Amen, thank you so much.
The book of Jonah, chapter 1 in your
Bible tonight, please.
The Old Testament minor prophet book of Jonah.
Good to see you tonight.
I've enjoyed myself thoroughly these past few services
that we've had together.
Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of last week, and
now Monday, and here's Tuesday of this week.
And then have one more service tomorrow night,
our music service, which I'll be preaching in.
I've enjoyed my time here, enjoyed the time
here last year, and I appreciate Brother Duffy
and the camp staff allowing me to be
here.
I hope that I've been just a little
bit of a help and a blessing to
you, and I've had the privilege of talking
with many of you, counselors, some of you,
praying with some of you even today, and
that's been a blessing to me.
I'm not just here to preach, I'm here
to be a friend and here to be
a help in the best way that I
possibly can.
I've just got a message that the Lord
just kind of laid upon my heart and
just kind of changed it.
Basically, before chapel service, I just was kind
of praying about what the Lord would have
me to preach, and this was not going
to be it, but I just feel like
this is the direction that the Lord would
have me to go, and so I hope
by obeying the Spirit of God tonight, it'll
be not only a blessing to you, but
if there's an area of convincing and convicting
that you need in your life, I hope
that the Spirit of God would use that
as well.
Let's all stand, please, and have a respect
for God's Word as we look together at
Jonah 1.
Jonah 1, verse number 1, the Bible says,
Now the word of the Lord came unto
Jonah, the son of Amittiah, saying, Rise and
go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry
against it, for their wickedness is come up
before me.
But Jonah rose up to flee into Tarsus
from the presence of the Lord and went
down to Joppa, and he found a ship
going to Tarsus, and so he paid the
fare thereof, and went down into it to
go with him unto Tarsus 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, or 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 up them.
But Jonah was gone down into the side
of the ship, and he lay and was
fast asleep.
Verse number 17, would you look there, please?
Jonah 1, verse number 17, the Bible says,
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.
And tonight I want to bring you a
simple message entitled, The Bible's Biggest Runaway.
Thank you very much, you may be seated.
Let's bow our heads and hearts and ask
the Lord to bless our time together.
Now, Father, I pray for these people as
they listen to the Word of God.
I thank you for their receptiveness and their
listening ability all week long, and Lord, I
appreciate that so much as a preacher, and
I pray you'd bless them for it.
But Lord, tonight I pray that they would
listen intently again, and that you would bless
them, and Lord, that you would convict in
areas that need conviction and change.
And Lord, more so, I pray very humbly
tonight as thy servant, that you would help
me as I preach the unsearchable riches of
Christ, for it's in Jesus' name that I
pray and ask these things, and I know
that I have that which I ask for,
for I pray it in Jesus' name.
Amen.
I remember when I had a teacher by
the name of Miss Grandstaff.
She was my fifth-grade teacher.
I knew her very well because I spent
two years in her class.
The first year, I was in fifth grade.
I was at the Gladeville Elementary School of
Nashville, Tennessee, and I had a good friend
by the name of Matthew Ray.
Now, I had several other friends, but Matthew
Ray was probably the buddy of the decade,
if you will.
I mean, we were close.
We did everything together.
I mean, he was always at my house,
I was always at his.
And from fifth and sixth grade, I mean,
we were the best of friends.
I remember one day, which was not too
unusual for he or myself, we got in
trouble and had to do back then in
public school what they called write-offs.
Now, when I first went to public school,
they didn't fool with the write-offs.
They'd pull out a big paddle, and they'd
just wear you out if you got in
trouble.
But then they got to the place where
they started passing rules and regulations, and moms
and dads didn't want that anymore, so they
made us do write-offs.
They had these little science cards and these
little history cards.
They came out of this little bucket, this
little barrel, and you just kind of pulled
one.
You didn't get to pick which one you
wanted, and there's probably, I probably wrote all
of them four or five times a piece,
but I mean, there was a bunch of
them.
And I'd pull one out, he'd go and
pull one out, and she would send us
to different rooms to make us do these
write-offs.
Now, that meant we was going to have
loads of homework because we didn't get any
of the seat work or any of the
class work done.
And so I remember my first year in
the fifth grade, she sent me, I don't
know, this was probably middle of the year
or something like that.
I got in trouble for doing something.
Can't remember what it is.
Surely it wasn't my fault for sure, but
I got in trouble, and she sent me
to the first grade class.
Now, as a fifth grader, going to the
first grade, that's kind of humiliating, and I
guess that was kind of the point of
it, to keep me from keeping continually to
doing that and going back.
And so I was in the first grade
class, and here I am.
I've got my little write-offs, and I'm
just writing 90 miles a minute as fast
as I can.
And so all of a sudden, the door
opens, and here comes Matthew Ray.
He comes, and he sits down across the
room from me, and he's kind of sitting
there, and we're kind of looking at each
other every now and then, just kind of
giving each other the eye, you know.
And I don't know where in the world
this idea came from.
I'm going to be honest with you.
I don't know if it was my idea.
I don't know if it was his idea.
I don't know whose idea it was, but
apparently we came up with the idea about
the same time.
The first grade class ended up going to
lunch, and so here I am sitting by
myself.
He's sitting by himself, and so here we
are.
It's not even our lunch time yet.
First grade obviously went first.
And so here we are, and I'm sitting
down.
I'm writing.
He's writing.
And all of a sudden, I don't know
where it came from.
Beautiful day outside.
I look at him.
He looks at me, and the idea pops
into both of our heads simultaneously at the
same time.
Let's run away from school.
Now, that's the dumbest thought I've ever had
and the dumbest thought he ever had.
I don't know who thought it up, but
it was ridiculous, that's for sure.
And so I said, Matthew, listen, I've got
a plan, all right?
I said, let's do the little Mission Impossible.
I said, I'm going to go to the
bathroom.
I said, when I go to the bathroom,
I'm going to wait five minutes.
I said, I've got my little clock here.
I said, I'm going to be in there
five minutes.
When I'm there five minutes, you tell this
teacher you've got to go to the bathroom.
I said, surely she won't think anything about
it.
I said, we'll meet in the bathroom, and
then we'll have plan B in the bathroom.
I said, we'll figure out where we go
from there.
And so I went to the bathroom, and
I waited, and I waited.
And I was sweating bullets, and I thought
for sure I was going to get caught.
And I washed my hands about 15 times,
and finally five minutes passed, and here comes
Matthew Ray.
I thought, wow, that teacher was pretty gullible,
letting us both go to the bathroom within
the same time frame.
And so here he was.
He said, what do we do now?
I said, well, I thought up the first
part.
It's your turn now.
He said, well, let's go to the gym.
And so we went to the gymnasium.
And people were in there.
They were playing basketball.
They were playing volleyball.
And we still had our little write-off
cards, and we still had all that big
old stack of notebook paper and pencils and
erasers and stuff in our hand, and so
we figured we need to ditch that.
And so we walked through the gymnasium, Gladeville
Elementary.
When you walk outside, to the left and
the right, there's these big, huge module-type
buildings, these little mobile home-type things that
they had computer classes and all kind of
different classes.
And so we just kind of walked over,
and they had a little garden area, so
we just took our stuff, and we just
kind of threw it in there.
And so then we walked across the parking
lot a little ways.
It wasn't too far from here to the
light pole out there.
And they had a great big old chain
-link fence, and so we hopped the chain
-link fence, and when you hop the chain
-link fence, you're right in the woods.
And so we start moseying around through the
woods, and we start messing around, and he
starts telling me what a great hunter he
is, and we're talking about how we're going
to live out in the woods for the
rest of our life.
And he did a real silly thing.
This is a gospel truth.
He got down on his knees, and he
put his ear to the ground, and he
said, I think a deer will be coming
by very soon.
He said, My granddad taught me how to
hear deer running.
I thought, You idiot.
Get off your face.
It's stupid.
And so he's down there listening for deer,
and he goes down to the water.
I mean, he's just a real Rambo.
He scoops up the water and puts it
in his mouth.
He's trying to impress me and all this
kind of stuff.
I was just interested in getting away from
school.
And so we're running around, and so we
pull out little wallets, and we put our
money together.
We probably had about $2.50, $2.25
together, and we thought we was going to
live on that, how on the whole, for
the rest of our life.
And so there's a little Southern Baptist church
over there.
We went and hid in the parking lot
for a little while between some cars and
let everybody go by.
And then we went from there, and we
went to this little store that they had,
a little general store.
And then we went from there about a
half a mile.
We finally got down to the ball field,
and in the ball field there was more
woods.
And so then we cut through those woods,
and we got on this little field, and,
buddy, we just kicked back and was relaxing.
Now, we said, What we're going to do?
After school today, so people don't think anything,
we had our heads on, we'll go to
the store, and we'll get our $2.25
together, bag us a couple of bag of
groceries, you know, and, man, we'll just live
out here tonight, and we'll have ourselves a
big weenie roast, and nobody will know where
we are.
Man, we were just all excited.
Here we are, run away from school.
Well, all of a sudden, we were just
kind of out there, and I guess probably
two or three hours had passed.
The sun kind of started getting just a
little bit more dismal, and it started to
sprinkle rain a little bit, and I thought,
Great.
First time I've ever run away from school,
it's going to pour down rain, you know,
and so we're sitting out here in the
woods, and we're sitting inside these little, these
stools made out of kind of a wood
-type thing.
I don't know who left them out there,
but they're pretty convenient, so we just kind
of kicked back, you know.
All of a sudden, I hear the boom,
boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Well, I looked out on the highway, and
at this time, my brother had one of
these crazy lowrider things.
I mean, that thing was to the ground.
You couldn't drive over pig gravel with that
thing.
I mean, you'd have tore the bottom out
of it, and he had them big old
speakers.
He had this little shelf that went all
the way across this little cover that went
all the way across the back of the
bed of his truck.
That thing was full of these big wolfers
and sub-wolfers and all this kind of
18-inch mess.
Boom, boom, boom, boom.
I mean, he's just going down the road
with that thing just bouncing off the ground,
and I thought, That's my brother's truck.
I said, That is my brother's truck.
I said, They have called him, and he's
coming to get me.
And so I kind of popped up like
a little rabbit, you know, and I'm kind
of looking around, and all of a sudden,
his car stops, and he jumps out, and
my cousin, my first cousin, Tony Sparkman, jumps
out, and, man, they just come barreling through
those weeds just as fast as you can.
They're screaming and yelling and hollering like a
bunch of wild banshees.
And, man, I'm running all over the place,
and I'm running in circles.
I know I'm fixing to get caught.
And so I said, Run for the woods.
Run for the woods.
And so we're running for the woods, you
know, and they're diving after us, and I
fall over, and he falls over.
It's like a big slow-motion scene, you
know.
And my brother jumps on me, and my
cousin jumps on Matthew.
They shake us all up, beat us around
for a little while, and throw us in
the truck and take us back to the
school.
And, man, you talk about humiliation.
They walked us into the office, and, man,
all these kids were getting ready to go
to lunch.
They was all looking at us.
They knew what we did.
They knew we got busted, man.
They had the police there.
His mom was already there.
My mom was already there.
I thought, What in the world are these
people going to do?
Well, I'll tell you what they did.
They kicked us out of school not only
for that day, but for three more days.
They gave us continual, continual write-offs, but
I will never forget what Miss Allgood, who
at that time was the principal of Glaveville
Elementary, I will never forget what she told
me.
She said, Greg, you're nothing but a little
runner.
She said, you always run from your problems.
She said, every time you face a problem,
she says, you're always running from your problems.
She said, you're nothing but a little runner.
And she said, it's time you learned to
quit running.
And here was a man in the Bible
by the name of Jonah that was nothing
but a little bitty runner.
All he did was run from his problems.
When things got bad, instead of running to
the Lord, he ran from the Lord.
And there are several things in this portion
of Scripture tonight that I think are very
apropos to our Christian life that I want
you to see.
Please look at Jonah chapter 1 and verses
1 and verses 2.
Would you look there?
Simple outline tonight.
I want you to see number one.
Jonah ran from God.
Jonah chapter 1, verse number 1.
Look what it says.
It says, Now the word of the Lord.
Now it doesn't say the word of a
preacher.
It says the word of the Lord.
And that's what matters.
That's what counts.
He says, The word of the Lord came
unto Jonah, the son of Amittiah, saying, here's
the command, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great
city, and cry against it.
Why?
For their wickedness is come up before me.
Now look at the first part of verse
number 3.
But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarsus
from the presence of the Lord.
God came down to Jonah one day and
said, Jonah, I want you to be my
man, my itinerant evangelist for the city of
Nineveh.
And he said, No way, Hosea.
No way.
He said, I do not want to go
to the city.
Now there are several reasons, more than likely,
that he did not want to go.
They are not part of our outline, but
let's just bump heads for a little bit
tonight, shall we?
There's only one other place in your Bible,
in the Old Testament, where the word Amittiah,
speaking of Jonah's father, is used.
Now this is not, alright?
This is opinion.
Believe what you want to.
But I've read several history books about the
Bible.
And Josephus kind of thinks this, that, and
the other.
But most people that write will say that
at one time Amittiah, the father of Jonah,
was slain in a grievous battle by the
Ninevites.
And so if that be true, if it
is fine, if it's not fine, but if
that be true, then no doubt Jonah did
not want to go to the same city
where several years earlier his father had been
slain.
Now think about the Ninevites for a moment.
The city of Nineveh was the capital city
of a place called Assyria.
The Assyrians were a wicked, vile, godless bunch
of rebels that spit on the Bible, spit
in the face of God.
I mean, these people were ungodly.
I'll tell you how ungodly they were.
Not only were they immoral, but if they
had a beef against you, if you said
something or did something or wore something they
didn't like, if they didn't like the smell
of your cologne or your perfume, they'd just
chop your head off and they'd put a
pole through your body.
They'd put some type of jelly upon you
that lights you up and you'd be the
street lamp for the city of Nineveh.
That's a pretty wicked group of people.
And so Jonah thought to himself, hey, I'm
not going to go be live fish bait
for these people.
I don't want to go preach their God.
And God said go, and Jonah said no.
And because Jonah ran from God, I want
you to see several things in the progression
of Scripture here that happened in his life.
Verse number 3, look at it, would you?
It says, but Jonah rose up to flee
into Tarsus from the presence of the Lord.
The first thing that happens when you directly
disobey the will of God is number one,
you run away from the protective presence of
Almighty God.
Now, it just makes sense to me.
It does not take a rocket scientist to
figure out that America is in a mess.
And if you don't think America is in
a mess, you've got your head in the
sand like an ostrich.
I mean, sodomites and abortions and ungodliness.
I mean, we are in a rampant, rampant
wicked society.
And it would just seem logical to me
that in this day and age we shouldn't
be running from the presence of the Lord,
but we're going to need God more.
We should be running to God.
But here was a man that ran from
Him.
And because he ran from Him, number one,
he got out from under God's protective presence.
But I want you to see number two,
that he paid the price of his sin.
Real simple outline.
Look back at the Bible, would you?
Verse number 3, Jonah rose up to flee
into Tarsus from the presence of the Lord
and went down to Joppa, and he found
a ship going to Tarsus, so he paid
the fare thereof.
Now, unless you misunderstand your Bible, you've got
to understand that Tarsus was one of the
highest rated fisherman cities of this day.
He did not pay 50 cents or $5
to get away from God.
He paid a hefty sum.
And if you look on a map sometimes,
you'll find out that Tarsus and Nineveh was
about 1,500 miles apart.
He paid a big price to get away
from God.
And if God tells you to do something
and you say no, or if God tells
you not to do something and you do
it anyhow, not only will you be out
from under the protective presence of God, but
secondly, you will always pay the price in
your mind, in your heart, in your body,
for your sin.
There has never been anybody that has never
had to pay for their sin, and Jonah
was not the exception.
It cost him to run from God.
But also spiritually, there's something else I want
you to see.
Back at verse number 3, would you?
But Jonah rose up to flee into Tarsus
from the presence of the Lord and went,
what's the word, down to Joppa.
And he found a ship going to Tarsus,
so he paid the fare thereof, and went
down into it to go with him under
Tarsus from the presence of the Lord.
Look at verse number 5, would you?
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, to lighten it of them.
But Jonah was gone down in the sides
of the ship, and he lay and was
fast asleep.
Three times the Bible says that Jonah went
down when he ran from Almighty God.
Somebody says, well, I'll tell you what, Brother
Locke, I think I can live any way
I jolly well please.
I think I can live my own life,
and I can be my own boss, and
I can do my own thing.
And my life is just fine, not according
to the Bible, because when you directly disobey
the will of God, your life does not
get better, it does not progress, it gets
worse, it degresses, and you don't go up,
up, up, you go down, down, down.
And here's a man that had no joy,
he had no assurance, and he had no
peace because his life continually went down, because
he would not submit himself to the will
of God.
Stand and also submit, please.
I beseech you that by the mercies of
God, that you present your bodies a living,
not a dead, a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable
unto God, which is your reasonable service.
It's just reasonable for you and I to
give our life to Christ.
Since 2,000 years ago, He gave His
life for you and for me.
And then he says in verse number 2,
Be not conformed.
That means don't look like, smell like, talk
like, walk like, act like.
Be not conformed to this world, but be
ye transformed by the renewing of your mind
that ye may prove what is that good,
acceptable, and perfect will of God.
But did you notice what he said in
verse number 1?
He said to present your bodies a living
sacrifice unto God.
I believe what Paul had in mind when
he wrote that through the inspiration of the
Spirit of God was in the Old Testament
when they had the burnt offering.
They would have this animal upon the altar.
They would slice that animal's throat, a lamb
of the first year, just without blemish, without
spot, a perfect lamb.
He would slice it from ear to ear.
The blood would then begin to bush out,
and I don't know what they used.
They didn't have gasoline, I'm sure, but they
used some type of Old Testament gasoline, some
type of Old Testament lighter fluid, all right,
if you will.
And they put it all over the body.
They doused the body of this animal.
They would then set that animal's body on
fire.
They would set it aflame.
Now, no doubt, if your neck has just
been cut, and if you have just been
set on fire, your nerves are going to
be going crazy, my dear friend.
And so that animal many times would twitch
and would begin to just kind of gyrate
and convulse back and forth.
And many times that would fall off of
the altar, making it what?
An unacceptable sacrifice to Almighty God.
So in the Old Testament, they had what
was called flesh hooks.
They had long poles that were anywhere from
five to eight feet long.
On the end of that pole were these
two great hooks that came out of kind
of one little stalk, and they came out
and had two hooks on it.
And they would take those hooks, and when
that animal began to convulse, and when that
animal began to get to the place where
it was going to roll off the altar
and thus be unacceptable to God, that prophet,
that priest would then take that staff, they
would put the flesh hooks into the side
of that animal, and while it was bleeding,
while it was on fire, while it was
convulsing and jumping around, it would hold that
animal upon the altar so it would be
acceptable to Almighty God.
And I believe what the Apostle Paul is
saying in Romans 12, 1 and 2, is,
child of God, stay on the altar and
present your body a living sacrifice.
Don't get distracted.
Don't get to the place where you begin
to convulse and you roll off of the
altar and begin to live your own life
and your own way.
Why?
For you belong to God.
And he said, stay on the altar.
And here was a man that would not
have had so much trouble.
He would have had not so much blight
upon his testimony, if you will, if he
would have just obeyed the Spirit of God
willingly.
But look how much trouble he got into
when God said, go, and Jonah said, no.
Now, I don't know what your situation is
tonight.
Perhaps there'll be a young man here, God's
got his hand on you, he wants you
to be a gospel preacher.
Many young men stood up last night and
said, hey, God's calling me to preach, God
wants me to be a pastor, a missionary,
evangelist, whatever it is.
Perhaps there'll be more in this room that
you know God wants you to be a
preacher, but you say in your heart, I
just don't know if I can be a
preacher.
Or a matter of fact, God, I don't
know if I want to be a preacher.
How about since you belong to God, you
take your hands off your life and say,
God, you can have me lock, stock, and
barrel.
You can do with me what you want
to do.
Anytime you want to do it, take away
anything you want to take away.
Give me anything you want to give me.
I will do thy will.
And those that say, God, your will, not
mine, are those that God uses in a
big and a wonderful and a blessed way.
But here was a man that had a
rocky boat, if you will, because he would
not obey the Spirit of God.
But that's not the crux of my message.
I want you to look at verse number
6, if you would, please.
In verse number 6, the Bible says, so
the shipmaster, meaning obviously the captain of the
ship, the main fellow in charge, so the
shipmaster came to him and said unto him,
What meanest thou, O sleeper?
Arise and call 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 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?
Now listen to his answer in verse number
9, would you?
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 had fled
from the presence of the Lord.
How did they know?
Well, look at the end of the verse,
because he had told them.
Number one, I want you to see that
Jonah ran from God, but more importantly than
that, I want you to see number two,
Jonah ruined his testimony.
Here was a man that had an opportunity
to preach and to witness and to be
a solid witness in testimony for Jesus Christ,
and here is not only the only Christian
on the boat, but the only preacher or
the only witness on the boat, and he's
not preaching, he's not witnessing, he's not teaching
the Bible.
He doesn't even have a good testimony.
The Bible says he's lost his burden, and
he is asleep in the hole in the
very bottom of a ship, and the shipmaster,
the captain, had to come and wake him
up and rebuke him and say, What meanest
thou, O sleeper?
Why don't you wake up and call upon
your God, big boy?
You're the one that's supposed to be a
Bible believer.
You're the one that's supposed to be the
big Christian man.
You're the preacher boy.
Why don't you wake up and call upon
your God?
And here was the only Christian on the
boat.
For the Bible says these other men were
calling upon their God, little G.
These were a bunch of heathens.
But here was a man by the name
of Jonah that knew Jehovah God.
He knew Him intimately, and now he had
ruined his testimony because he had ran from
the presence of Almighty God.
And he lost his testimony in front of
those people that he could have won, that
he could have told about Jehovah God so
they wouldn't have to serve the little G
but the big G, and he could have
told them, but now he had lost his
testimony, and these men were rebuking him for
the life that he was living.
Now, you won't be saved very long before
you realize two things.
Number one, your testimony as a believer is
very vital, but number two, your testimony is
the hardest thing you'll ever hang on to
as a child of God.
You know, the Bible says in Matthew 5,
verses 14 through 16, a city that is
hid on a hill cannot be hid.
Let your light so therefore shine before men
that they may see your good works and
glorify your Father which is in heaven.
Now, wait just a minute.
He did not say, Let your light shine
so they can glorify you and me.
He said, Let your light shine so they
can glorify Almighty God and we have a
command, we have a mandate as God's people
that we let our light shine and that
we tell a lost and dying world about
Jesus Christ not only with our lips, but
also with our life.
You see, Jesus told the scribes and Pharisees,
Ye draw near unto me with your mouth,
but your heart is far from me.
And let me tell you what bothers me
as an evangelist as I crisscross back and
forth across America.
I meet people that on a regular basis,
they pay lip service to Almighty God.
But if they were to go to court
for being a Christian, there would not be
enough evidence to convict them of being one.
And let me say very reverently and very
boldly and unashamedly, I won't roll my eyes
or apologize twice for saying it, my dear
friend.
If your lips and your life don't match
up, shut what your lips say until you
learn to live the life, my dear friend,
because your walk will talk a whole lot
louder than your talk will.
And God commands and God deserves the fact
that His people have a testimony not just
with their mouth, but with their life, and
we live for the King of kings and
Lord of lords and how fine it is,
not only this summer, but for the rest
of your life you'll be a witness and
you'll be a testimony to Jesus Christ.
The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 10 and
verse number 31, Whether therefore ye eat or
drink or whatsoever ye do, do all to
the glory of God.
Now, most of you Bible college students, you
know what the word glory means.
The word glory means opinion.
And God says you live in such a
way that you give the lost world a
good opinion of who I am.
I remember when I was in high school,
I'd just been saved maybe for about a
year and a half, something like that.
I was at an A.C.E. Christian
school called Bellwood Christian Academy.
They're in Murfreesboro.
I transferred after about a couple of years
after I was there.
I transferred to Franklin Road Christian School where
I graduated eventually.
But when I first went there, I was
about five years behind because of what I
was saved out of and all that kind
of stuff.
I don't have a good time in that,
but I don't have time to get into
that tonight.
But I was about five or six years
behind in school, especially in my math and
English and things, and so I had a
lot of catching up to do.
And so I remember when I first got
there, you know, I'd just gotten saved and
people said, Oh man, you're not going to
make it, you're not going to make it.
And I was doing my best not only
to prove them wrong, but to prove myself
wrong.
I wanted to know that I could live
for God.
And man, I was struggling to read my
Bible.
Here I was living in a children's home
and I was away from all my friends
and my family, this, that, and the other.
And I was just struggling to live for
God.
And I remember they wanted to put me
on the basketball team.
Now, I told Coach Mike Harris, I said,
Listen, this is going to be a bad
move for you to put me on the
basketball team.
He said, Oh listen, man, I won't make
you sit on the bench.
And he said, If you feel like sitting
on the bench, that's fine.
He said, Just get in there and play
the game.
He said, You'll love it.
They took me to the first game.
I shot my first shot and he realized,
Hey, we probably don't want you on the
basketball team, friend.
And I was more of a detriment than
I was a health, that's for sure.
You give me 15,000 rubber basketballs and
I'll shoot enough bricks to build a mansion
house.
I cannot play basketball.
I don't know anything about the game.
And so I said, Listen, Brother Harris, I
said, What if, what if instead of playing
basketball, what if I could be the school
mascot?
He said, Well, we've never had a school
mascot.
I said, Exactly.
I said, Let's try something a little bit
new.
I said, Why don't you let me be
the school mascot?
He said, Well, if you really want to
do that.
I said, I really do.
I said, Let me talk to the cheerleaders,
the ballplayers.
So they all came in one day and
we had kind of a little service together,
you know, we was kind of talking.
I said, Listen, I'd like to be your
new mascot.
I said, I've been talking to the board
about this and I've talked to the coach
about this and I said, I've got an
idea.
They said, Well, what do you want to
be?
Some kind of eagle or some kind of
buzzard or some kind of beast?
I said, No, I've got some new ideas.
I said, Ladies, I said, When you go
home, I said, Get every pom-pom in
your closet.
I said, Under the bed.
I said, Go to the thrift store.
Go to the Goodwill.
Go to Walmart.
I said, Get every pom-pom you can
muster up.
And so the next day they came and
I became what was known as the pom
-pom man.
I had pom-poms on my feet, I
had pom-poms on my ankles, pom-poms
on my knees, pom-poms on my chest,
pom-poms on my back.
I had them on my hands, all up
my arms, on my shoulders.
I had a great big pom-pom on
my head and they called me the pom
-pom man.
And if you can't figure out why, there's
something bad wrong with you.
All right?
And so I had pom-poms all over
me.
Now, I said, Coach, listen.
I said, I'll tell you what.
I said, During the games, I said, I'll
just get out there and I'll just jump
around and act like a fool like I
normally do with the cheerleaders.
I said, I'll get out there and help
them because the good Lord knows our cheerleaders
needed some real big help.
And so I was going to get out
there and do everything I could.
And so I'd get out there and then
put out a little trampoline.
I'd jump up and slam it up the
ball.
Whoo!
Everybody thought that was wonderful.
Well, I'd get out there in the pep
rallies and we didn't have very good pep
rallies.
Most of the school wouldn't even come, you
know, and so we'd get out there, man.
We'd get that spirit stick and I'd get
to running around.
Both them ladies would get to jumping around
and doing all that kind of stuff.
Them basketball players would get out there.
I mean, we'd just get that place just
to yelling and just to roaring and that
was my job.
Now, I'm sure it didn't have anything to
do with my excitement, but for some reason
that year, man, we won the tournaments and,
man, we were excited.
Now, I could give the flip of a
wooden nickel about basketball tournaments.
I could care less.
Basketball, football, hockey, whatever it is.
I'd do my best just to even hit
a golf ball, alright?
And so I'm not a very big sports
fan.
But, man, we won the national, we won
the tournaments and, man, we were going to
state competition.
Now, that's big stuff.
Tennessee Association of Christian Schools.
I mean, here we were just a little
bit of the old pole dunk school and
we were going to be going to the
state tournaments.
Oh, man, in Springfield, Tennessee.
At South Haven Baptist Church and South Haven
Christian School.
So we got there.
It was going to be on a Friday
night from about, I don't know, about 4
.30 in the afternoon to about 10 o
'clock that night and the next day was
going to start about 10 in the morning,
go about to 10 or 11.
The next night had all kind of teams
coming in.
Now, we got there on that Friday night.
Man, there were people there by the glory.
I mean, there were 1,200 or 1
,500 people there.
They were packing that place, you know, as
a nice new gymnasium, nice new auditorium for
the church.
Man, we got in there and, I mean,
we were just going and it was wonderful.
The first team got up and they played,
you know, and they had their little deal.
I don't know what we were, A's or
triple A's.
I don't keep up with all that kind
of mess, but anyhow, we was going to
play somebody in our little district and then
we got up there and we played and
I don't know if you call them innings,
I don't know if you call them whatever
they are, but anyhow, we got to the
end of the game, alright, and we got
coming down close and we had a fellow
by the name of Jason Baltimore who went
to Pensacola Christian College, good friend of mine,
and he was running down the court and
he was a basketball robot.
I mean, he was a machine, friend.
I mean, he could dribble that ball, he
could spin that ball, he could shoot the
eyes out of that ball, I mean, he
could do anything, and so he went running
down and he was going to do one
of them little layup jobbies, whatever you call
them, alright, he was going to do one
of them little layup things and what he
normally did when he did a layup, he
was one of these guys, he didn't just
put the ball in, he'd go up there
and smack the back of the backboard, you
know, everybody said, oh wow, that is something
else, so he'd go up there and smack
the backboard.
So Jason Baltimore coming down there, you know,
he jumps up, he smacks the basketball backboard.
Now, the guy on the other team, I
don't remember what team he was playing, but
the guy on the other team, now, he
thought we weren't playing basketball, he must have
thought we were playing football or wrestling, because
he put his arms together about like this
and he knocked Jason Baltimore's legs, swam out
from under him, he did a 180 degree
flip and wham, right on his face on
the ground.
The referee came out there, he blew a
foul whistle, you know, and he called the
foul on our team.
Now, I was born at night, but bless
God, it wasn't last night.
I don't know a lot about basketball and
I'm not much of a basketball fan, but
I know when you get knocked on your
face and you were in the air, it's
not your fault.
So our coach, obviously, got a little bit
upset.
Now, coaches are funny things.
Coaches can get red in the face and
I had never seen a man get so
red in the face.
I mean, I thought his jugular vein was
going to jump out the front of his
throat, he was yelling, he was beating the
floor, he was screaming and hollering, bad call,
bad call.
The other coach was saying, good call, glory
to God, good call, glory to God.
And so, man, they started yelling at one
another.
Man, all of a sudden.
Now, let me remind you where I am.
I'm with a bunch of independent, fundamental, Bible
-believing, so-called Baptist people and there's probably
1,500 people in this gymnasium and they
went nuts.
I mean, they started screaming and yelling and
hollering and throwing food down the floor.
I mean, it was crazy.
Now, we just had a wonderful halftime.
Man, I got out there and made people
laugh doing jumping jacks and handstands and all
kinds of acrobatics and stuff and so I
thought to myself, God knows my heart, I
thought, hey, Brother Dallas, I'm the man that's
supposed to make everybody laugh and so when
the tension got thick, I thought, I'll just
try to make some people laugh and try
to break this thing down a little bit.
That's the stupidest thing I've ever done in
my life.
I got there and started flipping around and
started doing some stuff.
A couple people laughed, you know, a little
big deal.
Some people got kind of upset.
The coach blew the whistle.
Now, when the coach blew the whistle this
time, we weren't playing the game so it
wasn't for a fire.
You know what he said?
State tournaments are canceled.
He said, not just tonight.
He said, tomorrow.
Every one of them.
He said, nobody's coming back.
He said, never in the history of the
Tennessee Association of Christian Schools have we seen
such ridiculousness and people losing their testimony and
yelling and screaming.
He said, they are canceled.
Hey, you think that bunch of Crowder Rebels
was mad before he did that?
Woo!
You should have seen what they did after
he did that.
I mean, the chairs went to flying.
I mean, people went to screaming and yelling
and hollering.
I mean, you see these people with video
cameras.
Woo!
Boy, they get it all in.
I mean, people are hollering.
I mean, people are getting ready to rip
each other's throats out.
I still wanted to be nice.
I still wanted to be
nice.
Going back to the locker room, you know,
they're all mad beating the chalkboard and all
this kind of stuff.
Putting their ties back on and all.
And so the other team walks by.
God knows my heart.
I was just trying to be nice.
I really was.
I wasn't trying to be cocky.
I wasn't trying to be smart, Ellie.
I wasn't trying to do anything stupid.
But he came walking by.
The coach came walking by.
And these guys walking by.
I was giving some of them a five,
you know.
And I did this.
I don't know what it was.
This little chicken dance.
You know, I was just kind of acting
silly.
Doing a little handstand just jumping around.
Just doing this that and the other.
And some of those guys, I mean, they
busted out laughing.
And they really needed to laugh.
I mean, they looked horrible.
I mean, it looked like we was at
a funeral.
And I mean, everybody was mad, crying and
screaming.
And the other people still going crazy.
You know, Bonnie's flying.
Just kidding about that.
I mean, it was bad.
It really was.
And so I thought I was just going
to be nice and kind of break the
tension.
So I did.
When I did that, that coach, I mean,
he got enraged, pal.
He came over to me and he looked
down at me and he said, you little
smothered punk.
I mean, 90 miles a minute he started
screaming at me.
Now, here's a 45-year-old man, a
17-year-old teenager.
He's looking down at me screaming as loud
as he can.
I'm looking up at him screaming as loud
as I can.
I mean, he's down.
I'm up.
We're screaming and yelling and hollering.
Well, I'd just been saved for a year
and a half.
Man, I was saved out of meanness and
pride and orneriness and about everything else.
So, man, when he started yelling at me,
I didn't know how to take that.
And so I took the pom-pom off
my head.
I raked the pom-poms off my arms.
I raked the pom-poms off my legs.
And here's this 45-year-old man and
this 17-year-old teenager.
Here I was.
I wasn't but about five foot tall.
And then here he was, a great big
old six, seven, something like that.
He's screaming at me.
I'm screaming at him.
Now, the whole time while we're screaming, I'm
walking backwards like this.
Say why?
He was six foot seven.
I'm not stupid, alright?
And so I was walking back like this.
And I mean, we were hollering and we
were yelling.
All of a sudden, he backed me into
a little room.
Now, when he backed me into that little
room, it was probably, I don't know, about
as big as this platform up here.
He backed me right up against the wall,
but it wasn't a wall at all.
It was a set of lockers.
He had backed me out into the hallway
and it just kind of closed off a
little bit for the games.
That's gospel truth.
When he backed my back up against that
locker, that place was infiltrated with a bunch
of lunatics.
I mean, that gymnasium let out and I
mean, they ran in there by the dozens.
I mean, they were standing in there.
They packed it.
Let's just say it was just about as
big as this room.
I mean, they just packed it.
I mean, they were all in there.
Let's recap just for a moment, shall we?
Fifteen hundred independent fundamental Bible-believing Baptists at
one place supposed to be glorifying God instead
of just playing some basketball.
And the gospel truth, I'm serious, is a
bad heart attack as sure as I'm standing
here and sure as this pulpit is made
out of wood.
You could hear those people around me, a
seventeen-year-old teenager and a forty-five
-year-old man, you could hear those people
in that room say, hit him, kill him,
whoop him, tear him up, whoop him, hit
him, kill him.
I mean, they wanted us to go at
it, friend.
I mean, they wanted a forty-five-year
-old man and a seventeen-year-old teenager
to rip each other's head off.
Now, it's bad enough to do it about
that time.
I mean, they were hollering at you.
It's not like a pro-wrestling sport or
something.
I mean, they were screaming and yelling, hollering.
All of a sudden, the security guard came
up to me, turned me around, slammed my
face up against the locker and threw some
handcuffs on me.
I thought, great, this is wonderful.
And so, he takes me out, and he
asked me like this, you know, he said,
don't you open your mouth.
If you open your mouth, your mom and
dad are going to pick you up in
jail tonight and all this kind of stuff.
He said, where's your bus at?
I couldn't say nothing.
I had my hands behind my back.
He told me, I told my mouth, I'm
going to put my head over there with
badness.
And so, he stuck me on there.
He took my handcuffs off.
He slammed me down in the seat.
He said, don't you open your mouth.
He said, don't you say another word.
He walked off.
I didn't say a word for about 15,
20 minutes.
I was scared to death.
He walked off, and he left.
Little by little, they started trickling off.
A couple started coming here.
Some started coming here.
Call team started getting on.
Teachers started getting on.
Bus driver came in.
Boom.
Cranked that big diesel bus off, and we
pulled out of the road.
We pulled on the road.
Well, we was going to be stopping in
Nashville, which is still a good ways away,
and we was going to be going by
McDonald's or something like that.
And so, I didn't say a word.
I was scared to death to say anything.
I thought that cop was following us.
You know, he's going to find out I
said something.
Take me to jail that night.
And so, I didn't say nothing, and we'd
been in that van or bus, whatever the
crazy thing was, for about 15, 20 minutes,
and all of a sudden, I don't know
what it was, came over me.
I started busting.
I mean, busting out crying.
Does anybody in this room know what the
Heaven Hovens is?
If your mom and dad ever took you
to the woodshed and wore your tail out,
you got the Heaven Hovens.
Now, the Heaven Hovens is different than crying.
Crying.
The Heaven Hovens is a lot different.
Man, you can't hardly breathe.
I mean, you can't hardly talk.
I mean, your eyes get filled up with
tears.
Here I was on this bus with all
my friends.
I couldn't say nothing.
I mean, the tears were flowing, the snot
was flowing, and I was trying my best
to stop, but I couldn't.
You know how girls are, little teenage girls.
They come over there, you know, they start
putting their little napkins out of their purse,
you know, a junk mess.
And they came over to me, you know,
and they came over to me, they put
their little arm around me.
It'll be alright.
God, you shut up and leave me alone.
Let me cry for a little while.
Let me tell you something, ladies.
Most of you in this room are not
married, but can I tell you something?
When a man cries, he has a reason.
When a woman cries, and you say, what's
wrong?
And she says, nothing.
That's what she means.
There ain't nothing wrong with her.
She's just crying because she wants to cry,
okay?
That's just part of their makeup.
That's fine.
That's the way God made them.
Just let the woman cry.
But when a man is weeping and crying,
leave him alone.
There's something bad wrong with him.
Alright?
And so I was weeping.
And so I didn't want them girls to
bother me.
And so, I'll never forget it.
Little short, red-headed teacher by the name
of Miss Tyree.
Every time I preach in chapel there at
Murfreesboro, we talk about this.
She came over to me.
She had her Bible open.
She sat down beside me.
She put her arm around me.
She said, Greg, what is wrong with you?
She said, why are you crying so much?
She said, now we understand you shouldn't have
gotten mad and popped off at the mouth
and screamed and yelled and all that kind
of stuff.
She said, we understand that.
She said, but if anything, she said, son,
she said, you were provoked.
She said, we don't agree with what you
did.
She said, but then you were provoked.
He was just as wrong as you were.
She said, why are you taking all the
blame?
She said, why are you so upset?
She said, why are you crying so bad?
I'll never forget what I told her.
I did my best to clear the tears
out of my eyes.
And I looked at Miss Tyree and he
squared down my eyeballs.
And I said, Miss Tyree, in front of
1,500 people at the South Haven Christian
School in Springfield, Tennessee, and more than that,
in front of the family, in front of
the church members, and in front of my
school peers from the Bellwood Christian Academy, I
said, I just ruined.
And what took me a year and a
half to build at the Bellwood Christian School
took me five minutes to lose.
And I learned that day how vital a
Christian testimony really is.
You say, well, I'll tell you one thing.
Only get mad every now and then and
jump off every now and then.
That's all right.
I don't take a shotgun one time to
go off to blow somebody's head off, too.
Somebody told me one time when I used
to be a little hot-headed teenager, they
said, you know what, your temper's so important,
you ought not ever lose it.
I think that's pretty good advice.
I don't care if it's your temper.
I don't care if it's your mouth.
I don't care if it's your dirty jokes,
your dirty stories.
I don't know what your habits, whatever it
is.
You better be real careful as a child
of God that you have a godly, consistent,
sold-out, separated testimony for the glory of
God because if you don't, not only will
you hinder other people from growing spiritually, but
perhaps you could send millions, hundreds of people
headlong to a devil's hell because they look
at your life and say, phooey on their
Christianity.
You say, well, I don't know if I
believe that kind of preaching.
Well, let me tell you about a man
by the name of Gandhi.
Gandhi has sent billions and I mean the
word billions of Hindus to hell.
While he was living and long since Gandhi's
been dead, these people believe in this Hindu
religion, this mysticism, and all this New Age
mess and all this guru stuff.
They're going to hell by the millions.
But you know what Gandhi said?
Gandhi got up there in the land of
India behind his great big brazen pulpit one
day and he said, I would become a
Christian if it were not for Christians.
And I think the reason Gandhi said that
is because he looked at a lot of
shallow people who said, yeah, I'm a believer.
I believe the Bible.
I'm a child of God.
But their life was a mess.
Their lips did not match their life and
he looked at somebody and oh yeah, he'll
still go to hell.
He's still responsible for rejecting the gospel.
But I would hate to be the set
of Christians that had such a bad influence
on Mr. Gandhi that sent him to hell.
And here was a man that ran from
God's will for his life and because he
ran from God's will for his life, he
ruined his testimony.
He was in sin and everybody on the
boat knew that he was in sin.
Now let's say that I said heads bowed
and eyes closed but I didn't.
All right, so don't bother.
But let's say that I didn't.
Let's say that I gave an invitation tonight.
It'd be a pretty silly way to end
a message.
It'd be kind of drabby, wouldn't it?
Here was a man that at one time
was right with God then he ran from
God, had the blessing and power of God
taken off of his life.
Then his life went down, paid the price
of sin, ruined his testimony.
Hey, let's give an invitation.
But I'm glad the story doesn't stop there.
Why don't you flip over to Jonah chapter
number 3, would you?
Jonah chapter number 3 where I give you
the rest of the story but this will
be through in just a few moments.
As we get to Jonah chapter number 3,
let me give you the context of the
rest of chapter 1 and all of chapter
2 of what is taking place very quickly.
They said, Jonah, we don't want to throw
you overboard.
But he said, listen, if you do throw
me overboard then God's wrath will be appeased
and the sea will get back to the
place where it's calm again.
I mean, they were being tossed around like
a toothpick in a bathtub.
And so finally after they threw over some
of the cheese and they began to throw
over some of the weights and they began
to throw over some of the other food
and some of the other articles of clothing
and all kind of stuff, they tried to
lighten the ship to try to stabilize it
a little bit but they just couldn't do
it.
The more they threw off the more the
waves got.
So finally they picked him up.
They 1, 2, 3'd him over the boat
and the Bible said that the wind would
cease from raging and the storm was calm
and down in the bottom of that sea
here comes a great big fish.
Jesus called in the book of Matthew a
great big whale.
I don't know what it was.
It was a custom-built boat ride for
Jonah, I promise you that.
And the Bible says that he swatted him
up and for three days and three nights
Jonah was in the heart of a fish's
belly, a picture of Jesus Christ for three
days and three nights being in the heart
of the earth.
I had a lady come to me one
night, sometimes you get some people that are
kind of smiling and I don't know if
she was playing or what she was doing
but she said, Brother Locke, you don't believe
that business about Jonah being swallowed by a
great whale?
I said, well that's what the Bible says,
of course I believe it.
She said, well I don't know if I
believe that.
She said, what about you?
I said, well I'll tell you what ma
'am, I'll be just as nice as I
can.
I said, I'll tell you what?
I said, when I get to heaven, I'll
ask Jonah if it happened or not.
She said, what if he's not there?
I said, then you can ask him.
But the truth of the matter is, according
to the Word of God, Jonah was swallowed
by a great fish because God said he
was.
I've seen a ridiculous bumper sticker about three
or four months ago.
This fellow was driving down the road, one
of his bumpers on his back window.
It said, God said it, I believe it,
that settles it.
Hey friend, that's unscriptural.
God said it, and that settles it whether
you and I believe it or not, whether
we understand it or not.
And God said he was swallowed by a
fish.
So guess what?
He was swallowed by a great fish.
And that fish swam between fourteen and fifteen
hundred miles and the Bible says, vomited him
up onto the land.
Now let's speculate just for a moment.
Could you imagine?
Could you imagine a man that has lived
in the belly of a fish for three
days and three nights?
When he got out to preach that crusade,
he didn't look much like an itinerant evangelist,
friend, I'll tell you that right now.
I mean, he didn't get out and have
all kind of Don Juan, suave hairdo, have
on his little three-piece suit like Benny
Hinn, the bust of Richard Crooks on TV
and all that kind of mess.
Hey man, I mean, this guy was looking
terrible.
I'm sure all the gastric juices and all
that kind of junk, I mean, whatever went
inside that fish's belly hit him right straight
up in the face.
And so here he was, man, his hair's
probably all melted off, you know.
He's about half bald-headed like Mother Duffy,
something like that.
I didn't just say that, did I?
Did I just say that?
Oh my, just kidding.
But I mean, his hair was all rotted
off, man, his skin was all plastered up
with this stuff and the Bible says that
he just vomited it out right there on
the land, that's what the Bible says.
I remember when I was in Mexico back
in January, I'd been there several years in
a row and I was in Mexico and
they said, hey, you want to go fishing?
I don't care nothing about fishing.
I know they're about to have a big
fishing seminar here but I don't care nothing
about fishing one bit.
I don't like it.
I'm not good at it.
I guess that's why I don't like it.
But they said, do you want to go
deep sea fishing?
I said, how much it cost?
They said, $75.
I said, no, I think I'll sleep in.
They said, we'll pay for it if you
go.
I said, okay, I'll go.
And so me and a couple other preachers,
Brother Kingsbury from Rockford, Illinois, North Love Baptist
Church and a couple other guys from Alabama,
we get out there and these Spanish guys
right here on this boat, they took us
like 10 miles way out in the sea
and they took about 10 lines and they
dropped them all at one time and these
Spanish guys was on there and they was
all talking together and I thought, man, what
are they saying?
Brother Kingsbury said, they're probably plotting to kill
us and throw us overboard and take all
our money.
And I thought, oh great, that ought to
be real good.
I said, witness to them, do something.
And so we're down here and they said,
we got one, we got one.
Well, I was the first one that was
supposed to get one whenever he got hooked.
And so I jumped down and they strapped
me in this big old seat and they
put a pole out there.
I mean, that thing was great big.
They said, lean back and pull in, lean
back and pull in.
Man, for 30 minutes, I was leaning back
and pulling in, leaning back and pulling in.
I mean, the sweat was coming off my
hip and you'd see that thing jump up
in the air.
You'd get it right back to the boat
and you'd think, oh boy, this is going
to be a big one.
It'd run all the way back out about
3 or 4 more football fields.
Back and forth, back
and forth.
after we got through, I took a little
nap on the boat.
We got back.
We had to run back to the hotel
there in Acapulco.
We had to pack our bags.
We had to get down to Tony Roma's.
We had a little dinner together there.
We didn't have time to take a shower.
We didn't have time to change.
We got on a bus and we drove
about 4 hours back to Mexico City.
We got on an airplane early the next
morning.
We flew to Atlanta, Georgia.
We got off in Atlanta, Georgia.
It was all stormy and all nasty.
I got to Nashville and the very next
morning, we were supposed to start our next
meeting in Dixon, Tennessee with the Robertsons and
Brother Robertson had already come up and taken
my trailer down for me and set it
up.
So, man, I got in there.
First thing, I seen my wife, the children's
home.
I walked up to her and gave a
big hug and a kiss and she said,
You've been fishing.
I said, How did you know I've been
fishing?
She said, You smell like a can of
tuna fish.
Now, here I was.
I was out fishing with some friends for
just a few hours and caught 2 big
old whoppers and I was stuck to high
heaven after several hours of getting off an
airplane but can you imagine a man that
lived in a belly of a fish for
three days and three nights?
That joker was roasted for him.
I mean, he stunk.
And the Bible said that he got out
and he began to preach.
Look what happened in Jonah chapter 3 in
verse number 1, would you?
And the word of the Lord came unto
Jonah the second time.
Thank God we serve a God of the
second chance.
The second time saying, Arise and go unto
Nineveh.
Hey, the command never changed.
Go unto Nineveh, that great city and preach
unto it the preaching that I bid thee
so Jonah arose and went unto Nineveh according
to the word of the Lord.
Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of
three days journey and Jonah began to enter
into the city a day's journey and he
cried and said get forty days and Nineveh
shall be overthrown, verse number 5.
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 and 175,000 people that day
that did not know their right hand from
their left were saved by the glorious grace
of God because Jonah lastly returned to the
Lord.
Jonah ran from God and it cost him.
Jonah ruined his testimony because he ran from
God but I thank God the story does
not stop there because Jonah returned to the
Lord and we serve a God of the
second chance and although he was a disobedient
prophet and got out of the will of
God God gave him another opportunity to come
back and use his preaching and use his
ministry in a wonderful mighty victorious way.
But you know what?
I believe the story of Jonah would have
been a whole lot more impactful if you
will.
Would have impacted more lives and you can
believe what you want to.
This is just opinion obviously.
I think the story would have been a
whole lot better had Jonah just obeyed the
first time.
It's amazing to me the circumstances and means
that God will use to get his people's
attention and no doubt putting you in the
belly of a fish for three days and
three nights out here in the Lake Shittik
would get your attention pretty good but I
wish that he would have never left to
begin with and I say that to give
you this illustration we'll be through.
When I first started in full time evangelism
and I say full time because we traveled
for a couple of years and my wife
and I first got married four years ago
and that's when I first came up here
Brother Duffy let me preach.
When I entered into full time evangelism I
started out in a camp meeting in Priceville
Alabama at the Anchor Baptist Church.
They had I don't know probably respectively 25
or 35 or 40 preachers there that week.
I mean there's all kind of preachers and
they had what they call popcorn preaching.
They'd just say hey you ready to preach?
I'm ready to preach.
They'd just have you jump up and preach
for about 15-20 minutes.
You'd sit down and have somebody else jump
up, popcorn up and get up and preach
back and forth and did it all day
long.
Well I got to preach on Monday morning
and Brother K.C. Poole I told him
I was going to go to my church
on Wednesday night because I was a staff
evangelist at that time for Somerville Baptist Church
and it's only about 15 minutes down the
road and so I said I'm going to
go to Brother Royce's church tonight, my home
church and I said but I can service.
They were having two speakers every night and
I knew they were going a long time
10-11 o'clock so I said I'll
be back and he said good.
He said when you come back he said
between the two services he said I want
you to give your testimony and I said
well how long do you want me to
preach?
He said well just go about 15 minutes
something like that and I said that'll be
fine and so between the two speakers he
let me get up and I turned to
2 Corinthians 5.17 a message I preached
a million and one times what in the
world has happened to you and I just
preached on my testimony and how God saved
me out of rap music and this that
and the other and put me in a
children's home and God saved me in a
revival meeting and all that kind of stuff
and I just preached on that for a
while and so after about 15 minutes I
closed my Bible and I sat down in
the front row like I do when I'm
just not preaching but when I'm just visiting
a church and so I sat down and
he said we got about 5 minutes left
Brother Casey said he said we got about
5 more minutes left before the field kid
gets up here and preaches he said and
Brother Kenny said if it'd be alright for
you he said I'd like this missionary fellow
that's here I'd like this young man to
come up and give his testimony he said
just tell us where you're going he said
you got about 5 minutes that fellow jumped
up had his Bible in his arm had
a little boy and little girl sitting there
had his wife sitting there beside him just
beautiful looking family you know he just kind
of jumped up he just kind of walked
up here and I just sat down and
he said Brother Kenny said give us about
5 minutes this fellow got up here missionary
man I don't remember if he was going
to Micronesia he was going to some type
of island I don't remember where it was
Jamaica or something like that I'll never forget
it Brother Duffy he walked up here he
got up and mounted the pulpit and he
took his Bible and he just kind of
dropped it like that he looked out across
the crowd about 250 people there that night
he said I don't know about you he
said I don't know if I have much
of a testimony to give after that and
that's what he said I'll never forget it
he said I grew up in a Christian
home he said I was saved when I
was 5 years old he said my daddy
has always been a pastor for an independent
Baptist church he said my mom and dad
always stayed together never divorced he said I
got saved in that independent Baptist church he
said my daddy baptized me in that independent
Baptist church he said I was a youth
leader in my youth group he said I've
always been in a Christian school from K
-4 all the way through 12th grade he
said I graduated from a good Christian fundamental
high school good Christian fundamental college he said
I've never smoked a cigarette he said I've
never touched booze or alcohol Budweiser mental high
life anything like that he said I wouldn't
know what a marijuana cigarette was if you
rolled it up licked it and dropped it
in my lap he said I've never been
with another woman he said that woman that's
sitting right there on the front row he
said I don't have any illegitimate babies running
around he said I've never touched another woman
until I touched my wife on my wedding
day he said I've never been with anybody
else he said I've never done anything like
that he said I've never been to a
movie he said I can't ever remember a
time in my life Brother Mick when I
ever took the name of the Lord thy
God in vain he said never one time
and he said it just seemed like every
time we got in our car and had
a holy magnet on the front of it
we showed up at church somewhere he said
I just remember living limp like that and
he said after hearing this tonight he said
I just don't know if I have much
of a testimony big watermelon tears rolled up
my eyes and I thought to myself dear
God I don't have any children right now
but if you ever see fit in your
sovereign plan to let me have some that's
exactly the kind of testimony that I want
my boys and girls to see I'm going
to tell you what our problem is in
fundamentalism in America we've got this ungodly stupid
warped idea that in order to be used
by God you've got to be all messed
up in sin and you've got to mess
around before you're married and you've got to
smoke dope and drink and Budweiser and all
that kind of stuff and man you've got
to be high on the hog and you've
got to do this that and the other
and then you have some dramatic salvation experience
and you get up and say hey look
what God saved me from what a wonderful
savior and I say Tommy Rot to every
bit of it I wish to God I
could get up and tell you that I
never smoked marijuana I wish to God I
could get up and say I grew up
in a Christian home and didn't have to
go to a children's home for four years
of my life I wish to God I
could get up and say that I'd never
looked at wickedness or heard wickedness or been
around wicked people I wish to God I
wish I never would have woke up at
three or four o'clock in the morning
my eyes rolling back in my head and
vomit all over my clothes I wish to
God that's the kind of testimony I had
friend because that's the kind of testimony we
need in America we need some people that
didn't back up pack up slack up or
shut up that they were taken up by
the glory of God not a bunch of
rebels and ingrates that jumped off into sin
and kept going out and kept coming back
but they stayed true to the word of
God and I get so frustrated I get
so mad and I get so invigorated when
I'm preaching some of these youth conferences and
some of these young people come to me
and say brother I'll tell you one thing
the only reason I'm going to a Christian
college because my mom and dad make me
go I'll tell you what I'm tired of
these standards and I'm sick and tired of
these standards and I'm sick here at Camp
Jetech and I'm tired of these standards here
and I'm tired of these dress standards and
these movie standards and I'll tell you what
I'm just sick and tired of the fact
that I grew up in a Christian home
my parents just won't let me do anything
and I'd like to take a young man
and a young lady like that and pull
them eyeball to eyeball, rip their stinking jugular
vein out and say, what in the world
is wrong with you?
You better thank God you grew up in
a Christian home.
You better thank God mom and dad got
on their knees and prayed all the needs
in.
You better thank God you were raised in
a place that taught you godly principles, godly
music, godly movie standards, and didn't let you
jump around and whore hop from this place
to that place.
You better thank God if you've got that
kind of testimony, because everybody in this world
does not.
And don't you swallow the doctrine that, well,
God can use those people that get their
lives involved in sin.
No, I think God would have used Jonah
a whole lot more had he obeyed the
first time, instead of the second time.
And tonight, let me just ask you this
question as we close.
What's your testimony tonight?
Do you have a testimony that will convince
people that you not only love God, but
you live a life that shows how much
you love God?
Do you have a testimony that shows that
you're a separated Christian?
That you mean business with your faith?
That you don't just have lip service?
You don't just go to some Bible college
and carry some Bible around with you because
it's just part of your wardrobe on Sunday
morning?
Do you really have a passion to know
God and to have a testimony that when
people look at you, they say, man, I
would love to have in my life what
you so dynamically have in yours?
I beg you in God's dear name tonight,
do not, do not, do not be one
of the Bible's biggest runaways.
If your heads are bowed, your eyes are
closed, please.
There's no one looking, no one talking.