Matt Chandler - Belief that Moves

If you have your Bibles, go ahead and grab those; this will be our text for the morning. If you’re in the 11:15 service, I’m sorry you’re watching this on video. I booked something a long time ago and didn’t take into account the time change and flight schedules, so you’re getting to watch this on video. My preference is always to be in the room with you, but unfortunately, this morning we’re going to leverage technology. Thank you for your grace on that.

Ranne Ran Swar, I think I’m butchering his name, and it’s fine; I doubt he’ll ever hear this. He was from South Africa and grew up in what he called a Christian circle. He grew up going to church occasionally, attending Sunday school, and began, in his late teenage years, to become disenchanted with the Christian faith. By the time he was in his twenties, he declared himself an atheist. He had fallen into a friend group that I would just call, although he doesn’t use this word, sketchy. That friend group introduced him to Satanism, which I think is a strange friend group. You know, I think you should try worshiping the devil.

So, you’ve got a kid who grew up in church, and for whatever reason—he doesn’t really unpack why—he begins to grow disenchanted with the Christian faith, declares himself an atheist, and stumbles into a friend group that just happens to worship the devil. They introduce him to Satanism as a religion. He says in his testimony that, for whatever reason, he fit like hand and glove there and that he found his truth; that’s how he even describes it—he found his truth. We talk a lot about that idea here all the time—that truth is not inside of us and ever-changing; it is outside of us and fixed. Yet, he found his truth in worshiping the devil.

His testimony states that four of his old Christian friends showed him unconditional love even as he became, quote-unquote, a monster and a vile person. He tells the story of being invited on a radio program, where he kind of rose in the ranks of the satanic church. I don’t know how they’re ordered; I don’t know if they have bishops or whatever; I’m not going to give them that kind of time. My little program didn’t even capitalize «Satanism"—that needs to be capitalized, but not on my iPad.

So, he rises through the ranks, and he becomes articulate and brilliant. He is the guy people interview. On this radio program, he is being interviewed by a woman who talks to him about the historicity of Jesus. She tries to bring up to him that no scholar in the world claims that Jesus is mythological; Jesus is a historical person. She asks, «What do you do with the historicity of Jesus?» He doubles down, like most Satanists would, claiming that that’s all propaganda and that Jesus is mythological and not real.

When the interview was over, she walked around, and he said that normally when that happens, they just shake hands and say thank you for being on. Instead, she hugged him and lingered; she didn’t let him go. He said that as this woman was hugging him, he began to feel something deep and spiritual that disoriented him. He left the interview, and that night he struggled to sleep; he couldn’t get that hug out of his mind. So, he went to LinkedIn—who knew? —looked up her profile, and saw that she was a Christian.

To shorten the testimony for my time’s sake, that led him, not long after that, to repent and turn back to Jesus Christ. Now, let me say this: ladies, I don’t recommend lingering hugs as a means of evangelism—maybe especially with male Satanists. But in this case, the Holy Spirit profoundly used an act of unconditional love to soften the heart of one who had great animosity towards Jesus Christ, ultimately leading to his salvation. You can look that up later today and hear his whole testimony; it’s just profound.

So, last weekend, when Mason preached on the last chapter, he rightly highlighted that the real theme of the Book of Jonah is found in Jonah’s prayer in Jonah 2:9, where Jonah, even in his hard-hearted, stiff-necked wickedness, prayed, «Salvation belongs to our God.» Here’s what I want to do: I want to highlight some things out of what we just read, and then I’ve got a two-point sermon for you. Don’t get too excited about that; it doesn’t mean it’s shorter—it just means one less point.

Let me highlight some things from Jonah 3. Most scholars believe that the fish vomited Jonah back up in Joppa, so we’re right back to where we began. Vomited out in Joppa, he has at least a one-month journey to get to Nineveh, so he’s got a lot of time to think about all that’s happened. Since it’s at least a month, it could have been longer, depending on the means of travel.