Sometimes, people get the impression that the Old Testament God is full of wrath, whereas in the New Testament, he's full of love, compassion, and mercy.
At first glance, that's understandable. But Jonah chapter 3 is simply dripping with the love, forgiveness, and kindness of God. The God of compassion who sent Jonah to a city filled with undeserving people is the same God who sent Jesus to a world filled with undeserving people. From Chicago, this is The Moody Church Hour, a weekly broadcast of worship and teaching with Pastor Philip Miller. Today, join us for the fourth of five messages on Relentless, the Book of Jonah. Our focus today, the God of second chances. Here now is Pastor Philip and worship leader Tim Stafford. Well, good morning everyone and welcome to The Moody Church.
We're so glad you're here. We are tracing our way through the Book of Jonah and today we're going to look at what it means to follow the God of second chances. Our God is a God of second chances. This is the beauty of the gospel that no matter how much we foul things up, when we come home to God through his grace, there's always new life, new hope, and a second chance. And so let's give him praise and worship this morning.
Would you stand? Let's pray together as we begin this service. Father, we thank you that we always have hope in the gospel, that there are second chances.
You're a God who's slow to anger and abounding in love and rich in steadfast love and mercy. And Father, we cling to your character that no matter what we've done or who we've become, we can come home in Jesus Christ and be welcomed and forgiven and cleansed and set free and to have hope and new life and second chances. And so Father, we want to learn more what that means today.
We pray that you would teach us and we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Come all ye weary, come all ye thirsty. Come to the well that never runs dry. Drink up the water, come and curse no more. Come all ye sinners, come find His mercy. Come to the table, He will satisfy. Taste of His goodness, find what you're looking for. For God so loved the world that He gave us, His one and only Son to save us, who ever believes in Him will live forever.
Bring all your parents, bring your addictions. Come take them down at the foot of the cross. Jesus is waiting there for love in us. For God so loved the world that He gave us, His one and only Son to save us, who ever believes in Him will live forever. Come out of hell, whoever you feel, know it is well.
What can it be? For God so loved, God so loved the world. Praise God. Praise God. From whom all blessings fall. Praise Him.
Praise Him. For the wonders of His love, His amazing love. For God so loved the world that He gave us, His one and only Son to save us. For God so loved the world that He gave us, His one and only Son to save us, who ever believes in Him will live forever. Come out of hell, whoever you feel, know it is well. For God so loved, God so loved the world.
Bring all your failures, bring your addictions. Come lay them down at the foot of the cross. Jesus is waiting, God so loved the world.
Isn't that good? The message He proclaimed was accompanied by His miracles. Great crowds came to Him, bringing with them the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others. And they put them at His feet, and He healed them, so that the crowd wondered when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled healthy, the lame white. And the blind seeing, they glorified the God of Israel.
What a thought. This is the message. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son. That whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.
For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him. Amen. What He's done. This is what He's done. He gave Himself for us.
How can we stay silent? How can we not sing with joy at the grace of God? Amen? Amen.
Amen. On the hill of Calvary, my Savior glad for me. My Jesus set me free.
Look at the wounds that give me life, grace flowing from His Son. No greater sacrifice. What He's done.
What He's done. All the glory and the honor to the Son. My sins are forgiven.
My future is heaven. I praise God for what He's done. Sing for the freedom He has won.
Even death is death and death is life as old. Speak, say the name above all names. Over every broken case He is risen from the grave. What He's done.
What He's done. All the glory and the honor to the Son. All my sins are forgiven.
My future is heaven. I praise God for what He's done. Now on the throne of majesty the fathers will complete. He reigns in victory.
Sing hallelujah to the King. He is worthy to receive all the worship He can bring. What He's done. What He's done. All the glory and the honor to the Son. My sins are forgiven.
My future is heaven. I praise God for what He's done. What He's done.
What He's done. All the glory and the honor to the Son. My sins are forgiven.
My future is heaven. I praise God for what He's done. I praise God for what He's done. I praise God for what He's done. Praise the Lord. Thank you for your forgiveness, for your mercy, for your grace. We were once blind but now we can see in Christ.
We were once lame, broken. You have restored us and made us whole. We praise your name. In Jesus name. Amen.
Thank you. My God. Full of mercy. Heard our weeping.
Came to bring us home again. My God takes the broken and makes them whole. My God.
Touch the leather. Raise the lame man. And He calls the blind to see. My God takes the broken and makes them whole. My God. Stood for justice.
Shamed the prideful. God, He called the sinner friend. My God takes the broken and makes them whole. My God.
Felt the anguish of the soldier. Made his child to live again. My God takes the broken and makes them whole. My God. My God.
Felt the anguish of the soldier. Made his child to live again. My God takes the broken and makes them whole. My God. All the good days.
In the morning. From the shackles of the grave. My God took the broken and made them whole. My God. Felt the anguish of the soldier.
Made them whole. My God. Knows my failures. Speaks forgiveness. Gives me strength to try again. My God takes the broken and makes them whole.
My God. Takes the broken and makes them whole. Makes them, makes them whole. He makes them whole. He makes them whole. He makes them whole. He makes them whole. He breaks down all of us. Sometimes people get the impression that in the Old Testament, God is full of wrath, that He's strict and austere, whereas in the New Testament, He's full of love, compassionate and merciful.
And I can get why people could form that impression. After all, the Old Testament is full of major moments of judgment like the flood and the plagues and the exile. And the New Testament does contain the epicenter of grace as Jesus lays down His life for our forgiveness. But what we tend to forget is that while the cross does mean mercy, grace and forgiveness for us, for Jesus, it meant a whole lot of wrath, judgment and condemnation.
As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5 21, God made Him, Jesus, who knew no sin to be sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. The reason the New Testament feels like it has less judgment is because Jesus took the judgment we deserved, amen? The reason it feels like there's less wrath in the New Testament is because Jesus bore the wrath of God for us. The reason it feels like there's no condemnation is because Jesus was condemned in our place. Oh, the New Testament has its fair share of judgment, wrath and condemnation.
It's just Jesus paid it all. And I think sometimes we forget just how much the Old Testament is full of the mercy, grace and compassion of God. Today's passage is a great example of this. Jonah chapter 3 is simply dripping with the love, forgiveness and kindness of our God. And the God of compassion who sent Jonah to a city full of undeserving people in order that they might be saved by His unrelenting grace is the same God of compassion who seven centuries later sent Jesus into a world filled with undeserving people in order that we too might be saved by His unrelenting grace. In both the Old and the New Testaments we find the same heartbeat, the same enduring character of a God who forever and always is unrelenting in His grace for undeserving people. And that's true of Jonah, it's true of Nineveh, it's true of us this morning, amen?
Amen, so let's grab our Bibles. We're gonna be in Jonah chapter 3 verse 1. Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time saying, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city and call out against it the message that I tell you. So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days journey in breath. Jonah began to go into the city going a day's journey and he called out, yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth and from the greatest of them to the very least of them. The word reached the king of Nineveh and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes. He issued a proclamation and published throughout Nineveh, by decree of the king and his nobles, let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock taste anything.
Let them not feed or drink water, but let men and beasts be covered with sackcloth and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands, who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we may not perish.
When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them and he did not do it. Thanks be to the Lord for the reading of his word. In these verses this morning, I hope we will see a fresh God's empowering grace, his sovereign rule, and his proactive mercy. That's our outline for this morning, OK?
God's empowering grace, his sovereign rule, and his proactive mercy. Let's bow our heads, let's pray together. If wherever you are, could you just do something for me?
Just take your hands, put them out like this. Let's ask the Lord to come this morning. Father, we are here, your children, and we need to hear from you. Our souls are made for you and we are hungry for your presence. Feed us this morning as we open your word. Come, Holy Spirit, teach us, change us, make us new. Help us see the glory of who you are, God, this morning. For Jesus' sake, we pray. Amen. Amen.
So first of all, empowering grace, empowering grace. You'll recall when we left Jonah last time, he had just gotten his life back. He had been vomited up by a great fish on the shore somewhere.
So there he is. He's blinded by light, right? He's been in the belly of a fish for several days. His eyes have not adjusted.
The light is blowing up his eyes here. He's got fresh air in his lungs for the first time in days. He's laying exhausted, filthy on the beach. And I don't know what three days in a GI tract of a fish will do to you, but I'm imagining his skin is pale and he's full of sores from acid damage from the stomach of the fish. I'm guessing he stinks to high heavens. I'm guessing he's absolutely covered in filth, right? He wasn't the only thing that was vomited up in that moment. So here he is. This is his moment.
He's laying on the beach writhing there, I imagine. And verse 1, the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you. Now, I want you to notice that the verses here in chapter 3, the first two verses, are parallel with the first two verses of chapter 1. If you flip back there, you'll notice chapter 1, verses 1 and 2, now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me. So the first call in chapter 1, Jonah, of course, disobeyed. He hightailed it out of there.
He ran as far as he possibly could in the opposite direction of his assignment. He went to Tarshish. And after the storm, the sea, and the fish have now brought him back, now God gives Jonah a second message, a second chance at life, and as it turns out, a second chance in ministry. Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time. So with this second call now, God is saying to Jonah, basically, Jonah, I'm not done with you. Jonah, I'm not giving up on you. Jonah, I'm not going to hold this failure over you. I'm giving you a second chance.
Do you see what's happening? God's giving him a do-over, isn't He? A second chance, a chance to get it right, a path of redemption.
This is beautiful. And friends, God gives second chances, doesn't He? Aren't you so glad? Please, somebody be glad of that.
Aren't you glad? God gives second chances. I'm reminded of Peter in the New Testament, who denied Jesus three times, you remember? But then the resurrected Jesus met him one morning on the shore, interesting, with fish, interesting, and three times asked Peter, do you love me?
One for each denial. And then Jesus recommissions Peter, feed my lambs, tend my sheep, feed my sheep, you follow me. So not only did Jesus give Peter his life back, Jesus gave him his trust back as well.
Isn't that beautiful? I'm entrusting you, Peter, with my lambs. I'm putting them into your care. All these people that I love, Peter, they're in your hands, and I trust you to get it right this time, now that my grace has set you free. And that's exactly what God's doing with Jonah here.
Don't you see that? All these people in Nineveh, the people that I love, Jonah, they're in your hands now. I'm trusting you to get it right this time, now that my grace has set you free. Friends, this is God's empowering grace. It's an empowering grace, because God gives second chances. And not just to Jonah, but also to Nineveh.
That's what this passage is all about. When Nineveh finally turns, when the people repent, these brutal, inhumane terrorists of the ancient world, when they turn to God in repentance, God gives even them a second chance, doesn't He? Verse 10, when God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that He said He would do to them. And He did not do it.
Why? Well, as Jonah puts it in chapter 4, verse 2, God is a God who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. In other words, God is a God of second chances, which means, bottom line, we are never too far gone for grace. We are never too far gone for grace. Look, friends, if there's hope for a prophet who flatly denies God and says, I'm going to just do whatever I want to do, right, if there's hope for a disciple who looks Jesus in the eyes, denies Him three times as He goes to the cross to pay for his sins, then there's hope for you and me.
There's hope for you and me. Whatever we've done, whoever we've become, we are never too far gone for God's grace. Amen?
Amen. Friends, it makes me just wonder, what must God be like that He would give second chances like this? What must God be like that He would give second chances like this?
This is empowering grace. Secondly, we see His sovereign rule, His sovereign rule. Unlike chapter 1, where Jonah disobeys, this time Jonah obeys, verse 3. So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord.
Look at that. He did it according to the word of the Lord. Shocking turnaround behavior, right? Now, Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days' journey in breath. And Jonah began to go into the city.
Going a day's journey, he calls out 40 days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. Just pause for a moment. This is not a very good gospel presentation, is it? This is not. I mean, this is a terrible presentation. You're all toast. You're doomed.
Finished. There's nothing here about turning to the Lord, nothing here about repentance or grace or mercy or hope. He just says, hey, I want you to know you're all goners, period. End of story. Jonah can't even begin to bring himself to offer even the smallest window of hope to his enemies.
He just can't do it. And yet, verse 5, the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast.
They put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them. Now, here's my question. Why did the Ninevites respond so quickly, so comprehensively, so wholeheartedly to Jonah's lousy message? It's not because his words were particularly compelling. What are they responding to? What made him credible to them that they would just snap to attention like this?
That's a good question, I think. This is where historical backgrounds actually are so helpful to us. Did you know that the Assyrians, Nineveh is the capital of Assyria, the Assyrian empire, right? The Assyrians worshipped a god called Dagon. Dagon, D-A-G-O-N, who was, they believed, a great fish god from the sea. We have numerous reliefs, stone carvings of the Assyrian depiction of Dagon as this fish-human hybrid being. He's like a fish with the face of a man. He's got legs like a man, but he's a fish, OK?
And this is Dagon. This is the god they worshipped and believed in. So here comes Jonah walking into the city with skin pale and sore from the GI tract and acid burns of a great fish.
And he's smelling of fish vomit, and he's filthy. And I'm sure they would have asked him, what on earth happened to you? And he would have told them, the Lord God, the maker of heaven and earth, he commanded the great fish of the sea to swallow me and bring me to shore and vomit me up so that I could come to you with this message. Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
Isn't this amazing, friends? God used the great fish of the sea, the thing that Ninevites connected with their god and worshipped to transport his own prophet with a message from Yahweh, the one true God. And the Ninevites, when they hear the message, they realize Dagon can't help us out of this one. Because Jonah's god is the Lord and ruler of all the gods, including Dagon. And if he commanded this great fish and the great fish of the sea obeys this god, then we better obey that God as well.
And here's the bottom line, friends. God is sovereign over all. He's sovereign over all. He's sovereign over the storm. He's sovereign over the sailors. He's sovereign over the lots that were cast. He's sovereign over the sea. He's sovereign over the great fish. He's sovereign over all the gods of the ancient world. And he is sovereign over all. And even Jonah's halfhearted message, friends, cannot thwart the sovereign will of God.
Isn't this amazing? God so desired to see the Ninevites turn from their evil ways to cry out for mercy so that he might show them the riches of his kindness and grace that nothing was going to stop him from seeing that happen. So he runs down his runaway prophet.
He hurls a hurricane to whip him into shape. He commandeers this great fish as a submarine transport for his prophet. And he brings Jonah to Nineveh with theological categories that they would be sure to understand so that even Jonah's lousy gospel message can't stop them from hearing the voice of the Lord God. This is amazing. Look at all that God did to make sure that Ninevites had a chance to come to repentance.
This is amazing. Look at all he did to reach them. And friends, the bottom line for us is God moves heaven and earth to reach us. God moves heaven and earth to reach us.
If you think God went overboard to reach the Ninevites here, just think of what he did to reach you and me. For God so loved the world that he sent his one and only son. He sent us more than a reluctant prophet. He sent us the willing son of God himself, who entered not just into the city, but entered into our very existence, took on human flesh, the incarnate one, Emmanuel, God with us, humble and lowly and vulnerable, who was more than just pale and sore from stomach acid, but was crucified upon a cross.
And it was swallowed up not by a great fish, but by death itself. And as Jesus says in Matthew 12, 40, just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. And then rising again, our Jesus proclaims the good news that in categories we will be sure to understand. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him might not perish, but have everlasting life.
For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Amen? Amen. Friends, what must God be like that he would move all of heaven and earth to reach us? It's amazing.
What must he be like? Empowering grace, sovereign rule, and now proactive mercy, proactive mercy. The repentance that began on the outskirts of the city now kind of trickles its way. It's gone viral.
It reaches the center. Verse 6, the word reached the king of Nineveh and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he issued a proclamation and published throughout Nineveh. By decree of the king and his nobles, let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. And let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows?
Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we may not perish. Sackcloth and ashes were ubiquitous signs of mourning, sorrow, penance in the ancient Near East. This fast from food and drink is a demonstration of their sincerity and resolve. And together as a city with one voice, they cry out in repentance for mercy.
And here's what's amazing. They have no reason for hope, do they? Jonah gave them no hope. They have no reason to hope. Their condemnation has been pronounced.
There's no fine print. They're simply hoping against hope that there's more mercy in the universe than they deserve. It's like the captain in the storm in chapter 1.
You remember him? He wakes up Jonah in the bottom of the boat. Arise, call to your God. Perhaps a God will give thought to us that we might not perish. It's just a gamble for hope against hope. Chapter 3, the king blindly offers.
Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger then we might not perish. They're parallel, you see that? And then verse 10. When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them and he did not do it. Here's what's amazing to me. We know from history that Nineveh's repentance is short-lived. Just a few years later, they're back to all their brutality, their terrorist activity, vicious aggression to their neighbors. In fact, 150 years later, God will announce the final destruction of Nineveh through his prophet Nahum.
And Nineveh falls in 612 BC. So God knows this is coming. He knows that this is a temporary injunction. He's pausing the judgment that's coming. But their repentance is fickle. He knows this. And yet he still extends mercy.
Isn't that fascinating? Another thing that amazes me is that Jonah's repentance is short-lived. We'll see this next week. But in chapter 4, Jonah ends up sideways with God again. His repentance in chapter 2 doesn't make it to chapter 4.
Like he gets dazed, and then he's sideways again. God knows how fickle Jonah's repentance is. And yet he still extends mercy.
Isn't that amazing? Even in the face of fickle repentance, friends, God is eager to forgive. God is eager to forgive. I love how Jesus depicts the heart of our Heavenly Father in the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15. As the prodigal son comes home, he's not fully repentant yet.
But this is what we read. While he was a long way off, the father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And he wouldn't even let him finish his I'm sorry speech. Quick, he says. Bring the robe. Put it on him. Bring the ring and put it on his hand and put shoes on his feet.
Bring the fatted calf and kill it. And let us eat and celebrate, for this son of mine was dead and is alive. He was lost and he's found. And friends, our God is so eager to forgive. He is so quickly moved toward compassion. He is so lavishly prone to mercy. He is so abounding in grace. As David writes in Psalm 103 verses 8 to 14, the Lord is merciful and gracious. He is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame, and he remembers that we are but dust. He is so merciful, so eager to forgive.
We see this in Jesus too, don't we? When Jesus looked out from the cross on those who were crucifying him, mocking him, conspiring against him, and what did he pray? Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Father, forgive them. How generous, how undeserved, how lavish. Friends, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Friends, what must God be like that he is so very eager to forgive?
What must he be like? I've always been moved by a story I read a few years ago. I've shared this before, but it was about a daughter from Nebraska who had had a falling out with her family. She ran away. And in order to pay the bills, she turned to prostitution. And one day, this was her wake-up moment. It turned her around, and she came home. She was in a bar.
And you know how they have pictures hanging up on the walls sometimes with celebrities, and they're signed and have messages on them? There was her picture from earlier in her life when she was a lot younger. And handwritten across it was a message in her father's handwriting. And she went and took her picture down, and she read these words. Whatever you've done, whoever you've become, all is forgiven.
Please come home. And that was the moment she realized, I can come back home. And friends, as I read that, I realized that's my Father's heart. That's our Heavenly Father's heart. That whatever we've done, whatever we've become, all is forgiven.
Please come home. And you say, I don't know if He'd take me the way that I am. Look, friends, Jonah, the Ninevites, Peter, David, the prodigal son, they're all telling us the same thing. That we are never too far gone for grace. That God will move heaven and earth to reach us, and that God is eager to forgive us. That whatever we've done, and whoever we've become, all is forgiven. Just please come home.
Please come home. And the promise of God is that if we will just come to ourselves and head back home, He will run to us. And He will meet us, and cut off our sorry speech, and give us a robe, and a ring, and filet mignon. Because that's our God.
That's our God. You say, how do I even do this? You do it just like the Ninevites. You do it like the prodigal son. You do it like Jonah and the fish. You do it like Peter on the beach. You do it like David in Psalm 51.
It's as simple as ABC. A, you admit that you're a sinner far from God. B, you believe. You believe that in Jesus Christ, everything has been done to make you right with God. And C, you commit. You commit your life to Him. And say, if you will have me, I'm yours.
That's how we come home. A, B, C, admit, believe, commit. And in a room this size, I'm not ignorant of the fact that there are people that come to Moody Church, but you're not home yet.
You haven't tipped. And I just want to invite you. I'm going to pray in a moment. And I'm just going to pray through these three things.
Admit, believe, and commit. And if you want to come home this morning, just pray where you are. Just pray with me. Make this prayer yours.
Would you bow your heads? Heavenly Father, we admit that we are sinners far from you. We have made a mess of our lives. And Father, we believe that Jesus has done everything to make us right with you when He died in our place and for our sake and rose again to give us life. And Father, we commit ourselves to you. We ask that you would be our Savior and our Lord, that what is true throughout all of scripture, Old Testament, and new, that you are quick to forgive, that you are reaching out in compassion to those who will turn to you in repentance and faith, that that would be true of us even this morning, that we can truly come home in the grace and mercy of our God. And so Father, we trust in the promises of Jesus that if we call on His name, we will be saved. We cry out to you for mercy and grace.
We have so much more confidence than the Ninevites had. They just had a hope in the dark, but you have given us hope in the light of Jesus Christ. We know that you will do all that it takes to bring us home to yourself. And so we cry out for your mercy and grace. For Jesus' sake, we pray this. Amen.
Amen. On today's Moody Church Hour, we heard Pastor Philip Miller with another message in a series he's calling Relentless, The Book of Jonah. We heard about the God of second chances. So Jonah preaches, Nineveh repents, and judgment is averted. Was Jonah happy?
No way. Next time, we'll see an angry prophet complain about the scandal of grace. The Moody Church Hour is a listener-supported ministry. We count on the ongoing financial support of listeners like you. Together, we share solid biblical teaching that transforms lives across America and around the world. You can call us at 1-800-215-5001.
That's 1-800-215-5001. Online, you'll find us at moodychurchhour.com. That's moodychurchhour.com. Or write to us at Moody Church Media, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 60614. This broadcast is a ministry of The Moody Church.
