In the book of Jonah chapter
2, we began to go through this a few weeks ago, and I've not
been here every service, every Sunday, but I wanted to comment
just a little bit on chapter 2, but I want to read it and
make some statements concerning verse 9, salvation is of the
Lord. And I want to look at that statement
in the light of experience. Jonah made this statement not
because He had read theology about it. No doubt he had did
that, but he made this statement out of this experience. Salvation
is of the Lord. I want us to read the entire
chapters, just ten verses. Jonah chapter 2 and verse 1.
Then, Jonah had been thrown overboard. The Lord had prepared this great
fish to swallow him up. The fish had gone down to the
bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, and then Jonah prayed unto the
Lord his God out of the fish's belly. And he 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 heardest my voice, for thou hast cast me into the
deep. in the midst of the seas, and
the floods can pass 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 towards
thy holy temple. The waters can pass me about
even to the soul. The depths close me round about.
The weeds were wrapped about my head. I went down to the bottom
of the mountain. 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 unto thee and to
thy holy temple. They that observe lying vanities
forsake their own mercy. But I will sacrifice unto thee
with a 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 want to consider
this in the light of what this man was experiencing here in
this whale's belly down at the bottom of the seas. I want to
look at it, not so much in a theological light. We could go other places
and prove theologically that salvation is of the Lord. But
Jonah experienced this. He learned by experience. Deliverance
is of the Lord. If I ever get out of this situation,
it must be of the Lord. I'm at the end of my wisdom.
I'm at the end of any power that I have within me. If I'm delivered,
it must be of the Lord. Now let me say this. Nobody knows
what salvation means but those who have felt their need of it. He healed those who had need
of being healed. The whole, the Lord Jesus said,
have no need of a physician but they that are sick. Who is it? Who is it that appreciates salvation? Those who feel their need of
it. Those who know their need of it. And no one can sacrifice
unto the Lord with a voice of thanksgiving as this man did
and acknowledge that salvation is of the Lord except those who
have experienced the blessing and the power of salvation. A man may give thanks unto the
Lord with his lips, but the heart can never praise Him until he
has experienced salvation. No one has been saved with such
a salvation can be sensible. They cannot be insensible to
those holy feelings of gratitude and praise. If the Lord has saved
you like He did this man, you can't help but praise Him because
you feel the same way He did. Anybody that's truly been delivered
of the Lord is not insensitive to the feelings of praise and
adoration to the Lord. I think this has to be said,
and it's been said before, the reason some people profess Jesus
Christ to be their Savior And yet there is no heartfelt gratitude
and no true and biblical praise with their lips. It is because
they have only a profession and they have never experienced what
it is to be saved. Salvation is an experience, is
it not? We know what it is to be lost. I come to seek and to save that
which was lost. We know what it is to be guilty
and we know what it is to be found. We know what it is to
be washed. And when we've experienced salvation,
there is no way that we can be insensitive to that feeling of
relief and joy and praise for the Lord saving us. One person
said there is no right relationship with God apart from the new birth. And there is no new birth apart
from a new creature. And we can look at that theology
and say, that's so. But you know when we'll really
believe it? When we experience it. Experience
clears up a lot of things, doesn't it? We can debate things and
argue certain things, but boy, what you experience, what you
experience, you can't argue with that. A blind man may imagine
colors, and He may describe them as He's been told by others. But you let His eyes be opened.
Let His eyes be opened. And then He sees for Himself. And that's the way it is with
salvation. We may learn theology in our heads, but let our eyes
be opened to experience what this man experienced. And then
we'll say, Now it's different. Now I see. I want to consider
some things in chapter 2 here that brought Jonah to this conclusion
in his heart that salvation is of the Lord. Deliverance is of
the Lord. And first thing that brought
him to this, and this is experience, and if you can just think about
this sometime, read chapter 2. and disthink of the situation
that this man found himself in. I read one man and he said the
situation that the Bible describes this man in is utterly impossible. And he did not believe it because
he said it's utterly impossible. A man cannot be swallowed by
a whale and go down this deep into the bottoms of the mountain.
I don't believe it. It's medically impossible. Well,
with God, all things are impossible. With God, all things are impossible.
Jonah may have said, I don't believe it either. But I've experienced
it. I've experienced it. So what
was this man feeling? What was he experiencing? Well,
what brought him to this conclusion that salvation is of the Lord?
Because of the helplessness and hopeless condition, he found
himself As far as he was concerned, I'll never get out of this whale's
belly. I am hopeless and helpless in
my own wisdom and in my own power. I am hopeless and helpless. And
he began to realize this dilemma. Here in verse 2 he describes
it. He said, Out of the belly of
hell, cried I. This word here means the place
of the dead. It doesn't mean Jannah, the place
of burning, but it's the place of the dead. He found himself
in such a dilemma, he said, it's just like a dead man. I'm in
the grave. There's no difference for me
than that man who has died and they put down in the grave. Out
of the belly of the death. That's where I cry. Now, you've
seen people brought in the up to the front of these places
and we go preach their funerals? Have you ever seen any of them
get up? It don't happen to us. If they did, if you ever see
that, you'll see them empty a place out. Because it don't happen. It would scare me to death. If
I was up preaching a funeral and I said, look at this dear
dead person, and they open their eyes and look up at me, I'm out
of there. And Jonah said, out of the place
of the dead. There's no more hope for me,
he said, than a man laying in his grave. And he felt that. He felt that. And here in verse
3 he said, Thou hast cast me into the deep. in the depths,
in the midst of the seas. And in verse 6 he said, I went
down to the bottom of the mountains and those weeds were wrapped
about my head. There was total darkness down
there. And the pressure that was down there. Nobody could
know it like this man. He was convinced. I'm down here
to stay. I'll never get out of this place.
The bars are about me forever. Jonah, I just can't believe this. If you ever experienced you would.
See, that's the thing about when God teaches us something is those
He hasn't taught, they can't relate to because they've never
been there, you see. But you get with somebody the
Lord's taught and you start talking with them and immediately you
click. You click. Jonah came back up
and he started telling people what he's experienced. I don't
believe that. That's hogwash. Some of these old Puritans talk
about deep conviction of sin, and they just came up with that
for weak-minded people. Well, that's what you'd believe
until you experience it. And this man said, I'm hopeless
and I'm helpless. Have you ever been there? Have
you ever found yourself in your soul, in your mind, in your conscience,
to know that you are so lost in and of yourself? You cannot! By anything you can think or
will or do, deliver yourself. Man, only God can bring a man
here. Only God can bring a man here. Where this man found himself. You can almost feel the despair
that he felt. He said, the earth with her bars
are about me forever. It was just like being in a jail
cell with those bars that you can't get out. He moved and he
felt those big rib cages of that whale next to him. And it was
so dark down there in the bottom of the mountains, he couldn't
see. Oh, forever, he said. It's forever. The bars are about
me forever. And he said in verse 7, My soul
fainted within me. The word means to lose power
or courage. He's the end of his road, wasn't
he? What a situation this man was
brought to. And this is why he said this statement. If I ever
get out of here, if I ever get out of here, it's going to take
the Lord to deliver me. There's nothing I can do. I am
hopelessly and helplessly shut up in this cell. And when Jonah looked at his
deliverance in retrospect, and here's what we learn most, isn't
it? Looking back. I've learned so
much looking back on the time the Lord was dealing with me.
And when Jonah got out of that whale's belly, and he was standing
there looking at that big whale that he was in, and looking back
out over the horizon and realizing, man, look where I was. Then it made him appreciate more
and understand more of where he was when the Lord delivered
him. And boy, when you and I look back now, we learn so much more
in retrospect. I knew that I was in trouble
when the Lord convicted me of sin. I knew that I was in trouble.
But you know, after He brought me out of that trouble, and I
look back and I begin to read where I was, Man, I know more
now, Wayne, than I knew then. This man was in darkness. But
boy, when I look back on the darkness I was in, He has called
you out of darkness. And what kind of darkness is
that? That was darkness of sin, wasn't it? That was the kingdom
of darkness. And Paul said He's delivered
you from the power of darkness. There's a power in sin. A power
in guilt. That blinds a man's mind and
holds him. And the devil says, I ain't going
to let you go. You're mine forever. A lot of that I didn't know back
then. But boy, looking back now, reading the Scriptures, look
back over my lost life, my unregenerate life, and I can truly say with
this man, Lord, salvation is of you. There I lay hopeless
and helpless in darkness and bound in sin, bound by Satan. And if you hadn't delivered me,
I'd have still been there. Still been there. It takes experience
to teach us this, doesn't it? And then we begin to read, and
what we read in the Bible matches our experience. I'm not saying that you and I
who are saved experience the depths of our lost condition,
and that we totally understood and felt deeply where we were
and understood all about it. But I'm saying we did know this,
that we were without God, we were without His Son, that we
were in the clutches of sin and guilt and misery and could not
deliver ourselves. We knew that. Some had a better
sense of it and grasp of it than others, but every one God saves
He brings them to that place, doesn't He? He brings them to
that place. Look at something else here.
Not only what the Lord delivered this man from, there are two
things that we need to consider in His deliverance. What we are
actually delivered from, And we need to understand something
about that in our experience. What is man delivered from? Well,
he's lost, he's guilty, he's condemned, he's polluted, he's
depraved, he's exposed to all kinds of enemies, and he must
be delivered from that, from this spiritual grave. But it's
what he's brought out into, isn't it? It's not only our experience
in delivering from something, but it's what we're brought into. These two wonderful things. Jonah
was not only brought from the depths of that black sea with
a stagnant, miserable air and rotting fish all around him,
but he was brought out into the clean air. And that's a beautiful type of
our delivery. We're not only called out of our darkness, but
get this, into His marvelous light. He's not only delivered
us from the power of darkness, but He's translated us into the
kingdom of His dear Son. And listen, not only can we not
get out of that guilt and sin and condemnation, we can't get
into the kingdom of God. We can't get in Christ. We have
to be put there, brought to that place. And boy, here stands John
on the bank of the Mediterranean Sea, and he's breathing that
fresh air, and he says, Oh, thank you. Thank you. Oh, thank you. And here you are, you're brought
out of this darkness of Satan and the stagnant air of sin and
guilt and condemnation, and you're brought into the kingdom of God's
dear Son. And what do you do? Thank you. I could have never got you here
if you hadn't have brought me here. He experienced this, didn't he? Aren't you amazed? Aren't you
amazed that you're in Christ? When you think about that, you're
in the kingdom of the everlasting Son of God. Can you believe such
a thing? Don't that humble you? Don't
it fill you with utter amazement? I appreciate so much that I live
in this country in which we live. I wouldn't want to live in Cuba,
would you? Or in Russia? Or in China? I love this great
country. And I'm ever thankful to the
Lord that I was born in this great country. I appreciate it. I love this country. But oh,
that's nothing to be in the kingdom of God's dear Son. And who put
us in that kingdom but the King Himself? And when you consider
that's where you're at, you have to say with Jonah, oh surely,
salvation's of the Lord. It's of the Lord. It's of the
Lord. It took a deliverance to get
us out of the situation we were in, and it takes a new birth
to bring us into where we are now. That's what John experienced. So that's the first thing about
this prophet, his deliverance. It had to come from outside himself,
didn't it? That's amazing. What a profound
statement that is. That's a profound statement.
Salvation must come to us from a source outside of ourselves. That says it all, doesn't it?
How did this man get out of this fish? The Lord spake. He spake. That's what it's going
to take to get us out of the kingdom of darkness. The hour
is coming in which the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of
God, and they that hear shall live. So salvation that come
from without convinced Him. But let's consider a work that
was going on inside this prophet. That's just as astounding as
his deliverance. Look what was going on inside
of his heart. We're amazed that every time
unbelief and despair raised its ugly head, it was encountered,
it was countered by faith and hope. Every time unbelief raised
its ugly head. Every time despair said, just
throw up your hands, Jonah. You're in a helpless and hopeless
situation. You're gone forever. You might
as well despair. I'd have had a nervous breakdown,
wouldn't you? Right there in that whale's belly, I'd have
had a nervous breakdown. You couldn't see your hand in front
of your face. Every time you took a breath, you coughed and
gagged. Why didn't he despair? Why didn't he just throw up his
hands and say, that's it, that's it? He said this. You see, didn't
this man? He said this in verse 4, Then
I said, I am cast out of thy sight. Now that's what he was
filled with. That's unbelief's ugly headache.
I'm cast out of your sight. You don't even look in my direction
anymore. You can feel the despair gripping his mind. But here's
faith. Look at faith. Yet will I look
again towards thy holy temple. what made Him rise up in His
soul and say, I will not despair. I'll look again. I'll look again. And that's what the Word means.
Not just I'll look once, but I'll look again and again. Every
time this despairing thought arises, you're gone forever,
you're cast out of His sight. I'll look again. I'll look again. Ain't this an amazing statement,
I'll look towards thy holy temple. How did He know what direction
the temple was? He didn't know which way was
up or down. But he's not talking about that
literal temple at Jerusalem. You know who that temple represented?
That was the Lord Jesus Christ. That's who that represented.
Daniel, he opened his window towards the east while he was
in Babylon, and he looked towards Jerusalem. This was looking to
Christ. He said, I've got a Savior in
heaven. And though I feel like He's cast
me out of His sight, I'm going to keep on looking. I'm going
to keep on believing in Him. Faith was working in this man's
heart, looking unto Jesus, His Savior and Mediator. In verse
7, you see unbelief and despair rising again. When my soul fainted
within me. Boy, then, here's where grace
And here's where hope has to take hold. When my soul fainted
within me. Here's something going on inside
of it. Then I remembered the Lord. What did He remember about
it? Well, He tells us in chapter
4 verse 2, listen to this, I knew that thou art a gracious God,
and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness. When my
soul fainted within me, then I remembered that God is merciful. He's gracious. He's kind. He's slow to anger. He delights
in forgiving sins. That's what he remembered. Hold that and look over in Psalms
chapter 33 with me for just a second. Hold Jonah chapter 2 and look
at Psalms chapter Chapter 33. Jonah said, I knew that you was
a gracious God. I knew that you're merciful.
And I knew that you're slow to anger and of great kindness.
He remembered that when he was in the bottom of that whale's
belly. I'm making a point with this. Look here in chapter 33
of Psalms. Look in verse 16. There is no
king saved by the multitude of men host. A mighty man is not
delivered by much strength. The horse is a vain thing for
safety. Neither shall he deliver any
by his great strength. Behold, the eye of the Lord is
upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy. To deliver their soul from death
and to keep them alive in family, Our soul waited for the Lord.
He is our help and our shield. For our hearts shall rejoice
in Him because we have trusted in His holy name. Let by mercy,
O Lord, be upon us according as we hope in Thee." Boy, how
can a man hope when he is in a situation like this? You know
unbelief is always the first to raise its ugly head when trouble
comes in. Have you ever noticed that? The
first thing you want to do is despair when trouble comes. That's
the old man. That's the old nature. And it's
then when faith has to come in. And it's then when faith has
to speak. The earth with her bars about
me forever. Boy, that's faithlessness, ain't
it? Then I remember the Lord. Faith
always speaks second. Unbelief always speaks first. Look again, looking again, when
my soul fainted, all seemed so hopeless and unbelieving. Then
hope had to come and faith has to come and sustain the soul.
Then I remembered. Then I remembered. Yet will I
look. Then I remembered. What is that
working in this man's heart? Down there in the worst situation
you can imagine. That's grace. That's grace. What keeps a man from falling
under unbelief and never raise up again? What keeps him from
coming into a hopeless situation and despair? Just despair. And hope's gone and faith's gone.
What was it that kept this grace in this man's heart? The Lord. The Lord. What keeps you believing, brothers
and sisters? When trouble comes to you, what keeps you believing? What keeps you hoping against
hope? You know what it is? The Lord
has begun a good work in your heart. That's it. Salvation is of the Lord. That's
why Jonah said this. Thou hast cast me. Notice this. This is amazing. Boy, this is
one of the worst temptations I think I ever faced in my life. Thou hast cast me into the deep. When we have these awful apprehensions
that God Himself has turned on me. If we have these awful apprehensions
that God Himself has turned on us, and yet still, in the midst
of that temptation, God has turned on me, we can still believe in
the Lord Jesus Christ, believe in the Son of God, and trust
His mercy and His grace. It is because there is a power
working in you greater than yourself. I was talking to Mr. Baker this
week, and he was reminding me of Bunyan's fireplace. And I
don't know if it's in Pilgrim's Progress or in the second part,
but you remember the story about they took him up and took him
into the house, and he wanted to teach him something about
faith. And the interpreter was standing there with Pilgrim before
he sent him on his pilgrimage, and he showed him this fireplace,
and it was burning. And this one mean-looking man
was taking a bucket of water and throwing it on the fireplace.
But the fire wasn't going out. And he marveled that the fire
didn't go out. And he said, why don't the fire go out with all
that water being dashed on it? And he tucked him around behind
the fireplace. And behind the fireplace there was a man in
white raiment with a bucket of oil, with a lamp of oil, pouring
it into the fire. And the fire couldn't go out.
Because the man behind the fireplace was pouring oil. And what is
that, brothers and sisters? That's the Lord working in our
heart. He that hath begun a good work
in you. He begins it and He'll perform
it. And sometimes when it shows itself
the greatest is in the midst of these awful temptations and
our trials. When you say, I can't believe
anymore. I don't have strength to believe anymore. And yet you
keep believing. I can't hope anymore. Everything's
hopeless. And yet you continue to hope.
What's going on in your soul? The Lord. He's begun salvation. And He won't quit working salvation.
He's the author of our faith. He's the strength of that faith.
He's the giver of that hope, and He won't let that hope die.
And it makes us say with this man here, salvation is of the
Lord. Oh, we face opposition on every
hand, do we not? We do, don't we? We're not down
in the Mediterranean Sea in a whale's belly. But I'm telling you, we
face just as dreadful opposition as this man did. We face devils. We face devils that are old and
experienced. We wrestle with the powers of
darkness, the prince of the power of the hour, this world, this
flesh. And why do we keep believing?
Why do we keep hoping? Listen to Hebrews chapter 13
and verse 20. that brought again from the dead
the Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood
of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect, working in
you that which is well-pleasing in His sight." Make you perfect
in every good work to do His will, working in you. You know why Jonah didn't throw
up his hands in despair? God was working in him. Can you
imagine the mighty power that's working in you? The Scripture
says such, doesn't it? Listen to Ephesians 3.16, "...strengthened
with might by His Spirit in the inner man." Strengthened with
might. Is there a greater might than
God's power? And it's in you. strengthened
with power by His might in the inner man. And listen to Ephesians
6.10, My brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power
of His might. This is what kept Jonah believing,
what kept him hoping. And if the Lord ever quits working
in your heart, I just know what you'll do. And it won't take
long. You'll quit believing. And you'll quit hoping. That's one of the reasons He
brings us into these awful trials sometimes. He makes us see, God's
working. God's working in me. Chapter
2 and verse 9, He said, I will sacrifice unto thee with the
voice of thanksgiving. The voice of thanksgiving. Jonah
had been under this awful temptation. He judged by his present condition
that God didn't care for him anymore. He cast him off and
he was ready to cast him out right in the midst of his afflictions. What a dreadful temptation that
is. Have you ever been there? Have you ever thought, God's
finished with me. He's going to leave me to my
vile situation that I'm in. But now he sees everything differently. He sees God cares for him and
thanks on him and hears him. And instead of God casting him
off in his trouble, his troubles only endear him to God the more. And when he sees this, his heart
is overwhelmed with gratitude. And he says, Oh, I thank you,
I thank you, I thank you. I thought you were ready to cast
me off. But now I see that you love me, and all the trouble
that I'm having just endears me to your care that much more. It's hard to see that when you're
in trouble, Eddie. When you're in trouble, you start thinking,
oh, God's against me now. When we see in our experience
that salvation is of the Lord, we shouldn't have any problem
see in the theology of it in the Scriptures. Listen to this. Salvation in its origin is of
the Lord. Before the world was, it had
its beginning in the mind of God. Salvation is older than
this world. Every aspect of salvation, your
salvation, was thought upon and determined and fixed in the mind,
in the decrees and purpose of God before the foundation of
the world. Acts chapter 15 verse 9, known
unto God are all His works from the foundation of the world. And if you've experienced that
salvation is of the Lord and you read it, that before the
world was, God had already fixed it, you'll say, man, I have no
problem with that. I have no problem with that. The purchase of salvation is
of the Lord. It had to be purchased, didn't
it? Man can't be saved without a great ransom. And the Lord
Jesus said, I gave my life a ransom for many. The purchase is of
the Lord. The application of salvation is of the Lord. Who begins the work? Huh? It's Him, isn't it? Here you're going along and you're
going to hell. You're ready to perish in and
of yourself. And what happens? He comes to
you. And He begins to deal with your
heart and open your understanding. And He gives you life. He begins
a good work. He brings you to repentance.
He gives you grace to believe. He begins it. The very application
of salvation and the consummation of salvation, the ending, the
summing up of it all is when He comes back and changes the
vile body and fashions it like unto His glorious body. And brothers
and sisters, every step of the way, every aspect of salvation,
is of the Lord. And if you've experienced it
in your own heart, you say, man, I believe that. It has to be. It has to be of the Lord. If
He leaves it to me, then I'm gone forever. I'm gone forever. I never will forget, I enjoyed
so much Dave's mother. We moved there What, 35 years
ago or so, babe? We knew Dave's mom and dad for
years and years and years. Had so many good discussions
with them. And Dave's mom and I planted
a garden together for years. And we talked about everything.
There was nothing that you couldn't talk to Dave's mom with. She'd
talk to you about it. And one day was out in the garden. and sitting there on some buckets,
talking. And I asked her this question.
I never will forget asking that. I saw the look on her face. I
said, Fran, has the Lord saved you? And I think she was half
surprised I even asked her that. And she said, yes, yes, He saved
me. And I said, did He save you by
accident? Or did He save you on purpose? And she looked at
me sort of strange. I never will forget that look.
And she said, Well, he wouldn't have done it on accident. He
said, He saved me on purpose. And I said, When did He purpose
to save you? When did He purpose to save you?
And I quoted 2 Timothy 1.9. God has saved us and called us
with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
His own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began. And she said, I've never heard
that. I've never heard that. Salvation's of the Lord, isn't
it? And oh, the more we find out, the more we see, it has
to be. That's one thing I love about
the Gospel. When you see it, you say, it
has to be that way. There's no other way that it
can be. Five things right quickly, what
this does. If salvation is of the Lord,
firstly it humbles the pride and presumption of man. That's
one of the reasons I like it. You can't boast if salvation
is of the Lord, only in Him. Secondly, think of this, how
much error and delusion and false doctrine does this truth bring
to light. If salvation is the Lord, look
at the error that that exposes. Man made religions that that
reveals to be wrong and damnable. Number three, it brings us to
a clear light as to where we are seeking our salvation from. Where are you seeking your salvation
from if not from a sovereign God? If salvation is of the Lord
and I am not seeking my salvation from Him, then where am I seeking
it from? Who else has it? Who else can
say? This truth, salvation is of the
Lord, raises the hopes of the despondent. Sinners, no matter
how guilty they are and how wretched they feel themselves to be, have
no reason to despair if salvation is of glory. And fifthly, can anything be
more cheering? Is there a source of greater
assurance? Is there anything that produces
more humble gratitude and thanksgiving? then this salvation is of the
Lord. Is the Lord your Savior? Is the
Sovereign Lord your Savior? O gracious Lord Jesus, our Lord,
our God, we worship You, Lord, as our God, because You are. And what hope, what consolation,
what assurance, This very thought gives us. It kicks all the props
from under us, Lord. Brings us low. Leaves us there
in the dust. And then it picks us up. Fills
us with assurance and gladness. And heartfelt thanksgiving. That
salvation is truly of the Lord. And Lord, if it is, We have reason to hope, have
reason to continue to look to you out of our misery, the miserable
situation we find ourselves in. If you deliver Jonah, then you
can deliver us, and we'll continue to hope in you and believe in
you until we see your face. Amen.