We open the word to Jonah, chapter 2.
At the end of chapter 1, Jonah has
been swallowed by the prepared great fish and
has been in the innards of that fish
three days and three nights.
It's tragic when there are those who fuss
and fight over a simple miracle like this
and miss the whole message of the book.
Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God
out of the fish's belly and said, I
cried by reason of my affliction unto the
Lord, and he heard me.
Out of the belly of Sheol, that's the
place of the dead, cried I, and thou
heardest my voice, for thou hast cast me
into the deep.
In the midst of the seas and the
floods compassed me about, all thy billows and
thy waves passed over me.
Then I said, I am cast out of
thy sight.
Yet will I look again toward thy holy
temple.
The waters compassed me about, even to the
soul, the depth closed me round about, the
weeds were wrapped about my head.
I went down to the bottoms of the
mountains, the earth with its bars was about
me forever.
Yet hast thou brought up my life from
corruption, O Lord my God.
When my soul fainted within me, I remembered
the Lord, and my prayer came in unto
thee into thine holy temple.
They that observe lying vanities forsake their own
mercy, but I will sacrifice unto thee with
the voice of thanksgiving.
I will pay that that I have vowed.
Salvation is of the Lord.
And the Lord spoke unto the fish, and
it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.
We have no problem with this miracle because
Jesus had no problem with it.
If you have any argument with Jonah about
this particular miracle, your argument is not with
Jonah, your argument is with Jesus because he
used this as an illustration, a type of
his own burial and resurrection.
If you want to know what a person
is like, I mean really know that person.
There are several tests that you can use.
One is to notice what makes that person
laugh.
You reveal character considerably by what you laugh
at.
Or what you weep over.
Find out what makes a person weep.
That will help you to find out something
about his character.
Or what gets him excited.
What does he really get excited about?
Or what will he really sacrifice for?
To what extent will he toil and work
for something?
This helps to indicate what his values are,
what his character is.
What price will he pay to have his
own way?
It's a good test.
But one of the best tests is prayer.
I don't mean the pious public prayers that
all of us have recorded on cassettes somewhere
in our system.
And when the right button is pushed, out
comes the regular prayer.
I don't mean that kind of prayer.
We all have those.
I mean the kind of prayer when you
find yourself in the kind of situation Jonah
was in.
The kind of prayer Peter prayed when he
found himself sinking.
What do we pray about when we really
have to pray?
What do we pray about when we find
everything around us falling apart?
That tells character.
Then Jonah prayed.
When do you pray?
When do I pray?
Now this was a very costly experience for
Jonah.
It wasn't an easy experience.
I want us tonight to notice the four
stages in Jonah's experience with the Lord.
Because perhaps somebody here tonight is in one
of these stages.
If you aren't, just file them away because
someday you may find yourself there.
Stage number one, disobedience.
Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God,
not when he was at home contemplating his
ministry to Nineveh.
Not when he was heading down toward the
port waiting for his ship.
Not when he was on board the ship.
When did Jonah pray?
When he was in trouble.
Disobedience.
Now it's a remarkable thing that Jonah should
disobey the Lord.
Jonah was a Jew and the Jews owed
a lot to the Lord.
He had called them, he had saved them,
he had given them his covenant, he had
given them his word, he had given them
the priesthood, he'd given them the temple, he'd
given them the sacrifices, he'd given them the
prophets and the promises.
As a Jew he should have fallen before
God and said, oh God, whatever you want
me to do, I'll do it.
But he disobeyed.
He had good theology.
Over in chapter four he tells us what
God is like.
Verse two, I knew that thou art a
gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and
of great kindness, and repentest thee of the
evil.
He had good theology.
He could have passed a theology course in
the Bible Institute.
Is it possible to have good theology and
be disobedient?
Yes.
Here in chapter two we have Jonah quoting
the scriptures.
Now Bible students have different ways of looking
at this, but I sat down and tried
to find where these quotations were, and I
find that he quotes seven statements from six
different Psalms.
Jonah could quote the word of God, but
my Bible says thy word have I hid
in my heart that I might not sin
against thee.
It's not enough just to memorize the scripture.
Chapter two, Jonah is just simply reeling out
one verse after another.
Of course he'd probably met some navigators on
board the ship.
He had memorized all this scripture, but it
didn't stop him from disobeying God.
In fact, it made his disobedience a lot
more tragic because he was sinning against a
flood of light.
You would expect Jonah to obey God, but
he didn't obey God.
Now his prayer tells us why he was
disobedient.
Verse seven, when my soul fainted within me,
I remembered the Lord.
He forgot the Lord.
That's where his trouble started.
He had good theology, he had memorized scripture,
he was called to be a preacher, he
was a covenant Jew, but he forgot the
Lord.
What does it mean to forget the Lord?
It means you don't bring him into the
circumstances of life.
When his calling came, he forgot the Lord.
Then came the word of the Lord to
Jonah saying, arise, go to Nineveh, that great
city, and preach unto it.
But he forgot the Lord.
And when he packed his bags and headed
down to the pier, he forgot the Lord.
And when he got on board that ship,
he forgot the Lord.
He forgot God's grace and God's love and
God's power and God's mercy.
He forgot the Lord.
When you start leaving God out of the
decisions of life, we're heading for trouble.
He forgot the Lord.
He neglected prayer.
Look at verse seven.
And my prayer came in unto thee.
Why didn't you pray sooner?
First, we start forgetting the Lord.
Then we start neglecting prayer.
When the word of the Lord came to
Jonah, Jonah didn't say, oh, God, let me
pray about this.
I know you want me to go.
I know the best thing is for me
to go.
I don't want to go.
Now, Lord, help me.
F.B. Meyer in one of his books,
he's written a shelf of them, tells of
an experience in his life like this where
God called him to do something.
And he said, Lord, I can't do it.
I don't want to do it.
He said, Lord, I'm going to be honest
with you because you know my heart.
I'm not going to pray some pious, hypocritical
prayer.
You know my heart.
I'm not willing, but Lord, I'm willing to
be made willing.
I'm willing to be made willing.
And Meyer said that was a turning point
in my life where God said, all right,
I'm glad you're honest with me.
I will work to make you willing to
be willing.
Ever had to pray like that?
You see, God doesn't want our service against
our will.
My Bible says doing the will of God
from the heart.
But Jonah's heart wasn't in it.
And Jonah stubbornly rejected God's will.
He neglected prayer.
I'll tell you, friends, when you neglect prayer,
you're going to do what Jonah did.
Verse seven, he fainted.
Men ought always to pray and not to
faint.
But he tells us in verse eight another
reason why he disobeyed God.
First, he forgot the Lord.
Secondly, he neglected prayer.
Thirdly, he believed lies.
They that observe lying vanities forsake their own
mercy.
He believed lies.
He believed, for example, that the will of
God was something you could just accept or
reject.
He believed that the word of God was
something you just accept or reject.
Now, the word of the Lord came to
Jonah saying, well, I don't want it.
Now, if you believe that you believe a
lie.
The will of God is not something for
me to accept or reject.
The will of God is something for me
to obey.
There are no options.
When you sit down at the Lord's table,
he doesn't hand you a menu and say,
no, it's a la carte.
He hands you the dinner and says, this
is it.
I've prepared this especially for you.
It's the best thing for you.
But Jonah, you see, believe lies.
They that observe lying vanities.
The word vanities means emptiness.
The Hebrew word vanity means what is left
when you break a soap bubble.
And instead of Jonah getting his hand on
true realities, he got his hand on lying
vanities.
Lots of Christians believe lies.
They believe, well, I can sin and get
away with it.
They believe, well, I can change God's mind.
They believe, well, I'll never get caught.
And Jonah believed lies like this and it
got him into trouble.
Now, if you'll turn back to chapter one,
you'll see all that Jonah lost because he
disobeyed God.
I say it to you with all the
simplicity and yet all of the heart that
I can muster.
When we disobey God, we lose.
Nobody ever gained by disobeying God.
What did he lose?
He lost God's voice.
In verse two, God spoke to Jonah, but
in verse four, God didn't speak to Jonah
in a voice.
He spoke to him in the wind and
the storm.
Watch out when God can't talk to you
anymore.
When we start disobeying God, we don't hear
his voice.
He has to shout at us with a
storm and with wind.
In fact, God spoke to Jonah down in
verse six through the voice of a pagan
ship captain.
It's a terrible thing when God has to
speak to his children through the lips of
the unsaved.
He lost God's voice.
He lost his spiritual energy.
Verse five, he was fast asleep in the
midst of the storm.
Lots of Christians are sleepwalking.
Over and over again in his epistles, Paul
makes statements like, awake thou that sleepest and
Christ shall give you light.
We are the children of the day.
We are not children of the night.
Therefore, let us not sleep as in the
night.
Wake up.
He lost his spiritual energy.
There are a lot of Christians today who
are just anemic.
They can't get excited about salvation.
They can't get excited about sin.
They're just anemic.
They need a shot of heavenly geritol.
He lost his testimony.
Verses seven through ten, he had to confess
to these pagan sailors that he was a
runaway preacher who had resigned his calling and
he was trying to go on his own.
He lost his testimony.
He couldn't talk to him.
He almost lost his life.
If it hadn't been for the grace and
the mercy of God, he would have.
Disobedience, that's stage one.
Stage two, discipline.
What did God do to Jonah?
Did God give up on Jonah?
No.
Did God tell the great fish to digest,
don't Jonah?
No.
I have said often, let me repeat it,
God is as concerned about the worker as
he is the work.
Last week in the first message in this
series, I said to you that Jonah needed
Nineveh as much as Nineveh needed Jonah.
Whatever God calls you to do is there
to bring out of us what God wants
to bring out.
When we are in the will of God,
it brings the best out of us.
When we're out of the will of God,
it brings the worst out of us.
That's why when husbands and fathers are out
of the will of God, the home is
a hell on earth.
That's why when wives and mothers are out
of the will of God, the children want
to leave home.
That's why when children are out of the
will of God, there's trouble at home.
That's why when church members are out of
the will of God, there are problems in
churches.
Wherever in the Bible you find a believer
out of the will of God, you find
trouble.
Discipline.
What did God do?
He disciplined Jonah.
He chastened him.
Now, the greatest chapter in the Bible on
chastening is Hebrews chapter 12.
I'm gonna ask you to turn there.
I will not deal with the entire chapter.
Hebrews chapter 12 verse 3.
For consider him, Jesus, that endured such contradiction
of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied
and faint in your minds.
Ye have not yet resisted unto blood striving
against sin.
He's saying to these people, I don't know
how much trouble you're going through, but you've
never gone through what Jesus went through for
you.
He, in his battle against sin, ended up
giving his life.
You haven't gotten that far yet.
And you have forgotten the exhortation, the encouragement,
which speaketh unto you as unto sons, my
son, despise not thou the chastening of the
Lord.
And that word chastening is the word discipline
or child training or instruction or education.
For a child immature to become a son
mature involves discipline.
You permit a child to do whatever he
wants to do when he wants to do
it and you're raising a monster.
That's why the society is in the mess
it's in today.
God doesn't do that with his children.
God will not have any spoiled brats in
his family.
That's why he has discipline.
My son despise not thou the chastening of
the Lord nor faint when thou art rebuked
of him for whom the Lord loveth.
He chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he
receiveth.
I've heard parents say, oh I could never
spank my child I love him too much.
And my answer to that is oh no
it's not that you love the child you
love yourself too much.
It hurts the parent more to discipline the
child than it hurts the child.
I didn't believe that when my parents told
me that.
I thought they were lying but I've learned
it's true.
God does not chasten us because he hates
us.
He chastens us because he loves us.
If ye endure chastening God deals with you
as with mature sons.
For what son is he whom the father
chasteneth not?
But if ye be without chastisement of which
all sons are partakers then are you illegitimate
children and not sons.
I've never spanked the neighbor's children.
I felt like it but I've never done
it.
They aren't my kids.
And if somebody professes to be a Christian
and lives in disobedience to God's will repeatedly
arrogantly willingly and no chastening comes he is
not saved.
Did you get that?
We have a lot of people that say
oh yeah I'm saved I'm saved and they're
living in sin but nothing's ever happened.
They've never had any chastisement.
And my Bible says look if this happens
you just write it down and remember it
you're not God's child because if you're God's
child he chastens you.
When Abraham went down to Egypt God loved
Abraham too much to let him disobey and
he spanked him.
When Jacob started scheming and running away God
loved him too much and God spanked him.
When David disobeyed God, David who wrote the
Psalms, God says I love you too much
to let you do it your own way
and he spanked him he paid for it.
Now there's a difference between chastening and punishment.
A judge punishes a criminal to uphold the
law but I'm not under law I'm under
grace.
Therefore my father chastens me to prove his
love.
The judge doesn't love the criminal the judge
has to punish the criminal to uphold the
law but God doesn't look upon his sinning
children as criminals they're still God's children.
He looks upon them as children who need
instruction and correction therefore he chastens.
If you endure chastening aha that's the secret.
Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh
earthly fathers human fathers who corrected us and
we gave them reverence.
Shall we not much rather be in subjection
unto the father of spirits and live?
The suggestion there is if we are not
in subjection we may not live.
There is a sin unto death for they
our earthly fathers verily for a few days
chastened us after their own pleasure that doesn't
mean they enjoyed it it means as it
seemed good to them but he God chastens
us for our profit that we might be
partakers of his holiness.
Now no chastening for the present seems to
be joyous we can all say amen to
that but grievous we can say amen to
that.
God has taken me out to the woodshed
I've known the chastening hand of God you
have too.
Why nevertheless afterward it the chastening yieldeth the
peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them who are
exercised by it.
Now the writer is telling us that God
disciplines and because he loves us God disciplines
us because he wants to perfect us he
wants us to grow in holiness afterward comes
the fruit of holiness God disciplines us to
remind us of his word and you know
there's another reason why God disciplines us this
is one reason why he disciplined Jonah.
Now you just listen closely God disciplines us
to remind us of what it's like not
to be a Christian.
He's saying all right you don't want to
do my will you want to go your
own way fine find out what it's like
not to have me taking care of you.
I learned this from Phil Lassie Phil and
I are working together on a book on
Jonah and God teaches him some things and
God's taught me some things we're putting them
together and he said to me you know
he said I really believe that God put
Jonah down in the depths and many people
believe Jonah really died he actually died his
soul went to Sheol the realm of the
dead and God raised him from the dead.
Phil said I really believe God put Jonah
down there to let him know what it
was like to be lost.
Jonah wouldn't go to those Ninevites and God
said okay Jonah I want to remind you
of what it's like to be lost down
down down in prison in the realm of
the dead darkness and death and despair and
hopelessness Jonah that's the way it is in
Nineveh.
So God chastened Jonah.
God disciplined him.
Now God disciplines us in different ways.
Verse 5 of Hebrews 12 he can rebuke
us.
Sometimes God disciplines me by rebuke.
He rebukes me from the word.
He rebukes me by a preacher or a
song.
He rebukes me by a Christian.
Sometimes God rebukes.
If we won't listen to the rebuke then
God has to start spanking.
He starts scourging.
Talks about that in verse 6.
He scourges every son that he receives.
What should our response be to God's chastening?
Well you get the impression that for three
days and three nights Jonah just resisted.
Just gonna have his own way.
Then he woke up and said hey I'm
alive.
Man I'm alive.
I'm still in this great fish but I'm
alive.
I'm indigestible.
And then thanksgiving flooded his soul and his
prayer is really a prayer of thanksgiving to
God for keeping him alive in such a
difficult situation.
Now what should our response be to the
chastening and the discipline of God?
Well there's several responses possible here.
We can respond by despising it.
Down in verse 5.
My son despise not thou the chastening of
the Lord.
I've seen saints do that.
They get angry at God and get bitter
and they despise it.
Or we can resist it.
Fight it.
Or we can faint under it.
Now those are all wrong.
God doesn't want us to faint and God
doesn't want us to fight.
God doesn't want us to fume.
God wants us to submit.
The whole purpose of discipline is to break
the will.
If we parents do not break the will
of a child, we'll never make the will
of a child.
Now I'm not talking about annihilating his will.
I'm not talking about making him a non
-entity, some kind of a puppet.
No.
But if a child's will is not broken,
that child will never grow up to be
a mature adult.
Just like a colt.
A colt has to be broken.
Power has to be under control.
The Greek word for meekness, blessed are the
meek, that Greek word means power under control.
It's the word that was used for a
horse that had been broken.
A horse is useless until it's broken.
Unless you kill it and make glue out
of it.
Now you see, God had Jonah's mind.
Jonah knew what he was supposed to do.
But God didn't have Jonah's will.
And until he got Jonah's will, he couldn't
control Jonah's body and get him off to
Nineveh.
And so in chapter 2, he broke Jonah's
will.
Which leads us to the third stage in
Jonah's experience.
He didn't resist.
He didn't fight.
He didn't argue.
He submitted.
His third stage was dedication.
He went from discipline to dedication.
Notice what he says in verse 9.
I will.
Now you should have said that back in
chapter 1.
This book ought to read like this.
And the word of the Lord came unto
Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying arise, go
to Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto
it.
And Jonah said, I will.
But it doesn't read like that.
By the way, does your story read like
that?
In between the call and the recall, you've
got storms and danger.
He could have had a crown on his
head as a soul winner.
Instead, he had weeds around his head.
Could have been walking in the light.
Here he was in the darkness.
Could have been out catching fish.
And here he had a fish catching him.
The whole problem, his will.
So he moved to stage 3, dedication.
He dedicated himself again to God.
I remembered the Lord and I prayed.
I will sacrifice with the voice of thanksgiving.
Now Lord, you don't want me to come
and bring a lamb or a goat or
anything.
You want to hear my voice from my
heart saying I will.
Okay, here it is.
I will.
I will pay that which I have vowed.
Salvation is of the Lord.
Now twice here, he talks about the temple.
Verse 4.
Then I said, I am cast out of
thy sight.
Well, quit complaining.
That's what you wanted.
He got exactly what he wanted.
The word of the Lord came to Jonah
and Jonah said, no, I'm not going to
go.
And he arose to flee from the presence
of the Lord.
And that's exactly what he got.
Boy, that just says something to me about
backslidden people.
They don't want God.
They don't want God's will.
They don't want God to do anything.
And then when they get in a mess,
they say, oh, I don't have the Lord.
That's what you wanted.
I am cast out of eyesight yet.
I will look, that's where it all starts.
I will look again toward thy holy temple.
Now, that's the Old Testament version of 1
John 1 9.
When Solomon dedicated the temple, he said something
like this.
Now, Lord Jehovah, when your people are out
away from this place and they get into
trouble, they're overcome by their enemies or there's
some problem.
If they look toward your temple and pray
in your name, hear them and forgive them.
That's what Jonah did.
Now there was no problem looking toward the
temple.
He knew where it was up, up.
He didn't have a roadmap.
He didn't have an atlas or a compass.
He said out there someplace is God's temple.
God's going to hear me.
I'm going to cry out to God.
I'm going to look toward his temple.
He says this, uh, up in verse seven,
my prayer came in under the, into thy
holy temple.
This is the Old Testament version of 1
John 1 9.
If we confess our sins, he's faithful and
just to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
That's where dedication starts.
I will look, then I will sacrifice from
the lips.
I will pay what I have vowed.
I'll do what I've told you I do.
Dear God, forgive me for going on a
detour.
I'm coming back now.
Here I am.
I'm glad that our God is the kind
of a God who gives us another chance.
The saints won't give you another chance.
You fall on your face.
The saints will remember that forever.
They'll take Polaroid pictures of it and put
it in their album.
The saints cannot forget that you make a
mistake.
The saints cannot forget.
That's why David said, let me fall into
the hands of the Lord, greater his mercies.
Let me not fall into the hands of
men.
People who can't remember Bible verses, remember the
sins of the saints.
And they work for the devil.
Who's the accuser of the brethren has the
best record of anybody when it comes to
what we've all done wrong.
I'm glad that our God isn't like that.
I'm glad our God is a God of
forgiveness.
It's a good thing that God was this
way.
Jonah knew it.
I knew that thou art a gracious God
and merciful, slow to anger, great kindness, repentancy
of the evil.
He was glad to get this for himself,
didn't want it for anybody else.
And so Jonah came to the third stage,
which was dedication.
Let me remind you that the victorious Christian
life is a series of new beginnings.
You will never make a decision in your
life that will keep you going forever.
Now, your decision to trust Christ that saves
you forever.
You say, well, oh, I was in a
meeting and I had a step of dedication
and that's going to last me.
Oh, no, it's not.
No, it's not.
I don't know of one verse in the
Bible that says you can take one step
of commitment and that's it for the rest
of your life.
The victorious Christian life is a series of
new beginnings.
It was so with Abraham.
It was so with Jacob.
It was so with David.
It was so with Jonah.
It does not mean that our previous commitments
were false.
It just means you don't stay in the
same plateau.
You keep moving, which leads us to our
fourth stage, deliverance, disobedience, discipline, dedication, deliverance.
God forgave him.
The Lord didn't speak to Jonah.
He first spoke to the fish and said
to the fish, all right, you can get
rid of him now.
You've done your work.
God changes circumstances when character changes until Jonah
came to the place where his character was
what God wanted it to be.
And he still had some growing to do
until he came to that place.
He needed the fish.
Sometimes we say to God, oh God, how
long are you going to keep sandpapering?
Dear Lord, how long are you going to
keep filing on me?
And God's answer is always the same till
the job gets done.
But isn't that enough?
No, no, there's still some areas that need
to be straightened out.
God spoke to the fish and the fish
obeyed.
Everything in this book obeys God except Jonah.
The fish does and the wind does and
the storm and the worm, but not the
preacher.
And it vomited out Jonah on the dry
land.
Jonah did not even get muddy and he
came out and I'm sure he looked a
lot different from the way he went in.
I'm convinced, although I cannot prove it, this
is simply a supposition, but I'm convinced that
God permitted those gastric juices to work on
Jonah so that when he came out, he
looked weird.
He had had a real gut level experience.
And when Jonah walked into Nineveh, he didn't
look like the last preacher that came to
town.
And you should understand that news travels rapidly
in oriental countries.
And I'm sure that the men on board
that ship were already spreading the word.
Boy, when that storm ended, they went back
to port.
They didn't go to Tarshish.
When Jonah got to Nineveh, he looked like
a walking miracle.
That's what happens when you have death, burial,
and resurrection.
You're a walking miracle.
Lazarus was a walking miracle.
People, you know, Lazarus doesn't say one word
in the Bible.
Did you know that?
Lazarus does not say one word.
Of course, he had two sisters, didn't have
much chance to say very much.
Lazarus does not say one word in the
Bible.
And yet people, people looked at Lazarus and
got saved.
They looked at Lazarus and got saved because
they'd seen him dead.
They'd been to the funeral.
And here he comes walking.
What was it that won them to Jesus?
A miracle, death, burial, and resurrection.
Why was it Jonah was able to do
such a mighty piece of work in Nineveh?
Was it only his message?
No.
He was a walking miracle.
He had been delivered from death.
He was a new man.
And you could see the difference.
That's what we need today.
It's good for us to pass out tracts.
It's good for us to give our verbal
witness.
These are all important.
But my Bible says, like as Christ was
raised up from the dead by the glory
of the Father, even so you also should
walk in newness of life.
You know what people need to see today
in our churches?
Not just church members.
Walking miracles.
That was the secret of Mr. Moody's ministry.
He always had a congregation of people who
had been resurrected from the dead.
And folks would come and say, well, what's
going on down there?
Well, here's a man who used to be
a drunkard and look, today he's a new
man.
Here's a woman who used to be a
streetwalker.
Look, she's a new woman.
Here's what God's doing for people.
Deliverance.
God forgave him and God delivered him.
God resurrected him.
I'm convinced, I will not make it a
test of anything, but I'm convinced that Jonah
died and God raised him from the dead.
A beautiful picture of our Lord Jesus Christ
with some contrasts.
Jonah died unwillingly.
Jesus died willingly.
Jonah died for his own sins.
Jesus died for the sins of the world.
Jonah died because he was disobedient.
Jesus died because he was obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross.
But both of them had one thing in
common beside the three days and the three
nights.
Both Jesus and Jonah were raised from the
dead that the message might go out to
others.
And our Lord, when he met with his
disciples, didn't say to them, I've been raised
from the dead.
Now let's just sit down and enjoy this.
He said, you take this message of my
death and resurrection and you spread it abroad.
That's what Jonah did.
As we're going to see in chapter three,
he was delivered because he submitted himself in
dedication, but it took discipline to bring him
to dedication.
But that discipline was caused because of his
disobedience.
Had he never disobeyed God, he would never
have had to go through the discipline.
But had he not gone through the discipline,
he would never have dedicated himself.
But when he did dedicate himself, then he
was delivered and his ministry was picked up
once again.
You can't have a deeper life without a
deeper death.
When Jonah died, he had to die to
himself, die to himself.
He didn't do it by signing a card,
even praying a prayer.
He went through an experience of mortification, humiliation.
He went through an experience of death and
burial.
And then God raised him.
Now God is not likely to send some
great fish to swallow us up, but God
can send great experiences to swallow us up.
Have you felt all the waves and the
billows of God in your life?
Jesus did.
I have a baptism to be baptized with,
said Jesus, and how I am constrained until
it be completed.
Our friend Jonah knew who had caused all
of this.
God.
He didn't say those sailors threw me overboard.
Thy hand has done this.
If he had just submitted sooner, if he
just submitted sooner, I have told this story
here before.
Some of you haven't heard it.
If you have, it bears repeating about the
former president of the Moody Bible Institute, Dr.
William Culbertson.
He was sitting in the old sweet shop
that's not there anymore, having a cup of
coffee or something with some of the men
at the institute.
And a student came running in all aglow.
And he said, Dr. Culbertson, Dr. Culbertson, I've
got marvelous news.
I have been wrestling with the Lord since
10 o'clock last night, all night long.
I've been wrestling with the Lord and I've
gotten the victory.
In his own quiet way, Dr. Culbertson said,
God bless you.
And the boy went away.
And Dr. Culbertson turned to the other men
and said, it's really too bad.
He could have gotten the victory at 10
o'clock last night and had a good
night's sleep.
You know, we think we're so super spiritual
because we fight God.
Jacob didn't prove himself to be a great
man by wrestling with God.
He proved himself to be a weakling.
Why fight God?
Surrender.
If only Jonah in chapter one would have
said, I will, I will.
But he had to learn the hard way.
Don't learn the hard way.
There's an easier way.
Just say, I will.
Gracious Father, perhaps there are some of us
here tonight who are fighting and resisting, despising.
You are chastening, you are dealing with us,
and yet we resist, we fight.
Forgive us.
Perhaps someone here tonight has never been born
again, has never experienced this wonderful salvation in
Christ.
May that one come and trust the Savior
tonight.
Father, for that one believer who may be
here resisting your will, may that one surrender
tonight.
Lord, may many of us tonight in our
hearts, if not with our lips, say, Lord,
I will.
I pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.