Good singing, and I appreciate all of you
being here tonight.
Thank you so much to all of the
visitors that are here.
I believe Pastor said there's about, what, 10,
11, 12 churches that are represented tonight, and
for that I am grateful.
In November, I was at the Broaddus Memorial
Baptist Church of Concord, North Carolina, and we
had 43 churches show up on Friday night
for the revival meeting, and it was standing
room only, and 39 of those churches were
Baptist churches from in the town.
I'm telling you, that is unheard of for
43 churches to come together for revival, but
I appreciate all of you being here tonight.
Thank you so much from the bottom of
my heart, and do support your pastor and
your local church ministry tomorrow night.
Of course, if you don't have a good
Bible-preaching church, you come here tomorrow night.
We'll preach the Word of God to you,
have some good music, and then, of course,
Thursday night and Friday night, let's do our
best to fill the building and to feel
the fuse, because we're only responsible for those
who come into the building, and so let's
get a lot of people in here, and
so we can preach the Word of God
to them, and so we can help some
people, because I'll tell you what America needs
is not a showboat and a circus.
America needs music and the preaching of the
Word of God to serve them and to
change them, and I tell you, I'm thoroughly
blessed, and I'm thoroughly honored, and my wife
and I count it a privilege to have
the Robertson family travel with us.
I believe it's been a little over two
years, two and a half years, something like
that, they've been traveling with us, and I
praise the Lord for the good music that
they have implemented into our ministry, and it
has increased my ability and my awareness of
the pulpit, because I don't have to worry
about the music.
I don't have to pray for the Holy
Spirit to come back when somebody gets done
singing a special.
All I got to do is just get
up, and my mind is focused on the
preaching, and I thank God for that, and
I appreciate them so very, very much, and
you do not know, unless you travel, you
go to churches, you do not know what
a struggle it is and what a battle
it is to find good, solid, Christian, fundamental
music, and so I appreciate their ministry, it
helps mine so much, and it's good to
have all of you tonight.
Appreciate Brother Reynolds coming, appreciate Brother Walker coming
tonight, and thank everybody for being here.
Jonah chapter number one, let's stand, please, out
of respect for God's word tonight.
You notice there are four chapters.
I'm going to preach through every single one
of them, but I promise I'll not keep
you very long tonight.
Jonah chapter number one, please, and verse number
one.
Jonah one, in verse one, the Bible says,
Now the word of the Lord came unto
Jonah, the son of Amittiah, saying, Rise, 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 from the presence of the Lord, verse
four.
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 mariner, that's the Bible word for
the 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.
So the shipmaster, or the captain, if you
will, came to him, and said unto him,
What meanest thou, O sleeper?
Arise, fall upon thy God, if so be
that God will think upon us that we
perish not.
And they said, 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 lots fell
upon Jonah.
Then said they unto him, Tell us, we
pray thee, for whose cause this evil is
upon us.
What is thy occupation, and whence comest thou?
What is thy country, and of what people
art thou?
And he said unto them, I am a
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 had 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 roared, 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 land, but they could not, for the
sea roared, 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 a raging.
Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and
offered a sacrifice unto the Lord, and made
vows.
Verse 17, please.
Now the Lord had prepared a great fish
to swallow up Jonah.
Jonah was in the belly of the fish
three days and three nights.
Tonight I bring you the simple subject, The
Heartbeat of God.
Thank you very much.
You may be seated.
Let's bow our heads and hearts, and let's
pray.
Let's ask the Lord to bless our service
tonight.
The Heartbeat of God.
Now, Lord, I do pray that you would
help me as I preach the Word of
God.
I pray that you would empty me of
myself.
You would fill me with the Spirit.
I pray I would say everything that you
asked me to say, and I would not
say one word that would dishonor you tonight.
I pray, Lord, that you would help me
to preach the Word of God as a
dying man to a dying congregation.
For truly, this may be the last sermon
I ever preach, and this perhaps may be
the last sermon that some of these people
ever hear.
And so, Father, tonight, give me ocean, give
me urgency, and give me the power of
God more than anything else as I stand
in this sacred pulpit tonight.
Dear God, for these, my friends, I pray
that you would help this congregation as they
listen to the Word of God being preached.
And I pray, dear Lord, that you would
change us, that you would convict us, and
that you would show us some things tonight
in your Word that would make us less
of what we are by nature and more
like the lovely Lord Jesus Christ, in whose
name we pray.
Amen.
As we've heard sung about tonight, and ever
since you've learned, since you were a wee
little tyke, and kid for Christ, or a
wander's club, or vacation Bible school, or more
than likely Sunday school, we've heard about, we've
told about, we've heard preached, we've memorized, and
we've sung funny little songs about the man
Jonah.
Now, Jonah is a very interesting book.
It's only four chapters long.
Each one of those chapters does not have
very many verses, and so it'll not take
us very long to preachingly peruse through the
book tonight.
But as my title implies, I'm going to
preach on the heartbeat of God.
But you're going to have to be patient
and bear with me, because the heartbeat of
God is not revealed until the end of
chapter number four, which obviously is the last
chapter of the book.
But in order to understand what the main
thrust of this book is, in order to
understand what the main theme and what the
main flavor of the book of Jonah is,
we're going to have to quickly study chapter
one, chapter two, and chapter three.
Somebody said that a short pencil is better
than a long memory, so I hope you'll
write these down.
Jonah chapter number one is simply what I
call Jonah's disobedience.
Jonah's disobedience.
Notice verse one, please, as we begin our
message tonight.
Jonah chapter one and verse number one.
It says, now the word of the Lord...
Now, notice that it does not say the
word of a preacher.
It doesn't say the word of a man
or the word of denomination.
It says the word of the Lord, and
that's what makes the difference in this story.
Now, the word of the Lord came unto
Jonah, the son of Amittiah, saying...
Notice, please, verse two, here's the command.
Arise, go to Nineveh, that grave city, and
cry against it, for their wickedness is come
up before me.
Notice verse three, tragically, but Jonah rose up
to flee unto Tarsus from the presence of
the Lord.
And so we see in Jonah chapter number
one, the first few verses, what I call
for sake of an outline, Jonah's disobedience.
In verse number two of Jonah chapter one,
we learn two things about the city of
Nineveh.
Now, historically, we know that Nineveh was the
capital city of a wicked, godless group of
people called the Assyrians.
From Genesis 1-1 to Revelation 22-21,
anytime God mentioned the Assyrians in this Bible,
it was never on good terms.
It was always on bad terms.
And here is a wicked capital city of
one of the most godless nations and groups
of people on the face of God's earth.
But we learn two things about this city.
God said, number one, it was a great
city.
Now, please don't misunderstand that.
Interpreting that, He's not saying it was great
as far as its influence was concerned.
He was saying it was great because it
was a very, very large town.
It was not what I would consider to
be one of these southern towns, a poking
plum town.
You poke your head around the corner, you
plum out of town.
OK, that was not Nineveh.
Nineveh was a large place.
It was a place that had many, many,
many acres and many, many, many miles.
And so God said it was a large
city.
But secondly, God said it was a wicked
city.
Now, you write something down, ladies and gentlemen,
and remember it well.
When God said a place is wicked, it
must be a very, very wicked place.
Here was a group of people that had
no Bibles whatsoever.
Here's a group of people that had no
Bible colleges.
They had no seminaries.
They had no fundamental pulpits.
They had no fundamental preachers.
They had no pulpits that were preaching the
word of God.
There was no gospel message.
There was no preacher voice running up and
down the land.
There were no gospel tracts being passed out
in the street.
There were no Bible printing societies.
There was nothing like that in Nineveh whatsoever.
And yet God said, Jonah, you're the man
for the many.
You are the prophet for higher.
You are the man to whom I want
to go down to Nineveh, to Nineveh's land
and preach to them, doth sayeth the Lord.
That all about you.
But if God were to entrust me with
something that special, if God were to entrust
me as an evangelist with something so honorable,
as to preach to a group of people
that had never heard the name Jesus Christ,
that were not gospel hardened, that knew nothing
about the word of God, I'm telling you,
I do believe I would jump at the
opportunity.
And Jonah did, but he jumped in the
wrong direction.
Because God said, Jonah, I want you to
go to this big city, to a city
full of lost people, people who are deplorable.
They are depraved.
They are wicked.
They are godless.
They have no Bibles.
And I want you to go and preach
the word of God.
And God said, go.
And Jonah said, no.
Now, suppose tonight we could raise our hands
and have a discussion class, and we could
come up with a lot of good excuses
for why Jonah did not go.
But I'd like to remind you, ladies and
gentlemen, there's no good excuses for disobedience to
the will of God.
He got up and went in the opposite
direction.
God said, I want you to go and
preach.
And Jonah said, I've got better plans.
Now, historically, not scripturally, so take it for
what it's worth.
But historically, we learn that his father Amittiah,
which, by the way, is only mentioned one
other time in your Bible, in the book
of 2 Chronicles, believe it is.
But his father Amittiah, history tells us, ten
years prior to the writing of the book
of Jonah, or the happenings of this book,
his father Amittiah was slain in a battle
by none the less than the Ninevites.
And if that be indeed historically true, you
can already see the apprehension in his heart
for why he does not want to go
to that wicked group of people.
You see, Jonah could have cared less if
the Ninevites went to hell.
That didn't bother him.
They were wicked people.
In his mind, they deserved to go to
hell.
In his mind, they deserved the wrath and
the judgment of Almighty God.
But I'd like to remind you, ladies and
gentlemen, everybody in this room deserves to go
to hell.
Everybody deserves the wrath and the judgment of
Almighty God.
But I'm glad for Ephesians chapter 2 and
verse number 4, that God, who is rich
in mercy for his great love wherewith he
loved us, even when we were dead in
sin, hath quickened us together with Christ, for
by grace are you saved.
And so Jonah did not want to go
in the direction that God wanted him to
go.
But isn't it interesting that God always knows
what buttons to press in your life to
get your attention when you're disobedient?
Look in your Bibles, please, in verse number
4.
Jonah chapter 1, please, in verse 4.
But the Lord sent out a great wind
into the sea.
There was a mighty tempest in the sea
so that the ship was like to be
broken.
Then the mariners or sailors were afraid and
cried every man into 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.
So the shipmaster or captain came to him
and said unto him, What meanest thou, O
sleeper?
Rhymes called upon by God.
If so be that God will think upon
us that we perish not.
And they said, everyone 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.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, here is a man
that is on a boat who is not
only the only preacher or prophet on the
boat.
But according to my Bible and yours, he's
the only believer on the boat.
He is the only Christian that you can
find on this boat.
So how do you know that?
Because the Bible says when the distressing storm
came, every man cried unto his own God,
little g, little o, little d.
These men were heathen.
These men were pagan.
These men knew nothing about Jehovah God.
And here's this great big boat.
It's going over the high seas of life.
And all of a sudden it's being tossed
around like a toothpick in a bathtub.
And I mean, the water is getting bigger.
And I mean, the waves are getting bigger.
And the billows are coming inside of that
boat.
And those men begin to scratch their heads.
And they sit around the table.
They say, what in the wide world are
we going to do?
And so they come to Jonah and they
have a little discourse.
And Jonah says, listen, fellas, I'm running from
God.
And it's my fault that we're in the
mess that we're in.
It's my fault that this storm is here.
It's my fault that the lightning streaking its
way to the sky like a snake's forked
tongue.
It's my fault that the thunder has come
and that the rains are falling and that
this boat is about to sink.
And if you would just throw me overboard,
God's wrath would be appeased and everything would
be all right.
They didn't think that'd be a good idea.
Because if you study your Bible, you'll find
out two times that they rode hard.
Nevertheless, they rode hard to bring it to
the land.
See, they got all the boxes and they
began to push them off the boat, trying
to get that boat just a little bit
lighter to bring it up out of those
swales, to bring it up out of the
waves so they could bring it to the
land and wreck it on the sandy beaches
if they had to.
They just wanted to get out of that
terrible, terrible storm that they were in.
And so they said two times, we're not
going to have to throw you overboard.
You'll be fine.
And so they throw off the extra boxes
of clothes.
They throw off the extra boxes of cheese
and maybe the Cracker Jacks and some of
the other food that they have.
Maybe they were shipping some cars over to
China illegally or something like that.
But whatever they were shipping, they kicked it
off and they were trying to get that
boat lighter.
But the lighter they got it, the more
the judgment of God began to fall.
And finally, they got the picture and the
light bulb went off and the bells and
whistles.
And they said, you know what?
We're going to have to get rid of
you, pal.
And so they picked him up, man overboard.
One, two, three, heave ho, they threw him
into the water.
And the Bible said that the sea, seeped
from horizon.
And there was a great calm on the
ocean on top.
But down below, there was a great, great
tempest that was taking place.
Look in verse 17, would you?
Jonah chapter one and 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.
I don't know about you, but I do
believe that would do something to get my
attention.
That's for sure.
Somebody says, well, for the life, was it
a great fish?
Jesus called it the book of Matthew, a
great whale.
I don't know what it was.
It was a custom built boat ride for
Jonah.
And I don't want to see one of
my bathtub.
That's for sure.
And here is a man that because of
his disobedience to God, God swallowed him up
for three days and three nights into the
belly of an actual, physical, factual whale.
I don't understand that.
I can't explain that, but I take it
for faith value because it's right here in
the pages of the word of God.
There was a lady in about 1976 or
so that came to Dr. B.R. Lakin.
He was preaching in Southern California.
He was preaching on prophecy.
And one night he preached out of the
book of Jonah showing how it was a
picture of the Lord Jesus being in the
heart of the earth for three days and
three nights.
And he preached it just as I preached
it, that it was a literal, actual, physical
and biblical fact.
Well, she came to him after the surgery
and that head was just a bobbing back
and forth.
And she shook his hand and she said,
Mr. Lakin, there's one thing about the story
of Jonah that we don't agree about.
I do not believe that it was an
actual whale.
She said, I think it was an allegory.
She said, I believe it was a parable
like Jesus taught in the New Testament.
She said, I believe it was just a
earthly type of an illustration to present a
heavenly meaning.
And he said, ma'am, because it's in
the word of God, I'm forced to believe
that Jonah was actually, physically and factually swallowed
by a great whale because that's what God
said.
So she argued back and forth.
And he said, ma'am, I'll tell you
what, it's obvious that you're not going to
sway my thinking it's obvious I'm not going
to sway nor change your thinking.
So I'll tell you what, we'll shake hands.
We will agree to disagree.
She said, that'll be fine.
He said, I'll set your mind and your
conscience at ease.
He said, how about when I die, when
I get to heaven, the first week I
am in heaven, I will look up Jonah
and I will tap him on the shoulder,
shake his hand.
And when I get to heaven, I will
ask Jonah if it actually happened.
She said, but what if he's not there?
He said, then you can ask him.
But the truth of the matter is this,
according to the word of God, Jonah was
swallowed by a big fat fish.
I don't understand that, but it's right here
in my Bible.
Somebody says, well, you Bible thumpers are foolish
to believe something like that.
Well, you not heads are foolish not to,
because it's right here in the word of
God.
And if it's in the word of God,
ladies and gentlemen, we must take it for
faith value because God said Jonah was swallowed
by a whale because of his disobedience.
Now, because of his disobedience, you have chapter
two.
Chapter number two is Jonah's distress.
And you know what I've learned in my
Christian life?
Most of my distress is self-inflicted because
of my disobedience.
I usually bring on most of my discouragement.
I don't find anywhere in the Bible where
God discourages his people.
I don't find anywhere in the Bible where
God causes his people to be backslidden or
disobedient.
I do not find that in the word
of God.
But I do find where God's people get
away from God and because of their disobedience,
because of their rebellion and because of their
backsliding, they do get filled with discouragement.
They do get filled with distress.
And I believe Jonah was one of the
most distress filled men in all of the
Old Testament.
Look in chapter two, please, in verse one.
Jonah chapter two in verse one.
The Bible says, Then Jonah prayed unto the
Lord his God out of the fish's belly.
Now, you know, I could preach on that
verse for a long time and make a
lot of applications, but I'm not going to.
But let me just in passing say this,
that verse as an evangelist greatly encourages my
heart.
I'll see why, because I go all over
the country preaching.
Not that God will revive America.
That's not the point.
The point is that he can revive America
anytime he wants to.
I did not say he is going to
give us revival this week, but he can
give us revival this week.
Now, let me tell you why this verse
encourages me, because I preach in local church,
at the local church, at the local church.
God can give revival.
And you know what?
I believe if Jonah can have revival in
the belly of a fish, then we can
have revival at the Brush Harbor Baptist Church.
That's for sure.
And so he prayed unto the Lord his
God out of the fish's belly.
But what did he say?
Well, it was one of the most distressing
prayers in the Bible.
Look at verse two.
And he said, I cried my reason of
my affliction unto the Lord.
And he heard me out of the belly
of hell, cried I.
And thou heardest my voice.
Thou hath cast me into the deep, into
the midst of the sea.
And the floods come past me about all
thy billows and thy waves cast over me.
Then I said, I am cast out of
thy sight.
Yet I will look again toward thy holy
temple.
The waters come past me about even to
the soul.
The depths close me round about.
The weeds were wrapped about my head.
Now, you think about that.
There's a funny verse right there in your
Bible.
We have the idea that Jonah was sitting
down there eating caviar.
That he had on a nice little three
-piece suit and his nice little Vaseline spit
-shined polyester shoes.
Had himself a nice little lapel microphone and
a black-backed, soul-filled leather Bible.
That's not what he looked like, ladies and
gentlemen.
Everything that went inside that whale's mouth gave
him square death in the face.
I mean, when that whale opened his mouth
and poured in all that salt water, right
down his little goozle it went.
I mean, all that shrimp and all that
stuff he was eating and all that sand
and all that mud and all the juices
and all that mess that was thrown inside
that great big old whale.
We have the idea he was in a
hilt and high rise, though he was in
a mess.
He was filled with distress.
And he said, I have died and from
the pains of hell I am calling to
God to ask him for help.
And here this man is in a mess.
He said, the seaweed was wrapped around my
head.
Can you imagine that?
You know, we go to a restaurant sometimes
and, you know, I enjoy Chinese food.
I'm a noodle nut.
I'll take a noodle any way you can
give it to me.
I believe it was manna in the Old
Testament.
Believe what you want to, but I'm preaching
not to you.
But I believe manna was noodles in the
Old Testament.
And I love a good old fat noodle.
I don't care how big it is.
I had noodles today.
I had noodles yesterday.
I mean, I had noodles all the time.
I enjoy them.
That's why I'm a little string bean.
But nonetheless, as I eat noodles, I like
to go to Chinese restaurants and I like
to go to Italian restaurants.
Now, more so with Italian than with Chinese.
You know what happened to me?
And don't you laugh, fellas, because you've done
it before, too.
And honestly, you're a liar if you tell
me you've never done it, because the most
comfortable person in all the world that I
can be around is my wife.
I can ask my wife things I wouldn't
dare ask you.
Do you know that?
I can tell my wife things I would
not dare tell you and vice versa.
But I can come out of a restaurant
and before I get in the truck, maybe
I got to speak or maybe I got
to shake somebody's hand or maybe I got
to meet somebody or maybe I'm fixing to
do something, this, that, and the other, know
something and tell it.
And I'm fixing to look at somebody.
You know, I want to make sure I
ain't got no spaghetti sauce all over my
face.
You know, I want to make sure the
thing's just right and it's high straight.
But you know what I ask my wife
sometimes when I come out of a restaurant
after I've been eating something that's got herbs
and spices and Mrs. Dash and all that
kind of stuff.
You know, let's cover those.
You've done it before, too.
I look at my wife and I say,
honey, have I got any greenies in my
teeth?
And she says, you got any greenies in
your teeth?
I say, yes, I got anything green in
my teeth.
I need to run back real quick before
I shake this person's hand.
Hey, you talk about greenies in your teeth.
Here's a man who had a mouth full
of seaweed.
How's that for you?
Here's a guy who had seaweed wrapped about
his face.
I mean, in his ears, plugged up in
his eyes, up his nostrils.
I mean, this man was in a mess
of distress.
Now, you think that's bad.
Look at verse five, would you?
The water, excuse me, verse six.
I went down to the bottoms of the
mountains.
You don't go any lower than that.
The earth with her bars was about me
forever.
Yet Haskal brought up my life from corruption.
Oh, Lord, my God.
He said, I was in there, but I
at least appreciate the fact you didn't let
me rock.
He said, I at least appreciate the fact
you pulled me out before corruption set in.
Then he said in verse seven, when my
soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord.
My prayer came in under thee into thine
holy temple.
They that observe lying vanities forsake their own
mercy.
But I will sacrifice unto thee with a
voice of thanksgiving.
Notice, I will pay that that I have
vowed salvation unto the Lord.
I believe what Jonah is saying here from
the belly of this whale.
I believe he's referring to the time when
he completely surrendered his heart to the will
of God.
Maybe it was in a revival meeting and
he came to an altar.
I don't know.
But maybe it was inside his bed.
Maybe it was at the feet of his
mother.
I don't know where he surrendered.
But at some point in Jonah's life, not
only was he saved by faith, but he
surrendered to the will of God.
And he said, Lord, I make a vow
to you.
Here is what I'm going to do with
my life because that's what you want me
to do.
And he said, you know what, God?
I went back on that vow.
He said in chapter number one, because of
my disobedience, I'm filled with distress and with
discouragement.
I went back on that commitment that I
made.
I went back on what I told you
that I was going to do.
And he says, Lord, if you get me
out of this mess, I will pay that
that I have vowed.
I'll preach anywhere you want me to.
I'll hold a revival meeting.
No more if you want me to.
Just get me out of this mess that
I find myself in.
And so God honored his word.
Look what happened in verse number 10.
And the land staked unto the fish and
it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.
Isn't that a wonderful thing?
In chapter number one, God speaks to his
man, the prophet, and he disobeys.
In chapter number two, God speaks to a
fish.
There were no questions asked.
He immediately obeys.
It's pretty bad when fish are more obedient
than Baptist.
That's for sure.
And here is a man because of his
disobedience.
He was filled with distress.
But chapter three is my favorite chapter.
Notice it, please.
It's what I call Jonah's declaration.
And if there was ever a declaration in
the Bible, if there was ever a message
that was preached straightforwardly, it's the message you're
about to read about in Jonah chapter three.
It says in verse one, and the word
of the Lord came unto Jonah the second
time.
I'll thank God for that verse right there.
You see, I'm glad I don't serve a
God that speaks one time and gives up.
I'm glad my Bible says in 2 Peter
chapter three, in verse number nine, the Lord
is not slack concerning his promise as some
men shall slacken.
But his wrong suffering, boy, I like that
word, wrong suffering to us, we're not willing
that any should perish, but that all should
come unto repentance.
And I believe, ladies and gentlemen, that we
have a God that'll speak once.
He'll speak twice.
Thank God, some of you know that he's
a third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh time
God.
And the Bible says that he came unto
Jonah and he asked him to do something
the second time.
Thank God for his mercy.
But you will notice, ladies and gentlemen, Malachi
chapter three, verse number six, I am the
Lord, I change not.
Hebrews 13, eight, Jesus Christ is the same
yesterday, today, and forever.
Although God spoke twice, the command was still
the same.
He killed since a man on the same
mission that he was disobedient to in chapter
one.
Let me show that to you, please.
Verse two, chapter three, in verse number two,
please.
Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and
preach unto it the preaching that I did
thee.
So Jonah arose and went unto Nineveh according
to the word of the Lord.
Now, Nineveh was an exceeding great city, a
three-day journey.
And Jonah began to enter into the city
a day's journey.
And he cried and said, Yet 40 days,
and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
Here the Bible tells us that this fish,
and if you look upon a map, you
will find out that Nineveh and Tarshish were
about 1,400 to 1,500 miles diametrically
opposed to one another in the opposite direction.
And that was a supersonic spiritual fish, if
you've ever met one friend.
And I mean, he did some quick swimming
in just a couple of days.
And he took Jonah back and he sent
him up onto the dry land.
Now, I know some of you in here
have some weak stomachs, Ms. Lamb, but nevertheless,
here is a preacher who is laying around
in sand, and excuse me, according to my
Bible, he's laying around in whale vomit.
That's what the word of God says.
I didn't make it up.
It says he vomited up Jonah upon the
dry land.
Now, I know some preachers that were going
to that and had preached on just about
everything laying around there, but I'm not going
to, but I'm going to tell you something.
He was in a mess, if there was
ever a man in the Bible.
You talk about stinking.
You ever drove by a pond and had
one dead fish in it?
It'll smell up the whole community.
Can you imagine a man that lived inside
of one for three solid days and three
solid nights?
Everybody he preached to probably had a clothespin
on their nose for three days.
I mean, he went from point A to
point B.
He went from one bed to the other
door.
He went from one house to the next
house.
I mean, for three solid days, he went
from one side of the city all the
way to the other.
And you know what he said?
He had an eight worded sermon.
That's it.
Eight worded.
Yet 40 days.
And none of us shall be overthrown.
Yet 40 days.
And none of us shall be overthrown.
By the way, unless you misunderstand your Bible,
had those people not repented, God would have
destroyed every one of them in 40 days,
just like he said he would have.
But he had mercy upon them because they
believed and they cared.
Notice what verse number five says.
It says, So the people of Nineveh believed
God and proclaimed a fast and put on
sackcloth from the greatest of them, even to
the least of them.
You'll find out that the king all the
way down to the street paupers got right
with God.
I mean, they covered their donkeys.
They covered their oxen.
They covered their dogs, their cats, their kids,
everything they could get their hands on.
They covered it in sackcloth and ashes and
they proclaimed a day or two of a
fast and they repented of their sins and
they turned from their way and they turned
to God's way and they believed God.
And over 175,000 people that didn't know
their left hand from their right got saved
by the glorious grace of God over an
eight murdered.
That's something right there in your Bible, ladies
and gentlemen, that's recorded right here in chapter
three.
That's enough right there to drive a homiletic
teacher out of his mind.
There wasn't one thing homiletical about that person.
He didn't know what alliteration was if it
caught up on his doorstep.
I mean, he didn't know what three points
in a poem was.
He never even heard of the sword of
the Lord.
I mean, here's a guy that had one
simple eight worded, no tear jerking illustration, no
jokes.
He didn't even have a snappy sermon title.
You know, as an evangelist, I like snappy
sermon titles.
I don't really know if it really gets
people's attention, but it does when you sell
them on a tape table.
I'll tell you that.
I think it's a sales pitch.
If you know you're selling tapes and they're
back there and I don't have any this
week and I apologize for that.
Maybe I need to make a few more,
but I've just been so busy.
I've not been able to.
But you know, you put some tapes back
there and you have some titles back there
and it never fails.
Somebody come by.
You know, I'll be at the table or
my wife will be at the table or
one of the Robertsons be taking care of
their table.
I just have my stuff there.
Somebody come by and say, whoa, isn't that
a nice title?
What is it?
What bothers Satan?
Take it home.
You can figure it out.
And so it's kind of a sales pitch.
So I like them snappy sermon titles.
I like them long sermon titles.
They kind of get people's attention, but Jonah
didn't have one.
It sounded like that fella, he was a
freshman in Bible college.
I mean, he was so excited about preaching,
he couldn't think straight.
And so the teacher, they went through the
three points.
They went through the poem.
They went through the introduction.
They went through the conclusion.
They went through the TS, you know, the
transitional sentences.
They went through all of it.
They went through the hand gestures.
They went through the diaphragmatic breathing and all
that type of stuff that you're supposed to
do, how you're supposed to preach and how
you're not supposed to preach.
And I mean, they went through every bit
of it.
And so at the end of the semester,
they're supposed to preach their trial sermon.
And they just went over the title to
the message.
And so that boy got up on Wednesday
and he told those people, he said, I'm
going to preach this morning on Paul's powerful
preaching on the process of practical predestination.
And the teacher stood up and said, wait
just a minute.
He said, I like alliteration.
He said, it's good when your title can
start with all the same letters and things
like that.
He said, but Paul's powerful preaching on the
process of practical predestination is just a little
bit too long, a little bit too lengthy
and a little bit too doctrinal.
You're going to have to cut it back.
How about I let you preach tomorrow and
we'll let somebody else go.
So another guy got up.
He sat down, but he was boiling hot
mad.
He got ready to go out of the
room and the teacher grabbed him by the
arm and said, son, don't you be upset
about it.
He said, that gets a little bit too
long of a title.
He said, let me tell you how you
get a sermon title to get people's attention.
He said, let's just pretend you're a pastor
in the first Baptist church in town.
He said, it's right on the main thoroughfare,
right on the main traffic road where everybody
drives by.
And he said, let's just say that a
busload of public school, high school teenagers came
driving by on Sunday morning.
And on the marquee, on the sign of
your church, you had the name of the
sermon that you're going to be preaching that
morning.
And he said, that sermon title ought to
be so snappy that it would make those
public high schoolers stop that bus, run off
that bus and run into that place and
sit on the front row to hear what
she had to say.
He said, that's how snappy your sermon title
ought to be.
He said, all right.
He went home and, buddy, he prayed all
night.
I mean, he stayed up and fasted before
God.
He got that message just right.
He got the title just down.
He prayed and prayed and prayed.
I mean, he read everything he could get
his hands on it.
He got up the next day and said,
I'll be preaching this morning on this subject.
There's a bomb on your bus.
The truth of the matter is this.
Here's a man that didn't have a snappy
sermon title at all.
Here's a man that didn't have alliteration.
Here's a man that had nothing but the
best.
The preaching of the Word of God.
And lest I remind you, ladies and gentlemen,
can I please tell you what happened when
he preached that 840 sermon?
The people of Nineveh believed God.
And you believe anything you want to, it's
on tape and you can give it to
your liberal church friends.
And we'll tell you something, preaching still gets
the job done.
I'm sick to the gills of people saying,
well, if we're going to reach teenagers, we
got to have a hot dog smothered in
onions.
And if you reach a crowd full of
teenagers with a hot dog smothered in onions,
the church down the road will reach them
with a piece of pizza, that's for sure.
What you get a crowd with is what
you'll keep a crowd with.
You reach them with hamburgers and contemporary music.
When you get rid of the hamburgers and
the contemporary music, you lost your crowd to
the church right down the street.
If you get a crowd of people that
love old-fashioned singing and old-fashioned gospel
worship and old-fashioned gospel preaching, then when
you crank up the worship, you crank up
the singing and you crank up the preaching,
buddy, they'll stick around and they'll listen to
anything and everything you've got to say.
And you know why our churches are dead
and dying on the vine?
I'll tell you why.
Because we built our churches nowadays on programs,
but years ago, we used to build them
on preaching.
I mean, the man of God would get
in the pulpit.
I mean, he was a wild man.
It's kind of like Billy Sunday one night,
he was preaching in Chicago, Illinois, and he
was preaching on one of these big old
wraparound pulpits.
Now, it's a pretty big pulpit, amen.
But I mean, he was preaching on one
of these big old wraparound jobs, like it
would be at Bob Jones University or something
like that.
And he was up there just preaching away.
And I mean, he's a wild man.
You ever even think about Billy Sunday, he'd
jump on the pulpit, jump over the pulpit.
He'd spit, holler, pull off his jacket, pull
off his shirt, pull off anything.
I mean, he'd preach and run all over
the place.
And he was up there preaching, and this
little boy stood up on the front row
and said, Mama, if they let him out
of that box, he's going to tear every
one of us in half, amen.
And there was a day, ladies and gentlemen,
when people would preach the word of God.
I mean, there was a day when churches
were built on preaching.
But nowadays, we've got sermonants for Christian aunts
who smoke cigarettes and nobody wants preaching anymore.
Everybody wants to come to church to feel
good.
I'm sorry, pal, you don't come to church
to feel good.
You come to church to worship God and
have the devil preached out of you.
Now, I don't know about you, but I
was just saying this, I don't get a
whole lot of live preaching.
I get a lot of tape preaching.
I listen to it all the time from
every preacher you can imagine.
Crazy ones, good ones, slow ones, fast ones.
But I don't get a lot of live
preaching.
But I'm telling you one thing, buddy, I
love to soak up the preaching of the
word of God.
And you'll be hard pressed, hear me, you'll
be hard pressed to make me believe that
a real blood-bought, born-again Bible believing
son of God doesn't like preaching.
I believe spirit-filled Christians like preaching.
Now, it may not always be what they
want to hear, but they will understand that
it's preaching that gets the job done.
Hey, you've heard some wonderful music this week.
You've heard first-class Christian real gospel music.
And I'm going to tell you something about
their music.
Paul never said by the foolishness of music,
he's going to save them that belief.
He didn't say by the foolishness of fellowship
and potluck dinners, he's going to save them
that belief.
He didn't say by the foolishness of programs,
but he did say by the foolishness of
preaching, not foolish preaching.
I've heard some of that.
He said, but by the foolishness of preaching,
he would choose to save them that belief.
You know what?
God's never needed the world's methods to reach
people.
You know what?
He still doesn't need the world's methods to
know.
It's always been the straightforward, unadulterated preaching of
the Word of God that's got the job
done.
It worked for Nineveh and it still works
for America.
I know it, Robert Schueter and the rest
of them guys on TV in the Christmas
season, let that mess say, they get up
there and they put their little robes on
and they stand up and they say, now,
ladies and gentlemen, the problem in America are
the preachers who preach on sin and hell
and condemnation.
No, Mr. Schueter, the problem in America is
the false preachers who won't preach on sin,
who won't preach on hell and who won't
preach on condemnation.
Because I'd like to remind you, both Jesus,
John the Baptist and the apostle Paul were
the most straightforward preachers that ever walked the
face of God's green earth and people did
not like what they had to say, but
they still preached the Word of God.
You know what Jeremiah said?
Be not afraid of their faces.
And I'm going to tell you what, friend,
you stand right on that, there's a lot
of scary faces you can be afraid of,
that's for sure.
Jeremiah said, don't worry about it.
He said, if they laugh, let them laugh.
He said, if they frown, let them frown.
He said, if they say amen so loud,
you can't preach, don't be it.
But if you can't get a grunt out
of them, just preach to them anyway.
If they're mad as a junkyard dog, preach
to them.
And if they're nice to some little old
lady, preach to them.
You know, Sam Jones said, if you throw
a rock into a pack of dogs, the
one that chases you, probably the one you
hit.
And you can always tell who you hit
in the church, they're the first one to
make a beeline and shake your hand and
tell you, I'll not be back.
They're the first ones to come running up
to you, not the spirit-filled people like
preachers.
And I'm not talking about the little playing
game preacher.
And by the way, I'm not talking about
styles of preaching either.
I preach fast, that's obvious.
Some people preach slow, that's fine.
Some people quote a lot of scripture when
they preach.
Some people quote hardly any.
Some people use a lot of illustration.
Some people use very little illustration.
I'm not talking about the style.
I'm talking about the content.
And we're living in a day when both
the pulpit and the pews have been vacated
by preaching.
Nobody preaches the Word of God for me
anymore.
And we wonder why we got popsicles in
the pews.
It's because we got polar bears in the
pulpit, that's why.
We're going to have to get to the
place, ladies and gentlemen, where we get back
to the straightforward preaching of the Word of
God.
I call it the old-fashioned, independent, blistering,
blazing, thundering, lightning, hail, fire, and brimstone, independent,
fundamental, Bible-believing, dispensational, hard-nosed, step on
your toes, red-hot, looting, shooting, without apology,
Bible-shooting, Baptist-preaching.
That's what's going to turn America around.
It's always worked in the past, and contrary
to popular belief and what Norman Vincent Peale
thinks, and by the way, he knows better
now, preaching still gets the job done.
It still works.
By the way, it's still what I love
to do more than anything else.
There's a couple of things in life I
enjoy.
There's a couple of things in life I
am okay at.
I can do fairly well.
But there's one thing I love more than
anything else in all of the world, and
I don't care if I can do it
well or not, I love...
I was sitting in a place one night
in Rochester, Illinois, preaching up there.
They've got this thing called Reformers Unanimous.
I don't know why I'm getting off on
all this.
I normally don't, but that's all right.
I was preaching this place, and there was
a bunch of addicts were there.
I mean, dopeheads, crackheads, porno pushers, pedophiles.
I mean, you name it, buddy.
I mean, these people were addicted to everything.
Video games, jelly beans.
I mean, these people were strung out on
everything you can imagine.
About 150, 165 of them, something like that.
And Steve Curran invited me to come up.
This is about the first, maybe the second
time I'd preached for them, and I've preached
for them eight or 10 times by now.
But I was up there, we went one
night, and we got a cup of coffee
after it.
I was preaching this thing, all these addicts,
you know, and so I preached on dying
to yourself.
I preached the message from Romans chapter number
six on why don't you just drop dead,
or how sometimes we got to let our
flesh not get the best of us, but
rather let the spirit of God get the
best of our flesh.
And so I preached on that that night.
How, you know, if you try to feed
a fleshly appetite, you're not going to be
able to fight it.
I just preached on that whole deal.
Well, when we got ourselves a cup of
coffee after service, and we're sitting down there,
and I said, Brother Curran, I said, I've
got a confession to make.
He said, what's that?
Well, I don't know, 15, 20 people were
there, and they were all talking.
They weren't paying attention to me no matter
what.
And so I thought, well, I give this
attention real good.
I said, you know, I said, I feel
real bad that you paid my expenses and
brought me all the way up here.
I said, I didn't apologize to you about
something.
I said, I said, I'm addicted.
He said, you're addicted?
He said, you just preached 150, 165 actions.
He said, you got a problem?
And I mean, this guy comes in to
start counseling me right there at the table.
You know what I mean?
His eyes got bigger than Jimmy Dean's sausage
case.
He said, you're addicted?
I said, yeah, I said, I got an
addiction.
I said, I got a real bad problem.
I said, I can't take it.
I said, every night before I go to
bed, it stirs me up.
I said, every morning I get up, I
said, it stirs me up.
I said, I can't think straight throughout the
day.
I said, I can't do one single cotton
-picking thing without thinking about it.
I said, I pour all two teasers inside.
I had him go, I had him eating
out of my hand like a little baby
deer.
He said, well, Brother Locke, can I ask
you what it is?
I said, yeah.
I said, I like this in the case.
I said, glory to God.
I said, I can't get enough of it.
I love it.
I mean, Brother Dole says to me sometimes,
Brother Craig, you don't need to take this
opportunity.
You're going to wear your coat out.
You're going to do this.
And I'll be honest, I try to listen.
I try to do what's right.
Then I turn it back off.
But I'm telling you, if you let me
preach 500 times a week, bless God, I'd
preach all 500 times and beg you for
three more.
I just love it.
I mean, you know why I love it?
Because I've seen it work.
Because I got saved in the preaching.
I got right with God in the preaching.
I grew under preaching.
I surrendered to preach under preaching.
I surrendered to go to Bible college under
preaching.
Every decision I ever made came under the
preaching of the Word of God.
Don't you tell me preaching doesn't get the
job done.
It worked in the end of his day
and it works today in America too.
And so he preached.
He declared the Word of God.
Everybody got saved and Jonah got mad.
Look in chapter number four, would you?
Jonah chapter number four and verse number one.
But it displeased Jonah exceedingly and he was
very angry.
For sake of an outline, I call chapter
four Jonah's displeasure.
We have his disobedience.
Because of his disobedience, you have his distress.
He got right with God.
He had a declaration.
He declared the Word of God.
But then when everybody got saved, Jonah sat
down and sucked his thumb like a big
baby and got upset and got mad.
And he said, God, I can't believe you
saved all these people.
I can't believe you gave us revival.
I can't believe you actually did what I've
always wanted you to do.
But I just didn't quite want you to
do it in this way.
Notice what happened in verse number two, please.
Jonah chapter four.
He prayed unto the Lord and said, I
praise you, O Lord.
Is not this my saying when I was
yet in my country?
Therefore, I fled before unto Tarsus.
For I knew that thou art a gracious
God and merciful.
Slow to anger and of great kindness and
repentancy of the evil.
You know what Jonah just said?
He gave us one of the telltale reasons
he didn't want to go to Nineveh to
begin with.
He said, I knew if I got there
and I preached and those people repented and
they believed, I knew you'd save them.
He said, I knew, God, if I got
there, you would save those people from their
sins.
I'm glad we've got a trustworthy God like
that.
Whosoever shall call upon the name of the
Lord shall be saved.
Romans 10, 13.
Acts 16, 31.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou
shall be saved.
And I'm telling you, ladies and gentlemen, I'm
glad we've got a trustworthy God who will
save anybody that had come unto him by
faith in Jesus.
And I want to know why.
Cast you out.
Revelation chapter 22 and verse number 17.
The spirit of the bride say, come and
let him that is a thirst come.
And whosoever will that I hairlift every calvary
from the face of God's earth.
And whosoever will let him come and take
of the water of life.
God will save anybody that will come to
him in humble repentance and humble faith.
For Jesus said, repent and believe the gospel.
That's all you got to do to be
saved.
And God's done everything for you.
Made every preparation.
And Jonah said, you know what?
I knew if I went to that place,
you'd save every one of them.
And God did.
And so Jonah wanted to argue some more.
So notice what he said, please, in verse
three.
Therefore now, O Lord, take I beseech thee
my life from me.
For it is better for me to die
than to live.
He said, listen, we won't even divvy up
on the love offering this week, God.
He said, just go ahead and kill me
and take me to heaven.
I'm through with the whole thing.
He said, I'm just casting in the Bible.
I'm turning in a suit and tie.
You can have the lapel mic.
And here is a preacher who is mad
at God's saving thousands.
And thousands of people.
But it gets worse.
Notice, please, what happens in verse number four.
Then said the Lord, doest thou well to
be angry?
Notice.
So Jonah went out of the city and
sat on the east side of the city.
And there, the word there referring to the
east side.
And there made him a booth and sat
under it in the shadow.
Notice, till he might see what would become.
Now, those are loaded words right there in
your Bible.
I don't have to have a raise of
hands because most people in this room tonight,
as fundamentalists, we believe in the verbal inspiration
of the Bible.
Does that mean?
I mean, every word of God's perfect.
I mean, every word of God is pure.
God didn't just sit up in heaven and
twiddle his thumbs and kick around pop cans
and say, you know what?
I think east side of the city would
be a good feeler right here in this
verse.
So he put that there for our learning
and for our admonition.
You know, if we'd get our noses out
of the newspaper and put them in the
Bible, we'd find out that the Bible is
a living book.
It's a breathing book.
It's an abiding book.
And God wants us to learn some things
from the word of God.
Words are important, even to these and to
them, every one of them.
And so here is Jonah.
He didn't go to the north.
He didn't go to the south.
He didn't go to the west.
The Bible said he went to the east.
You know why the Bible says that?
If you look at a map of Nineveh,
you will find out that Nineveh was sitting
in a valley.
And the only side of Nineveh that was
raised onto a mountain was the east side.
And so Jonah goes up and he sits
down on the east side of the city
and he gets him a little booth and
he's sitting there drinking his lemonade and he's
all mad at God for saving all the
people.
But there was nothing he could do because
they were already saved.
And God wasn't going to take it away
from them.
Thank God.
And so he was sitting there and he
was all mad and he was all upset.
And so the Bible says he went up
to the east side so he could see
what was going on down below so he
might see what would become of the city.
You know what Jonah is doing in his
heart?
By the way, he was disobedient in chapter
one.
But I believe Jonah's heart was farther from
God in chapter four than it was in
chapter one, that he had a sorry, wicked,
rebellious attitude.
And so here he is sitting in this
booth and he looks down to see what
would become of the city.
You see, those people were saved and there
wasn't anything Jonah could do about that.
But you know what?
Jonah still wanted to see the judgment of
God fall.
He still wanted the wrath and the fiery
fingertips of God to fall upon those people.
He wanted to see what would become of
the city.
Okay, God, you saved them.
They repented.
But I still want you to be sorry.
Jonah had a problem.
You know what that problem was?
It was a problem that many, not was,
but is a problem that many fundamentally have.
He was so angry at their sin.
He could not see past their sins and
see the need of them.
And so in hatred for their wickedness, it
caused him to hate those who were being
wicked.
Let me explain to you this way.
I don't believe there's a preacher in America
that preaches on Sodom and Gomorrah more than
I do.
I think it's wicked.
I think it's vile.
I don't think it's a lifestyle that you're
born with.
I think it's something that you choose.
And I think it's ungodly.
But I'm going to tell you something.
I don't hate Sodomites.
I hate their sin.
I think abortion is wicked and vile and
ungodly.
I think it's one of the things that
the reason the judgment of God is on
America.
I don't care if you're a liberal.
I don't care if you're a Republican.
I don't care if you're a Democrat.
I'm a Baptist.
I believe that because that's what the Bible
says.
But I don't hate abortion doctors.
I don't hate young ladies who get messed
up and who go and have an abortion.
I hate the sin.
I will say something.
I do not hate crackheads.
I hate the crack that made them that
way.
I don't hate drunkards.
But I hate liquor with a purple cap.
I'm going to say something.
We're not careful.
We can get to the place as Bible
believers that we so hate sin that we
cannot see past that sin into the meat
of that sin.
People filling our pews who we've crammed our
standards down their throats.
And I'm going to tell you something about
lost people.
They don't need your standards.
The last thing in this world lost people
need is your standards as an independent advocate.
They need your saviors.
And the standards will automatically come through the
process of sanctification.
I'm going to tell you, you get somebody
saved.
You don't have to beg them to dress
right.
I promise you that.
You get somebody saved by the grace of
God.
You won't have to beg them to quit
watching all rated, explicit, wicked, vile, ungodly, pornographic
movies.
You don't have to picture with them about
that.
And you get somebody saved by the grace
of God.
You will not have to beg them to
quit shacking up.
Man, they'll be willing to get married on
the spot.
You get somebody saved by the grace of
God.
Their life will change.
But I will tell you something.
If we're not careful, we can so hate
the sin of the world that we hate
the sinners of the world.
And that's not so.
And Jonah did that.
He said, you know what, God?
I feel it.
Just let them all go to hell.
I don't care anything about any of the
people.
And his heart was engrossed in bitterness, fire
and jealousy.
Notice, please, as we bring the story to
a close in verse number six.
And the Lord God prepared a gourd, made
it to come up over Jonah, that it
might be a shadow over his head to
deliver him from his grief.
But Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd.
The God prepared a worm when the morning
rose the next day and it smoked the
gourd that it withered.
It came to pass when the sun did
arise.
God prepared a vehement east wind and the
sun beat upon the head of Jonah.
And he fainted and wished himself to die
the second time.
And he said, it is better for me
to die than to live.
Verse nine, and God said to Jonah, Doest
thou well to be angry for the gourd?
He said, I do well to be angry,
even unto death.
If you had heard a word I said,
please listen to verses 10 and 11.
It sums up the entire book of Jonah.
Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity
on the gourd for the which thou hast
not labored.
Neither made us it grow, which came up
in a night and perished in a night.
And should not I fear none of that
great city, where are more than six to
a thousand persons that cannot discern between their
right hand and their left hand, and also
much cattle.
And the Holy Spirit of God stopped right
there in mid sentence and gave us no
more insight to this book.
Jonah chapter four and verse number 11.
It's almost like the Holy Spirit of God
gave that little question mark and just completely
stopped and said nothing else.
You know what?
I believe from my study and observation of
the word of God.
If I can say it reverently, I believe
in Jonah chapter number four, verses 10 and
11.
God laid himself out on the sovereign heavenly
operating table and pulled out the scaffold of
the word of God and cut out his
flaming beating heart and said, Jonah, I want
to show you what my heart beats.
I want to show you what really makes
me thrive and what my main goal and
my main passion in life.
He said, Jonah, don't you get it?
He said, I sent you to a group
of people in chapter one that had no
Bibles, had no schools, had no bus routes,
had no churches, had no baptistry, had nothing
whatsoever.
I sent you to them to preach to
us, saith the Lord.
And you didn't go.
So I had to get your attention because
those people were still lost.
And you were the mouthpiece to whom I
wanted to go.
And by the way, God's mouth is your
mouth.
God's hands are your hands.
God's feet are your feet.
He could do anything he wants to, but
he has chosen to use foolish people like
you and me.
And how foolish we are not to let
him use us.
And so he said, Jonah, you ran.
I had to get your attention because you
were still in discouragement, distress.
But finally, you got your heart right with
God, had an old fashioned heaven sent heart
center, holy ghost revival meeting right there in
the belly of that kid.
And you got right and went out and
you preached.
All of those hundreds of thousands of people
got saved and heaven was rejoicing and I
was rejoicing.
And the king and all the people of
Nineveh were rejoicing.
And you were patient.
You were upset and mad.
Tucked in your stomach, a big baby, getting
all upset, growling in bitterness back to the
God of heaven, wishing and desiring for me
to still destroy these people.
And he said, but you know what your
problem is, Jonah?
He said, I gave you a little gourd.
Changed your attitude a little bit.
Keep that nice east wind off your head
a little bit now and just kind of
help you out and put you in a
little booth there.
And he said, you went to sleep one
night and I caused a worm to come
and eat up that gourd.
And he said, when you woke up the
next day, he said, you were fit and
fine.
He said, you know what your problem is,
Jonah?
He said, you have had more love, more
concern, and more compassion for a vegetable, if
you will.
For a no good for nothing gourd, you
didn't have any reason to make it gourd.
You had no reason to make it nice.
He said, you had nothing to do with
the life or the death of that gourd.
He said, you've had love and compassion on
a single little gourd and you take your
little bitty, tiny, insignificant miniscule fish in my
face and you get mad at me for
having love and concern and compassion for over
175,000 people that did not even know
their left hand from their right and they
were so seriously ignorant.
And he said, Jonah, your priorities are all
messed up.
We said, oh, brother Locke, Jonah must have
been a wicked man.
Oh, brother Locke, sometimes we're all a little
bit wicked ourselves.
Because we care more about our checking accounts,
more about our savings accounts.
We care more about the things that we've
got, the things that we've got to do
and our schedules and our itinerary than we
do the multitudes and millions of souls who
are going place to place.
And from Genesis chapter number three and verse
number six, since the fall of man, God
has had one heart.
He's been on a quest for the souls
of humanity, my dear brother.
And in Jonah chapter number one, he sought
for a man and the man that would
stand in the gap, as Ezekiel chapter 22
and verse 30 says, he found that man,
but that man ran and he had to
get his attention.
And he brought him back and Jonah was
upset when they got saved, but God was
rejoicing.
And he said, Jonah, you have been having
love and concern and compassion over a vegetable
and you dare get mad at me for
doing what I do best, saving people by
the glory of Christ.
I give this illustration, I'll draw four chapters
together, we'll be through and go home.
Two or three years ago, I was preaching
at the Fairmont Baptist Church of Fairmont, Minnesota.
I've been there on several occasions.
Good Lord willing, I'll be back in November.
Pastor David Eckblad is a good friend of
mine.
He's asked me to come and hold a
nine-day revival meeting, Sunday through Sunday, stay
over for the following Monday because it was
Memorial Day and he wanted me to preach
the sermon on America.
So I did.
Well, Friday night I preached and I preached
probably one of the simplest sermons I've ever
preached on hell.
Just preached on the terrors and I think
it was the torments and things like that.
Just some tea that is preached.
Three or four simple little points on hell.
Only preached it, you know, a couple of
times.
Well, about, I don't know, five, six, seven,
eight, nine, ten minutes into my sermon, a
couple walked in the back door.
They had a little child that went downstairs
in my wife's children's revival hour.
And she had a little baby in her
arms.
And if my memory serves me correct, I
believe that the little baby was adopted.
And they had two older boys who were
in, I think, their mid-twenties.
One was in California, one was in New
York.
They were at two different secular universities, two
opposite spectrums, two opposite ends, diametrically opposed to
one another.
Well, they came, you know, most people show
up a little bit later in a Baptist
church.
They'll sit down to the back or towards
the middle.
But they walked right up the middle aisle,
all the way down to about the second
or third few there, I believe it was
the second few to my left and just
popped right down.
That didn't bother me.
They didn't serve anybody.
I think everybody kind of expected them to
be late.
Pastor told me they were going to be
late.
They're over-the-road truckers.
They homeschool and train their children on the
road, their younger children, so they can keep
them together.
And he said they'll be late.
They came Friday night, Saturday night, all day
Sunday, all day Monday.
And I'm not seeing them since.
And don't know if they still go to
the church.
I'll find out in November.
But I was there a couple of years
ago, and I was preaching that night on
Hale.
And there was a young lady there, 17
years old.
Her name was Jamie.
She brought about 15 or 16 teenagers for
three or four nights of the meeting.
And I think every single teenager she brought
made a profession of faith.
I mean, they were down that aisle.
They were on that altar.
I mean, they were getting right with God.
People were getting saved.
And it was really, it was a great,
great meeting.
And I suppose on Sunday morning, Fairmont Baptist
Church maybe probably runs, I don't know, 75,
85 people respectively, somewhere in there.
Well, that night we had a few churches
and some people that had heard me in
another church before.
They were there.
We probably had maybe 130, 135 people there
that night, something like that.
And so I was preaching on Hale.
Things were going well.
I mean, it just felt like the Lord
was really moving, really speaking to hearts.
So I said, hey, about eyes closed, about
to bow their heads and close their eyes.
And we had the pianist and the organist,
Trump, with him having a sing in the
Robertson Fort with me that week.
And my wife's downstairs with the kids.
You can kind of hear the little resounding
echo of the kids down there just singing
away.
Pastor's standing there.
His wife's in the back.
Got some deacons and people that are ready
to work with the teenagers and the other
people that come forward.
And so we're getting ready to go right
into the invitation.
And they were playing.
Their heads were bowed.
Their eyes were closed.
And I was just fixing to get out
of my mouth, stand to your feet.
I mean, I was just fixing to get
it out of my mouth.
And this lady sitting on the second row
to my left, pick that little baby up.
She kind of popped open the arms of
her husband, laid her Bible down.
And she got up and she walked out.
Now, I've had people come to the altar
while I was preaching, before I preached, long
after I was done preaching, stayed long after
the service, and sometimes right when I gave
the invitation.
So I just figured this woman is stepping
out to come to the altar basically before
anybody else, because I was pretty much in
the gist of giving the invitation.
So she gets up, but she was not
well now on her way to the altar.
As a matter of fact, she was well
now on her way to the floor, right
in the middle of that baggage carrier.
And she went right out into the middle
aisle and fell down on her knees.
I'm going to tell you something right now.
Down south, we're a little bit more emotional
and amen-y than they are in Minnesota.
OK, that's just the way it is.
They're great people.
They love God just as much as we
do.
They do things just a little bit differently
in their church.
They don't say amen near as much, and
that's just the way that they are.
So when this woman stepped out and she
hit her knees, she threw her hands up
in the air.
And I'm going to tell you how carnal
I am tonight.
The first thought in my mind was, oh
boy, here goes one of those tongue-flapping
dogs barking, jump around like a fish out
of water people.
I thought she was going to have a
Pentecostal fit right there on the floor.
I thought to myself, some of these deacons
better get their helmets on and tackle this
woman and drag her out of the building.
She was fixing to scare me to death.
I knew she was going to run all
over that place.
I knew she was going to fall on
that floor and just start foaming at the
mouth.
And I was scared absolutely to death.
But although I was surprised at what she
did, I was relieved at what she did
as well because she didn't have a Pentecostal
fit.
I'll tell you what she did do.
She set that place on fire.
She's on her knees and she threw both
her hands up in the air.
And I'm telling you, that woman died.
It looked like a road map.
I mean, her face was more red than
the carpet that you're standing on and the
keys are sitting right there.
I'm telling you, blood red.
She threw her hands up in the air
and I'll never, if God gives me a
hundred years to live, I'll never forget what
that woman said.
By God's grace, I'll never want to forget
what that woman said because it keeps me
on my toes sometimes.
In front of 130, 135 some odd people
in that building.
Her husband right there and her children downstairs,
she threw her hands up in the air.
I'm telling you, she had no microphone.
She had no PA, no amplification system and
buddy, she didn't need one.
Both hands stretched up in the air right
before the invitation was ever given.
She said, brother Greg, brother Greg, pray for
my boys, they're going to hell, brother Greg,
they're going to hell.
Pray for my boys, they're going to hell.
Now I'm telling you, it was everything I
could do in that church not to come
unglued.
Not to mythic, glad someone's going to help
this lady.
I mean, she peeled that woman off the
floor.
I'm telling you, she halfway carried, halfway walked
and halfway drove that lady to the back
of the auditorium.
I'm telling you, she's a weeping and squalling
like a baby like you've never seen.
They took her to this little room in
the back and I mean, she sat her
down in that chair, she put her arm
around her, she gave her a handkerchief or
a little napkin, whatever it was that woman
was blowing her nose and wiping her eyes
and wiping her sweat and she opened up
that Bible and she was reading the Bible
verses and we had an invitation that night.
It must have lasted 25, 30 minutes.
I mean, people being saved, people getting right
with God.
I'm telling you, it ain't been a failure,
buddy.
I mean, things got fixed.
You could have cut it with a damn
butter knife.
I mean, God came down.
People started getting right.
People started getting saved.
I mean, you could hear amen coming through
the building and I'm telling you, that woman
set that place on fire.
I went out to the service.
I was selling some tapes and shaking some
hands.
She walked by me, shook my hand, looked
me square dab in the face and said,
just pray for my boys.
Just pray for my boys.
And I'm going to tell you something.
There's nights, especially when I preach on the
book of Jonah, especially when I preach on
soul winning or knocking on doors or leading
people to Christ.
There's nights, ladies and gentlemen, I'm pulling my
head in my tailor and I can't get
that woman's face out of my mind.
I can't get that woman screaming out of
my ears.
I'll never forget.
That was the first time in this preacher's
ministry.
I believe I got a real good going.
Brother Greg, brother Greg, you gotta tell them,
brother Greg, they're going to hell.
They're going to hell.
You gotta tell them.
And I'm going to be real open, real
honest and real candid with you tonight.
If indeed that is God's heartbeat.
If indeed God would will to pass that
heartbeat on to his children.
Why is it that many of us do
not sense his heartbeat?
Because most of us in this room aren't
close enough to the heart of God to
feel it.