As I first got up here and was
seated, listening to the silence, the silence is kind of scary
to me because I, there's so little of it, experienced in the services
where I preach. I mean, it's so noisy in Mexico. I guess it's the most noisy place
in the world. And I'm used to Dogs barking,
turkeys gobbling, motorcycles coming by, and I just have to
stop and wait on them to go by and finish. And I try to make
tapes of my messages so I can distribute them out. And if you
were to listen to the tapes, you would be so amused at the
things that happen. But I guess the Lord had this
man cut his yard over here. That guy settled me down a little
bit. So I thank the Lord for that.
That guy decided to cut his yard. I want you to look at a text
in Timothy. I would like to spend a lot of
time just telling you how much I appreciate you and Paul and
Mindy and this church. It would take a long time for
me to do that. But we do love you and appreciate
you more and more every year. It's the first time I came here. I was so amazed at the warmth
of this church. And I went back and told Mother
Bird, I said, Mother Bird, what in the world did you ever leave
that church for? But that's a fine bunch of people. Well, are you just sinners? But
you've got a wonderful Savior. And I believe you have your eyes
on Him. And I'm grateful for Jesus. If you're a man like Paul, I
know you wouldn't have a man that wouldn't preach Christ.
And I'm grateful for Paul in the ministry. That message she preached last
night, I wish she could preach it up here this morning. I was
really blessed by the message and the power and the liberty
that the Lord gave me in preaching that message. In Timothy, 2 Timothy, chapter
3, I want to read a verse, verse 16, and then go into chapter
4, verse 1. and tie these two things together
here. It's divided by a chapter division
there, but those chapters and verses weren't in the Bible when
they were written. I'm glad they're in there. Verse 16, All Scripture is given by inspiration
of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction,
for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect
and thoroughly furnished unto all good works." Now, Paul is
writing to Timothy, and he's writing to all the believers,
too. These are the last words of the aged to the Gentiles. And I read so much of Paul. He wrote most of the New Testament.
And these are—he could have so many things to say, but he's
closing out now and giving some final instructions to Timothy. And he says—he reminds him that
all Scripture is given by inspiration of God. He's talking about Scripture
of the Old Testament. of the New Testament hadn't been
formulated at that time. And he says in chapter 4, verse
1, I charge thee, therefore, before God and the Lord Jesus
Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing
and his kingdom. Preach the Word. Preach the Word. Be instant, in season, out of
season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctors. He charged them to preach the
Word. Today we have a lot of preaching about the Bible. Churches don't ever have a lot
of preaching about the Bible, but there's very little preaching
of the Word. Can that be Contradiction? No.
Let me explain it. The preaching of the Word has
to do with the One who is the Word, isn't it? The Living Word. If you can't preach the hymn,
you can't preach the Word, because He's the Living Word. It says
in John, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God. That's the Word we ought to preach,
the Word that's God. All things were created by Him.
Let's talk about a person in it. And to preach the Word, you've
got to preach this person. And it says that this person,
this Word, who's God and the Creator of all things and all
men, it says, "...and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among
us, and we beheld His glory as of the glory of the Only Begotten
of the Father, full of grace and truth. So to preach the Word
is to preach Christ in all the scriptures. And that's
what he's charged with, young Timothy. Preach the Word. The
in season, out of season, the Jew, exhort with all longsuffering
and doctrine. The doctrine of Christ is concerning
him. You see, the doctrine of—that
singular doctrine of Christ in all the world. I like to think about it. King
David had some runners that were messengers, and Joab sent Cushiah
with a message about David's son. That's what
David, the king of Israel, wanted to hear about Absalom. And Ahimaaz was a runner, and
he wanted to run, too, but he didn't have a message. He didn't
have the real message, but he wanted to run. So Jarvis said,
Go ahead and run. So Ahimaaz outrun Cushiah and
got there first, and he fell down before David, and he began
to tell David about the battle and the smoke flying and the
dust flying in the air and that soldiers were dying and And he
just went on and on. And David saw Cushaw coming,
the other messenger. He said he knew Cushaw had the
message he wanted to hear. And he told him, I hear my ass. Stand aside, son. Cushaw came
up there and he gave him the message concerning his son. And
I think if I can't preach concerning the Word of God, who he is and
what he did and where he is now, I need to stand aside. May the Lord give me grace to
preach Christ. I want to give you some reasons,
first of all, why we ought to preach the Word. We must preach the Word because
Christ commanded us to go into the world and preach the gospel
to every creature. And that's not a suggestion.
says, command, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel
to every creature. You here are on a mission, Phil,
in one sense, because you're not in Jerusalem. You're a long
way from Jerusalem. You're in the uttermost parts
of the earth. We all have that responsibility to proclaim the
Word, to preach the Word. What he says to Timothy here,
he says to all of us, to proclaim the Word, and that's to preach
Christ. It's not a suggestion. The Lord
didn't say, if you can work it into your program, I wish you
would preach the gospel, you know. He said, go into all the
world and preach the gospel as a preacher. My son Cody is going
to Mexico, and I'm just thrilled to death. But I tell you, it
wasn't convenient for him to go. It couldn't have been convenient
for him to get everything in order and quit their jobs and
everything. give everything away just about it, but he felt the
burden and the call to go, and I was so greatly encouraged that
God would call my son to Mexico, and he would be preaching down
there in the same state that I'm in, Yucatan. But we must preach the Word because
God is ordained to save sinners through the preaching of the
Word. Now, in your Bible, it doesn't say that God ordained
to save sinners through the preaching of the Word. It says in English
that it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believe. But in my Bible, Spanish, I believe I've got a better translation.
I really do. But whatever pleased God, that's
what He's ordained. But 1 Corinthians 121, it says
it pleased God. God is ordained by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. I know we're foolish
instruments, and I know there's a lot of foolish preaching going
on, but that's not talking about
foolish preaching. The preaching of the Word is
not foolish preaching, because that's the means God has ordained. And He didn't ordain ceremonies
or rituals, but He says He ordained the preaching of the gospel.
This is what we're trying to do—foolish instruments, full
of foolishness. But the Word that we preach is
not foolishness. It's God's living Word that was made flesh, and
we preach Christ and Him crucified. We must preach the Word because
there can be no saving faith without the Word. Nature will never teach a man
saving faith. A man can believe in God of creation,
and he should believe. He's a fool if he doesn't. He'd
deny his own intelligence if he doesn't believe that God has
created all things, and he's the creator of God. But who is
that God? And the faith to believe God
is to believe His Word, and that faith can only come through the
Word. Okay, just imagine, I believe
in God, I think He's like so-and-so. That's what most people base
their hope on, what they think about God. But we have to forsake
our thoughts. That's what the Scripture teaches
us. We let a man forsake his thoughts and turn unto the Lord.
The only way you can turn to God is to turn to His words,
the testimony of the Scriptures concerning His Son. And there's
no faith without that. There's all kind of faith in
the world. I mean, in the world, the demons have faith, all religious
people have faith, and most people believe in God. But they don't believe God's
testimony. They don't believe God. That's
the difference between the faith of God's elect, which is a gift
of God. The faith of God's elect is the
faith of those for whom Christ died and shed his blood. All other faith is just vain. And there's no saving faith outside
of God's Word. I'll give you an example of that. came. He believed in God, didn't
he? That was Abel's brother, older
brother. He believed in God, no doubt about it. He brought
his offering, and he built an altar. He was building that altar
to God. He believed in God. And he put
the works of his hands, the fruits of his labor, upon that altar. And he believed in God. But he didn't believe God, because
he He didn't bring a sacrifice. He didn't bring a substitute.
He didn't bring blood. As they will then, they will
believe God. There's such a difference. Believing God. The devils believe
in God and their laws. When Eve told Satan, yes, the
Lord told us not to eat of that fruit. Who's she talking about? She's talking about God. She
believed in God. But when the devil told her,
said, that's not true, said, you eat that fruit and you're
going to be wise. You're going to be like God.
So she protected the fruit and she did believe God, but she
believed the lie of Satan. That's just the opposite of what
saving faith is. Saving faith believes God's Word.
Believing in God, there's no salvation in that. So we must preach the Word because
things come by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Just calling
on the name of Jesus. A lot of people call on the name
of Jesus and don't know who Jesus is. According to His Word, they
don't. I told you about the Bruce Gresham
there in Cleveland. He was taking a man to jail.
The man started calling on the name of Jesus, and he turned
around and told him, said, You'd better call on somebody you know
because you're going to jail. And that's just true. It says
in Romans, it says, How shall they call on him whom they have
not believed? And how shall they believe in
him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without
a preacher? And how shall they preach except
they be sent?" So you've got to believe on Him. You've got
to believe His Word. And that's the reason these things
are written, that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ. And that's the reason that people
crucified Him, because they didn't believe that Jesus was the Christ. And to preach the Word is to
preach who He is. Another reason we ought to preach
the Word is because whatsoever is not of faith is sin, and no
matter how much a person does in the name of God, through faith
in God, he doesn't have the faith to believe God's Word and believe
who God says His Son is. through the scriptures, who the
prophets say he is. The Holy Spirit testifies of
him, the miracles testified of him, the apostles testified of
him, the Holy Spirit now testifies of him. And the only faith that
can please God is the faith in him and his Word. Everything
else is based Any kind of religious work is just pure sin. It don't
matter how glamorous it is, or how lovely it is, or how beautiful
one might think it is, or how sacrificial it is. It's sin before
God, if it's not the faith of our
Lord Jesus Christ. He's the author of saving faith. He's the object of saving faith,
and he's the finisher of saving faith. And it says in Hebrews,
looking unto him who is the author and the finisher of our faith.
We must preach the Word because there's no light in us without
the Word. I don't preach my experience. My experience is incomplete.
And I wouldn't try to preach to you my experience. I'd just
lead you astray. But I continue, I just look to
the Word. Preach the Word. That's where my hope is in the
Word. And there's no light in me outside of this Word. In Isaiah
820, to the Word and to the testimony, Isaiah said, if they speak not
according to this Word, it is because there's no light in me. We must preach the Word because
it's the power, it's the power of God, the awesome power of
God. on the salvation to everyone
that believes. We must preach the word because there's no other
power that can save a sinner and bring him out of death. Preaching
the word. When the Lord chose him, the
prophet, to preach the word to those dead and dry bones, he
prophesied to them. He preached the word. Hear ye
the word of the Lord, O you valley of dry bones. Hear ye the word
of the Lord." And those bones begin to move and come together.
Isn't that amazing? A person has to see that and
believe that before he'll ever be a missionary or ever be a
witness, really. You've got to realize people
are dead, and God has entrusted to us this power. which is the
power of God. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of
the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone
that believe it, Romans 1, 16. The power of this gospel is manifest
in the creation, but really, I don't think we just don't realize the power
of this gospel. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4,
6, for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness."
Now, he's talking about the power that God extended through his
Word when he said, Let there be light, and there was light.
He brought light out of darkness in the creation of this world,
and he goes on to compare that to the miraculous work of salvation. He says, For God, who commanded
the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give
us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. I love it when someone, when
a person says, I see, I see. Oh, that's wonderful, when they
finally see And they have a lot of the knowledge of the glory
of God revealed in their hearts. We must preach the Word because
the Word is the seed of the new birth. I can't tell you how to
be born again. If I could, I can't make my children
be born again. I can't set out any pattern or
anything that you could do to be born again. Because whatever's
of the flesh is flesh, and you can run and wheel all you want
to, and you can set up courses for people to run and exercises
they can do all they want to, but they never—what's born of
the flesh is flesh, and still flesh is going to hell. It's going to death. But in 1 Peter
1, 23, being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible
seed by the Word of God. So to preach the Word is to preach
the incorruptible seed of the Word of God. Who is the Word
of God? The Lord Jesus Christ. Concerning Him, who He is, what
He did, and where He is now. His power. Being born of this
corruptible seed. The Word of God that liveth and
abideth forever. If we don't sow that seed, God has commanded us to preach
the Word, and you don't expect a crop by not sowing the seed,
do you? And I want you to know this is. We must preach the Word because
God's sovereign will is accomplished through His Word. Isn't that
amazing? That God's sovereign will is
accomplished through His Word and through the preaching of
His Word. Can you imagine that God would accomplish His sovereign
will through the vessels of clay, like you and
I, to proclaim His gospel and His Word? That's the reason,
Paul said, I charge thee before God and the Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, that you preach the word, because it's... James says in 118, of his own
will begot he us by the word of truth. Now, he's not preaching
that a man is saved by his will, by man's will, but of God's will,
his sovereign will, he begot us. by the Word of truth, by
the preaching of the Word. We must preach the Word also
for other people. Perfecting of the saints. I thought we were already perfect
in Christ. Well, we are. But for maturity and the growing
up in grace and growing in grace and the knowledge of our Lord.
for the work of the ministry and for the edifying of the body
of Christ, we need to preach the Word. That's the way the
Church is disciplined. You can set up all kind of committees
and all kind of rules and regulations and bylaws, and they just will
not produce spiritual growth. It'll produce a bunch of fair
seas. But preaching the Word, preaching
Christ, and He's who we feed on. He's milk for the new creature
in Christ, for the baby in Christ, and He's meat for those that
are mature in Christ. None of us, sir, have arrived
yet, but we grow in grace and the knowledge of the Lord. But
it's the preaching of the Word is what God has ordained in Ephesians
4.12. He says, God has established for the ministry apostles, prophets,
evangelists, pastors, evangelists, teachers, for the edifying of
the body of the Christ, for the perfecting of the saints, and
for the work of the ministry. Preach the word, be instant,
in season, and out of season, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering All the scriptures, all the scriptures
given by inspiration of God. What time do you get out of here? You know, I had the text was
on Jonah. That's what I was going to preach
on Jonah. Well, let's look to Jonah right quick. And you see much of the gospel in
Jonah. And Jonah's the top of Christ.
But like I've told you before, you've got to look at the contrast,
really, to find the types. The Lord says, of course, it
was in the days of Jonah. He says, as far as Jonah was
three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the
Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of
the earth. So Jonah is a prophet. Christ is that prophet. There's
a lot of difference there. Jonah is a prophet of the Lord,
but the Lord Jesus Christ is that prophet, which is... that's
a part of his... who Christ is. He's prophet,
priest, and king. But it says here that the word
of the Lord came to Jonah, verse 1. But our Lord Jesus Christ,
He is the Word of God. And boy, you brought that out.
He's the living Word. And that's a great contrast there. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
Word, the living Word. The Word made flesh. The Word
of God came to Jonah. And in verse 2 it says, Arise
and go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for
their wickedness has come up before me. But Jonah rose and
fled unto 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, and went down into it to go with him unto Tarsus from
the presence of the Lord. So Jonah, this prophet Jonah,
he didn't—he rose up in rebellion. He rose up in rebellion. But
the Lord Jesus Christ, the living Word, became flesh. He came down
in obedience, and He paid the price. He was being in the equal with God. It says in Philippians
2, 5, Let this mind be in you, which was also at Christ Jesus,
who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be
equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon himself the form
of a servant, and was made in the likeness
of man. And being found in the likeness of man, he humbled himself
and became obedient unto death. rose up in rebellion. Christ,
he came down from his glory and was made a worm, a man like you
and I. What a marvelous thing. I can't
imagine that God would be made Lord and angels would become
man, but yet he's the God-man. That's such a contrast to Jonah.
Jonah's a prophet, and the Lord Jesus Christ is that prophet.
Jonah, he rose up in rebellion, but the Lord came to do the will
of the Father. He said, Lo, I come to do thy
will, O God. As in the book it's written of
me. And he came to do the will of the Father. And he says it. I want to just read some more
verses and make a quick application, and get down to the last chapter,
too, is where I really want to get into, about the mercy seat. Now, Jonah went down into the
ship. And to get away from the presence of the Lord, but in
verse 4 it says, But the Lord sent out a great wind into the
sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that his ship
was like to be broken. Now, in his rebellion, God sent
these contrary winds against his rebellious—he was in the
pathway of rebellion. And in the providence of God,
he's meeting all kind of opposition. That is just the opposite of
our Lord Jesus Christ. He was in the pathway of obedience,
but yet he suffered the contradictions of sinners against himself all
his days. And it says that the winds were
about to break the ship, and verse 5, the mariners were afraid. And boy, when the mariners get
afraid, it's a bad storm. And they cried, every man to
his God. And they were pagans. They believed in the God of creation. They believed in their gods in
their own way, and they cried unto their gods. And they began
to cast out the tackle that was in the ship, and all their goods,
the light of the ship. And they found Jonah fast asleep. and asked him, Who are you? And he told him, I'm a prophet.
And they feared greatly when they found out who he was and
where he was from and that he was a prophet, even though these
were pagan men. And they said, What shall we
do to you? And he said, Well, you cast me
into the sea, and the sea will be calm. Then said they unto him, What
shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm again unto us? And he said unto them, Take me
up, and cast me forth into the sea, so the sea shall be calm
unto you. For I know that for your sakes
this great tempest came upon you." Now, it was because of
Jonah's rebellion and sin that this evil was coming upon these
men. And he's telling them to cast
him out in the sea, and the sea will be calm. Nevertheless, the
men rode hard to bring the ship to land, but they could not,
for the sea was wrought and was tempestuous against them. Wherefore
they cried unto the Lord and said, Lay not upon us innocent
blood, for thy, O as it pleases thee." It's amazing how much
kind of faith these men had being pagans. They believed that God
was sovereign. He was in control over the elements.
But you know, when it comes to salvation, men don't believe
God has any salvation there. They believe God, He can run
the whirlwinds and the tornadoes and things like that, and they
acknowledge God is sovereign in those things, but when it
comes down to salvation, oh no, that's God's not sovereign in
that. But then he says that they were
praying unto God, laying down this innocent blood upon our
hands. They were going to throw Jonah
in the ocean. Now, there's a great contrast
here. These men were pagans, And yet they're trying to spare
Jonah. And Jonah's the one that's causing their misery. And they
didn't want to throw him in the water. They knew he'd die as
they threw him overboard. And they're doing their best
to try to save him and risking their own lives. What a contrast
that is to our Lord Jesus Christ. When he came unto his own, these
men didn't know Jonah. They weren't even of his nation. And Christ came unto his own,
and his own received him not. And they said, Let this man be
crucified. Crucified, and that's what they
told Pilate. Said, Let his blood be upon us and upon our children. That just shows you how wicked
men's hearts are. Men can be—show somewhat of a
mercy and a— But yet when it comes to God,
they want God off the throne. That's what our wicked hearts
are against God, an enmity against God. There's a lot of difference in
the love we have for each other and the human love, so to speak,
because when it comes in contact with the sovereign will of God,
that's when the enmity flies up, and that's where the trouble
is. We won't have this man to reign
over us. Crucify him. Let his blood be
upon us and our children. I don't know if you see what
I'm talking about there, the contrast. These wicked men are pagan. They didn't know They didn't
know God, they just used Him. They've been a Creator, sovereign
Creator, but they're showing a lot more
mercy there than those religious people did when Christ was crucified.
And thus, we don't need to exclude ourselves from them because we
have the same nature within us. Now, only God can really convince
a person of that, but when He does, that is an affectionate
work of the Spirit in the heart. when God's bringing a sinner
to Christ, when he reveals to him that image and what he is
before God. Well, anyway, Jonah was cast
into the sea, and God prepared a fish. Now, the Lord had prepared
a great fish to swallow up Jonah. Now, Jonah would have died. He
would have drowned in that water. And God prepared that fish. Someone
said it was a whale. They taught me when I was a little
boy in school that a quail couldn't swallow anything bigger than
its grapefruit. But it says the Lord prepared that fish. He prepared
that great fish to swallow up Jonah. And He prepared that fish
to save Jonah. Now listen to this contrast. What it says in Hebrews 10, sacrifices
in all three... And those sacrifices in the Old
Testament, God had no pleasure. And they were not sufficient
to take away sin. In Hebrews 10, verse 11, Wherefore,
when he cometh into the world, he says, Sacrifices and offerings
thou wouldest not, but if thine has thou prepared me. What's
that talking about? For the eternal Son of God, the
body was prepared, a body was prepared. But it was prepared that he might
die. Eternal God made flesh that he
might die. God, the Father, prepared that
body, Him, Mary, the Virgin. The angels said, the Holy Spirit
shall come upon thee. And that holy thing that is born
of thee, that holy thing, that holy being, shall be called the Son of God."
So that body was prepared, which was of the lineage of Abraham
and Judah and David, according to the Scriptures. God prepared
that body. In the case of Jonah, God prepared
that fish so that Jonah wouldn't drown. He prepared the fish. But in the coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ, the body was prepared, the eternal Creator was made
a creature. Isn't that amazing? He created
all things, yet He was made an infant of days. And why? Because He had to die in order
to redeem His people. And that body was prepared to
be our substitute and our representative. A man sinned, a man must die.
That's the reason God was made flesh, that his son might die. And he says, Lo, I come in the
volume of the book it is written of me to do thy will, O God. And on down he says, By that
which will, we are sanctified through the offering of the body
of Jesus Christ once for all." Now, I've got to really hurry
now, but back over to Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of
the fish three days and three nights. Christ died and was in the tomb.
There's a likeness. He really died. He didn't swoon,
he died. He saw no corruption, his body
saw no corruption, but he died. When his blood was shed, water
and blood, there's already this separation. Medical people know
that when the blood is separated from the plasma, from the whole
bloodlet, that's what happens in death. You set blood up in
a jar and it'll separate. He died, and his blood was shed,
blood and water. That's what came out when the
soldier pierced his side. Now, look what Jonah prayed in
chapter 2. Jonah was in that fish, and he
prayed to the Lord out of the fish's belly. It says, Then I said, I am cast
out of thy sight, yet I will look again toward thy holy temple.
Verse 7, When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord,
and my prayer came unto thee, unto thy holy temple. Now, how
in the world did he know which way was the holy temple? He was
in a fish's belly down at the bottom of the ocean, and that's
what my son was before. he ever got into computers, he
was six years on a nuclear sub, and they'd go down for three
months at a time, and sometimes they didn't even know where they
were. They really didn't. They'd get lost, and they wouldn't
know where they were. I mean, just for a little while. They
had gyros down there and all kinds of stuff. But he didn't know which way
to pray toward the Holy Temple, but he was looking at something.
that was in that temple. He wasn't looking at that temple.
He was looking at something that was on the inside of that temple.
I love the priestesses, you folks, because you know what I'm talking
about already, don't you? I see the Sunday school church
down there, about the temple. Then on the inside of that Holy
of Holies, where the high priest entered once a year with He went
under the veil, and he went before the Ark of the Testimony, which
was that golden box. And it had a solid gold lid on
top of it with angels with their hands stretched out facing one
another. And that was the mercy seat.
That's where the blood of the covenant was sprinkled. And inside
that box was the law. So he's looking to the mercy
seat. Now, that's where all God's people
find mercy and salvation, is at the mercy seat. Now, these
Old Testament saints, they look toward the mercy seat and the
promises of the coming of Christ, who is our mercy seat. And old
Calvary, when he died in our place, the God-man, he's our
mercy seat. And his blood was shed upon the
altar of his deity. And that's where God will meet
with us, at the mercy seat. All that typical stuff was just
rudimentary. And when he looked to the mercy
seat there, he, I looked to that temple. That's where Daniel prayed
when he opened the door, he looked toward Jerusalem. He probably
didn't know which way Jerusalem was, hardly. But he was looking
in his heart toward Jerusalem, he was looking to the mercy seat.
And that's where I live, and that's where I worship God, at
the mercy seat. where Christ's blood was shed,
that God might be just and unjustifiable, we consider, like me and like
all those that look to the mercy seat. I sure don't want to meet
God any other place. I want to meet him at the mercy
seat. And that's where he'll meet with his people, at the
mercy seat. When Jonah looked to the mercy
seat and prayed, the Lord spoke to that quail. And he says in verse 9, he said,
I will pay that I have borrowed. It's a committal. He wasn't just
calling on the name of Jesus. It was just a committal. Paul
said, that which I've committed unto thee. Faith has a virtue. God's, the faith of God's elect
has a virtue. What does that mean? It has valued
worth. It's not dead. And faith of God's
elect commit to truth, commit to Christ, to commit themselves. He said, I'll pay that. I have
vowed. I believe in a believer's commitment
and covenant. I don't think that there is any
control over the grace of God. I think that's the result of
grace. People turn things around when
they say, well, you make a covenant with God and then God's obligated.
Well, that's just absent. That's the absent. Getting it
backwards. It's because of what he did. In the covenant of grace, down
in our place And who he is now representing us before the throne,
we commit, we commit. Faith is just not a halfway thing,
it's alive, it's committed. And he said, Salvation is of
the Lord. Salvation is of the Lord. And the Lord spake unto that
fish, and it vomited out John upon the dry land. That old whale must have been
an Armenian whale, because when Jonah said, Salvation is of the
Lord, he couldn't stand that, and he got sick and threw Jonah
up. Well, that always stuck in my
mind, so I'll repeat it. Animals are not Armenians.
Human beings are Armenian. We are all born Arminians. You
know, I can say Arminians. Y'all know what it means, but
lots of you have to explain what it means. But a person that doesn't
believe in salvation is of the Lord from the beginning to the
end is an Arminian. And you find out what Arminian
is if you don't know. But now let me go on. Now, when
Jonah came out of that fish's belly, I can imagine he felt
all No, he felt awful, I'm sure of it. He felt awful, and he
smelled awful. But it says that Nineveh was
three days' journey from there, and he entered into the city
the first day. He must have ran 24 hours to
get to that city. And you can imagine, Johnny is
going to people he doesn't love. He's going with a message of
doom that has no promise to it. And he's running in there and
said, "'Yet forty days the Ninevites shall be overthrown.'" There's
no mercy there. There's no promise of mercy.
He's the enemy of—they're the enemy of him. The Ninevites were
enemies. That's the reason Jonah didn't
want to go there. He hated those people. They were
thorns in the flesh of the Jewish people. They were big enemies
of the people of Israel. He didn't want to go there, those
enemies. He hated them, and they hated
him. But he came there with God's message, and he had just come
fresh out of an experience that was—that's like a person when
God's bringing them salvation, he brings them down into their
death. And then they—he shuts us up to faith in the mercy seat,
Christ in our sin, dying in our sin. And we're raised in Christ. And we got a lot of stinking
grave clothes all over us, like those Jewish traditions that
they wrapped on—what was his name?—Lazarus. They wrapped him up in the grave
clothes. And they have to be taken away.
Now, let me get in. I'll get rambling around here.
But Jonah came preaching that message. And you know, the amazing
thing is, they repented. Now, don't think that this whole
town was saved eternally to go to heaven. No, they repented.
They repented. They put on sackcloth and ashes,
and they repented. They didn't have any promise
of mercy here, but they repented. And God saw their works, that
they turned from their evil way, and God repented of the evil
that he had said that he would do unto them, and did it not."
Can you explain that? Well, I'll tell you one thing.
God doesn't have any covenant with this world except in Christ. The covenant in Adam has been
broken, and there's no mercy and blessings coming at all to
this world because of Adam. because of our sins, either.
The only mercy and grace of God and love of God is in Christ
Jesus. And all the other benefits that come to this world is just to prepare this world
and hold this world in the framework of God's purpose until he can
call out all of his elect and those whom he's chosen to show
mercy And that's the only reason this world and this generation
is going on today. This is a pretty hard thing to
explain here. Let me say it this way. There's
temporal blessings. God reigns upon the just and
non-just. God is good. But just because God is good
and long-suffering, A person shouldn't be presumptuous and
say, God loves me. He's not going to condemn me.
He's going to take me to heaven. No. God is long-suffering, and
He's—but He's long-suffering toward us, where the Scripture
says, not willing to any of His elect should perish, those for
whom Christ died. Now, that's who God is long-suffering
towards—toward us. Not willing that any of his elect
should be perished, but all should come to repentance. Now, in Christ Jesus, those blessings
in Christ are yes and amen. They'll never be taken back.
But God, when he—he can bless a whole nation and turn it around
and keep them from—pull them back like an animal away from—with
the bits in their mouth. him back in his own purpose.
That's what he did to the Ninevites here, and they were turned back
for about a hundred years or so, and then finally God saw
it was time for them to meet their Maker, and that whole place
was destroyed and wiped clean like a slate. If they repented, they didn't
even have a promise. But a greater than Jonah is here. That's what
the Scripture was. A greater than Jonah is here,
and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. And he comes to his own. He comes
for his sheep. He comes with messages of good
tidings. He speaks good things to bad
sinners. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but
have everlasting life. He that believeth in the Son
hath life, but he that believeth not in the Son shall not see
life, but the raft of God abideth on him." Now, that's amazing. Such wonderful promises are given
in Christ, and they're only in Christ. Yet it's going on. Salvation is of the Lord. He's
the one that has to work in a person's heart and grant repentance and
works in their heart to will and to do His good pleasure.
And God's not ever going to take away the blessings that He promised
in Christ. But these blessings, these temple
blessings, He can take them back any time He wants to because
we don't deserve them, we haven't got any right to them. But in
Christ we've got a right to them. And the will and the testimony
that's sealed by his blood, that testimony will never be contested,
because the testator died and shed his blood and he arose and
he's on the throne and he has all power. Let him come who will
to try to say anything against that testimony. His promises
are sure in Christ, and the one that shed the blood that's seated
on the throne, to see that His will and testament is carried
out. And those promises are yes and amen. They're not conditional.
They were conditional on Christ's part, but they're not on our
part. Someone says, Well, you've got to believe and repent. Yeah,
that's true. They're conditions. But they're
conditions that God works in His people. It's the gift of
God. But if you can believe and repent,
Believe God's Word. Everybody ought to believe God's
Word. But blessed is the man that hears the awful sound and
repents, believes the testimony of God concerning his son. Well,
I went over the hour, but I—Lord bless you.