Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show. I'm Brandon Vot, the senior content director at Word on Fire.

Today we're going to share with you a talk that Bishop Aaron gave at the end of last year 2020 at the United States Naval Academy.

Yes, that's right. Bishop Aaron was invited to Annapolis, Maryland to speak at the United States Naval Academy.

And he discussed three sailors from the Bible. So you see the thematic tie in there.

The patriarch Noah, the prophet Jonah, and our Lord Jesus Christ, all men who had relation to the water, to the seas.

Bishop Aaron says that the sea can be thought of as something frightening and terrifying, standing a thwart, the purposes of God, with its unforgiving power and discouraging darkness.

However, when we allow ourselves to be swallowed up by the Lord's will, we will find a peace that is sure and unshakable, even in the midst of the worst storms.

The talk is fairly lengthy. It's over an hour long. So we're just going to share the first half today. And then in a couple weeks, we'll share the second half of the talk.

But before I turn it over to Bishop Aaron, I'd like to remind you one more time to please help us to complete the Word on Fire Bible project. We've discussed this the last few episodes about how we're just putting the finishing touches on volume two of what looks to be a seven volume series that will carry us through the next, I don't know, six, seven, eight years.

So it's a massive, ambitious project, really the project of a lifetime. This is the Bible that we want to pass on to our children and our grandchildren, but to do that, we need your help.

So visit the website word on fire dot org slash Bible project. I'll include a link in the show notes and contribute a little money to helping make sure that this project crosses the finish line.

Well, thanks so much and I'll turn it over to Bishop Aaron for his talk to the United States Naval Academy. Enjoy.

Well, good evening, everybody. Thank you so much for that nice introduction. Thank you to all the administrators here at the Naval Academy.

This really is a high honor for me to be able to speak to all of you and in such a magnificent place. It's my first time visiting here and I got the tour this afternoon.

It's just overwhelmed by the historical quality of this place, the beauty of it. So thank you, everybody. Thanks for coming to tonight.

I know during this difficult time to come here tonight and to reflect on some of the deeper things in life.

I appreciate your presence very much and I'm very honored by the invitation to be with you.

As I was preparing for this talk, I thought, okay, the Naval Academy. How could I not talk about the sea and about sailors?

It occurred to me the Bible has a lot to say about both those things. So I want to talk to you tonight about three sailors,

two from the Old Testament, one from the New and draw some spiritual lessons from them.

I'll be looking at Noah and Jonah from the Old Testament and Jesus himself from the New.

But now to understand these stories at the spiritual level, the first thing we have to understand is how biblical people thought of the sea.

...