Father in heaven, we give you praise for the gift of this
gathering. This time to veil ourselves the
means of grace, to have our eyes fixed upon the glory of our
risen King Jesus, to be reminded of the power of the Holy
Spirit's role in our life, rebuking us, correcting us,
training us in righteousness. Father, we pray that as we open
your word, You would feed our souls that you would make us
different. That we would hear things that
we have not heard before, see things that simply we've not
seen before, and because of the power of this living word would
leave this place unable to stop speaking about You and the
things that we have seen and heard.
All for your glory. We pray this and for our good in
the name of Jesus, Amen. Remain standing as I read the
passage today, which is one verse we are concluding our
study of the book of Jonah. Last week, Pastor Paul Goble did
a remarkable job really of leading us all the way through
the end of that chapter, 48 verses.
And today we're going to come back to one verse that is so
critical to the whole book and actually the whole Bible.
And it's a verse that Jonah prayed from the belly of the
fish. If you're new to our church, we
believe that there was a real man named Jonah who was a
prophet who had fallen. He'd rebelled, and it's God's
restoration, in God's Providence, in God's pleasure.
He finds himself in the belly of a well, and from that place,
reaching rock bottom, he cries to the Lord.
And this is what he says at the end of his prayer, the last
thing he says from the belly of the fish, verse 9 of Jonah
chapter 2. But I, with the voice of
Thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you what I have vowed I will
pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord.
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Please be seated. Salvation belongs to the Lord.
A remarkable summary of this remarkable small, minor prophet
48 verses. But it's also a remarkable
statement about all of Scripture from beginning in Genesis to the
end of Revelation. It's about the salvation that
belongs to God. During our announcements, I made
a comment about the 2025 ministry impact.
I know some of you weren't here yet.
This is just something we report every year.
It has a lot to do with the finances of the church, how
money is being spent, giving patterns, things like that.
I would love for you to grab one of these in the Grand Hall, or
you can download it off of our website or off of our PCPC app.
There's wonderful things to celebrate inside these pages,
but what I want you to hear for just a moment is that on every
page, behind every person, behind every effort, is the
truth that salvation belongs to the Lord.
In everything we seek to do, we want to bring God glory by
proclaiming that Jesus Christ our King alone is the way of
salvation. There is no other way.
It's been an amazing month. As I mentioned at the beginning,
the first Sunday in November, we had the Global Mission
Conference here at PCPC. On that Sunday I was in Nagoya,
Japan preaching in a church having attended the Christ Bible
Institute 20th anniversary. That Friday and Saturday I was
invited as a guest preachers incredible honor.
I preached on the woman at the well from John 4.
But that Friday night, October 31st, I was overwhelmed by what
I witnessed as 500 to 600 registered guests, mostly
Japanese, gathered in an auditorium to worship for most
of these. When I say most, 90% plus they
had never been in an auditorium or anywhere with that many
Christians praising the Lord. This was the first and not
likely something that will happen soon.
Again. The soil in Japan is so hard.
Less than 1% Christian. And then the Goya where Christ
Bible Institute is located. The 8 reached least prefectures
are in that area. But what I witnessed was
overwhelming because these brothers and sisters in Christ
who had been saved by God's grace were lifting their voice
loudly, raising their hands and praising the Lord.
One of the songs that was most moving to me had this refrain
from the mountains to the valleys.
Let the song of the resound filling all the nations with
praise and Thanksgiving. I didn't understand a word of it
until they put up the words Hallelujah, Hallelujah.
I just listened. Hallelujah.
God is at work. He's saving his people.
But in Japan, a church for most of the Japanese brothers and
sisters and the missionaries that are, they're serving a big
church, is 25 members. The church I preached in had two
services. They have their own building.
It's quite old now, but they can only hold 40 people and they've
grown past that. The first service was at 8:30,
and I preached to about nine people.
Around 35 showed up at the later service.
We sing Jesus loves me in Japanese, Amazing Grace in
Japanese. In between the services, I met
with their three elders. Their three elders handed me a
piece of paper and said this is the vision that we believe God
has given us for this church. This little church is tucked
away in a neighborhood. If you didn't know it was there,
you would never know. They're praying that God would
help them sell that building and buy another building where there
was more exposure to Christ and the people of Christ.
They talked about their vision as they've sought the Lord's
face. A sweet Presbyterian flock.
But what struck me most was their humility and their sense
of purpose truly to bring God glory.
And then in a paragraph near the end, it says we believe God is
calling us to be a mega Church of 200 people.
That would be a mega church. I hope we will pray fervently
for that to happen and give as the Lord enables us.
The pastor there is a very faithful, lovely man, saturates
deep in the gospel. He's been there 25 years, and
for every year he's been there, they've had one member at it.
On average, God alone has the power to save a person.
It takes no more power to save a Japanese teenager than it did to
save the apostle Paul when his name was Saul.
But it takes God's power. Salvation belongs to the Lord.
God's going to do it His way, His will accomplished.
That's what Jonah is seeking to teach us.
This small book, 48 verses, reveals so much about the glory
of God and about God's plan of salvation.
In order to help you follow along, especially children, I
want you to do this. I want you to take the bulletin.
You'll probably have to move off your zest quest for a moment and
I want you to go to the page that says sermon notes.
It looks like this. And then there's actually a
little spot right behind the words of assurance and comfort
of the gospel and adult or children.
What I want you to do is I want you to draw your hand.
I'm going to give you 5 statements that we are being
taught from this one statement. Salvation belongs to the Lord.
Now as you're drawing that, I want you to think about this for
a moment. This prayer coming out of the
mouth of Jonah from the belly of the well is when he is at rock
bottom. If you don't don't have your
Bible, grab the Blue Pew Bible and turn to Jonah 2.
Jonah 2 is where this prayer is recorded.
Jonah describes his life this way.
Jonah 2 verse 5, The waters closed in over me to take my
life. The deep surrounded me.
Weeds were wrapped about my head at the roots of the mountains.
That's how he's describing his life.
You can't get lower than the roots of the mountains.
And that's where he is. And from this place Jonah is
coming to the end of himself. And from this place the last
thing he praises. But I, with the voice of
Thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you what I have vowed I will
pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord.
What does Jonah mean by that? What does God want us to
understand about that? So I'm going to give you 5
things in the poem. Simply write salvation belongs
to the Lord. And now I'm going to give you 5
phrases. Each of them end with a word
that starts with Pi. Did not do that on purpose.
I don't actually like it when that happens, but it's helpful
to remember. Here's the first one.
Salvation belongs to the Lord. What does it mean?
It's His sovereign plan. Sovereign means all powerful,
all knowing, in full control. When we celebrate Christ the
King, he's our sovereign King. He's not just somewhat in
control. He's not just someone with some
power. He has it all.
This is our Lord, sovereign, Lord, sovereign plan.
Salvation belongs to the Lord. Charles Spurgeon says no human
intellect and no created intelligence assisted God in the
planning of salvation. He contrived the way even as he
himself carried it out. Salvation belongs to the Lord.
It's his plan. It's his idea.
We could never come up with it, and we would never come up with
it. God's plan is so much larger, so
much more grand than we can imagine.
His plan communicated to Jonah was that I'm going to actually
save this wicked, evil, violent people, an enemy of my people,
the Israelites, the Ninevites. I want them to hear my word.
That was not Jonah's plan. It was God's plan.
Salvation belongs to the Lord. First point.
It's His sovereign plan. If you were in Christ Jesus, it
wasn't your plan if you were in Christ Jesus.
If you were in Christ Jesus, it wasn't your idea.
God initiates. God pursues the second P, His
sovereign proclamation. When I say proclamation, I'm
referring to God delivering His word to us.
Notice in Jonah 1 chapter 1 verse one, it says now the word
of the Lord came to Jonah. Jonah chapter 3 verse one, same
thing. Then the word of the Lord came
to Jonah the second time. But this is not the first time
God's word had been revealed. Go all the way back in your
Bible to the very beginning. In the beginning God created the
heavens and the earth, and when God gets around to creating man
and then woman, He proclaims His word and His word to them is all
of this I have given to you. Tend to it, take care of it.
It is for your pleasure. And it was perfect.
There wasn't one thing wrong. There wasn't one thing broken,
not relationally, not in nature, Nothing was wrong.
But He proclaimed this all is yours except for this one tree.
Do not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
That was it. The first question in the Bible
is not a question from God. It's question.
It's a question from Satan in the form of the serpent.
Serpent comes up to the woman Eve, and the very first thing he
attacks is the word of God. And here's his question.
Did God really say? Eve responds by saying yes, this
is what God said. He continues to tempt her, and
it's the same way he tempts you and tempts me every day.
Did God really say this is the way I'm to think of myself?
Did God really say I'm not to put my trust in my wealth or my
reputation? Did God really say I'm not
supposed to look at worthless things?
And there are lots of worthless things we can look at, not just
pornography. Did God really say I'm supposed
to give my money this way? Did God really say I'm supposed
to obey this law? Did God really say that's how
Satan works? His first question in the Bible,
Eve responds by saying yes, this is what was proclaimed.
But as he continues, she and Adam succumb to the temptation.
They take the fruit and they eat it.
And as soon as they eat it, their eyes are opened, Sin is
entered in. Their relationship with each
other is broken. The relationship with God is
broken. God's first question.
Now comes the first question from God in the Bible is really
interesting. Where are you?
That's a question he's asking to Adam and Eve.
Where are you? It's not a question that he
doesn't know the answer to. Because he's omnipresent.
That means he's everywhere. Present.
There's nowhere he is not present.
It's not a lack of knowledge because he's omniscient.
There's nothing God can ever learn about anything about you,
about your children, your grandchildren, nothing.
It's not a question of his power, but he asked where are
you? And listen to the response.
Adam says we were afraid. They'd never known fear before.
Think about that. They'd never known fear.
They'd never known shame. They'd never known guilt.
All of a sudden it rushes in them.
We were afraid because we were naked, so we hid.
Now comes God's second question. First, where are you?
We were afraid because we were naked, so we had Second
question, Who told you you were naked?
Have you eaten? Third question, have you eaten?
Have you eaten from the tree? The one tree that I commanded
you not to eat from Adam's response?
The woman you put here with me. Do you see the brokenness?
God's word proclaimed? Salvation belongs to the Lord.
He has a sovereign plan. His sovereign plan is proclaimed
by His sovereign word being delivered.
Notice again in Jonah one it comes to Jonah.
Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah.
Jonah rebels against that word. He rejects that word.
He thinks he can hide and flee from the Lord, but the Lord
continues to pursue him. Verse 3 of verse 1 of chapter 3.
Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time.
Do you see what's happening in God's plan of salvation?
Salvation belongs to the Lord. In His sovereign plan.
He's bringing His sovereign proclamation.
So what he's doing is this. The word now came to Jonah.
Jonah rejects it. God continues to bring his word
to him. And then God does what only God
can do. He takes the word that comes to
Jonah, and now the word comes from Jonah.
The word comes to Jonah. He rejects that.
It comes to him again after he spit out of the well and it's
time he obeys. And in God's Providence, the the
rebellious prophet now is the one taking the word that he
heard the first time and the word that he heard the second
time. And he's going into the city to
proclaim it to a people that are violent, evil, vile people.
Part of God's plan of salvation is the proclamation.
And now consider this, thousands of years later, literally
thousands, on November 23rd of 2025, a flock of God's people
are hearing the same word proclaimed.
It's coming from God to us and it's meant to go from us all
over this world. That's God's plan.
It's God's proclamation, and it goes with here's the third P His
sovereign power. In the 48 verses of Jonah, most
people are fixated on the fish. But in 48 verses, this little
book does so much to show the power of our sovereign God.
First, God will always accomplish His will.
He is going to accomplish His plan the way He wants to
accomplish it. And it's His will to use a
fallen, rebellious prophet of God to bring His message of
grace and forgiveness to a Pagan people, and that same word to
Himself in His sovereign power. Notice what happens in this
small book. God exercises his power over
nature. First, he appoints a storm.
He appoints a storm to come up on the boat that is holding
Jonah. Jonah is asleep.
The sailors are trying to save their lives.
Don't you care? Is essentially the question to
Jonah. God has brought the storm to
this one particular place that it would overwhelm the sailors
and the boat that they're on. He appointed the storm.
He's a power over nature. Secondly, He brings the fish.
This blows my mind when we give it time to think deeply about
it. This fish that God made, this
fish that Christ himself made, He's the Creator was created at
a time it would grow into the fish that even when it was
created, the Lord knew. This will be the one.
This will be the one who is going to swallow up my
rebellious prophet who has been thrown over the edge of the boat
to keep him from dying so that he might receive My mercy and My
grace, my sovereign power. This fish is going to swallow
him, and for three days this fallen prophet of mine is going
to live in that fish. But from the belly of this fish,
this prophet is going to pray to me, and he's going to end his
prayer by saying salvation belongs to the Lord.
We couldn't make this up. So Jonah goes, he is restored.
He is recommissioned. He goes into the city of Nineveh
and proclaims exactly what God told him to proclaim.
He's faithful, finally. But then God does what Jonah
suspected he might do. He shows a people that Jonah
despises, that Jonah hates mercy and grace, and from the least to
the king there's repentance. That city repents and Jonah's
angry. Jonah leaves the city.
He finds himself in a position pouting.
That's not one of the peace, but he finds himself in a position,
pouting, angry, and the Lord appoints a plant.
A plant that he himself designed, that he himself then
created, that he himself then grew on that particular patch
that would come over his fallen prophet Jonah to give him shade.
And then the Lord, exercising his power over nature, creating
this massive fish, uses a small worm that devours the plant.
His power is seen and how he appoints nature to accomplish
his will, but it's also seen in how he uses people just like
you, just like me, just like Jonah who have fallen to
accomplish his means. 4th P is his sovereign pity.
This book and this study has been personally very convicting
to me and I've heard from many of you the same.
And most of the time it's centered in this area where the
Lord and His grace towards you has shown you that you do not
have the same pity and care for the lost nations, the lost
people that the Lord has. You're like Jonah.
I'm like Jonah. We want our people to be saved.
We want our nation to be protected, but I don't really
care that much about the people who aren't walking in Christ.
You do not get grace. I'm going to be very direct if
that's where you are. There's something missing in
your theology. You do not get grace because the
people who are acting like non believers because they are non
believers have hearts that were just like yours.
If you're in Christ, they were dead.
They're not morally sick, they're spiritually dead.
Salvation belongs to the Lord. The only way someone is going to
come to faith is if the Lord opens up their eyes and their
ears and causes that dead heart to be, which is what he did for
you if you're in Christ. And if you don't want others to
receive that news, you're missing grace.
The grace that was shown to you. God has pity.
The same God who asked those three questions to Adam and Eve
is the same God asking Jonah these questions near the end of
his book. His last question to Jonah's
found in 4-9. But God said to Jonah, do you do
well to be angry for the plant? And he said, yes, I do well to
be angry, angry enough to die. And he meant it.
That's how sad his condition is. And the Lord said to Jonah, you
pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make
it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a
night. Verse 11 And should not I pity
Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than
120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their
left, and also much cattle? The Lord shows us pity.
He shows us compassion. Salvation belongs to the Lord.
If you are saved, it's not because you initiated this plan.
It's not because you proclaimed it to yourself.
It's not because you suddenly made your dead heartbeat.
It would be like Lazarus coming out of the tomb after Jesus,
raising him from the dead and saying I've been raised from the
dead. Salvation belongs to the Lord
and it also belongs to me. I made my dead heartbeat.
It's ridiculous. We don't 'cause our dead heart
spiritually to beat. You cannot cause your child's
dead heart spiritually to beat or your grandchildren's.
You can't, but God can. And in God's plan of salvation,
God's plan of salvation, salvation belongs to the Lord.
It's His proclamation, His Word, and it's His power, and it's His
sovereign pity. Last P.
This is so encouraging. It's His sovereign perseverance.
One of the great truths of the Christian faith that is so
different than other religions in the world is that God is the
one who initiates. That's why his first question
is, where are you? It's not that he didn't know,
it's that he's saying I'm coming for you.
You're my people. And if you're 1 of God's people
and you've come to faith, it's because He came for you before
all time. He knew He was going to come
after you. And at the age, whether young or
old, you receive Christ as your Savior.
The promises for those who all are, are truly in Christ is that
you and I will persevere to the end.
And it's not because of the vows we make.
It's not because of our strength or our stamina.
It's because of God's faithfulness to us.
You see in the book of Jonah, God's pursuit.
When Jonah felled in chapter 1, the Lord could have wiped him
out, but he didn't. It wasn't His plan.
His plan was to use His Word to proclaim His truth, to reveal
His power, showing His pity even for Jonah.
And by His grace, Jonah spit up on the shore.
Now Jonah goes, Jonah falls again, this time complaining,
displaying his anger at God for the grace that God showed the
Ninevites. And then the book ends in such a
strange way. Let me read it one more time.
And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city in which there
are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand
from their left comma and also much cattle question mark.
The end. Do you know why Jonah ends that
way? Because that's how God wanted it
to end. It shows us what can happen to a
person not just once, but multiple times.
And it shows us God's perseverance of those who
stumble and fall, just like me, just like you.
And it shows us that God continues show His grace and
mercy. If the book was to go on, it
would it would have to have another chapter like 2 where
once again Jonah will be coming to the end of himself.
Readers frustrated that it ends this way need to be reminded
that this is how God wanted it to end.
In his closing chapter of his book called The Prodigal
Prophet, Tim Keller ends the same way he ended his sermons on
this series. He says this.
As we have seen, the book of Jonah ends with a cliffhanger.
We are never told how the prophet responded to God's final
appeal. I propose, however, that we can
make a reasonable guess about how Jonah ultimately responded
to God. How do we know Jonah was so
rebellious, defiant, and clueless?
How do we know that he made that unbelievable statement?
I hate the God of love speech. How do we know about his prayer
inside the fish? The only way we could possibly
know these things is if Jonah told others.
What kind of man would let the world see what a fool he was?
Only someone who had become joyfully secure and, might I
add, thankful in God's love. Only someone who believed that
he was simultaneously sinful but completely accepted.
In short, someone who had found in the gospel of grace the very
power of God. If it can change Jonah, it can
change anyone. It can change you, but you
cannot change yourself. Salvation belongs to the Lord,
but the one who ordained salvation also ordains the means
of salvation. And the means of salvation are
God's sovereign plan, His Word being proclaimed, His power,
sovereign power on display, His pity present, and the promise of
His perseverance also true. So do we have any response, any
responsibility? Well, the answer's yes.
And you see it in what Jonah wrote in the final sentences of
his prayer from the place that is at the roots of the
mountains. Jonah proclaimed verse 9 again.
But I with the voice of Thanksgiving will sacrifice to
you what I have vowed I will pay.
Salvation belongs to the Lord. I'm really struck by the first
part of that verse. But I with the voice of
Thanksgiving from the belly of the well.
He didn't know he was going to be spit up.
He didn't know he was going to hear the word of God a second
time. I'm one of five children.
I'll see all of my siblings this week.
My mom and dad have both gone to heaven.
Still grieves us though. It's 15 and 20 years ago.
Whenever me or my brother or one of my three sisters came home
from the event, whether it was individual or corporate, my mom
cared about one thing. Her first question isn't what a
lot of our questions might be today.
Did you have fun? I don't think she cared whether
we had fun or not. What did you learn?
She didn't ask that. She had one question.
Did you say thank you? We were taught to say thank you.
We were reminded before we left. When you come home, don't forget
to say thank you. And we did.
But one time, maybe because I'm the middle child, I decided to
answer differently. When I walked through the door
and my mom said, did you say thank you?
I said no. And I never did that again.
Never. And it wasn't even true.
I did say thank you. But soon I was on the phone
calling the people that had dropped me off, telling them I'm
sorry that I didn't say thank you, but you did.
But my mom thinks I didn't. Why does she think that?
Because I told her I didn't. Why did you do that?
I don't know. Pray for me.
I wanted you to laugh a little bit because I want you to hear
this. I'm very concerned that our
gratitude looks like a little boy who's just simply checking
the box saying, yeah, I said thank you.
Thank God for all the provision he's given you.
Thank God for the blessing. Even thank God for the hard
times, the word, if God tells us to do that.
But as those who have been redeemed, whose plan of
salvation has rescued us from something worse than the belly
of a whale, of a fish, we must always ask God to awaken the
appropriate gratitude in our hearts for what He did to save
us, sending His only Son. That was His plan.
Who is the Word? He's the proclamation with His
power. Power to raise people from the
dead, not just Lazarus, but all who are spiritually dead.
Who would trust in Him, His pity being shown with tears, and the
persistence of our Lord, all the way to the cross and all the way
to the grave, and from the grave ascended to heaven, till Christ
is told to come again. Thank him with gratitude, just
like Jonah when he said, but with the voice of Thanksgiving.
But there's more. Jonah said.
I, with the voice of Thanksgiving, will sacrifice to
you what I have vowed I will pay.
You've made vows. Jonah made a vow, whether it was
when he was called to be a prophet or from the belly of the
fish or both. When he is ending his prayer,
not knowing what will happen next, he says I will sacrifice
to you what I have vowed. I will pay.
We don't obey like Jonah did and then didn't in order to be
saved. Salvation belongs to the Lord.
But when we are saved and we see all that has been given us so
that we could be saved, gratitude and a desire to obey
the Word proclaimed is in us. It's what we want.
I didn't know it until it was pointed out at the 8 O clock
service when I ended this way, that gratitude and obedience,
Jonah's response spells go. And that's what we're called to
do, not to earn our salvation, but because we've received it
and we just can't get over that. Thank you Father, for saving me
from hell. Father, I do pray that thank You
for Your word proclaimed to us even this day.
Thank You for the feast of this word that anticipates the
perfect feast, and we will be with You forever.
Give us eyes for that, even as we close in song about that.
And Lord, continue to do what only You can do.
Save us for your glory, for our good, we pray in the name of
Jesus, Amen. Please stand.