The Value of the Soul (Part A)

To reach lost souls to strengthen saying our Lord when he rode into Jerusalem riding on that lowly donkey as Savior King, knowing the cross was ahead of capable of calling down lightning on anyone at any time.

He withheld he restrained himself. Instead, he dies because of the value of the sinners soul. It was worth it to him.

This is cross reference radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Jonah. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about cross reference radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching, but for now let's join Pastor Rick in the book of Jonah chapter 3 as he begins his message the value of the soul. Jonah chapter 31 through four. Title of this morning's message is the value of the soul. Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city and preach to it the message that I tell you. So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of Yahweh. Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three day journey in extent, Jonah began to enter the city on the first day's walk. Then he cried out and said yet 40 days Nineveh shall be overthrown.

I'm going to treat this as though you know the story I'm going to try not to bring up the fish this as you would know if you're familiar with the story is the second time, Jonah was commanded to go to Nineveh to leave Israel to go outside of the promised land away from the covenant people of God to those Gentiles and preach this message that God had given to him.

He was to deliver the message not create the message. The Hebrew prophets they work accustom to long distance denunciation of surrounding kingdoms but to go in person and to one of their Capital Cities. All this was something new to pronounce the tomb there on their turf. Isaiah wrote the judgments.

For example, that would come to other nations, and so to Jeremiah but they did that from Israel. Well here the prophet is being told.

I want you to take this message to them four times God calls Nineveh, that great city great population was great in need great and suffering is any large city is great in its possibilities. Only God saw those possibilities from a righteous standpoint. Human conditions as they affect God.

He's he's not outside of the things that we suffer he can take it, but he still feels it still hurts is not outside of what affects us is interested in humanity saved in this case Jonah and the lost in this case Nineveh.

None of this is changed again, God is not on emotional or you need do is read that 53rd chapter of Isaiah one verse says, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief is talking about the son of God who we know is the Christ, the Messiah at the graveside of a friend that short verse.

Jesus wept. God is not outside of what we go through God call Jonah to a definite task in a game the reasons why he wanted to send him to Nineveh.

Jonah chapter 1 verse two.

The first time God called the prophet arise, go to Nineveh, that great city and cry out against it for their wickedness has come up before me. Jonah is responsible is what I wanted to say before you is at all like them and I don't want them saved. I want them to suffer your wrath. That is what Jonah was thinking and instead of going to Nineveh on that first call. Of course, he went as far as he could go in the other direction and got chased him because the prophet belonged to God and God persuaded him and preserve the lesson for all of us. God saw what no one else could see souls that talk about that the souls in that city made it a great city in the eyes of God, I mean cities are big and we tend to want to get away from them except if we are on vacation or something like that because in those large cities. There are large problems. The souls in that city made that city great. That was true in the days of Nineveh and is true today does not always play out the same way. Look at verse three in Jonah chapter 3 if you still have your Bibles there. So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh. This is the second time again. According to the word of Yahweh not Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three-day journey in extent the big place on a million people more in the city may get to some of that before we finish evangelism existed before the New Testament God reaching out to lost sinners. Even the old Saints understood this. Abraham prayed for a doomed Sodom and Gomorrah and they never found out they never found out that someone was interceding for them, but they had gone so far. They had become irretrievable in the few people that were retrievable, got out, they did not all survive here is Jonah preaching the shortest and greatest sermon on record and I know you will. What about you listen. Jesus didn't save the city preaching eight words Jesus did, but he did it through Jonah so let's kind of walking back a little bit and say wait a minute was God doing here and eight words sermon how you wish. That's what he did. Verse four of Jonah chapter 3 yet 40 days Nineveh shall be overthrown. You imagine, if you believe that was going to happen while they did get to that place.

This is not good. A Puritan from the 1600s Thomas Watson writes sinners may oppose God's ways, but not his wrath.

You might not like what he's doing, you may not like his wrath, which you can't stop it, and we try to preach this. That's why the gospel is the good news. The antidote to the wrath of God is the son, Jesus Christ. It took Jonah 3 days to repeatedly preach the same eight words sermon. That's how big the city was in there. He paraded around the city as he passed the bazaars as eat the brothels, the gardens, the courts, the palaces, the barracks. The fishermen at the Riverside. Almost 1 of those little sandwich board sermons.

The end is near. The only differences God wrote this message for this man, rather than taking it upon himself and writing would work preaching what he wanted to preach is the big challenge of all Christians. When we share the gospel. We teach the word we have to get to that place.

Lord, what do you want to say because if you don't tell me then I'm going to come up with my own stuff and that is not what we want again verse five because here nothing fishy about this prophet at this point, the clock is ticking. Verse five so the people of Nineveh believed God proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them and it still wasn't over. That alone did not remove the sentence that was on them. But it was the beginning it was the beginning of God doing something different with these people just like that. They heard the message preached by the preacher, like the outlaw on the cross, who met salvation at the buzzer. You know that thief, the one did not repent, the other did they both heard the same sort of sermon saw the same things, one God, it the other God.

It got it where you don't want to get it Jonah sermon wrote the great city of Nineveh, literally to its knees and spell spiritually in that sense, the whole city everybody together see this is what God saw in that great city, their willingness to repent when faced with the truth from the king upon his throne to the beggar on the dunghill they got it.

It was undeserved. It was unearned, but it was received. That's how salvation goes, there are those that think they going to earn salvation and what they're doing is they're building up against themselves in debt that they can't repay. Paul talks about that in his Roman U.

You make yourself you indent yourself if you think you can earn favor with God's received salvation is received, we can earn rewards by serving and obeying but not salvation. So we see God dealing with two hearts. At this point, we see the heart of God.

Of course, reaching out to those who otherwise would perish in their sins we see God reaching to the impenitent unbelievers who then repented. Luke chapter 11 verse 32 the men of Nineveh will rise up in judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and indeed a greater than Jonah is here again. He is the one that authored Jonah's message in the salvation of the Ninevites. All is got something to do with this. I haven't gotten that far yet, but here is our Lord Jesus Christ singling out this moment this prophet and this people they repented repentance of the Ninevites. Look at verse 10. If you still have Jonah open chapter 3 then God saw their works that they turn from their evil way and God relented from the disaster that he had said he would bring upon them, and he did not do it the intended judgments of God just like the promises of God are conditional, they can be avoided as far as the judgments go or they can be received as far as the promises go the unloving messenger was the other heart you have the Ninevites that repented and then you have the messenger who was used by God to save their souls. But in his own heart.

There was evil there was racism. Jonah becomes now the center of God's attention.

God doesn't just dispose of his profits.

Well, you know, he delivered my message. I don't need them anymore.

God's is what we got here what we have here is a prophet that needs correction and of course the fourth chapter is about that correction. Jonah is the one we would have none of this had Jonah not told us the story, especially about his praying from inside the beast so the unloving messenger has to be dealt with. This is something we are all susceptible to, I might say this again. I should say it now.

Not every need is a calling. There may be people you'd like to reach or maybe people you know you should be reaching out to, but you can't it's not for you. Maybe there's a history there that won't allow it. So then someone else will come along and God can use you to save someone else worry may be good news them. Charles Spurgeon, one of the great preachers. God does not come to men to help them when they are saving themselves, but he comes to the rescue when they are damning themselves. Jonah is damning himself now. The people were God sends the prophet now it's a prophet, was damning his own soul with this hatred and God again in his patients does not walk away from the prophet. He demonstrated that he could've gotten someone else didn't have to get Jonah. When Jonah ran away from God could've said that's it. I just find somebody else, but he does not do that.

I like that part of the story. This is true of the souls of Nineveh and the soul of the prophet as well. But what is the soul in a single word me, that's me.

You, your soul is you. That's what is going on here. It's not part of the body. Although the body serves the body as its vehicle. When you receive your resurrected body will not be a disembodied spirit in the book of Revelation we find there wearing robes. Those that are up in heaven do not disembodied, but the soul something different. The clearest definition we have of the soul is discovered by analyzing what the Lord said Mark chapter 8 does it twice. He does it in Matthew 16 he does it in Mark chapter 8.

Now if you're an unbeliever were not familiar with the Scripture references don't cross references may not register with you, but for the Christian when a man preaches the word of God from the pulpit, especially he's gonna back up what he saying from the Scripture is coming up and say what I think he is saying, thus says the Lord, and in Mark chapter 8 Jesus said for-profit amenity gains the whole world and loses his own soul. All right, well that's sort of circular in his reasoning.

He doesn't tell me what a soul is within Jesus says it again.

Luke picks it up this time. Luke chapter 9 verse 25 for what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and is himself destroyed or lost is himself. You see the replacement for soul.

Jesus says himself. Same teaching soul is me the himself that Jesus was referring to the soul, therefore, is you your self. The soul is the person that's not saved, as well as the person who is saved is that analysts part of us is that part of us that will live forever.

Where will live has to be decided here now in this life.

The soul is where the hole saw the soul is where the ambitions are the part of us that strives the sufferers that praise that loves that sins that repentance soul is that part of us that can be saved. Soul is a big deal.

It is the biggest thing about you is your life given to you by God and everyone's got one. Even the person that is the most severely handicapped, most special of needs. They have a soul. The only thing in man, upon which God has written the word forever is the man's soul not the body is not a part of our existence. It is our existence. This should change how we look at people.

If we need that change. Jonah didn't see it that way.

So their souls were irrelevant to him. They had no value, no worth to him, but they did to God. If the soul is not important in life is not important is a section in Samuel where David's army is at war with his treacherous son Absalom and on the battlefield of Joab. David's commander kills David son Absalom and dispatches a messenger to tell the king is dead is done. One of the messengers who was invested with David he served David he loved him. He didn't really know what was going on and seems like what he sees. He got to go tell David anyway and Joab's is will you don't always going on any dispatches another person what he wants to do is fine, go, go, go, run, and he arrives first. The one that really doesn't have the story he may have had it did want to tell it but anyway we pick it up and second Samuel chapter 18 verse 29 and this is what he says.

The part that has everything to do with the soul is not important than life is not important. He says I saw a great malt, but I did not know what it was about. That's his report to David is Absalom, my son dead. I don't know. I saw commotion.

I saw a lot of things happening, but I don't know what it was about is that all there is to life just to to multiple and the Tanglewood's of the human experience is that all there is a Shakespeare said, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.

Is that life many of gone to their graves, thinking that many who are considered to be intellectuals have gone to their graves, hoping that this was all that they were going to experience and it never was for them to draw that conclusion. Certainly not.

There is much more the value and the worth of a soul can have value. But if someone doesn't think it's worth it, then what's the point of the value they have to go together no matter what you go through in this life. No matter what you may be going through all will be going through in this life. It still comes down to the salvation of souls you are not excused because you are suffering. You are not excused from wanting to be used by God to reach lost souls to strengthen saved souls. Our Lord when he rode into Jerusalem riding on that lowly donkey as Savior King, knowing the cross was ahead of him capable of calling down lightning on anyone at any time. He withheld he restrained himself. Instead, he dies because of the value of the sinners soul. It was worth it to him.

So to put that in our language. It was like it's got too much going on right now to be concerned about souls and interfaces cross the purpose of the cross was souls because that's everything God is emotional when it comes to salvation. I did not say he is emotionally driven. I say he is emotional. It's not the same thing is emotional is him. He feels it the soul is the great reality of man is the fact of you. That's easy to get the hard part is when you're driving down the road to remember that the guy in the other car who has no signal fluid that he's a soul to well was anything we think that that is true is a soul to the person you don't like the person that is your enemy. Again, that does not mean that the wrong they do is somehow acceptable. That is not violent disgusting. It does not mean that you are the one that needs to be part of the process of reaching them does not mean you know if they're retrievable or not.

What we are led by the spirit of God. That's why we put a great emphasis going to the book of acts we find time and time again that the Lord's Holy Spirit is leading if he is not leading who is if God is not influencing and leading you then who is your Lord and if he is Lord is going to behave as Lord in the flesh would duke it out with the spirit to try to ensure that he remains Lord have another quote here from Thomas Watson, a man's greatest care should be for that place where he lives, longest, therefore eternity should be in his scope. If the soul is me is going to live forever. Where is it going to live well. The unbelievers are usually going to answer that question for a lot of reasons. I never thought of that too much.

I thought I was a good enough guy, looking back.

If the only moved to the new me now.

I'd sell my house and live somewhere else I wouldn't want to live next to that guy crisis change everything. Soul is the great reality of all men, that which makes man the object of Revelation and redemption.

God is not going to reveal his will to animals. He reveals them to men you not going to find Reno the first letters of the German Shepherd it's going to be two men we are distinct when God created man, he created an extraordinary being.

It says in the Bible. He did all things well.

He said let's make man in our own image to give him free will give him the ability to choose to love to feel the thing to reason on a level that was higher, far higher than any other animal you find some people boasting you know that they can get a dog to understand 70 or 80 words. That's nothing compared to a human being is absolutely nothing. It's it's an indication that there is a creator, but it does not put them on the same level we are unlike anyone else in creation and Satan attacks fact soul. He attacks us, because God put so much into us. It has enraged him. It is the seat of reason and that reasoning of the soul says where Madonna live forever and that's why it is spiritual. When you find a person who is otherwise especially when they are highly intelligent and they can reason through eternity. Their finite there like Esau, they only see on the horizontal plane.

Never the vertical.

They don't look up.

They think they do and they reject whatever others have to say about the spiritual realm. It's not enough to be intelligent. You have to be spiritual. It's not enough to be spiritual. You've got to use your brains if you just spiritual in the being superstitious or falling for some live from hell but it's that combination. The ability to reason come let us reason God says in the ability to see into the spiritual realm.

As Jacob saw the latter going into heaven, and the traffic between the two. Surely God is in this place and I knew it not. How awesome is this place spiritual man was alive and Jacob.

We don't read of that of Esau. We never read of the God of Esau.

We read of the God of Jacob because Esau was strong enough to live this life without God.

Nobody is strong enough to face God. After this life without his salvation. Thanks for tuning in to cross reference radio for this study. In God's word. If you've missed any part of this message or would like to explore more teachings you can hear them by going to cross reference radio.com Pastor Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville, Virginia. To learn more about this ministry. Visit our website cross reference radio.com again. That website is cross reference radio.com would also like to encourage you to subscribe to our podcast by doing so you will be notified of each new edition of cross reference radio that we upload.

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