetuating a myth or whatever, because he obviously established that as reality.

[2:25] And in the same way, he establishes the reality of creation. In six days, the Lord created the heavens and the earth. And in the beginning, God made them male and female.

[2:37] So if these things in the Old Testament, where they are first found, are not true, if they do not have veracity, then what makes you think our Lord Jesus is actually worthy of your support and your belief?

[2:53] Because if they were not true, then he either knew they were not true and he portrayed them anyway, or he didn't know that they were not true and you charge him with ignorance. And either way, he's an incapable Savior and he's not going to do you any good or anybody else.

[3:08] So we subscribe to the totality of the revelation of Scripture as being the Word of God. And we make no apologies for Jonah because we are of the opinion that someone who has the ability to say, let there be light, and there was light, to create the heavens and the earth, and to do so ex nihilo, that is, out of nothing, which is pretty mind-boggling because we don't create anything.

[3:35] We make things. We make things. Because we have a preexistent substance to use, to make something with. But to create something out of nothing is God's purview, and he's the only one that does that.

[3:50] And if he is able to do that, he is certainly able to create whatever kind of fish that is needed, and have it to be where it is supposed to be, latitude and longitude, to intercept somebody who's been thrown overboard, and that's no problem.

[4:06] Remember in the Gospels, when our Lord was confronted by the Pharisees and asked, does your master pay the temple tax?

[4:18] And the temple tax was a half shekel that had to be paid by a male Jew, 20 years of age and upward, into the temple. And Jesus said, yes, we do pay the temple tax.

[4:32] But at the time, they were obviously financially embarrassed. And Jesus told Peter to go out to the sea, and they were obviously there by the Sea of Galilee.

[4:45] He says, go out and cast in your line, and the fish that you will catch will have a coin in its mouth. And you take that coin and pay the temple tax for yourself and for me.

[5:00] And that coin, of course, would have been a shekel. And a half shekel for Jesus, and a half shekel for Peter, would have paid the temple tax for both of them. Well, how did he know that?

[5:11] Well, if this is the one who created all things, and without him was nothing made that was made, it's no problem for him to have the fish with the coin, and with Peter there to intercept it, and all the rest of it.

[5:25] You see, it all depends on whether or not God is God, and whether he has the capability of doing what God is supposed to do. And we believe he does. So let's get to the text.

[5:36] The book of Jonah, chapter 1. The word of the Lord, and that, of course, establishes the authority right there, came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, arise, go to Nineveh, the great city.

[5:53] And it probably, it probably was the greatest city in existence at the time. Comparatively speaking, it was probably head and shoulders above all of the others, most of which were little villages and small towns.

[6:09] But Jonah is to go to the metropolis of the country at that time, the city of Nineveh, and cry against it.

[6:21] Well, he's not going to shed tears. The crying doesn't mean weeping. It means preaching. Cry out. Cry out against it. For their wickedness has come up before me.

[6:33] Well, I would ask, what else is new? You know, God seems to have a certain amount of toleration for certain evils for a certain period of time.

[6:50] But eventually, the string runs out. And that's what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah. And that's what's happening here in Nineveh. These Ninevites had established a reputation for extreme cruelty and brutality.

[7:09] Credit is usually given to these people of Nineveh, the Assyrians, for having devised the torturous scheme of flaying.

[7:21] And flaying of a human being involves taking a knife and slitting across the top of one's arm, just about an eighth of an inch deep with the knife, and then lifting the skin apart, and then taking the skin that you have lifted, and slowly pulling it back up the arm or the leg or the torso.

[7:53] Can you imagine the excruciating pain that would be emitted from all of those tens of thousands of nerve endings? That's what flaying was.

[8:06] And they perfected it along with drawing and quartering. They are generally credited with that as well. And for drawing and quartering, you take a human being, and you tie each of his limbs to a rope, and the other end to a horse.

[8:25] And you send the horses off in four different directions, pulling the individual literally apart. It is hard to imagine anything that would be more cruel, more brutal, more humiliating than that.

[8:38] And listen, these things are what human beings were capable of doing to other human beings.

[8:49] That just absolutely boggles my mind. Where is the humanity in something like that? And we see that kind of thing magnified through the ages, and then we see Hitler's death camps, the gas ovens, and all that went along with it.

[9:06] It just boggles the mind. And you would think that human beings would be incapable of doing something like that to their own kind. But history has proved over and over again that humans are capable of great depths of depravity, of torture, of you name it.

[9:28] It's just absolutely amazing. They say that humans are the only one that kills for pleasure. Well, No animal other than humans. You know that no animal kills for pleasure.

[9:39] That's true. You know, when the Apostle Paul gives his testimony, the word that he uses is that he was injurious, and it conveys the idea that Saul of Tarsus derived some perverted kind of pleasure out of inflicting pain upon his fellow Jewish countrymen who had embraced Yeshua HaMashiach as their Messiah.

[10:14] And he saw that as a cancer growing on Judaism and was determined to stamp it out. And he says, later he says, he did it ignorantly and in unbelief.

[10:26] But, fellas, the depths to which humanity can go in inflicting pain and injury upon his fellow human beings is just absolutely mind-boggling.

[10:37] And, Nineveh had established a reputation for being the headquarters of that kind of thing. And now, God is saying to Jonah, I want you to go to Nineveh and cry out against them.

[10:52] And Jonah says, you've got to be kidding. I am not going to go to those people. Jonah is referred to as the reluctant prophet or the disobedient prophet.

[11:03] And the reason that he, the reason that he refuses to go is not because he resented the call to preach or anything like that. It's because he resented the people to whom he was to be sent.

[11:18] And he is not going to have anything to do with going to them with a message of warning and jumping ahead.

[11:29] Jumping ahead. You know the story. The people are going to repent. And it's amazing. His message is taken to heart. And the city repents.

[11:40] And God withholds his judgment. And you would think there would be a happy ending. And that Jonah would eventually come along. No! Jonah doesn't want to go and give them the message that will enable them to repent because of his hatred for them.

[11:59] And then when they do repent, he is disgusted at his success. And I do not know of any preacher apart from Jonah who ever had to contend with an issue like that.

[12:13] Yeah. And he as much as tells God at the end when they repent and the city is saved and Jonah will tell God and this is the final analysis, Jonah will say, I knew it!

[12:25] I knew it! It's just like you! Just like you! Take the message! Take the truth! And the people repented and you spared the city! Doggone it! And he regretted that!

[12:36] And he actually charged God. I'll tell you fellas, what we've got here in the part of Jonah, what we've got here is an incredible display of human arrogance where a mere mortal like ourselves is actually so audacious as to tell the Almighty you don't know what you're doing!

[13:03] And that's exactly the message that Jonah is going to be giving. Joe? He couldn't give any grace. No. No. There's no grace here. There's no grace here. All he's looking for is justice.

[13:15] We know these people. We know what they're capable of. We know what they have done. Now, God, I expect you to zap them! Zap them good! And none of this business is about deliverance.

[13:28] And yet, Jonah is a man under compulsion and he perhaps perhaps it was primarily the experience of this great fish and how he was hemmed up in that and then eventually spewed out on the beach vomited, if you will, by this great fish.

[13:53] Someone said, maybe Jonah had finally come to appreciate the benefits of obedience because he's certainly learned the lesson the hard way.

[14:04] So let's go on. Hear, O peoples, all of you, listen, O earth, and all it contains. Let the Lord God be a witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple.

[14:18] For behold, the Lord is coming forth from his place. He will come down and tread on the high places of the earth. I'm sorry, I'm in Micah. My page slipped. Go to the end of it.

[14:30] I lost my place. I thought, wait a minute, this isn't right. Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish. Well, where is Tarshish? Tarshish is the absolute opposite direction from Nineveh.

[14:45] Some think that it's over towards Spain to be identified, but you could not get a more direct way away from Nineveh than going to Tarshish.

[14:58] And he rose up to flee to Tarshish. Go to Nineveh. He says, I'm not going to Nineveh. I'm going to Tarshish. From the presence of the Lord. And the observation has been made that you may, if you wish, run from God.

[15:17] But you cannot run away from God. Because wherever you're running to, he's already there. So you can run if you want, but you're not going to run away.

[15:28] Or somebody says you can run, but you cannot hide. And Jonah heads out in the opposite direction. And I do not know to what degree this man was really plugged in to the sovereignty of God, the omnipotence, omnipresence of God.

[15:42] But he obviously thought he could somehow foil God's plan for him by just going in the opposite direction. And once again, this is the arrogance of a human being thinking that he is somehow a match for the Almighty.

[15:57] And God says, do A. And he says, I'm not going to do A. I'm going to do B. And you're just going to have to like it or lump it. But God isn't interested in taking orders from any human.

[16:07] So, we read that he went down to Joppa. And Joppa, of course, is right on the coast of Israel. It's the modern day city of Jaffa, J-A-F-F-A.

[16:18] And this is also the place where Peter was staying when Cornelius sent for him in Acts chapter 10. He went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarshish, paid the fare.

[16:33] An observation has been made also that when you are running from God, you pay your own way. And here Jonah is paying the fare.

[16:45] And he went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. And he actually thought he could do that. But, of course, we know that's an impossibility.

[16:57] And the Lord hurled a great wind on the sea. And there was a great storm on the sea. So that the ship was about to break up. And this strikes us as very fortuitous timing on the part of the plan and program of God.

[17:15] But Jonah, we don't know exactly how he interpreted that, although the chapter will reveal it a little bit later. But we just need to keep in mind with whom Jonah is dealing here.

[17:26] This is the God of the universe. And he has the ability to not only stand on the prow of a fishing boat on the Sea of Galilee and say, peace be still, and the waves and the storms calm, and the disciples are saved, although they were never in peril, but they thought they were while Jesus was asleep in the boat.

[17:49] And that's a New Testament thing, of course, but he had the ability to do that. And he also has the ability to create whatever storm he wants. When you read in Acts 26 and 27, the storm by the name of Euroclidon that absolutely terrified all of the seasoned saints and sailors that were on board the ship, remember?

[18:12] The ship was a huge green ship that had set out from Egypt and was going to Rome, and it got caught in this storm that they named Euroclidon, and this storm went on for two weeks, and the ship was battered and torn, and they were ready to the, what do you call them, the deckhands, the regular guys that ran the ship, were quietly going to make their way by lowering the boats and getting out of there in the lifeboats, and Paul caught them and told the captain of the ship, these guys are trying to jump ship, and if they do, it's going to be curtains.

[18:53] But God has revealed to me that if you maintain the ship, and they'd thrown over everything to lighten the ship, if you maintain the ship, the ship will crash, but not one soul will be lost.

[19:09] And God revealed that to Paul, and Paul revealed it to the captain, and the captain took Paul's advice, and we are told in the end that there were 276 that were rescued on that ship, and not one of them perished.

[19:24] So, God has the ability to do whatever he wants with what he has created, and here he creates this huge storm on the sea, and it was about to break up, and we read in verse 5, the sailors became afraid.

[19:38] Now, you need to keep in mind, fellas, these are seasoned salts. These aren't a bunch of new hired deckhands that are just, they know storms, and they know the seas, and they know the size of the waves, and all the rest.

[19:51] These guys were scared, because many times as they've been out there, they've probably never seen anything like this. The Lord hurled a great wind on the sea, great storm on the sea, ship was about to break up, sailors became afraid, and every man cried to his God.

[20:08] Can't help but wonder how many different gods there are represented here. There are different men on board, probably from different areas of the country, and they worship different deities. This is idolatry again, and we need to look at the anatomy of idolatry.

[20:24] It goes all the way back to Genesis. A little bit later on, we'll consider that, because it's a fascinating study. So they are crying to his God, and you'll see that God is small letter here, in the G.

[20:36] And they threw the cargo, which was in the ship, into the sea. Now that's like throwing money overboard. The cargo is what their pay is.

[20:47] The cargo is the money maker. And this shows you how desperate they are, because it isn't going to do any good if we go down with the cargo. So we jettison the cargo, and they did this, by the way, in Paul's storm in Acts 27.

[21:02] They threw overboard everything. And they're trying to salvage the ship to lighten it. But Jonah had gone below into the hold of the ship, laying down and fallen sound asleep.

[21:14] Now we wonder how in the world could a guy sleep in conditions like that. And I just pose a couple possibilities. We don't know. We aren't given any details. But we don't know how long it took him to get to Joppa to take that ship.

[21:26] He may have been exhausted, worn out when he got there. And then when they set sail, it was probably pretty calm, and he went down and holded the ship and was fast asleep.

[21:37] And another thing to keep in mind, it's entirely possible, I don't want to read in the white spaces or presume something and create my own faulty assumptions.

[21:48] But it's entirely possible that Jonah was having a bout of depression because he knew he was disobeying the Lord.

[21:59] He knew that he was going against the will of God. He may have been a man of real mixed motives, mixed feelings, depression, confusion, everything else, in addition to physically being exhausted, which is a possibility, and he just fell into a deep slumber.

[22:15] Meanwhile, this ship is up there floating, trying to stay alive. And we're told in verse six, the captain approached him and said, how is it that you are sleeping?

[22:26] Get up! Call on your God! Maybe your God is the one that will do the trick. All of these other guys are calling on their gods, and the storm is not letting up.

[22:38] In fact, maybe it's even getting worse. Is there any gods that we've omitted? And you know, in the Greek gods and the Roman gods, they had Neptune, who was the god of the sea, and they had Poseidon, who was also a god of the sea, and they had other deities because they believed that it was impossible for one god to handle all of the affairs of the planet.

[23:02] So they had a god of this, a god of that, a god of love, a god of the sea, a god of the crops, a god of war, all kinds of deities, you know. And these men worshipped different deities, and maybe there's a god we've overlooked.

[23:16] Hey, go down in the hold and see, there's a guy down there, can you believe it? He's asleep. I wonder who his god is. Maybe he would be the one that could calm this sea. Your god will be concerned about us so that we will not perish.

[23:29] And each man said to his mate, come, let us cast lots. It's kind of like a crapshoot, throwing dice, and see who the lot comes up with. So they cast lots.

[23:41] We may learn on whose account this calamity has struck us. They cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. And I cannot help but believe that God directed that lot.

[23:53] And by the way, they cast lots to replace Judas too with Matthias, remember? And we do not know the exact mechanics of that lot or how God used it, but I'd say it's a pretty risky proposition today, and I wouldn't try to attempt to learn anything from casting lots or a tarot card or dice or anything else.

[24:14] Where do you come from? What's your occupation? What is your country? From what people are you? And he said to them, I am a Hebrew. I wouldn't be surprised if he was the only one on board.

[24:27] I am a Hebrew. And these people are thinking, oh no. Oh no. This guy is a Hebrew, and he has a God that we have not consulted.

[24:42] I fear the Lord God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. Well, it's wonderful that he makes that confession. And he distinguishes his God from all the other gods.

[24:55] Your gods are a bunch of penny-annity poopers, but my God is the one who made the heavens and the earth. And these people are thinking, is this true? Is this guy on track? And the men obviously believed it because they became extremely frightened.

[25:10] And they said to him, how could you do this? For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord because he had told them.

[25:23] Now that's interesting. When he got on board the ship, they may have asked him then. Somebody may have just struck up a conversation. Who are you? Where are you from? Where are you going? You're going to Tarsus. Why are you going to Tarsus? Well, I've had this call from my God and I don't want to serve him and I'm going.

[25:36] So we're obviously got around. What, Joe? Isn't this a lesson, a real lesson? He obviously believed God was his God and God did all these things, created the earth and so forth.

[25:49] He had this faith, in other words, that I am worshiping the real God. Yep. But yet, when the God asked him to do something, he wouldn't do it.

[26:00] Doesn't it seem strange to you that he would not follow what God wanted? Well, it is strange. It is strange. I'll tell you what it is. It's not only strange, it is absolutely illogical.

[26:13] It is, what shall we say? It is incomprehensible that he could take a position like that. But, fellas, have we not before explored the idea that man reasons and thinks with a skewed logic?

[26:33] Part of our fallenness affects our thinking capacity. And this is what enables people to reach all kinds of absolutely harebrained ideas and conclusions about all kinds of things that have no basis in fact at all.

[26:52] We think with a warped mind. This is one reason we have the word of God. It's to straighten out wrong thinking. And when you want to know what God thinks about anything, you get it from this book.

[27:04] And when you want to know what men think, you ask this man and this man and this man. You ask three different men and you, like the old saying among the Jews, when you have three Jews, you have at least four opinions.

[27:17] And that's the way humanity works. So which one do you follow? Which man? Einstein? But he was wrong about a number of things, wasn't he? How about Isaac Newton?

[27:29] Discoverer of gravity. Father of modern science, Isaac Newton. You realize how much time Isaac Newton spent in alchemy?

[27:42] Which was trying to find the scientific formula to turn lead into gold. Come on. Isaac Newton did that?

[27:53] Oh yeah. And he spent a lot of time trying to do it. Why would he do it? And you know, Isaac Newton was a Christian. He was a believer. He was a believer. But he had a fallen mind just like we do.

[28:06] That's part of our fall. That's part of what makes us what we are. Is our skewed thinking. And this is why people reason or want to reason their way to God.

[28:19] And how do you gain acceptance with God? Well, you have to be good enough. You have to pray enough. You have to go to church enough. You have to do this. You have to do that. And they see it all as a matter of how good do I have to be?

[28:34] And they quantify their goodness rather than qualify it. And God is not impressed by a quantity of our goodness. He's impressed by the quality.

[28:46] And when you receive Jesus Christ as your Savior, He gives you His righteousness and you have a quality of righteousness that's completely different from the world. What? We have that what you're talking about excuse me mine is that sinful nature that we were born with because of Adam.

[29:04] It's still in us. Of course it is. We do not have it. So you're constantly having that struggle between that sinful nature and the Holy Spirit which is in you now. When you accept Christ you have both of them there.

[29:16] This is the Roman 7 conflict. Absolutely. Which way? Am I going to do what God wants me to do or am I going to do what my sinful nature wants me to do or what I want to do?

[29:27] And it's a constant struggle. And our self-centeredness which is a natural consequence of the fall remember we pointed out in the past that before Adam and Eve disobeyed God God was their focus.

[29:42] God was the center of their world. And when they disobeyed God their focus turned from God inward. God was the center of the world. And they became self-centered.

[29:55] They were God-centered and they moved from being God-centered to being self-centered. That's the ego. And fellas we are all afflicted with that disease.

[30:07] And it is called sin. And that is why Jesus Christ came was to remove from us the sin barrier that prevented us from accepting the righteousness of Christ.

[30:20] So it's a fabulous fabulous thing. Let's get on. I'd like to get through this chapter if we can. How could you do this? The men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord because he had told them.

[30:32] So they said to him excuse me what should we do to you that the sea may become calm for us for the sea was becoming increasingly stormy.

[30:43] In other words if Jonah is responsible for the sea threatening us like it is how can we appease your God from whom you are fleeing?

[30:54] What do we have to do? And you know under a lot of circumstances these pagan people might have even been thinking in terms of a sacrifice. Well in effect that's what they came up with.

[31:08] But it isn't slaying or slitting the throat with a knife it's throwing Jonah overboard. And Jonah Jonah why do you suppose he was willing to come to this point?

[31:20] Because it most assuredly it most assuredly under all normal circumstances of course there's elements about this that are not normal but he would have seen that as ending his life I would think.

[31:36] And yet I cannot escape from the impression that Jonah is honest enough and willing to tell them what he thinks it's going to take for the lives of these pagan men to be spared.

[31:52] And he simply says you'll have to throw me over. And do you know what? It is a credit to these men that they were actually unwilling to do that.

[32:05] They are demonstrating more humanity for Jonah than what Jonah was willing to demonstrate for Nineveh. Isn't that interesting? And these are pagans.

[32:17] And here is a sad sad truth that there are some in fact there are many non-Christians non-Christians who are never in church on Sunday who may demonstrate more kindness and more compassion and more consideration than a lot of people who are Christians.

[32:43] That's not supposed to work that way. But it does. Because man can crank out a lot of human goodness that benefits and is recognized by other humans.

[32:57] Now God doesn't recognize it because all our works are as filthy rags they are all tainted but unsaved people can do a whole lot of good things for unsaved people or even for saved people.

[33:14] And that's just part of the human dynamic. So Jonah recognizes it seems he recognizes he has a responsibility to those men on board that ship and he simply says you'll have to throw me over and they they tried they rode desperately verse 13 to return to land but they could not and they're doing what they can to save Jonah to keep from throwing him over and they call on the Lord and say earnestly O Lord do not let us perish on account of this man's life and do not put innocent blood on us for thou O Lord has done as thou hast pleased.

[33:54] I cannot come to any conclusion other than the fact that they are ascribing the ultimate authority to Jonah's God and for these pagans that's quite an admission because everybody tends to think that their God is the number one and I don't know if we've got any so called foxhole conversions here or not but these men are giving some pretty serious thought to the God to the God who apparently is responsible for this storm and they know one thing their God whomever it was was not responsible for the storm and he couldn't be responsible for stilling it but Jonah's God is a God of a different color and maybe they've come to a new conclusion here so they picked up Jonah threw him into the sea and the sea stopped its raging just like that and these guys are wiping their brow and saying that did it that was boy that was a close one they turned to each other and said things like

[34:59] I've been on this sea for 27 years and I've never seen anything like this and they were comparing notes how scared they were and how for sure they thought that ship was going down and the men feared the Lord greatly interesting does this constitute a kind of Old Testament conversion it certainly seems to because it is the God of Jonah exclusively who appears to have been responsible for the storm and the God of Jonah exclusively who was responsible for calming it and fellas that is the God we need to recognize now this is a real come to Jesus moment in the Old Testament if you will it is coming away apparently from their false gods to this God they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows we aren't told what the vows are but we can imagine because how many people have been found in very difficult circumstances like if you will the proverbial foxholes

[36:11] I wonder how many guys that came out of World War II in the Battle of the Bulge can tell you something like this I'm telling you I remember telling God you get me out of this alive I'll serve you I'll go to school I'll become a preacher I'll do this I'll do that I'll do whatever you want and that's that's the kind of straits to which people can come and sometimes that's what it takes so these men feared the Lord greatly offered a sacrifice to the Lord made vows and the Lord appointed a great fish nowhere in my estimation nowhere does any translation of the Bible ever call it a whale doesn't mean it wasn't a whale but it could also have been a specifically prepared fish for a specific moment and a specific purpose we do not know because we don't have any details but we do know that this fish is going to have the capacity of swallowing up

[37:13] Jonah fortunately fortunately it isn't going to chew him up it's just going to swallow him and we are told that Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights now the question is and this by the way is referred to by our Lord in Matthew's Gospel chapter 28 and we do not know but there is good reason probably to believe that physically Jonah may very well have been dead during this time and what we've got here is nothing more than an Old Testament resurrection which of course is going to prefigure the resurrection of Christ physiologically physiologically I don't know how a human being could survive in the belly of a great fish or anything else without dying if this is a fish that God has constructed if this is a fish with the normal kind of innards if this is a fish whose hormones and body would excrete the kind of what shall

[38:26] I say enzymes and acids and things that a fish would normally emit for the digestion and breaking down the food I don't know we aren't given the details regarding that but I do not see humanly speaking how he could have survived and was alive for three days and three nights so I rather suspect that he was dead during this time and that he enjoyed a kind of resurrection at the end of it but you can't take that to the bank and I don't know we've got details about it that aren't all that clear Joe what back to the point about the end of the ship didn't want to throw him overboard you know even though they weren't Christians young people God in other places in the scripture it tells us that God put on every man's heart when he was created to know right from wrong that's right no right from wrong so they were saying it was wrong to throw a man overboard at the time

[39:30] I mean it was wrong so they were following that instinct thing I would agree yeah it would seem to be and until it got to be so desperate you know they saw there didn't seem to be no other way out they pissed him over especially since he himself was willing to be thrown over well there are questions about this of course that we can't answer because we just don't have all the details that we would like but fellas just be reminded once again that God has not given us his word in order to satisfy our curiosity about all the questions we have but he has given us his word because this is the most vital thing that he wants us to know and understand and that's the extent of the revelation and we are grateful that that includes so yeah isn't the whole idea the bible what God is trying to do throughout the bible is to bring us back into a relationship absolutely the whole aim of this everything the progression it is it is and Romans 1 makes that very clear from where

[40:36] God had them originally to their straying to bringing them back and that's what that's what the death of Christ is all about is to make a way of access so man can come back to God and he comes back to God through our Lord Jesus Christ