Jonah's Resolve

Q: What does the Bible say about looking to God in despair?

The Bible encourages believers to look to God in times of despair, as evidenced by Jonah's resolve in Jonah 2:4. In Jonah 2:4, Jonah expresses a profound sense of despair, stating, 'I am cast out of thy sight, yet I will look again toward thy holy temple.' This declaration highlights the complex nature of faith in the midst of affliction. Even when feeling abandoned by God, Jonah resolves to turn back to Him, demonstrating that hope and faith can coexist with despair. This tension is common among believers; they may feel despondent yet still possess a determination to seek God. Faith often emerges even in the darkest situations, assuring us that God is near, reinforcing that when we feel cast out, we are still invited to look to Him.

Q: How do we know that salvation is of the Lord?

Scripture affirms that salvation is solely the work of God, as Jonah states in Jonah 2:9. In Jonah 2:9, Jonah proclaims, 'salvation is of the Lord.' This succinct yet powerful declaration encapsulates the essence of the gospel: salvation comes from God alone and is not a result of human action or merit. Throughout scripture, God's sovereignty in the salvation process is affirmed, exemplified in passages like Ephesians 2:8-9 which remind us that we are saved by grace through faith, and that not of ourselves; it is the gift of God. This truth encourages believers in their trials, as it underscores that deliverance rests not in our performance but in God's unchanging character and His covenant faithfulness.

Q: Why is prayer important for Christians in times of trouble?

Prayer is vital for Christians because it is our way of communicating with God and finding hope in difficult times. Prayer serves as a lifeline for believers, especially in times of distress. As Jonah's experience illustrates, it was when he found himself in the belly of the fish that he cried out to God. In Jonah 2:1, it states, 'Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly.' When circumstances become overwhelming and despair deepens, prayer becomes an essential means of grace. It is through prayer that believers express their reliance on God, acknowledging their need and turning to Him for hope and deliverance. God invites us to bring our fears, doubts, and burdens to Him, knowing that He hears and responds to the prayers of His children. Thus, prayer is not only an expression of faith but a necessity for spiritual sustenance and comfort.

Q: What can we learn from Jonah about faith in adversity?

Jonah's story teaches that true faith persists even in the most dire circumstances. Jonah’s narrative exemplifies the perseverance of faith amidst profound adversity. Even while in the belly of the fish, surrounded by darkness and despair, he expresses his resolve saying, 'yet I will look again toward thy holy temple' (Jonah 2:4). This illustrates that true faith is resilient; it acknowledges pain and suffering but is anchored in the belief that God is always present and sovereign. Jonah, despite his desperate situation, doesn't abandon hope. His resolve to pray and seek God in the depths serves as an encouraging reminder for Christians facing their own battles. It affirms that even when circumstances seem hopeless, faith can compel us to look to the Lord for comfort and salvation.

Q: Why should Christians look to God's promises during trials?

Looking to God's promises provides assurance and strengthens faith during trials. In times of trial, Christians are called to remember and cling to God's promises, which serve as anchors for the soul. As seen with Jonah, even when he felt cast out, he resolved to look towards God’s holy temple. This perspective shifts focus from despair to hope. God's promises remind us of His faithfulness, sovereignty, and love. By recalling His past faithfulness and the assurances found in Scripture, believers can find the strength to endure hardships. The act of looking to God and His promises cultivates resilience and helps us to rest in the knowledge that He is at work, even when we cannot see it. Therefore, directing our gaze to God’s word and promises during difficulties is indispensable in nurturing our faith and sustaining our hope.

I want you to turn in your Bibles,
if you will, to the book of Jonah. The book of Jonah. Now I want
to proceed and read chapter 2, which is a short chapter, 10
verses. So if you would, listen carefully
as we read the Word of God this time. Then Jonah prayed unto
the Lord his God out of the fish's belly, and said, I cried by reason
of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me. Out of the belly
of hell cried I, and thou heardst my voice. For thou hast cast
me into the deep, in the midst of the seas, and the floods compass
me about, and thy billows and thy waves passed over me. Then I said, I am cast out of
thy sight, yet I will 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 her 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 spake unto the fish,
and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land. Now I'd like to
read to you again verse 4. Verse 4, this is our text this
morning and we'll be using some of the other verses in chapter
1 as well as in chapter 2 as a support for our message as
we go along today. But verse four says, then I said,
I am cast out of thy sight, yet I will look again toward thy
holy temple. Yet I will look again toward
thy holy temple. I want to talk a little bit this
morning about Jonah's resolve that we have here. But in order
to do so, I think that we must say some things about the complex
creature that man is. the complex creature that man
is. Now, especially man is very complex
if he be a child of God. If a man possesses two natures,
I mean if God has come to live within him, and if the principle
of divine grace has been implanted in him, man is a very complex
creature indeed. If he has the faith of Abraham,
the faith of God's elect, then he is a riddle and a contradiction. And we see that so clearly in
the text this morning. Jonah appears here to be in a
very despairing, a very despairing condition. He says, I am cast
out of thy sight. I am cast out of thy sight. And
still he has hope, for he resolves, yet, he says, will I look again
toward thy holy temple. Now, when I read this and meditated
upon it, it was indeed refreshing and a blessing to my heart because
it somehow or other explains some of the mysteries that take
place in my own life, in my own soul. And it reminded me also
of David, that tried servant of God of many years ago. And David in Psalm 73 and in
verse 22 and 23, he said, so foolish was I and ignorant Was as a beast before thee nevertheless. He said I am continually with
thee Thou hast hold in me by thy right hand so there appears
to be a contradiction in this just as there appears to be in
verse 4 here of the Bible this morning, but David I believe
is seems to at least have lived for us all. He was a man of great
experience and a man who somehow or other was not so much one
man as all men in one. In that, that if you examine
somewhere or other in the great circle of the experiences of
David These experiences will touch your life, and they'll
touch mine now Jonah had a very small Bible compared to ours
But he evidently loved the book of the Psalms for his prayer
here was full of David's expressions And I think I am right in this
in saying that there are no less than seven extracts from the
Psalms in Jonah's prayer right here in Jonah chapter 2. So when
he was in this deep trial, when he was in this place, that we'll
describe to you this morning, the fish's belly. When he was
in this place where he felt most assuredly, if ever, he was certainly
cast out of God's sight and that God had forgotten to be gracious
and that he was in a place where surely this was his tomb. Surely
he felt this was the end, but when he was in this deep trial
he remembered the words of David and he would quote the psalm
and the word of God was precious to him in this deep and serious
trial. Well everything seems to be lost
to Jonah and yet as long as a man can look to God nothing is really
lost. As long as a man can get hope
in the Word of God, nothing is really lost. As long as a man
knows that deliverance is in God, as long as he knows that
salvation is of the Lord, then surely nothing is really ever
lost. God cannot see him so he thinks,
yet he talks about looking towards God. Isn't that an amazing contradiction? He says I'm cast forth out of
thy sight, yet he says I'll look, I'll look again toward thy holy
temple. And certainly man is indeed a
riddle. Now, this morning as I thought
about this, I think here that I don't know of a more gloomy
sentence that a human can speak than this when he says, I am
cast out of thy sight. What a gloomy thing to say, I
am cast out from the Lord. I'm cast out into a place where
God no longer looks upon me, where God no longer sees me,
where God no longer will undertake for me, where his hand no longer
will come and deliver me. And yet I do not know of a more
hopeful resolution that this morning that the human heart
can determine upon than this. Yet I will look again toward
thy holy temple, both the gloom and the hope. comes forth here
from the very same heart. The very same heart, my friend. Does this sound familiar to you?
I mean, have you listened to yourself lately? Have you listened
to yourself when you were in trial and when you were seemingly
shut up in difficult circumstances? When the afflictive hand of God
was upon you and the Lord's hand was pressing sore upon you? Did
you listen to yourself? I think if you have listened
to yourself that this sounds very familiar. Gloom coming forth
from carnal sense and human reason and then for hope to come forth
and to say, yet I will look again. Yet I walk again toward thy holy
temple." And so we have in us this contradiction. And I hope
this morning, brother, sister, that you won't be upset if you
cannot understand yourself. Whenever these things happen,
whenever carnal sense speaks out and you can't understand
what's going on, this contradiction that you won't be upset about
this but on the contrary you will take it as one of the evidences
that there is divine life within you when you become a very mystery
to yourself when you talk and when you hear yourself talking
and and you say such things as Jonah said here I'm cast forth
out of thy sight, and yet again will I look into thy holy temple."
This great mystery that takes place in the hearts of God's
people in the day of experiential religion, in the time when God
is working in their lives. Because while we're brother to
the worm and kin to corruption, we are nevertheless related to
the Lord but sits on the eternal throne And we surely, because
of these two natures that are within us, are going to have
a great deal of conflict going on within us. So we have since
then in carnal reason and faith, faith in the living God, in the
same earthen vessel this morning. Now I want you to notice something
here. I want you to notice something. And I'll try to move quite rapidly
because I feel that we have quite a bit of ground to cover. And
if we'll cover it with God's help, And if God's pleased to
give you an open ear this morning, a receptive heart to what we
have to say, I believe that you'll be helped somewhat today in this
service. Now our text leads me to see
that faith in a child of God, whatever may be his circumstances,
it still comes forth to the front. That whatever be the circumstances
of a child of God, And brother, sister, his circumstances was
certainly wretched. Here is Jonah here in this condition. He is in the fish's belly. I
call it a wretched condition. And in verses 2, look at it.
And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord.
I cried by reason of mine affliction. And then look at verse three.
For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas,
and the floods compassed me about, and thy billows and thy waves
they passed over me. And then look at verse five.
The waters compassed me about, even to the soul. The depths
closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head."
The wretched condition that Jonah found himself in. Now look at
verse 6. He says, I went down to the bottoms
of the mountains. The earth with her bars was about
me forever. Yet hast thou brought up my life
from corruption, O Lord my God. Now then, faith, beloved, listen,
has come to the front, conquering and to conquer in Jonah's situation. And I hope you can picture him
this morning there in the belly of the fish. There he is in that
dark There he is with the weeds wrapped about his neck. There
he is, conscious, not in a coma. There he is in this awful place,
this place that you've been placed by the sovereign hand of God.
This place where God has prepared for him and he's in this awful
and wretched place. But faith seems to come forth,
conquering and to conquer. Faith always comes to the front,
beloved, in a child of God, whatever be their circumstances. Now,
it'll be after sometimes, after a carnal reason has offered its
verdict and has made statements which later on you're ashamed
of, but faith will come to the front and we'll praise God and
we'll look again unto the Lord. Faith is the child of the omnipotent
God and shares in His omnipotence. Now, born of the eternal, faith
possesses His, God's, immortality. You may crush faith, you may
grind faith, but every fragment of faith is alive and it lives. Throw it into the fire, it cannot
be burned, neither can the smell of fire pass upon it. Remember
the three Hebrew children, throw it down into the bottom of the
ocean, but it's bound to rise again to the top. If we have
living faith in a living God, there is that in us which overcomes
the world, baffles the devil, conquers sin, rules life, and
abolishes death. Faith, living faith in a living
God. All things are possible is the
statement of the Word of God to him that believeth. Faith
triumphs in every place, notwithstanding her life is one of continual
trial. All faith is tested and the children
of God are not very long in this world without some trial, some
real trial that brings them to the end of themselves and makes
them stretch themselves out before God and to Him for deliverance. Sense in this particular instance
was broken like a potter's vessel and reason becomes like a spider's
web and faith My friend, it abides, it grows, and it reigns in the
power of God in the soul of the believer. And it did so in the
soul of old Jonah. He said, yet I will look again
toward thy holy temple. Now, listen to me this morning. I want you to notice this, that
Jonah was in a position altogether unique as far as he was concerned. Yet, Faith, he was in this unique
position. I'll say a little bit about that.
but yet his faith stood him in good stead. His faith stood him
in good stead. Now, you've read of Joseph in
the dungeon, I'm sure, but his imprisonment was nothing compared
to the attunement of Jonah here in the belly of the fish. You've
heard of Job and all of his afflictions and all of his trials and his
bereavements, but my friend, We know that the trial of Jonah,
that it was a unique trial to lie as a living man in a living
sepulcher was horrible to say the least. He knew what was going
on. He knew his position because verse 5 and 6, if you just read
those verses, and we already have, but it makes it clear that
he knew everything that was going on. He was conscious. His position
was such as never mortal man had no one before or since. Now when a man believes that
nobody ever suffered as he suffered, then he may very well conclude
his case to be well not hopeless because he says my situation
is different than everybody else's. Well, I know this morning that
none of us here can say that our sufferings are anything other
than that which is common to man. But beloved, this was not
so with Jonah. I'm trying to point out that
Jonah's situation was unique to himself. It was a very unusual
trial. But faith still stood him instead. Faith still supported him. And
faith did not leave him even as he was shut up in the tight
confines of this living coffin, this fish. But Jonah could say
it with absolute truthfulness. Well, we must say our afflictions,
our trials and our troubles are such as is common to man. Job
could say that there was never a man that's been here before.
There has never been one since I've been here and be alive like
I'm alive. There's never been a man in a
fecious belly that's lived to tell about it. There's never
been a man who's been in my position. His trial was all his own. In
his affliction he had no predecessor and he had no successor, beloved. I'm trying to show you that this
man was in a tough place and in a unique place. And you may
be saying to yourself this morning, I'm in a tough place. I'm between
a rock and a hard place and I've got one of the toughest situations
that I've ever heard about to deal with. But I'll tell you
this, Faith will stand you instead. If you have a living faith in
a living God, that living faith in the living God will support
you and will gird you up and enable you to stand whatever
be your trial or your situation. He was the first and the last
that for three days and three nights had been entombed in the
belly of a fish. His situation was unique and
here is the blessedness of it that his faith was equal to his
position. His faith was equal to his position. Now friend, I know that sometimes
you think your faith is going to give out. You really don't
know and you really don't feel you're going to make it to the
end. You really don't think you can still persevere But my friend, your faith will
be equal to your position. And it was found to be so in
old Jonah. Throw faith wherever you will,
it will always land on its feet. I'm talking about a living faith
in a living God. If faith be in a little child,
it gives that child wisdom beyond its years. If faith be in a decrepit
old man, it'll make him strong out of his feebleness. If faith,
listen, if it be faith in solitude, it'll bless a band with the best
of company. If it be faith in the midst of
adversaries, it'll bring to man the very best of friends. I'm
talking about the kind of faith that says when a man's in difficult
and unique circumstances, that says, I'll look again. I'll look
again toward thy holy temple. Faith in weakness makes us strong,
in poverty makes us rich, and in whales' bellies makes us look
again toward the holy temple of the Lord. Now if we get a
good, if we get a firm grip on God by faith, we'll need not
ask What does our future hold? What does our future hold? All
must be well. If we have a good grip on God
by faith, then all must be well, crooked or straight, uphill or
down, through the fire or through the sea. If you trust God, the
road you're on My friend is the king's highway. The road you're
on is that road that God has set you upon. And you need not
ask, what will my future be? You'll know that all is well. My Jesus does all things well. You're as safe as he is. in whom
you believe. If you trust God, you're just
as safe as He is. And you need not worry about
the difficulty and unique problems of the way. You need not worry
about it because God's faith will stand you instead. As the
psalmist said, commit thy way unto him and trust also in him
and he'll bring it to pass. Just commit your way to him and
trust in him and he'll bring it to pass. Now, beloved, my
motive. Somebody says, well, what is
your motive, preacher, in preaching on a text like this? Well, this
morning my motive is that I want to be of some help to any child
of God who is in trouble, any child of God who is in afflictive
circumstances. Because many many times I found
myself in very difficult and trying situations. And there
have been many times when I've been shut up sometimes for years
in a situation wherein I hardly could get up enough courage to
look again toward the Lord and to pray and to seek His face
and to cry out to Him. And I know what it is to be in
those kind of situations. And I've been praying that God
would be pleased to give me some encouragement. And I got it right
here from this text of scripture and I want to share it with you.
And I want to help you if I can. That's my only desire. Is to
help your poor soul in these difficult and trying times. That
you will be enabled to look again. that you'll look again. Now there
are two things that we've been talking about here this morning,
and these two things, it seems to me, play a very major role
in the life of a child of God. If you think about a child of
God as he lives out his days here in this world, as he's on
his pilgrimage, as he's on his way to the glory land, there
seems to me to be two things going on in him all the time,
and he just don't seem to ever get past this. This just seems
to be happening all the time in the life of a child of God. And the next thing is the resolve
of faith. Faith always reviving and resolving
in the soul. I'll look again unto thy holy
temple. Now, let's talk just a little
bit about this verdict of sense. because it comes first in the
text here. You see it very clearly. I'm
cast out of thy sight. Brother, sister, that is, that
come from a carnal heart. That come from a fleshly mind.
That come out of his, that come out of his old heart. And this
is the pattern when we get into any kind of trial. It is noteworthy
that unbelief and that carnal sense always speaks first. He always immediately says and
offers its verdict. I am cast out of thy sight. The
Lord has forgotten to be merciful. God has forsaken me. God has abandoned me. God has
left me to myself. God has just simply said, go
your own way. Ephraim is joined to his idols.
Let him alone. And this is the verdict. of sense
and carnal reasoning. Unbelief cannot wait. It must
have its say. It blabs out all of its silly
stuff immediately. It's got to give its two cents. Unbelief, your own nature. Now
when you get into trial, beloved, try if you can. Don't talk too
quick. Try to be still under the afflictive
hand of God. Try to be still and try not to
say something that you wish that you could unsay later. Have you ever said anything when
you were in trial to yourself and of course God heard it? He
hears everything, even if you don't put it into words. He hears
what goes through your heart. And whatever you're saying, all
your murmuring and your complaining and all of your hard thoughts
and all of your backstabbing words, God hears all of this. And you're saying it unto Him. And that which is said, as the
old man told me one time, can never be unsaid. And when a man
says something hard about God, whenever he says, well, the Lord's
cast me out of His sight, God's put me in a place where He don't
even look at me anymore, where He doesn't favor me anymore,
He doesn't say anything to me anymore, He won't bless the Bible
to me anymore, I don't have any hope, I don't have anywhere to
look, and I'm really in a depressed state, and God's done all of
this, Well, my friend, be careful, because as the old man said,
that which is said can never be unsaid, and that which is
unsaid, he said, always can be said later if the situation requires
it. So just wait and be still, and
don't talk too quick. Take the warning of the text,
be slow to murmur. Remember, the carnal nature is
swift to speak, and it's sure to speak amiss. It's sure to
speak amiss. You cannot trust what comes out
of your old carnal nature. Now this verdict of sent seemed
to me, or it seemed to be, correct to Jonah. Jonah really thought
it was true. He said, I am cast out of thy
sight. He couldn't see any living man.
No living man could see him. He thought it was correct. I
am cast out of God's sight. Jonah must have felt that it
was all deserved, and that added to the weight of of this awful
sentence here, I'm cast out of thy sight. He said, I deserve
this. If the Lord had dealt with me according to my sins, old
Jonah would have said, then I'm a castaway and that's why I'm
here. I'm a castaway. God has forgotten to be merciful
and I'm here and I deserve to be here. Now friend, many, many
times, if you do not think of the grace of God, if you do not
think of God's love and his unerring wisdom and his blessed care and
kindness toward his children, when you get in difficult circumstances,
most all of us always have to own the fact that we deserve
just exactly what we're getting. We deserve it. Here we are shut
up in difficult and trying circumstances and we say, well, You know, we
get to examining ourselves, looking within, and thinking about what
our attitude's been, and what we've been doing, and with our
time, and how we've been handling things. And immediately we say,
well, it's right that I should be in this awful place that I'm
in. It's right that I should be discouraged, and that I should
be cast down, and that I should be in this place where it doesn't
seem like there's any way I'm going to get out of it. It's
right. I deserve it. And what Jonah felt, I'm sure
that he was filled here, you know, a backslide of the Bible
says he's filled with his own ways. And I'm sure he felt like
he was filled with his own ways, had been in all of his rebellion,
running from God, fleeing from the presence of the Lord, not
minding his master, not doing as God had told him to do. And
so he just felt like that he was filled with his own ways.
And had he died in the sea or in the fish, He could not have
doubted the justice of God because he had run from God and he refused
his master's service. And look in verse 12 of chapter
1. And he said unto them, take me
up and cast me forth into the sea. So shall the sea be calm
unto you, for I know, for I know that for my sake this great tempest
is upon you. I know this is my fault. I know
it is the lot. turned up and I'm the fella,
I'm the guy that has caused all this trouble. And he said, I
know that I'm at fault. And this made him feel that this
was correct, that God had cast him out of his sight and that
he would never again be able to look up and see the face of
God and enjoy the countenance of his God shining upon him.
And two, I think that part of Jonah's misery was that God's
hand was so evidently in his misery. His hand, the hand of
God was so evidently in his misery. If you were, would this morning
look at verse 14 and 17 of the first chapter here where it says,
wherefore they cried unto the Lord and said, we beseech thee,
O Lord, we beseech thee, let us not perish for this man's
life and lay not upon us innocent blood for thou, O Lord, has done
as it please thee. This whole thing, Lord, is by
your design. All of this great storm has been
sent and it came forth out of your treasure. This is your work. You've done as it pleases thee.
And then in verse 17, now the Lord had prepared a great fish
to swallow up Jonah. Now you see, the Lord had done
all of this. And then if you look at verse
2, it said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord,
and he heard me out of the belly of hell, cried I, and thou heardst
my voice, for thou hast cast me into the deep, in the midst
of the seas, and all, he says, the floods compassed me about,
all thy billows and thy waves have passed over me. I'm telling
you that Jonah's misery was that that God's hand was so evidently
in his misery. And many, many times, beloved,
we can remember when we knew that the lash of God was upon
our back. We knew that God's hand was upon
us. We knew that the Lord, that He
had turned away His face from us, that He'd hid Himself, and
that the heavens were brass, and that we couldn't pray, and
there was no spirit of supplication and prayer in our souls, and
we knew that the Lord had done it. We knew that He had. Now,
if the Lord Himself goes forth against a man, then a man ought
to tremble. he ought to tremble and flesh
says well you sit down and die because even God is against you
but remember this that your flesh is kin to Job's wife who said
curse God and die that's your flesh and whenever a man knows
that God's hand is upon him heavy in affliction many many times
his old flesh just says give it up Just die. I mean just throw
in the towel and forget it all. Don't, don't. There's no need
to pray anymore. There's no need, no need to cry
to God. There's no need to fast. There's
no need to get serious about seeking the Lord anymore because
God's hand is against you. Curse God and die. I tell you,
your own nature. is kin to Job's wife. Now, I
want you to take notice of this also, that the verdict of carnal
sins was that I'm cast out of thy sight. Now this was very
bitter to Jonah. It was very bitter and I'm going
to show you something here and you'll understand it a little
better just as I explain it to you. I'll tell you why this was.
Why this idea that came from the flesh and the flesh mind
in Jonah, why it was so bitter to him. He wanted to flee from
the presence of God and now that he thinks he is actually away
from God. that he actually thinks that
he has successfully gotten away from the presence of the Lord.
He is filled with horror and dismay as he thinks upon it. Oh my soul, here he is, he planned
it this way. Get away, run from the presence
of the Lord. And now, here he is down there
in that fish's belly. Dark, I mean dark as hell in
that fish's belly. No room to move and the weeds
wrapped about his head. And he says to himself, I am,
I am indeed cut off. I've successfully fled from the
presence of the Lord. And this was bitterness to his
soul and filled him with dismay. By this, beloved, we know the
children of God, even when they're at their worst. The children
of God, one of the greatest trials of their life. is when they feel
that God has hid his face from them. You may sometime in your
willfulness wish that you could get away from the all-searching
eye of God. If I could just get away from
God looking at me all the time, day and night, if I could just
get away from God seeing everything I do, then you might say, well,
I'd just have a little rest. But if you could do so, my friend,
it would be hell to you. It would be hell to you if you
ever really felt that you had gotten away from God's eye. If you're a child of God, you
must dwell in the presence of God because it is your life and
you cannot be happy Anywhere else you just got to you have
to dwell in the presence of the Lord you are spoiled for this
world Because you are an heir of the world to come and my soul
This world is not for you is the testimony of the old song
and it is correct there was a time when you could have been satisfied
with the husk that you gather around you in this world and
You could be satisfied with your little trinkets. You could be
satisfied with what you've bought with your money. You could be
satisfied with the world and the things of the world. But
that day now is over for a child of God, one of the redeemed of
the Lord, one who's experienced the regenerating work of God
in their soul, one who has been brought under the influence and
power of God's Holy Spirit. Let me tell you, that day is
over. and you must eat the bread of
heaven or you will starve. You will starve in the midst
of plenty. If you cannot be happy in the Lord, then you're doomed
to be unhappy in this world if you've ever been touched of the
Lord. Have you noticed that? I mean,
has the Lord shown you that? Have you been brought to see
that? The light of his countenance must be light to you or you must
walk in darkness, settle it once and for all in your soul. You must have his light upon
you or you're gonna walk in darkness. The people of God cannot go back.
They cannot go back. You can never be, listen, you
can never be right and you can never have any hope without God. And whenever, I mean, anybody
that is without God is without hope. They don't have any. Now
your heaven must be in his embrace or there will be no heaven for
you. It's got to be in His embrace. If God were to do as we accuse
Him of doing, and we do it every day in Jonah Day, if we accuse
Him of just leaving us, abandoning us, forsaking us, forgetting
us, we do that. But if He were to do that, my
friend, it would be a real hell to us, worse than that of Dante
or Milton, whatever they could have imagined and whatever they
imagined and wrote down in their books. It'd be a worse hell than
all of that. If God would do just what we've
accused Him of doing in our case, without God, cast out. Brother,
sister, can you bear the thought? Be without God, cast out, forsaken
of the Lord, abandoned by God. No soul, my friend, ever is cast
off from God No man or woman, no soul that longs for God will
ever be cast off from God. If you can be content without
God, you're no doubt a lost soul. You're no doubt a lost soul.
If you can live and be out of fellowship with God and be happy,
you're a lost soul. You're doomed for hell as if
you were already there. You're a lost soul if you can
be happy without the face of God, the countenance of God shining
upon you. Now, I make haste to say that
as usual, this verdict here of Jonah, this verdict of sense
and carnal reasoning, that it was not true. It was not true. Jonah alive in the sea. Jonah
alive in the fish's belly. Alive in the deep. And you say,
Jonah, that you're cast out of his sight? If God was anywhere
in the world, it was in that fish. Wouldn't you say amen to
that? I mean, Jonah, you know what she's talking about. You're
foolish. Where else could there be more
proof than this keeping, than Jonah was kept alive in this
living coffin? Where could there have been more
proof? He was kept alive. The digestive juices of this
great fish had been held in check by Almighty God so they could
not bleach his bones and reduce him to dung. My friend, God was
in that fish. and this saying of carnal nature
was wrong. If Jonah just would have asked
the fish, the fish would have told him that he was wrong and
that God wasn't very far away, that God was pretty close. If
he just asked the fish, of course he didn't do that. Out of the
ship into the fish, but not out of the sight of God. No, no,
my friend, him that cometh to me, the Lord Jesus said, him
that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. I'll never
cast him out. Now even if all things in the
earth and hell should swear that the Lord has cast away one of
his own believing people, it will be our duty, brother, sister,
to deny it For it is impossible that he should cast out any believer
and any wise for any motive, for any reason whatsoever. God does not cast off his people,
and he doesn't cast them out of his sight. God always, his
eye is always upon you. God's eye sees you wherever you
are, up or down, wherever you are, God's eye is upon you, not
a word. This morning, we must say no,
no. There is not a word in the defense
of the verdict of sense. Not a word in support of it,
in the defense of it. It's wrong, Jonah. You've not
been cast out. of the sight of God. You have
not. Now you talk to yourself whenever
you get in this frame of mind and you start talking about how
things are with you and the old flesh is telling you and giving
it's silly ideas about your true state. The flesh makes a judgment
and you just say it's not so. It's not so. It's not so. The Lord has not forgotten to
be gracious God will hear me as I cry to him. Now just a word
or two about the resolve of faith, and we're through. And I trust
that the Spirit of God will be pleased to work in us the faith
that was in old Jonah here, where he said, yet I will look again
toward thy holy temple, this precious faith. Now remember
that he is surely here His case is bad, but I mean it's a terrible
case of Jonah, but my friend surely, and I thought about this,
surely our case is never as bad as his. Surely our case is not
worse than his, surely. You say, preacher, you don't
know where I am. Well, I mean, I know where you are, but you're
not. In a fish's belly, I know that. And your situation might
be extremely difficult, but you're not, your case is not worse than
his. And faith, listen to me, faith. This Joni, he was an ugly saint. When he was in the socks, he
was ugly. Ugly, I say. He was a proud,
self-conscious, willful, hard-to-love individual. Yes, he was. But
yet in him, this harsh prophet, this disobedient prophet, this
man who resolved to run from God and from his will, within
his very being, like a pearl in an oyster, there was a priceless
jewel of faith. It was there. It was there, and
like I said, I've described him to you. He was an ugly, sulking,
self-conscious, willful, sinning man. But there was in him a pearl
of faith. God had put it there. And this
faith moved him to pray. And look in verse one of chapter
two. Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God. His God out of
the fetus' belly. Now, this is very interesting
to me. Jonah did not pray to ever Tom,
Dick, and Harry's God. The scripture here says he prayed
unto the Lord his God. You'll never get any place in
your trials until this God is your God, and when you cry to
Him, you cry to Him as your God. He's your God. And Jonah prayed
that way. Now, listen to me this morning.
This faith moved him to pray, and you'll find God's people
praying where you thought they wouldn't, and find them not praying
where you thought they would pray. Now you listen to this. He did not pray, Jonah did not
pray when he left his home and went down here to, he fled down
here into Tarshish from the presence of the Lord and went down to
Joppa, he found a ship there and he got on this ship. Listen,
he didn't pray before he left. You thought he would have prayed,
wouldn't you? He's a prophet. Prayer and preventer hindereth
no man, the Puritans say, and you would have thought he'd have
prayed. You'd have thought he'd have got down on his knees and
said, Lord, is this what I ought to do? No! He said, I'll take
the government of my own life in my own hands and I don't have
time to pray, I just gotta get out of here. I mean, the Lord's
gonna come to me and he's gonna press me to go over there and
preach them Ninevites again? I hate every one of those, they're
the scum of the earth! and they're Israel's enemy and
I'm not gonna go over there and preach to them. And so he never
prayed. He never prayed. He said, I'll
get out of here. That's what I'll do. I'm not interested in
being a traitor to Israel and preaching to their enemies. Not
even if God wants me to do it, I'll not do it. Well, then he
didn't pray when he was in the side of the ship. He was down
there in the side of the ship, but the Bible says he lay there
and he was asleep. And I, you'd have thought he
had a prey down there in that ship. Lord, this storm's bad. And Lord, it's more than likely
that I'm the fault here and what's gonna happen to me? And he told
the mariners, he said, just throw me overboard because it is my
fault. But, you know, you'd have thought
he'd have been praying all the time. No, but I'll tell you when
he did pray, in the fecious belly. I mean, he prayed when you wouldn't
have thought he'd have prayed. I mean, when you thought he would
have prayed, he didn't. But when you didn't think he'd
pray, here he is praying. And it's in the fecious belly.
that he cried out unto God, and he heard me, he said, out of
the belly of hell, cried I, and thou heard'st my voice. You heard
me when I was crying out of the belly of hell itself. And I'll
tell you what, sometimes we gotta get in the belly of hell before
we'll begin to pray. Why is it that we're so reluctant
to look again? Why is it that sometimes we have
such experiences in our life that shuts up the fountain of
prayer and we say it's hopeless, it's useless. And you know, the
older a fella gets in the way of the Lord, the more this can
happen. I mean, whenever something happens,
knock you off your feet, great trials come, and plagues come,
and you say, well, there's no hope, there's no hope. I've fought
battles all my life, and here's this great battle here in front
of me, I don't think I can deal with it anymore. I give up, I
give up, I just forget it. And we gotta get down awful low
before we look again. We look again, but faith always
comes to the front, and we look again unto the holy temple of
the Lord. Well, here he is. Here he is
in the fecious belly laid out in his living coffin, and he
prayed. He prayed unto God. He prays,
and one of the surest evidences of living faith In a man is,
he prays. If you can do anything else,
if you cannot do anything else, if you're a child of God, you
can pray. And you will pray. And surely
as a man prays, and as a baby cries, He will. He'll cry to God. He will. He
must. And whatever be the storm or
the trial, he must come home to the Father. He's always looking
for home in the Father. And he begins to pray and he
cries out to God. That's one of the evidences that
a man is a child of God because prayer is our vital breath. It's
our very native air. And you tell me that it's not
so. It is so. Prayer is the vital
breath, the native air of a true childhood God. Jonah said, yet,
yet, I'll look again. Yet, I'll look again. Faith in
her worst circumstances, it trusts God, it looks to God. Where are
you today? Faith, faith will look. Yet,
yet, yet I'll look. I know I'm in a bad way, but
yet, yet I'll look. I'll just take one more look.
I'll take one more look. When my soul fainted within me,
verse 7, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came unto thee,
into thine holy temple. I remembered the Lord. When my
soul fainted within me, yet, yet, just one more time, yet,
I'll look. I'll look one more time. And
the Lord knows that we used to look. God knows that we trusted
once. God knows that there was a time
when we looked to Christ and found peace, found rest. God
knows there was a time when the way was clear between us and
the Lord, nothing between our soul and the Savior. There was
a time when we could look. There was a time when we wanted
to look, a time when we just spent our life looking, praying,
seeking the face of God, searching for His will, crying out to God
that we might be all that resurrected in the throne Christ could make
us, a time when we wanted nothing more than for God to own us,
and we cried and we sought the Lord. But then, but then, I did
not know in that day the evil of sin as I know it now. I did not know in that day the
depravity of my own heart as I know it now. And I did not
know the burden of life then as I know it now. And I did not
know the power of Satan over me then as I know it now. With all these new weights and
these encumbrances, I have studied it, I have thought it out. I've
come to this this morning, I do today. what I did many years
ago and what I've attempted to do along the way at different
times, yet I will look again to the God of my salvation. I'll
look again. I'll look again. I'll look again. I will. This is the perseverance
and this is the determination of God's faith in a man's soul. He'll come to this and he'll
look again. Yet come what may, we shall look. We shall look as Jonah did. He
was in the valley of the fish, but he said, yet come what I
will. He said, whatever it comes to, I'm going to look one more
time. I'm going to look. I'm going to look to the throne
of God. Now in Jonah's case, all the crops were knocked out.
He had nothing to look to in the whale's belly at the bottom
of the sea, but then And there he trusted God and that's all
he had to trust. That's all he had to trust. He
could do nothing else. He couldn't testify. He couldn't
go join a social club or religious club. He couldn't make any confession.
He couldn't join a church. He couldn't do anything. All
he could do was trust God. And his look was a spiritual
look because he couldn't see where he was going. He was in
the fish's belly. The fish had, God had control
of the fish. And our old Jonah didn't know.
He didn't know where he was going. He couldn't tell. He was in a
dark place. He didn't know if he was going north or south or
down or up. He didn't know. All he knew was
that the bars of hell was about him and that the weeds were wrapped
about his head. But he trusted. He trusted God and said, I'll
just trust the Lord. I'll look again. I'll look again
toward the Lord. I'll believe, looking, looking,
only looking, be it ours to look and be it ours to believe, to
believe, and yet again to believe as a child of God, to believe
all of our days and lean not to our own understanding, trust
not in the arm of flesh, But believe God. Now, my friends,
if you forget everything else I said this morning, remember
this, yet I'll look again. Remember that. That's the resolve
of faith. That's the resolve of faith.
You stomp a man down, you get him down, and you get him as
low as you can. Yeah, you get him in a fish's belly. You get
him down. You get him just as far down
as he can go, so far down that he can't look up. And yet faith,
if he's got it, that priceless pearl in his soul, yet that man
will say, I'll look again. I'll look again. Now then, take
that home with you. For in answer to faith, in verse
10, chapter 2, the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited
out Jonah upon the dry land. It spit him out. It spit him
out. He had said, salvation is of
the Lord, I've come to that, only trust in God, deliverance
is only of God. And the Lord spake unto the fish,
said, now it's time, you vomit him out. He's learned his lesson,
he knows now that salvation is of the Lord, he knows now he
has been brought to the end of himself, and so he was spit out
on dry ground. Now, then, surely this morning
our case is before the Lord, salvation is of the Lord and
we believe that God will deliver us as we look and as we look
and as we look and believe, believe, believe that God will surely
look upon us. I want us to sing here

Jonah's Resolve

What does the Bible say about looking to God in despair?

How do we know that salvation is of the Lord?

Why is prayer important for Christians in times of trouble?

What can we learn from Jonah about faith in adversity?

Why should Christians look to God's promises during trials?

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Jonah's Resolve

What does the Bible say about looking to God in despair?

How do we know that salvation is of the Lord?

Why is prayer important for Christians in times of trouble?

What can we learn from Jonah about faith in adversity?

Why should Christians look to God's promises during trials?

Sermon Transcript

Comments

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