Welcome to Bible Believers Baptist Church. Turn in your hembos tonight if
you would to page 90. Page 90 in the great hymns of the faith. We've got some
Christmas songs tonight. Our first one is, It Came Upon the Midnight Clear.
Page 90.
It came upon the midnight clear, that glorious song of old,
from angels bending near the earth, to touch their hearts of gold.
Peace on the earth, good will to men, from heavens all gracious king.
The world in solemn stillness lay, to hear the angels sing. Still through the
cloven skies they come, with peaceful wings unfurled, and still their heavenly music
floats o'er all the weary world. Above its sad and lowly plains, they bend on
hovering wing, and never o'er its babble sound. The blessed angels sing on the third,
and ye beneath life's crushing load, whose forms are bending low. Who toil along the
climbing way, with painful steps and soar. Look now, for glad and golden hours come
swiftly on the wing. Oh rest beside the weary road, and hear the angels sing.
On the last. For all the days are hastening on, my prophet bards foretold. When with the ever circling years, come round the age of gold.
When peace o'er all the earth, its ancient splendors fling, and the whole world give back the song which now the angels sing.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for this wonderful Wednesday night. Lord,
where we can all meet together and hear the preaching of the word. Thank you, Pastor
Thompson, is with us here tonight, dear Lord. Just bless everything we do. Dear God,
we pray in Jesus' precious name. Amen. And now Cody's going to come and lead us in these next
couple. If you could please turn your hymnals to page 94. What child is this? Page 94. What child is this?
What child is this, too late to rest? On Mary's lap is sleeping. Whom angels greet with
anthems sweet, while shepherds watch are keeping. This, this is Christ the King,
whom shepherds guard and angels sing. Haste, haste to bring him laud, the babe, the son of Mary.
Why lies he in such mean estate, where ox and ass are feeding? Good Christian fear for sinners
here, the silent word is pleading. This, this is Christ the King, whom shepherds guard and
angels sing. Haste, haste to bring him laud, the babe, the son of Mary. So bring him incense,
gold and myrrh, come rich and poor to own him. The King of kings salvation brings,
let loving hearts enthrone him. This, this is Christ the King, whom shepherds guard and
angels sing. Haste, haste to bring him laud, the babe, the son of Mary.
Great singing everybody. Do we have someone to do announcements or do you need me to do the
announcements? Okay, okay. I need this one. December 10th, yeah. All right, in your bulletins,
welcome to Bible Believers Baptist Church. Verse of the week is 1st Timothy 1 17,
Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever
and ever. Amen. And if you open up on the left-hand side, it says,
Thank you for joining us at Bible Believers Baptist Church. It is our prayer that you will
be blessed by the music and the preaching of the Word of God. If you are a first-time guest,
please fill out a guest card and drop it into the offering plate when it goes by. If we can
be of service to you, please do not hesitate to ask. Bible Believers Baptist Church is an
independent fundamental Baptist Church. We are King James only, soul winning, salvation by
faith alone, and family integrated. The pastor set the time aside after the service to answer
any questions about spiritual matters. Feel free to come talk to him. And then on that,
we have the list of salvations. The number of salvations we have by Bible Believers Baptist
Church 2023 is 156. And it looks like the attendance was 10, 9, and 8 Sunday,
the a.m., p.m., and then Wednesday night service. We use WhatsApp to coordinate soul winning,
locations, and details. Ask pastor or a soul-winning leader for more information.
Our time of service is 10 30 a.m. and soul winning in between that. And then we
have 3 30 p.m. service. Wednesday is at 4 p.m. for soul winning and then 6 o'clock p.m. for
the service. Upcoming events, we have December 8 through the 9th, Indianapolis preaching and
soul winning event. December 24th, eggnog and cookie social. December 31st,
pray in the new year and game night. And January 1st, New Testament challenge begins,
which I'm excited for. And then there's an Indianapolis soul-winning marathon.
Okay, gotcha. It looks like there was 41 salvations and 32 soul winners though,
so that's great. Amen. And then looks like we are family integrated churches.
And then our upcoming preaching schedule on the back of the bulletin says Wednesdays,
December 13th. Pastor Thompson's here, the 20th. I'll be preaching December 27th,
Brother Paul. Sundays, December 10th, Brother Robert Larson. The 17th, Brother Rick and Brother Paul.
24th, Brother Robert Larson. And then the 31st, Brother Robert Larson and the men's preaching
night. And hopefully that'd be great to see some men in the church do that. So go ahead and
open up your hymnals to page 409, right? Okay, 409, hold the fort. 409, hold the fort.
Oh my comrades, see the signal waving in the sky. Reinforcements now appearing, victory is nigh.
Hold the fort, for I am coming, Jesus signals through. Wave the answer back to heaven,
by thy grace we will. On the second. See the mighty host advancing, Satan leading on.
Mighty men around us falling, courage almost gone. Hold the fort, for I am coming, Jesus signals
through. Wave the answer back to heaven, by thy grace we will. See the glorious banner
waving, hear the trumpet blow. In our leader's name we triumph over every foe. Hold the
fort, for I am coming, Jesus signals through. Wave the answer back to heaven, by thy grace we
will. On the last, fierce and long the battle-rageous hug is near. Onward comes our great commander,
cheer, my comrades cheer. Hold the fort, for I am coming, Jesus signals through. Wave the answer back to heaven, by thy grace we will.
All right, and if the ushers could come and do the offering.
Oh, let's pray. Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for allowing us to come into your house and hear your word preached and just bless this offering and bless those who offer and be with our Pastor Thompson as he gives us your word. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Amen.
Jonah chapter 1.
Now the word of the Lord came into Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before me.
But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord and went down to Joppa, and he found a ship going to Tarshish, so he paid the fare thereof and went down into it to go with him unto Tarshish for the presence from the presence of the Lord.
But the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken.
Then the mariners were afraid, and cried every man unto his God, and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, and lightened it of them.
But Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship, and he lay and was fast asleep. And the shipmaster came to him and said unto him, What meanest thou, O sleeper? Arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us that we perish not.
And they said to every one to his fellow, Come and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us. So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah.
Then said they unto him, Tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us, what is thine occupation, and whence comest thou, what is thy country, and of what people art thou?
And he said unto them, I am in Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land.
Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, Why hast thou done this? For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord because he had told them.
Then said they unto him, What shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto us? For the sea wrought and was tempestuous.
And he said unto them, Take me up and cast me forth into the sea, so shall the sea be calm unto you, for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you.
Nevertheless the men rode hard to bring it to the land, but they could not, for the sea wrought and was tempestuous against them.
Wherefore they cried unto the Lord and said, We beseech thee, O Lord, we beseech thee, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not upon us innocent blood, for thou, O Lord, hast done as it pleased thee.
So they took up Jonah and cast him forth into the sea, and the sea ceased from her raging.
Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice unto the Lord and made vows.
Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Sorry that I missed you last month. I had the plague for about a month now, and I'm starting to feel a lot better.
I don't feel like I'm contagious, so don't worry. I wouldn't get too close, though, just in case. You just never know.
I wouldn't get too close to me anyway.
But I'm going to start a new book, and yeah, it might take some time to get the book finished because of the winter months here.
I had a fly-in today, which wasn't too bad, but I think that they're changing the schedule, and it looks like the prices are going up.
So I'm not sure what date I'm going to come back.
But I did want to start preaching out of Jonah for you guys, and I'll try to get back here.
I'm going to try to get back here at least once a month until the change happens again.
And by the way, I just wanted to mention maybe we cut Wednesdays out for the soul winning until it gets past wintertime.
Maybe it's just because it gets dark and a little more dangerous, and then it gets a little more slick outside.
And right now it's probably a blessing that there's not snow on the ground maybe.
I don't know. I mean, I don't live here, so I don't know what it's normally like this time of year, but I assume it's kind of warm today for a December day.
So anyway, but I brought you guys a few little Christmas gifts. I gave some out to you.
I brought some puzzles for some of the older kids, some puzzle books and some coloring books, and I'll leave those with you, brother Rick.
Make sure they get distributed to the children.
And I got some extra calendars and some extra pens to give out to people that did not get any.
Make sure your daughter gets that pen. Don't take it for yourself. I know you like to double up.
All right. I know how you are. So anyway.
So. All right. Well, I'm going to preach.
I'm going to just kind of go through a little overview of Jonah and then I'm going to preach through the chapter here and I'll try not to take too long with it.
So let's just get right into it. I'm going to pray real quick.
Lord, we thank you so much for this gathering together of your saints, Lord, and that they're here to study the Bible and that they love you, Lord.
I pray that you just bless us all with your Holy Spirit tonight. Help us to understand the scriptures.
Help me to preach the scriptures in truth and in spirit, Lord, as you've laid it on my heart, Lord.
And I pray that you just bless this time together that we could spend and that you take us all home safely when we leave here tonight and that we'd have a little bit of sweet fellowship.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
All right. And if you're listening from Vancouver, Washington, you might want to just shut this off because this is the Bible study.
This is the Bible study that I'm going to be doing tomorrow night at our church.
So basically, like I got my hands on all these different Bible studies right now and I just figured it might be a little easier to double dip here.
So I'm probably going to preach this tomorrow night.
So if you guys are going to tune into my sermon tomorrow night, I mean, I'll probably preach it different both nights or whatever.
So, I mean, maybe you want to get something that you didn't get the night before, then that's fine.
But don't be listening to it tonight if you're in Vancouver and say, well, I'm not going to go to church because I listened to it at Bible Believers last night or whatever.
You still should be in church. Amen.
Anyway, so just an overview real quick.
Jonah the prophet is definitely the subject of this book.
It's titled Jonah and it is written about the time of the Assyrian empire before the removal of the 10 tribes of Israel.
Because if you know the Bible at all, the 10 tribes are taken away by the Assyrian empire because they just refused to get right with God.
And so this is about the time of Jeroboam 2.
Now that's not to be, you know, he's the second Jeroboam.
The first Jeroboam was the one that rebelled against Reboam which was Solomon's son early on in the kings.
Now this is Jeroboam 2. This is around the time of second kings.
As a matter of fact, hold your finger in Jonah chapter 1 and just keep a bookmark there because we're going to come back to it.
But turn to 2 Kings chapter 14 verse 23 and then I'll just kind of keep going over this.
So Jeroboam 2 is around 785 B.C., so 785 years before Christ came and was born.
So it's a long time before, but again, not to be confused with Jeroboam the son of Nebat.
But just a little timeline for you just so you understand it a little bit.
721 B.C. is when the Assyrians captured Israel.
So about 64 years after this time that Jonah's, 64 years before the time, yeah, this time is before the capture of Israel.
So and then in 612 B.C., so remember, as you get the smaller numbers, it's closer to the zero number and okay, just so you understand that.
So 612 B.C., Nineveh is destroyed by Babylon.
So that's 127 years after this.
So about halfway to when Nineveh is actually destroyed is when the children of Israel are taken out of the land, the 10 tribes.
So all the ones that Jeroboam, the first Jeroboam kind of took with him because Solomon's son wanted to make his little finger fatter than, you know, whatever.
So basically, you know, the 10 tribes of Israel had a real hard go at it.
They had a lot of very wicked kings, and they refused to turn back to the Lord holy.
And I mean, they had times of revival here and there, but for the most part, their kings were wicked, and so were their people.
But God, He's merciful, and He gives us lots of chances, and He gave them a lot of chances until He finally just couldn't handle it anymore.
And then even after that, Judah was taken away, of course, and then the temple was destroyed and all that.
So just kind of give you a little timetable as to when all this is taking place.
So Jonah is, of course, a very famous story in the Bible for such a small book.
Most people know who Jonah was. Most people know, and if you watch the Jonah Veggie Tales movie, then you know that the people of Nineveh were slapping each other with fishes and all this other stuff, right?
So I'm just kidding. But I mean, I have seen the movie before. It was a long time ago.
But anyway, everybody knows about Jonah and the whale, and it's a famous Sunday school story that people like to teach in Sunday school.
A lot of kids know about it because it's kind of like, I don't know how it's a kid's story because it's really not a good story.
It doesn't represent anything good, but kids, they like animals or whatever.
So animals that swallow profits that aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing, apparently.
But it is a very interesting book. There's a lot of interesting topics within the book.
For such a small book also, there are many parallels to Jesus Christ and Jonah.
And it's funny, you think of all the parallels between the Old Testament characters and Jesus, like Samson pictures Jesus.
And you're like, well, how does he picture Jesus? But if you study through the Bible, there's a lot of ways that he pictures Jesus.
Joseph pictures Jesus a lot in the Bible.
And it doesn't have to be a perfect picture, but you'll see a lot of similarities between the characters.
And Jonah's mentioned by Jesus specifically in the book of Matthew twice and in the book of Luke.
And one of the themes of the book is basically sowing to the heathen.
And this is kind of one of the main books where you see God telling one of his prophets to go and preach to a city and to preach.
And then you see that city turn itself around.
I mean, everybody that's read the Bible knows the story of Jonah, that in the end, he does go and preach.
It does work out for the good. And Jonah is not very happy about it.
But so there's a lot of interesting themes in it.
And I'm not to say that Jonah was like a really bad guy or something, but he just didn't like the Assyrians a lot.
He like really hated them, which isn't good, you know.
But when we look at 2 Kings, I'll just kind of fill you in on maybe why he didn't like them very much, which isn't an excuse.
I mean, God tells you to do something, and you're a prophet, then you just go do it.
But so, I mean, you see a little bit of racism on Jonah's part, definitely, and hatred for the Gentiles,
which is prevalent in the, you know, really kind of has its zenith with the Pharisees,
hating the Gentiles to the point where they're about to throw Jesus off a cliff in Luke 4
because he talks about two Gentile people that got saved, and they didn't like that very much.
And then you have the physical and spiritual salvation topics that are brought into it.
So it's even in this first chapter where physical salvation is being asked for,
but also you see spiritual salvation. You also see it with the Ninevites where Jonah goes in and preaches to them,
and then they believe the word of God, and they get saved, and then they do the physical things,
the commandment keeping and the things that God wants us to do so that he doesn't destroy us and destroy our lives.
So physical salvation and spiritual salvation are big topics in this book and brought up multiple times.
And then Jesus ascending into hell as a punishment for mankind's sin is shown through Jonah being in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights.
And, you know, people disagree with me on this topic, and they disagree that they don't think that Jesus actually went to the place
in hell where it says that he actually burned in hell.
But, you know, why would Jesus bring this up if he, you know, because, and we'll look at the very end of the chapter.
I don't want to jump the gun because there's an actual, in chapter two, there's a lot of parallels between Christ and Jonah.
And it's like he's kind of jumping in and out of the story, like one verse is about Jonah, then the next verse is about Christ.
And you know how it says that he was in the belly of the whale, right? He was in the belly of the fish.
And when he calls out in chapter two, he says in the belly of hell cried out. He cried out.
So, and then in the Psalms, you see where, you know, he cries out to God and God hears his prayer.
And then, you know, Jonah cries out to God and God hears his prayer.
And then the fish spits him up on the ground or whatever.
So, but, you know, Jonah was not in a literal hell for three days and three nights, but it's a metaphor.
And it's like, I'm sure being in stomach acid probably isn't that fun for three days and three nights.
And inside of a whale with whatever else it eats, whatever it smells like.
And people will say, well, this story is impossible.
Well, nothing's impossible with God. So, you know, the atheist can just kick rocks as far as I'm concerned.
But is it impossible for a whale to swallow a human being and then to get spit up?
Well, obviously it is because it happened because I believe what the Bible says.
And I don't need a news story or an article to tell me, you know, that this actually happened, which I think that there is.
But it doesn't matter to me whether there was or not.
If there's never any evidence that this has ever happened in history, I still would believe the Bible over man.
So anyway, so that's definitely a big theme in here is and because when Jesus mentions Jonah,
Jesus is specifically bringing up the fact that like Jonah was in the whale's belly for three days and three nights,
so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
And look, he wasn't in hotel paradise.
He wasn't, you know, people will say they believe in Abraham's bosom.
Well, Abraham's bosom is a body part, number one.
Abraham had, you know, a bosom is your chest.
All right. So when Abraham's given, you know, the Lazarus, the big old hug, you know,
it doesn't mean that there's like this place in the middle of the earth called Abraham's bosom.
And that's where all the good people that die go to.
And they're right next door to everybody roasting in hell and screaming in agony and pain.
I mean, that just doesn't make sense.
And the Bible doesn't teach that at all.
So anyway, so I had to turn to 2 Kings chapter 14.
Look at verse number 23.
I'll give you a little bit of background here about Jonah.
It doesn't really say, this is the only other time in the Bible it actually mentions Jonah besides the New Testament.
So 2 Kings chapter 14 verse 23, it says,
In the fifteenth year of Amaziah, the son of Joash king of Judah,
Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel, began to reign in Samaria and reign forty in one years.
And he did that which is evil on the side of the Lord.
Now just so you know, whenever it says that, it usually means that king is not saved.
And then it says he departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat who he made Israel to sin.
So talking about the previous Jeroboam from way back.
And it says he restored the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath onto the sea of the plain,
according to the word of the Lord God of Israel, which he spake by the hand of his servant Jonah.
So Jonah, this is the only other part where you're going to get where Jonah prophesied something else.
And what was it?
That he prophesied that he was going to, well in the next verse it will tell us here,
but it says the son of Amatiah the prophet which was of Gath-Hefir.
And it says, For the Lord saw the affliction of Israel, that it was very bitter,
for there was not any shut up nor any left or any helper for Israel.
So at the time they're really, you know, they're going through a hard time
because the Assyrians really have them kind of locked in.
They're being oppressed. God's just kind of punishing them for all the sins that they're doing.
But they're being afflicted so hard because God, look, God stirs up enemies against us
when we're doing wrong sometimes.
You know, obviously enemies can come against us for any reason,
but sometimes God stirs up, like he stirred up Nebuchadnezzar to come against the children of Israel
because of how wicked they had gotten.
But, you know, Jonah's living in this time when Israel's really having a hard time.
It says they're shut up. Nobody's able to help them.
It says, And the Lord said, And the Lord said not, in verse 27,
that he would not blot out the name of Israel from under heaven,
but he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam, the son of Joash.
Which I think is really interesting because it says that Jeroboam did evil on the side of the Lord,
but yet here you have Jeroboam doing something good.
But if you read the Bible, you'll notice that sometimes God uses these evil kings to do his will also.
Sometimes he kind of, you know, because God is the one that sets up kings.
God is the one that sets up and takes them down.
And sometimes he has them move in the way that he wants them to move,
and he obviously made or, you know, guided Jeroboam's hand into helping them
have a little bit of reprieve from the affliction that they're going through.
But, you know, the Assyrians are not great guys.
These people are wicked, and there's a reason why Jonah's being sent to the city
because God's sick of them, and he's about ready to get rid of them.
And he's about ready to destroy them completely.
And Nineveh is the capital city of the Assyrian Empire,
and the Assyrian Empire is called an empire for a reason.
Now you had the Egyptian Empire, which was like the first really main world empire,
and then of course was the Assyrian Empire.
And the Assyrian Empire, and then after the Assyrian Empire came the Babylonian Empire,
and then the Medes and the Persians, and then the Greeks, and then of course the Roman Empire.
So they're really dominating world power, and they're oppressing these people,
and eventually they replace them.
They just take out all the people from Israel, and then they put in their own people,
and mingle them in with the land.
It's kind of like a replacement theology, but it's a replacement for real.
They just take them, and they replace them.
And you can read about that, how God just completely takes them out.
And so like in Samaria, in the New Testament, those people are kind of,
they have some of the teachings of God, but at the same time, they're really off on a lot of things.
So that's why the woman at the well, she's confused about some of the things that she's saying,
and Jesus corrects her multiple times about what she believes.
But she does believe a little bit of the truth.
She does believe that the Messiah is going to come, but it's kind of like the Muslims.
They believe in Jesus, but they don't believe in him right.
And they don't think that he obviously is the son of God,
so they're not going to go to heaven if they don't believe in Jesus the right way.
So anyway, so number one tonight, we're going to see that Jonah flees from the presence of the Lord.
Well, at least he tries to.
Now, let's look at verse number one in our text here.
It says, Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittiah,
saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city,
and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before me.
So, of course, Nineveh, like I said, is that capital city of the Assyrians,
and he says to go cry against it.
Now, he's not saying go shed some tears, Jonah,
because when we say someone's crying in our modern vernacular,
we're talking about someone, you know, they're weeping or whatever.
But the Bible, when the Bible's talking about crying out,
it's talking about yelling, like getting excited about stuff, right?
And so he wants him to go and basically scream, scream his head off,
and say, for the wickedness, their wickedness has come up before me.
So God's had enough, and when God has had enough,
he, you know, that's it, it's over.
It's kind of like the Canaanites, you know, they had their time,
and then like he told Abraham that their time was not yet full,
and then, of course, you see the children of Israel go in and destroy the Canaanites
because their time was up, but God's going to give them another chance.
So he's actually going to go, he's having Jonah to go preach
and tell them that God's going to overthrow them and destroy them.
This is what he preaches, so you'll see that later on.
But verse number three, the Bible says,
But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord,
and went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish.
So he paid the fare thereof and went down into it to go with them onto Tarshish,
I have a hard time saying that word, Tarshish, okay,
from the presence of the Lord.
So now just one more thing about him crying against it.
See, people say like, you know, when we get up and scream and yell as preachers
that, you know, you shouldn't be like that.
That's not how you should talk. That's not how you should preach.
It's like, why did God tell Jonah to go and cry against that city?
He didn't say, go preach them a soft, loving message so that they'll turn.
No, he said, cry against it.
And that's what works.
And so, I mean, if you've read the prophet Jonah, you know that it worked.
And so God's way of preaching and God's way of telling people things works.
Now, obviously, when we go door to door, you know, our message is not, you know,
you're wicked and God's going to destroy you.
I mean, that's not the message that he told us to preach, is it?
Now, when we go to preach the gospel, we shouldn't be threatening.
We shouldn't be like that.
But they needed to, this is what they needed to hear.
They needed to hear that they're doomed unless they get right.
So they're trying to get away, Jonah's trying to get away.
Now, why would he be doing that?
Well, he's probably seen the Assyrians do a lot of bad things to his people.
He doesn't like them.
And maybe he is kind of racist, I don't know.
But, you know, do you think it's possible for a racist to be saved, though?
Of course it is.
And, you know, today, in today's world, being a racist is the worst thing you could be.
And being, you know, hateful.
Hate and racism are like the two number one things that people, you know,
on the news, you're going to hear, if you watch the news, they'll just keep saying it over and over again.
And they want us to be racist.
They want there to be a divide.
But, you know, in reality, it's more like a cultural thing, you know.
You know, people might have different tones and pigments of skin,
but really, culture sometimes is what really people have a hard time dealing with other people with.
Because, I mean, the culture of the Assyrians was a lot different than the culture of the Israelites.
They believed in different gods, and obviously their gods were false.
So their gods had them conquering people and destroying people.
And, you know, maybe, I don't really know what Jonah went through,
but I do know that whatever he's seen in his life makes him not like them.
And so when God says go preach to them, Jonah knows that God's merciful.
Jonah knows that God, you know, loves people
and that they'll listen to his word and they'll get saved and they'll get right.
And he doesn't want this to happen.
So, you know, Jonah is a prophet of God.
He's saved and he's rebelling against God and he's trying to escape his presence.
But the funny thing is that you can't run from the presence of God.
I don't know what he was thinking, you know.
I remember one time when I was a kid, I was collecting pop cans
and I had picked up this bottle and it had a spider web,
but I used to stand in the back of my mom's truck and we lived on a gravel road.
We lived out in the meadows in Echo, Oregon a long time ago.
And we went into town and I had gotten a new hat and a new shirt from my grandma,
a new pair of shorts.
They sent, you know, when you're a kid and you get like a package from grandma,
it's like, oh, yeah, that's cool, you know, I got a brand new hat.
And on the way back, we're riding, you know, we're looking for pop cans
because we'd go trade them in and back then, you know, for a kid,
they'd have like five dollars, it was like a big deal.
And on the way back, I felt something crawling up my bare leg
and I looked down and it was a black widow that was about this big around.
I'm like 10 years old or something.
And to me, it might as well have been like this big around.
And then I said something I probably shouldn't have said
and I took my brand new hat off I just got from grandma
and went whoosh and I jumped out of the back of the truck while I was driving.
I'm sure it wasn't going that fast, but to me it seemed like it was.
But when I was, my adrenaline was so jacked up that I,
I mean, I went over the tailgate with one single bound
and then I hit the gravel road running.
I was fleeing from the presence of the spider, I guess.
I turned around and looked and I was like, oh, well, anyway.
I don't know how I didn't fall down, but it was just like,
but I was trying to flee from the presence of the spider, which was working.
But I don't know why I told that story, but it just kind of seemed to come up in my mind.
But yeah, you can't flee from God.
You might be able to flee from a spider, but you can't flee from God.
So, and you know, the Bible says in Proverbs 15 three, I won't have you turn there,
but it says the eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.
So you can't escape the sight of God.
Everything is naked to, you know, to Him.
He, you can't hide, you know.
You cannot hide from His presence.
And so when a prophet is trying to get on the first greyhound to, you know, a different place,
and from what, I would kind of try to study and find out where Tarsus actually is.
And I always just kind of thought, like never like really doing the study about it,
but I always thought it was like Tarsus.
Like I thought maybe it was like the Old Testament word for Tarsus where Paul was from,
but I don't think it is.
But I don't know. Who knows?
It doesn't really matter.
People disagree about it, but some people do think it was in Spain,
which would have been about 2,500 miles away from where God told them to go.
So, I mean, I guess that kind of makes sense, right?
And then, you know, you have Tarshish is actually mentioned in I think the table of nations.
And then the ships of Tarshish are used by Solomon to bring gold once a year,
and the apes and the peacocks and all that stuff.
So, there is something about that land, and I think that he was, that was a Gentile nation,
so it could be that it was Spain.
It makes sense they were pretty good at making boats that could sail all over the place.
So, you know, obviously Columbus sailed the seven seas and discovered America,
quote, unquote, and all that stuff.
Anyway, so let's move on here.
So, yeah, you can't hide from God. You can't flee from His presence.
His eyes are in every place beholding the evil and the good.
Go ahead and turn to Hebrews chapter 12 verse 6.
I'm just going to read a couple scriptures while you turn there.
James chapter 4 verse 17 says,
Therefore to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin.
So, obviously Jonah knew he was supposed to be doing something that God told him to.
Obviously, it's sinful.
He knows that he's completely disobeying God and trying to go the opposite direction.
And Numbers chapter 32 verse 23 says,
But if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against the Lord,
and be sure your sin will find you out.
So, when we're supposed to be doing something for God,
and this is where we can, it can come to roost for us,
when we're supposed to be doing something for God, we should be doing it.
You know, when he's told us to do something, this is what we're supposed to be doing.
And so, when we try to go from the presence of him,
you know, whether that's skipping church for dumb reasons,
or, and I'm not saying that if you skip church it's always for a dumb reason,
I'm just saying that sometimes, you know, people just miss church for things that aren't really legitimate.
And so you're trying to flee from the presence of the Lord,
but he sees exactly what you're doing.
You know, he knows exactly where you are.
And, you know, and that, I mean, I can bring up church attendance because that's an easy one,
but just whatever you're supposed to be doing that you know that you're supposed to be doing for the Lord,
and you're not doing it, you're doing the opposite of that,
you know, just know that he, he knows what you're doing, and the Bible says your sin will find you out.
And to me, that is like one of the scariest verses in the whole Bible.
I really, that verse bothers me because, you know, if you're doing something that you know
that if everybody found out about it, you'd be really embarrassed about,
that should be a very scary verse, right?
And so those kind of, those are the kind of verses that you should pin on your wall,
and like when you're about to do something that you know you're not supposed to do,
you look at that verse, you're like, maybe I shouldn't do that.
Be sure your sin will find you out
because you definitely don't want it to find you out in front of a room full of people.
You definitely don't want to find it, you know, your sin to find you out
and embarrass you in front of the whole church, or embarrass you in front of your spouse,
or embarrass you in front of your friends, or embarrass you in front of anybody.
But more importantly, it embarrasses you in front of God, and that's what's really important.
You don't want to embarrass yourself in front of God because he's God, you know.
Hebrews chapter 12 is where I had you turn,
and not only is it wrong to sin against the Lord and not do the will of the Lord
and the things that he has for us to do,
but he also punishes us for it, and that's the really tough part,
is that not only does he know that you're trying to get away from his presence,
but then he beats you for it, you know, which is not fun.
So it says in Hebrews 12, 6, it says,
For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
And this should kind of give you a little bit of ease of mind,
just in the fact that every person sins that's saved, okay.
Doesn't it say he scourges every son whom he receiveth?
You know, these people that say that they're sinlessly perfect,
and they never wanted to smoke again, they never wanted to chew again,
they never wanted to run with girls to do again,
you know, they never want to do any of these bad things anymore,
and I was just wholly imperfect from that day forward that I got saved.
You're a liar. You're a liar, okay.
Nobody is sinlessly perfect or doesn't desire to sin after they get saved.
Because we still have the flesh, we still contend with the flesh,
and if we let the flesh win, the flesh will win.
If we stop being spiritual, the flesh will take over,
and then the flesh will say, let's flee from the presence of the Lord.
That sounds like a good idea.
And then you're getting punished.
Then you're getting beaten.
And obviously God loves us, and he's merciful to us,
and when we seek mercy with him, he will give us mercy.
He doesn't always give us what we deserve, and I'm glad for that,
because in reality, for a lot of the things that we do,
we deserve, you know, some harsh punishment.
So, look at it says in verse 7, it says,
If you endure chastening, that means if you can, you know,
you can handle the spanking, God dealeth with you as with sons.
For what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
So, God chastens all of his children.
We all get the switch from time to time.
We all get that paddle.
Sometimes it's the one with holes in it.
Sometimes it's the one with spikes on it.
I don't know, but we all get the paddle from time to time.
And it's not fun, especially when you know what you're getting paddled for.
And you might not tell anybody else what you're getting the paddle for, but you know.
You know in your mind, you know, you know what you're doing
and you know why God is punishing you.
And, you know, then that's when you know that's the time to be humble.
That's the time to fall on him for mercy.
That's the time to be sorry.
And the Bible says in 1 John 1 9, it says,
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
So he knows we're going to mess up. He knows we're but dust.
He knows that we are problem children, you know.
So it doesn't mean he's not ever going to spank us.
If we just like sinned and then confessed it right away,
he still doesn't mean he's not going to punish us.
But when you're pleading for mercy, then it just might not be as bad, right.
It might not be.
It's not like, you know, you got a killing problem.
You can't help it. You just want to kill people all the time.
And it's like, sorry, Lord.
That guy was really making me mad, though.
I repent.
I'm sure that you're still probably going to get punished for that.
Right. It's a pretty big deal.
You know, and obviously there's a lot of other sins that are really grievous to God
that he's going to punish you for hard.
But yeah, if you got a killing problem, like you just turn yourself in.
OK, just quit doing that.
He's going to make sure you get caught.
So verse eight says, But if you be without chastisement,
whereof all are partakers, then are you bastards and not sons?
So, you know, for the person that never gets punished,
you know, that person is just not saved
because they're not getting chastised because the Bible says so
because we're all partakers of the chastisement.
So we're all getting punished by God for whatever sins we're committing.
And maybe it's just the garden variety of, you know,
you're told what we consider a white lie or you skip church
or you did this or you did that.
But, you know, whatever it is, you skip Bible reading that day.
You forgot to pray.
You know, I don't know.
I'm just throwing out just sins that they're not like not a big deal.
Every sin that we commit would be a big deal.
But if you never get punished for anything,
then you might want to check and make sure you're saved.
So, look, I'm not teaching a workspace salvation,
but I'm saying if you never get punished,
it's like I have my own kids and they're out of my house now,
but I didn't go around to other people.
You know, if I went out someplace and I saw other people's kids
acting a fool, I wouldn't grab their kids and start spanking them
because then there'd be a fight going on or, you know, something.
You know, when you start saying stuff to other people's kids
and you start punishing other people's kids,
people get ticked off really quick.
How dare you talk to my son like that?
You know, it's just like, you know, obviously there's a time
and a place to correct other people's kids
if they're doing something dangerous or wrong or, you know,
something that could hurt somebody, obviously.
But if someone, you know, you try to leave it up to the parent
and that's how God is.
He's our father and so he's going to punish us
with the children of iniquity and the unsaved.
You know, they have their day coming
and that day is going to be the day that they go to hell.
So look at verse four back in our text that says,
But the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea
and there was a mighty tempest in the sea
so that the ship was like to be broke.
So immediately you see that Jonah has consequences for his actions.
He tried to go from the presence of the Lord.
The Lord's like, you can't really escape me.
So how about maybe I'll just make a hurricane or a tempest,
you know, this great storm on the boat.
And it says it was like to be broken.
So it's a really bad storm.
This isn't like some just normal storm.
It's a storm of storms.
So it says, Then the mariners, which are like sailors,
were afraid and cried every man unto his God
and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea
to lighten it of them.
But Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship
and he lay and was fast asleep.
And so, you know, he knew where he was going.
It was funny.
I mean, I was flying.
I took two flights today, one to Seattle and one to here.
And I was listening to this lady talk and she said,
you know, I just get really anxious.
And, you know, she has like her husband's dog tags
and her brother's dog tags that died
and she holds onto him, I don't know, for luck or something.
And then she holds her husband's hand
and she just really gets anxious.
You know, I feel bad for her.
But, like, I just was thinking, I never care whether I'm,
you know, I mean, I don't sleep on planes generally.
But if I, you know, I don't worry whether I'm touching down
or whether I'm going to crash or not
because it's like I know where I'm going.
So I can kind of relate to Jonah here
and the fact that, you know,
but I have hit some turbulence that freaked me out before.
But, you know, God's always gotten me through it.
So I came in like this one time and then like and like hit hard
and it was a really bad storm.
But, you know, it was a little sketchy.
But, you know, if you know that you're going to be,
if you know that you're going to heaven,
you're going to sleep a lot easier basically.
So he's going through this storm and he's fast asleep.
Everybody's like afraid they're going to die.
They're like calling, you know, they're holding their dog tags
and they're holding each other's hand
and they're praying to whatever gods they believe in.
And Jonah's just like drooling down in the bottom of the ship, right?
But turn to Mark Chapter 4
and here's the first parallel that you'll kind of see of Jesus and Jonah.
And it's a little, it doesn't like perfectly correlate,
but it's interesting how it's a lot alike.
Mark Chapter 4 verse 37 it says,
And there arose a great storm of wind
and the waves beat into the ship so that it was now full.
So same situation basically, you know, same, you know, storm.
The ship's full and he was in the hinder part of the ship asleep on the pillow.
Who was asleep on the pillow? It was Jesus.
So he's kind of, you know, so it's like Jonah, you know.
He's sleeping and everybody else is freaking out.
But the difference is that the crew on Jonah's ship
are all unsaved and believe in other gods.
And the guys that are on Jesus' ship are all saved.
But they're freaking out, too.
So this is, you know, that's why Jesus kind of abrades them in this passage.
But so it says,
And they awake him and say,
Master, carest thou not that we perish?
You know, we sing that song, you know, Master, the tempest is raging.
He's like, carest thou not that we perish?
You know, do you not care that we're about to die?
Jesus, wake up.
And it says,
And he arose and rebuked the wind and said unto the sea,
Peace, be still. And the wind ceased and there was a great calm.
So just like that, all he just said is,
Peace, be still. And it all just like goes away.
So who's been in like a really bad storm in the sea before?
Or in a lake? Or in a river?
Anybody?
I've been like in a couple in the Columbia River
and like obviously, you know, the wind can get blown pretty bad there
and you get the white caps and it can get pretty bad.
And I was in a storm one time at Magoon Lake,
which is down in southern Oregon somewhere,
and it just kind of came out of nowhere and it was pretty freaky.
But nothing probably like what these guys are going for.
If you think you're going to die, I mean, it's pretty bad, right?
So but what did Jesus say to them?
He said, he said, and he said unto them,
Why are you so fearful?
How is it that you have no faith?
So like he's reproving these people that are saved people,
you know, like where's your faith at?
Like he's already sent them to, you know, preach the gospel
and they've seen the miracles that he's done.
It's like, why are you freaking out?
You know, he's asleep in the ship like Jonah.
And it says, and they feared exceedingly.
So and the same thing takes place in the story of Jonah.
They are fearful exceedingly also.
And it says, and said one to another, and Mark,
it says, and said one to another,
What manner of man is this that even the wind and the sea obey him?
So that's where the story is different,
because Jonah couldn't just say peace be still and everything stops.
Now turn to Matthew chapter 12 verse 41,
Matthew chapter 12 verse 41, and here's the real difference.
You know, Jonah does picture Jesus in some ways in this book,
but there's something about Jesus that's different.
You know, Jesus always exceeds the expectations.
Jesus is greater than any of the prophets in the Old Testament,
including Moses, and Moses was a great prophet.
Moses was a great man of God.
And when Moses wrote of Jesus, he said,
Someone like unto me is going to come,
because Moses did some mighty miracles.
I mean, he parted the Red Sea.
You know, he, you know, water comes out of the rock.
I mean, you know, the miracle where he's holding up, you know,
and her and Aaron are having to lift his arms up
and just all kinds of crazy stuff is going.
I mean, the 10 plagues of Egypt.
I forgot about those, the top 10 right there.
But yeah, he goes, he fast for 40 days and 40 nights.
Nobody's, you know, without water or food.
I mean, that's impossible.
Unless God allows you to do that, it's a miracle.
So the difference is, is what?
Matthew chapter 12, 41 says,
The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation
and shall condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonas.
And behold, a greater than Jonas is here.
And Jonas did great works.
Jonas is Jonah.
And so the people of Nineveh, you know,
it's kind of a spoiler alert here.
The people of Nineveh shall rise in judgment.
What does that mean?
Does that mean that they were saved
and that one day they're going to rise from the dead
and they're going to judge that generation?
Is that what it means?
But right, but I'm saying,
when it says the men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment,
what does that mean?
That means that they're going to rise from the dead, aren't they?
So that means that they get saved.
It's not just the physical salvation
because there are people that teach
that it's just a physical salvation that happens in the Book of Jonah
when he goes and preaches and that they repented of all their sins,
because right here it says they repented at the preaching of Jonas.
So what does that mean that they repented of all their sins?
Well, they did repent of their sins,
but before that, they believe what Jonah has to say.
And when you believe the word of God, you know,
what does it take to be saved?
It takes belief.
It takes faith.
And so they would have never even done it if they didn't believe.
So so the and it says a greater than Jonas is here.
This is my point here is that Jesus is greater than Jonas
and we marvel at the things that Jonas did.
You know, he gets one hundred and twenty thousand people saved
or, you know, at least, you know, if they didn't if they didn't
spiritually get saved, they physically got saved also.
So then all the cattle and everything also.
But do you think Jesus?
I mean, Jesus died for the sins of the whole world.
So anybody that saved from the Old Testament to the very last person
that gets saved, Jesus is actually responsible for saving
every single one of them, really.
Right.
That's greater than Jonas.
You know, stopping the winds and the waves by just speaking it to be done.
That's greater than Jonas.
So let's look back at Jonah Chapter one, verse six.
Jonah Chapter one, verse six, it says,
So the ship master came to him and said unto him,
What meanest thou, O sleeper?
You know, they kind of have the same attitude that they had with Jesus.
Like, Jesus, wake up, you know, we're going to die.
But this guy is kind of like, what meanest thou, O sleeper?
You know, arise, call upon thy God.
If so be that God will think upon us that we perish not.
So they're all calling upon their gods and then they just go and wake up Jonah.
Like, you know, it's funny because if you think you're going to just hide out
and pretend not to be saved or pretend not to be a Christian amongst
a bunch of unbelievers, they will find out that you're saved somehow.
They will deduce it.
They will figure it out that you're different than them,
even if you're just sleeping in the bottom of a ship, apparently.
But number two tonight, Jonah is thrown into the sea and we'll see why.
In verse seven, it says,
And they said, Everyone to his fellow,
Come, let us cast lots that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us.
So they cast lots and the lot fell upon Jonah.
So they figure out pretty quick that it's Jonah that's the problem.
And this is a good lesson for us as believers that when we're out of God's will,
the unsaved are directly affected.
You know, we might think that when we're not in God's will and we're,
you know, slacking off and not doing what's right or not going soul winning
or, you know, we're not being as involved as we should,
that it's not a big deal.
You know, what meanest thou, O sleeper?
You know, the Bible says to to wake up, to arise and wake up and
and put on the armor of light.
And we're supposed to be children of light, children of the day, not sleepers.
You know, and this guy's sleep.
He's the prophet of God.
And he is it could be the salvation of this vessel.
And he's sleeping in the boat because he really honestly just doesn't really care.
It seems like, you know, I mean, if he really cared about these people, it's like it's it's his fault, isn't it?
It's it's his fault that it's happening.
And it says or and so, you know, the unsaved because of our negligence
and our laziness can be affected because of us not doing our job as Christians.
So we don't want to be the reason that unsaved people don't get saved or are turned away from God.
Now, I'll say this, but if it's some God hating reprobate, you know, I don't really care about that.
I'm talking about people that, you know, obviously sometimes we'll think people.
Well, you've got to be careful who you're judging to be some God hating reprobate, too.
So there's some pretty wicked people that end up getting saved in the Bible, like Manasseh, who was into witchcraft and human sacrifice.
And, you know, Paul, the apostle who was having other Christians rounded up.
And we would think, wouldn't wouldn't you think that Paul was a reprobate?
Basically, if there was a person doing what Paul did to the Christians in the early church.
So we got to be careful. People can be pretty bad and still turn around.
And Paul was the worst. He was the worst of the worst and then became the best of the best.
So, you know, for whom much is forgiven, you know, they're going to forget.
They're going to love much, the Bible says.
So when Paul got forgiven, he was just like, well, you know, God could still love me and he could still use me.
Well, I'm going to use it to the best of my ability.
And end up writing half the New Testament, starting all these churches, being the best of all the apostles, basically.
Look at verse number eight, the Bible says,
Then said they unto him, Tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us.
What is thine occupation?
So here's where they pinpoint Jonah.
And they ask these questions.
It's really funny because when I was writing this sermon, I was thinking about times when people just nailed me really quickly
on whether I was a Christian or not.
But in the last, it was like, I don't know, maybe two, three years ago.
Who knows where Fossil, Oregon is?
Anybody know where Fossil, Oregon is?
It's like in the middle of Oregon.
So it's kind of like the equivalent to where this is, but in Oregon.
And it's like the oldest Baptist church.
The oldest Baptist church in Oregon is there.
And I just took my wife there every year.
We try to go someplace different for our anniversary and just see something different or whatever.
And I thought I was going to just go into this church and pretend like I wasn't a pastor.
And I was a pastor and I just dressed in like normal clothes.
I wasn't wearing like a shirt and tie because I just, you know, I just didn't want people to like go,
Oh, who are you? What church are you from?
You know, I just I just want to go in and just kind of blend in and, you know, whatever.
And within three questions, the pastor's wife had me.
She knew I was a pastor. She knew where I was from.
And it was basically these kinds of questions right here.
Look what it says.
What is thine occupation?
And whence comest thou?
And what is thy country?
And of what people art thou?
It's like ding, ding, ding.
And then like he just nailed it.
What can he say?
If he's not going to lie, he's got to say what he really is.
And so like, where are you guys from?
Vancouver.
Oh, yeah.
Do you guys go to church there?
Yeah.
What church you go to?
Church Foundation Baptist Church.
Oh, I've never heard of that church before.
Who's your pastor?
You're looking at him.
It's me.
And then I was like, I'm never doing that again.
I was like trying.
I was like sleeping in the boat trying to just get through a service where people aren't asking me who I was.
I just want you know what I mean?
I mean, if you're a pastor, you'd understand like you don't want to be.
Yeah. Anyway, it didn't work.
Like she had me like the people had Jonah.
Like this guy had Jonah.
Four questions, right?
What's thy occupation?
Whence comest thou?
What is thy country and what people art thou?
I mean, that's basically the question she asked me too.
And like he says, and he said unto them,
I'm in Hebrew and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, which made the sea and the dry land.
So he just just tells the truth.
Might as well just lay it all out there.
Then when then were the men exceedingly afraid.
So they're exceedingly afraid.
Why is that?
Because they probably realized, you know, the lot's already fallen on Jonah.
And then he tells them, I fear the Lord.
I'm a Hebrew and I worship the God of heaven.
And then it's like there's this huge storm.
All of us were on the boat before.
We're all friends.
We all know each other.
This guy is the only different person.
And so they sussed him out pretty quick.
Well, who's the only person that's not with us praying to all our gods?
Oh, the guy is sleeping down there in the bottom of the boat.
Oh, what's your job?
What are you doing?
Where are you from?
Huh?
And then, you know, he tells them and they're afraid, exceedingly afraid.
He said to them, why hast thou done this?
For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord because he had told them.
So he told them, I'm fleeing from God.
I'm hiding.
Why are you doing this?
And so something to point out, though, is that even when you're not right with God,
he can still and does still use us even when we're not exactly right with God.
And there's a teaching that if you're in sin, that God can't or won't use you.
And that's actually not true.
And it actually plays out in this book more than, I mean,
maybe not more than any other book because I'm not thinking about anything else,
but in this book, when is Jonah really doing what's right?
You know, when he finally goes back and preaches is when he does right.
But even after that, he has a bad attitude.
So God used the man that hated the people who he was having to go preach to,
and he sneaks under the ship and puts all their lives at risk.
He's sleeping in the boat, doesn't care what happens to them.
He's saved, you know, so who cares what happens to these guys,
you know, and then eventually does something right here, too.
But and again, I'm not trying to just, you know, Jonah was a prophet.
He was probably a great man of God.
I'm not saying he wasn't, but he definitely had his issues.
But to say that someone that's not that's not right with God
can't be used or God can't use them to save people or God can't use them at all,
that's just not true.
Now, if you're the person that wants to please God and wants to do right,
and you're minimizing your sin as far as trying to not commit a lot of sin
and your goal is to please God and to be on the best terms you can be with God
and to be the best Christian you can be,
I'm sure God's going to use you a lot more than he would use someone that's not right with God.
But everybody has sin in their life,
and so don't use the sin that you have in your life to excuse you from serving God.
So and I there's people that would say, well, that's not right, you know, they shouldn't,
you know, you can't see it all week and they'll go, so why can't you?
Why can't you?
It doesn't mean that you're not saved still.
It doesn't mean you can't get people saved.
Should you get the sin out of your life? Absolutely.
But doesn't the Bible say that love covers a multitude of sins?
And I'm not saying go sin and do everything bad you want all week
and then go soul winning and then that's going to make it all right or something.
That's not what I'm saying.
I'm just saying don't let the devil take you out of church
and out of soul winning and out of God's blessings completely
because you have something in your life that you need to fix.
Get that thing fixed in your life, but keep serving God.
Don't just use it as an excuse to just stop serving Him completely
because that's what a lot of people do.
That's how the devil pulls a lot of people out of church.
He's just like, you're not good enough.
I can't believe you'd do this.
You know, you call yourself a Christian and you're still doing this.
Everybody sins, folks.
And, you know, I've heard this preached before and I just disagree with it.
Where people say, well, if you're in sin, God's not going to use you out of soul winning.
That's not true.
It's just not true because how much more sinful do you have to be
than to be a racist and want all of them to get barbecued by God
and you're pouting and throwing a hissy fit at the end of the book
and you're sitting out on the outside and this gourd grows up over the top of you
and gives you shade and you're just like, yeah, God, fry them all.
And then like it doesn't happen.
And then he's just like all upset about it and the gourd dies.
And he feels more sorry for the gourd that's a plant.
He's like basically a tree hugger at this point.
He cares more about a tree or a little plant that gave him shade
than he does about 120,000 people that he just got saved.
Because part of what they had to do, yeah, they did have to get saved
but they also had to stop doing the wicked acts.
Because like I said earlier, God will punish his children.
He'll still pour out his indignation on his own children.
You know, obviously we're not appointed to wrath as in
we're not going to get the wrath of God fireballs and the end time stuff.
But God will still punish and persecute his own people when they're doing wrong.
You know, Israel had the choices to either do what's right or get cursed.
And so if we're doing wrong in our lives, yes, we're going to get cursed.
But does that mean to completely stop serving God?
No, it doesn't.
So that's my point.
I'm not saying be as wicked as you can and still go soul winning
and it makes it all right.
That's not what I'm saying.
But I am saying still go soul winning if you have something wrong in your life
and then pray to God that he'll help you with that
or maybe there's someone that you need to talk to about it
that can help you with that.
And, you know, just go to God.
Because he's the one that gave us the Holy Spirit.
We can overcome sin by God's power.
And that's the one thing that we have in the New Testament
that we didn't have in the Old Testament.
In the Old Testament, the Spirit of God would leave believers
if they were in great sin.
And you had that picture of the tabernacle where it says
don't let that light go out.
They weren't allowed the light to quench at all.
And in the New Testament, the Bible says,
because that represents the Holy Spirit, right?
The oil represents the Holy Spirit.
So in the New Testament, that oil is the Holy Spirit of God.
And he says don't quench the Spirit.
We're not supposed to quench the Spirit of God in our lives.
So obviously we don't want to live a life that's displeasing to God
because we don't want to get hammered all the time
for the stuff that we're doing.
So the better we're doing in our life,
the more God's going to use us
and the less beat-downs we're going to get in life.
Because this is where we're going to get the beatings.
Because when we go to heaven, that's all over.
We don't have to deal with that anymore
because we're going to be immortal.
We're going to be sinless.
So look down at verse 11.
It says,
Then said they unto him,
What shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto us,
for the sea wrought and was tempestuous?
And he said unto them, Take me up,
and cast me forth into the sea,
so shall the sea be calm unto you,
for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you.
So finally Jonah is doing something right here.
He's like just take me and throw me in.
But notice how it says take me up.
So I believe that this is also a picture of Christ
because the Son of Man must be lifted up
and He'll draw all men unto Himself.
So I think it might be a picture of them.
Jesus is being lifted up on the cross.
And then of course He said cast me forth into the sea.
Now I don't have a lot of time left,
but I want to develop this just a little bit.
In John chapter 1 verse 13.
I'm sorry. Never mind.
So I don't want to take up too much time.
I have some notes I want to skip over here.
So when you say that He's casting him forth into the sea
and then the sea will be calm to him,
in the Bible, the Bible kind of has this picture
where waters represent the nations of the world.
And specifically in Revelation chapter 17.
I'm going to read Jonah chapter 113 before we get there though.
Nevertheless, the men rode hard to bring it to land,
but they could not, for the sea wrought
and was tempestuous against them.
So I mean, check this out.
I think this is what's great about these guys, these sailors.
So they know that it's Jonah's fault.
He says throw me in.
And they're like, no, let's try to save this guy.
Let's try to not do that.
And so they row hard and try to get him in.
I mean, they're actually not really that bad of guys
for the fact that they're idolaters and whatever.
But the funny thing is, I think that these guys
end up getting saved.
That's what I believe.
So even though Jonah didn't care for them at all at first,
most people would be like, throw them in.
Kill them.
Kill them, then throw them in.
I mean, that's the way most people would be.
But they were afraid because he was a prophet of God.
I mean, I think that they kind of realized that this is God
throwing this storm at them.
But that picture of Jonah being thrown in,
obviously, he's being thrown in for his own sin, right?
He's the one that's the problem.
But when Jesus dies, he dies for the sin of the whole world.
Now, I'm going to have you turn to Revelation 17.
I'll try to finish up as fast as I can here.
I think I might have, I don't know, 13, 14 minutes
or something like that.
I just thought it was pretty cool that the guys were like
trying to save them even though, but obviously God was like,
nope, it's not happening.
So Revelation 17, 15, it says,
And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest
were the horse sitteth are peoples and multitudes
and nations and tongues.
So in the book of Revelation, you have the waters being pictured
as all people, multitudes, nations, and tongues.
Now, obviously this is in the end times,
but the picture of water is prevalent throughout the Bible
as picturing people.
And in Psalm 29, verse 3, it says,
The voice of the Lord is upon the waters.
The glory of God thundereth.
The Lord is upon many waters.
What is that talking about?
Well, if you kind of correlate that to Revelation 17,
that it's talking about peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues,
then it makes sense that God, you know,
He wants His voice and He wants His word to go upon many waters.
He wants the whole world to be saved, right?
That's why He died on the cross.
He wants everybody to be saved,
including these sailors out in the middle of the ocean,
including the wicked city state of Nineveh.
Turn to Ecclesiastes, chapter 11, verse 1.
Ecclesiastes 11, verse 1.
The Bible says,
Cast thy bread upon the waters, for thou shalt find it after many days.
Now, it's like, what is that talking about?
Cast thy bread upon the waters?
Well, if you're thinking about bread as in the word of God,
you know, you're casting upon the waters,
the water, what is the picture of the waters?
Well, it's the people, multitudes, nations, and tongues,
then it makes sense, doesn't it?
And it says, you shall find it after many days.
You know, if God's word goes out, people are going to get saved.
And Jesus Christ is the bread of life.
Jesus Christ, you know, and so, if you think,
if you look at it like Jonah's picturing Jesus Christ going into the waters,
and really, what's the problem?
I mean, think of the scene right now.
They're on a ship, and it's not like a cruise liner.
It's like probably some sailing ship from, you know, ancient times,
and it's tempestuous.
They're ready to die.
I mean, it's about to break the boat apart,
and he's saying, throw me in.
They're trying to not let it happen,
but these waves, if they throw him in, what's going to happen?
What do they think is going to happen if they throw him in?
Why are they trying to row back to the shore to get him safe?
Because they know if they throw him in the ocean, he's going to die.
And so, the same thing with Jesus.
He was, you know, God loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten son.
He brought his son into the world.
You know, we celebrate Christmas because Jesus came into this world,
lived the perfect life,
and he died for all peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues,
and that's why it's so important.
You know, Revelation 17 is talking about this whore that sits upon the waters.
Well, you know, we as saved people,
we want to reach them before the whore can reach them,
before all these false religions and these false ideologies can get to them,
and that's why it's so important that we're casting our bread upon the waters,
that the word of the Lord is upon many waters,
and that the voice of the Lord is upon the waters
because that's representing the nations.
So, when you think about it, you know, if Jonah is picturing Jesus in this instance,
obviously Jesus is not the sinner, and Jonah is.
And Jonah is thrown in, and everything calms down.
But when Jesus dies, because this is certain death,
when Jesus died, it calmed the wrath of God down against man
as long as they put their faith in him, then the storm has stopped for them.
Does that make sense?
So, look at verse 15 back in our text.
It says,
So they took up Jonah and cast him forth into the sea,
and the sea ceased from her raging.
Why did the sea rage in the beginning?
Why did this even happen?
Because God was angry at Jonah for trying to flee from the presence of the Lord.
Now, the opposite would be true for Jesus.
Jesus was willing to go into that tempestuous water.
And then, what's the end of Jonah?
Well, we'll see.
Well, before I get there, I just want to say this.
I'll just read the scripture real quick, and we'll turn it over there.
But 1 John 2 says,
And he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only,
but also for the sins of the whole world.
And that word propitiation means the appeasement, the atonement.
You know, he satisfied.
It's the satisfying of God's wrath in Jesus Christ himself.
So, if you look at it that way, it kind of makes sense.
So, now Jonah 1 16 says,
Then the men of the Lord feared the Lord exceedingly.
So, they feared him exceedingly and offered a sacrifice unto the Lord and made vows.
So, it sounds like they kind of had a life-changing day, didn't they?
They probably didn't expect for it to end that way, did they?
You know, they're just sailing out, blue skies.
You know, they're just probably, you know, they're sailors, so they're probably, you know,
probably telling dirty jokes and cussing like sailors, right?
And then this big storm rises up.
They've got this new guy.
They find, you know, he's sleeping in the bottom of the boat.
They find out that, you know, he happens to be a prophet of the Lord.
You know, and then they fear exceedingly because of that.
But in the end, they throw Jonah out, the storm calms, right?
And then they're safe, aren't they?
So, they're safe.
The men of the Lord feared exceedingly and offered a sacrifice unto the Lord and made vows.
Well, it sounds like they changed who their God was, doesn't it?
It sounds like they got saved.
So, you know, and the Bible says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
You know, in order to, you know, feel the need of salvation,
you've got to need to be saved from something, don't you?
And you know why I got saved?
Because I was afraid I was going to go to hell.
I mean, who else was with me on that one?
That's why I got saved.
I was like, I know the devil's real.
So, God must be real.
So, I got saved.
I just didn't know how to be saved.
When I learned how to be saved, I got saved.
And these guys didn't know how to get saved either.
And really, it's kind of a weird way that they got saved
because it's not like Jonah was setting out to save them.
But you see how his disobedience, even in his disobedience,
somehow these guys end up getting saved anyway?
Because God is a great God.
And he's able to use the Jeroboam twos of this world to help his people,
even though that guy, he was definitely unsaved.
But Jonah was saved.
He's backslidden.
He's going the opposite direction that God told him to go.
And yet, this whole ship full of guys gets saved.
And it says they feared God the Lord exceedingly
and offered sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.
They're like, okay, well, this is my God.
I mean, it sounds to me like they got saved.
So, let's look at verse 17.
Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah.
And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
So, if you picture this like certain death,
like I was just kind of showing you, trying to give you the picture of Jesus.
So, Jesus goes, you know, if you're thrown into this kind of a storm,
it's certain death.
And then that death came in the way of a great fish.
See how it says a great fish came to, God prepared that.
And he swallowed up Jonah.
And he was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Now, this is our last verse of the night as far as that goes.
But I do want to show you the instances in Matthew
where it talks about, where Jesus mentions this.
And just kind of give you something to think about
for the next time I come back here
and get to chapter number two like a month from now.
Whenever I come back, I'll just be waiting for it.
But it's Matthew chapter 12 verse 38.
And again, normally being swallowed by a whale is doomed for sure.
I mean, you get swallowed, like especially a killer whale.
I mean, I know they're different, whatever.
But some of those whales get pretty big, don't they?
But anyway, it says in verse 38, it says,
Then certain of the scribes and the Pharisees answered,
saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee.
This is, you know, the Pharisees always wanting to see a sign.
It says, But he answered and said unto them,
An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign,
and there shall no sign be given to it,
but the sign of the prophet Jonas.
And they probably didn't understand what he was talking about.
But Jesus is a circus performer that's going to do miracles for you.
And it's not like abracadabra, you know,
and just like show him some kind of magic trick or something.
He wasn't a magician.
They call him a magician.
They lie about him and say he was like a black magic practitioner.
But in reality, he did miracles and then he did them for specific reasons.
And he wasn't there to perform for them whenever they asked him to.
He said, The only sign you're going to get is the sign of the prophet Jonas.
For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly,
so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
So what is the sign of Jonas?
What is the picture?
Jonas is in the whale for three days and three nights.
When Jesus died, he was in where for three days and three nights?
What did he say to God?
When he died on the cross, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.
So where does spirit go?
To God.
So every spirit returns unto God who made him, right?
But in Psalm 22, it says that he hasn't left his soul in hell.
So Jesus Christ's soul went to hell for three days and three nights.
And his body was laid in the tomb.
Was the tomb in the center of the earth?
Because in this verse it says, So shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Where's the heart of the earth?
Where's the exact center of the earth?
Yeah.
What's there?
Lava.
Fire.
Magma.
Right?
So, I mean, and obviously when I go through chapter two, I'm going to kind of go over that a little more thoroughly,
but, you know, it's just silly for people to think that, oh, yeah, well, it's just talking about his death
and that his his body was in like it was like a cave.
So it was like in the grave or whatever.
It's like, well, if he walked out, he walked out of the tomb, there was a rock that was rolled in front of it.
So obviously it was kind of at ground level.
Is that the center of the earth?
No.
And so and well, let's just turn over to Acts chapter two real quick and I'll save.
But Matthew 16, he mentions this again.
I won't have you go there.
Hopefully this is King James version.
I just grabbed this off the shelf because I forgot my Bible at the hotel.
When you get to Acts 231, will someone just shout it out real quick and read it for me?
So where was the soul at?
For three days and three nights, just like the Bible says.
So the picture here and then in Jonah chapter two, if you just want to do some ahead reading,
you can see where Jonah says out of the belly of hell cried out I.
So, you know, was he in the whale's belly or was he in hell?
So it kind of shifts back and forth.
It says that he was at the bottom of the mountains.
Well, do whales go to the bottom of the mountains?
Where's the bottom of the mountains?
I mean, we can look and see Mount Adam's the kind of the edge of it where it would go further down.
But it's it goes further down, doesn't it?
The bottom of the mountains is pretty far down.
And so Jesus in Psalm chapter 88 said that he was in the lowest pit because think of this.
If Jesus died for every single sin of every single person from Adam and Eve to the last person that dies.
And some of these people are pedophiles.
Some of these people are homos.
Some of these people are murderers.
Some of these people are serial killers.
He died for all their sins.
So when God couldn't look at him and was disgusted with him and he became sin for us.
If he didn't suffer for all sin, then he wouldn't have been in the lowest hell.
Wouldn't he have to be in the lowest hell?
Like the worst scumbag that ever walked on the face of the earth, he would have had to die for his.
Because there is degrees of hell. There really is.
Because Jesus said they that delivered me unto you have the greater sin and the greater damnation.
Talks about people having the greater damnation.
So some people are going to suffer worse than others in hell.
The little old lady that never got saved but just was a gardener and you know I mean she just never believed in Jesus.
And Adolf Hitler are probably going to have two different very different experiences in hell.
But still punishment.
So if Jesus didn't go to the lowest hell, then it just doesn't make sense.
I mean in Psalm 88 it's very clear that he did.
So anyway I'm out of time.
But let's go ahead and pray.
I'm going to pray and then I'm going to shut this mic off and who's going to come up and sing the next song?
Okay.
Do you want to, who's got the mic?
Alright go grab that mic.
Piano player.
And then I'm going to pray and then we'll get, I'm going to turn this off and then I'll turn it over to the song leader.
Alright let's pray.
Lord we thank you so much for a great time we could spend in your house studying your word.
I pray Lord that we think about these things and maybe if it's a new concept that we never thought about or were taught
that we would just see what the Bible says and we would go with what the Bible says versus what we've been taught our whole lives
and come up with the right answer Lord.
Pray that you just bless everybody tonight.
We thank you so much for everybody in attendance and I pray that you just take us home safely in Jesus' name, Amen.
Throw out the lifeline.
Throw out the lifeline across the dark wave.
There is a brother whom someone should save.
Somebody's brother in heaven will be.
To throw out the lifeline is peril to share.
Throw out the lifeline.
Someone is drifting away.
Throw out the lifeline.
Someone is singing today.
Throw out the lifeline with heaven.
Why do you tarry?
Why linger so long?
Seeing isn't being no hasten today.
And with the lifeboat away then away.
Throw out the lifeline.
Throwing away.
Throw out the lifeline.
Someone is singing today.
Throw out the lifeline to danger-fought men.
Singing in anguish where you've never been.
Winds of temptation and billows of woe.
We'll soon whirl them out where the dark waters flow.
Throw out the lifeline.
Someone is drifting away.
Throw out the lifeline.
Someone is singing today on the last.
Soon will peace and freedom be o'er.
Soon will they drift to eternity's shore.
Haze then, my brother, no time for delay.
But throw out the lifeline and save them today.
Throw out the lifeline.
Someone is drifting away.
Throw out the lifeline.
Someone is singing today.
Brother Rick, would you pray for us?
Dear Lord, thank you so much for this wonderful evening.
And thank you for that great preach from Pastor Thompson.
Dear Lord, as we do learn anything tonight,
but to stay in the fight, Lord.
Even when we're having problems and pitfalls in our own life,
just stay in the fight, Lord,
and just trust in you to forgive us our sins
and to clean us up, Lord, where we need to be
and to bring us back into your will.
And Lord, we never left the fold
because we believe in eternal security.
And we thank you for that great sacrifice.
And thank you for Pastor Thompson being here tonight.
Lord, give him traveling mercies.
And in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.