Jonah chapter 2. Let's begin
in verse 1. Now the Lord had prepared a great
fish, he says there in the last verse of number 1, that swallowed
up Jonah, and in the belly of the fish three days and three
nights. And this is his prayer in chapter 2. Jonah prayed unto
the Lord his God out of the fish's belly, and said, I cried by reason
of my afflictions unto the Lord, and he heard me, Out of the belly
of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice. For thou had cast me
into the deep, into the midst of the seas, and the floods can
pass me about, and 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 closed me round about,
the weeds were wrapped around my head. I went down to the bottom
of the mountains, and 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. My prayer came unto thee, unto
your 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." There is one thing that you and
I know. Well, there are two things that
we know. If a man is damned, He's got
nobody to blame but himself. Nobody will ever be damned apart
from their own personal sins. And that's why I suppose that
the damned will spend eternity cursing themselves because they
made their own damnation sure. But you and I are also sure of
this. If any man is saved, he owes
all the glory to God. The Lord has saved him. You and I need to be convinced
and live in the light and in the faith of this verse of scripture
that I read in your hearing in chapter nine. Salvation is of
the Lord. We need to live every day of
our lives if God will give us grace. With this thought and
this conviction that my own personal salvation is of the Lord. I know some will abuse that truth,
as we said this morning, as we looked at those different aspects
of it. But I know men always abuse the
truth. Sinners look for truths that
they can take advantage of and abuse. But I don't believe a
child of God will take advantage of this wonderful truth that
his salvation is of the Lord. And I tell you why. He's learned
that out of trouble. He has found that out in the
time of trouble. And when you find out truth in
the time of your afflictions, I tell you, you're out not to
take it lightly. You're out to take it seriously.
Truth is not revealed for us to abuse it. Truth is revealed
to save us. Truth is revealed to go to our
hearts, to cause us to hope and glorify the Lord in our daily
lives and seek for the good of others. I want you to look how
this truth here affected Jonah here in chapter 2. Look how it
caused him to hope when everything around him was so dark and tempting
him to despair. Can you imagine the condition
this man was in, not only physically, not only geographically, but
in his mind, in his soul? And there's one thing that kept
this man from despairing, and it was this thought here, brothers
and sisters, that his salvation was of the Lord. That the awful
situation he found himself in, the Lord was still able to save
him. That's all that kept him from
despairing. He tells us that here in the
first four verses. He tells us about his prayer
being in the fish's belly. In verse three, he talks about
being cast out in the midst of the sea and the floods compassing
him about. in verse 4, and he said, I'm
even cast out of thy sight. But look at this, yet, yet will
I look again. This is why we must live our
lives with this conviction, that our salvation is in and of the
Lord. That way when our nights when
we find ourselves, as it were, in a whale's belly, that we can
look again. Yet will I look again. We just
have to keep looking, don't we? I will look again, and I'll look
again, and I'll look again. Why? Because He's able to save
me. My salvation is of the Lord. My grace is sufficient for Thee. And here in verse 6 and 7, he
says it again, doesn't he? I went down to the bottom of
the mountains. The earth with her bars was about
me forever. Yet, yet hast thou brought up
my life from corruption, O Lord my God. In verse 7 he says it
again. When my soul fainted within me,
I remembered the Lord. I remembered the Lord. Oh, for my part, I'll say this.
I have been in situations, physically, in physical trouble, physical
sickness and pain. I've been in mental trouble.
I've been in spiritual trouble. I've been in emotional trouble.
And I'll tell you this, brothers and sisters, if I hadn't of knew
that my salvation was of the Lord, I'd have despaired. I'd have never come out of it
just like this man did. If some people want to say, well,
it's partly of the Lord, partly of me, I can't defend them. That's
not my experience. My experience is that you and
I get ourselves in situations, and we're brought by the providence
of God into situations that we can't get out of. And we're brought
there to be taught this lesson. If the Lord don't deliver me,
I won't be delivered. And we're made to wait. And when
He delivers us, we give thanks unto Him. And it just confirms
us again in this blessed truth. My salvation is of the Lord. Some people will say, well, the
salvation of a lost person is of the Lord. But to save, they
have to be careful. They have to be watchful. They
have to endure to the end. I believe all of that. I believe
everything that you just said. A believer is told to be watchful. He's told to be diligent. He
has enemies of his soul. He's told to be prayerful and
watch and wait. I believe all of that. But, brothers
and sisters, who will do that? And who can do that if the Lord
don't first bless it to our hearts? Salvation is of the Lord, and
we wait on Him because of that, and we pray to Him because of
that, and we hope in Him because of that. I want you to turn over to a
passage in Psalms, chapter 37, and look in verse 37. You and I often talk about the
means. Psalms 37 and verse 37. We often talk about the means, reading and praying and listening
to sermons and public worship and taking heed to the means.
And all of us should do that. But I tell you it's the truth
that we have found out that if the Lord is not in the means,
If the Lord don't bless the means, they won't avail anything. I've
been in trouble before, and I thought, well, this is what I'll do. I'll
run over and read a chapter. That'll help me. But it didn't
help me. The book was a closed book. Well,
I go to prayer. Heaven was shut up. My prayer
didn't go past the top of my brain. If the Lord is not in
the means, the means won't help us. He has to bless the means. Well, the righteous, they've
got to do this, and the righteous, they've got to do that. But I'll
tell you something about the righteous. The righteous salvation
is of the Lord, just like everybody else's salvation. The righteous
can't keep himself if the Lord don't keep him. Ain't that the
truth? The Lord sometimes weans us from
trusting in the means, doesn't He? We'll run to the means, we'll
trust to the means. Well, he'll teach us, you're
going to have to trust me. Look here at what he says in Psalm
chapter 37, and look in verse 37. Mark the perfect man, and behold
the upright, for the end of that man is peace. But the transgressors
shall be destroyed together, the end of the wicked shall be
cut off. But the salvation of the righteous
is of the Lord. He is their strength in time
of trouble, and the Lord shall help them and deliver them. He
shall deliver them from the wicked and save them, because they trust
in Him." The salvation of the righteous is of the Lord. I thought
the salvation of the lost person is of the Lord. It is. But I
tell you, when the Lord saves you, and He gives you the righteousness
of Christ, and He gives you a new heart, your salvation is still
of the Lord. If salvation of the righteous
is not of the Lord, not even the righteous will make it to
heaven. Did you know that? We talk about falling away. Well,
we will. If our righteousness, our salvation
is not of Him, the gates of hell will prevail. You say, but I'm
a saved person. Yes, and the gates of hell will
prevail against you if your salvation's not of the Lord. Sin will finally
get the best of you. It'll reign over you. It'll deceive
you. It'll harden your heart. This
world will allure you. You'll be all caught up in it
if your salvation is not of the Lord. The salvation of the righteous.
We need to remember that, don't we? Every day of our life, to
live in the light of that. I've told you this story. Something
happened to me. Different time. But I never will
forget. I was so depressed. I mean, I was really depressed. I came in from work, I think
it was, and I was so distressed and so tired mentally, I just
cast myself down on the bed. And there was a little plaque,
I guess, Joe had hung on the wall. And it said, By Grace Are
You Saved. And I thought, Boy, that's it. It just went to my heart and
lifted me up. I'm a saved man. I was saved
by grace, but I still have to be saved by grace. And just the
thought of knowing that just blessed my soul. One little word
lifted my poor dark soul up and comforted me. Whatever the means
the Lord uses, it has to be Him that uses the means. I tell you,
the means won't help us if the Lord is not in it. My own personal salvation. As
I live my daily life and all my struggles and all my heartaches
and the knowledge of my utter failure, and there's plenty of
them, this comforts me. My salvation is of the Lord.
Something else we need to be convinced of and live in the
faith of also is this, that the salvation of anybody else is
of the Lord. And this is the sense I mean
this. Not only does the Lord have sovereign ability to save,
but He has the freedom to save whom He will. Salvation is of
the Lord. We don't tell Him who to save,
who not to save, do we? There's a handful of lost people,
probably a handful, maybe not that much, but there's a handful.
There's a few people. That I have all kinds of trouble
praying that the Lord would save me. You ever get like that? I just can't bring myself, I
have to force myself to say, Lord, would you save that person?
And call their name. You say, Bruce, you must be an
awful fellow. I am. I am. You don't have that problem? Somebody ever mistreat you and
just keep on and on and on at you, and finally you say, let
them go. I don't care. And then when you're
in prayer, their name comes. The thought, what about them?
You're going to pray for them. And buddy, it's hard, ain't it? You say, well, I've never been
there. I don't want to sink that long. John was there. This is
where he was. He hated these Assyrians. They had probably, this may have
well been after, I don't know, when the Assyrians had captured
Jerusalem. Assyrians had mistreated the
Jews. There was enmity between them. And here the Lord comes to this
prophet and He said, I want you to go over there to the main
city, the capital of Assyria. I want you to preach to them. Lord, I'll go over to my people.
They need a revival. Look what a mess we're in. No,
I want you to go over there. I don't want to go over there.
I really don't want you to grant them repentance. I don't have
anything to do with them. They're dead dog Gentiles. They're
hateful. They're wicked. I don't want
to be around them. I'm not going. And buddy, he
wasn't going, was he? You think he prayed for them?
Well, he didn't get more prayed for than those fellows. He went
down and got him a ship and fled until the Lord brought him to
this place where he said, I'll go. I'll go. What do you want
me to say? What do you want me to say? I ain't going to say any more
than you make me say. People talk about dynamic preachers. Boy, if we can just get this
preacher. Man, our kids are going to be
saved and these lost people are going to be saved. He's such
a dynamic speaker. We've got some modern day soul
winners. I read a book where one guy said
that he could win people on an elevator. Just going up the elevator. That's how dynamic he was in
his soul winning. You reckon that's what we need?
Some dynamic speakers? Somebody that can talk people
into something? That's not what we need, is it?
Here's a man that didn't a bit more care for these people than
anything. He went around preaching the same message over and over
and over. It was just made up of eight
words. Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be. over them. And he repeated that everywhere
he went. He had a smirl on his face. And the Lord saved him. Why? Not because Jonah wanted him
to be saved. You know why the Lord saved him?
Because he saves whom he pleases. Salvation to the Lord. and because of the hardness of
my heart, I may not long and weep and pray and plead with
the Lord for the salvation of somebody that's done me wrong,
but brothers and sisters, ultimately, it don't matter. The Lord can
save them anyway. Can He? Salvation is of the Lord. The Pharisees hated it when the
Lord saved Republicans and sinners. They just gritted their teeth.
The man born blind, the Lord healed him and he came there
and told him how the Lord did it. And they said, give God the
glory, that man's a sinner. He said, were you a sinner? I
don't know, but I know what he's done. I once was blind and now
I see it. He did it. And they kicked him
out. They excommunicated him. We don't want a man like you
telling us anything. We know more than you do. And
he ain't got no right. What right has Jesus Christ got
to do this? He's got all the rights in the
world. Salvation belongs to Him. Look on over here in Psalms 3. And look in verse 7. You know, if you've got $20,000
in your bank account, and you see some poor, homeless,
bankrupt man that has nothing, and you want to make him rich
and do him good, since that's your $20,000, Could anybody say anything to
you if you just took it out and gave it all to Him? No. Why? It's yours. It's yours. Well, look here in
Psalms chapter 3, and look in verse 7 and verse 8. Arise, O Lord, save me, O my
God, for Thou hast smitten all my enemies upon the cheekbone,
Thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly. Look at this. Salvation
belongeth unto the Lord, and since it is His to bestow upon
whom He will and pleases, Thy blessing is upon Thy people,
whoever they are. His blessings are upon them. You may be a thief on a cross
in His dying hour. It may be a North Island somewhere
that's been caught in adultery in the very act. It may be a
woman at Jacob's well who's been married five times and living
with a man then that's not her. I don't know who these people
are, but I know this much. Since salvation belongs to the
Lord, it's His prerogative to give it to whomever He wants. The Lord preached a parable to
Peter one time. I suppose it was to Peter during
the 20th chapter of Matthew. You remember when Peter said,
Lord, we've left everything to follow you. What are you going
to give us? And the Lord turned right around in chapter 20 and
said, the kingdom of heaven is like this householder that went
out to hire people to work in his vineyard. He went out in
the morning. He hired some people, went out
the third hour. the sixth hour and the ninth hour. He said,
why you fellas standing idle? Go work in my vineyard and when
the day is over, I'll give you a penny. They said, man, that's
wonderful. That's wonderful. We'll work
for that. They all went into work. He went out the eleventh
hour and found some more people. He said, go work in my vineyard
and whatever's right, I'll pay you. Well, it came then when
they all had finished the day, and they all come to get their
pay. Those who started in the morning, they got a penny. And
everybody else got a penny. Those who come that had just
been working one hour, and he says, here's your penny. And
somebody said, that just ain't right. I imagine it was Peter. Lord, we've left everything.
What are you going to give us? You're surely going to give us
more than you give everybody else. And they got upset and
they said, you, we have labored in the heat of the day. Look at the blisters on our hands.
Look at our clothes are white with salt where we've sweated.
And you give them the same things that you gave us. And remember
what the Lord answered them? Friend, have I done you wrong? Have I done something to you? Did I agree with you for a penny? And then he made this statement.
Boy, I tell you what, you talk about a stripping statement.
Shall I not do what I will with my own? Is salvation not mine? Is life
eternal not in me? Can I not give it to whom I will? Oh, Jonah learned that lesson
today. Yes, my salvation is of the Lord, and none of us' salvation is of the
Lord. And if he's pleased to give it,
nobody can justly make any, not one, claims that he's done wrong. salvations of the Lord. And this is my conclusion. Because
salvation is of the Lord, He saves in such a way that He gets
all the glory for it. I want to show you that. This
will be the last scripture I'll have you to turn to. Look in
Isaiah chapter forty-five. Isaiah chapter 45. He saves in
such a way that he is going to get all the glory for it. Look in Isaiah chapter 45 and
look in verse 24 and verse 25. Isaiah 45 and verse 24 and verse
25. Surely shall one say, surely
somebody is going to say this. I say this, and some of you here
this afternoon will say this. In the Lord have I righteousness
and strength. To Him shall men come, and all
that are incensed against Him, they're coming too, and they'll
be ashamed. In the Lord shall all the seed
of Israel be justified and shall glory. Now look back over here
in verse 17. But Israel shall be saved in
the Lord with an everlasting salvation, ye shall not be ashamed
or confounded, world without end. How does the Lord say? He says in such a way that He's
going to get all the glory for it. And how, how does He say
it? In the Lord. If you want a message,
Clarence, you're looking for a message, you want a message,
I tell you this is a good message. In Him. In Him. Where is salvation to
be found? It's in a person. We love systems
of theology, but He doesn't save by system of theology. We love the church. Salvation's
not in the church. It's in His glorious, wonderful
person, Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. In the Lord I'll
save you, and therefore in the Lord shall you glory. Catholicism
come up with this doctrine a few hundred years ago. Back when
they didn't have Bibles, they could teach people stuff like
this and make them believe. They come up with a doctrine
that salvation was in the church. In the Catholic Church. You could
only be saved by being in the Catholic Church. That's why excommunication
was serious. If you was excommunicated from
the Catholic Church, you were sentenced to eternal damnation. There was no salvation outside
the Catholic Church. Man, they got a lot of people
joining the church. when they come up with that doctrine, and
scared to death to leave it. You know Baptists, some Baptists
came up with something like that, didn't they? Baptist succession,
the Baptist bride. That took being in the true church,
you had to be a Baptist and trace your lineage all the way back
to John the Baptist. But you know, brothers and sisters,
salvation is not in the church. Salvation is not in a doctrine.
Salvation is not in a system of theology. Salvation is in
Jesus Christ the Lord. God chose us in Him before the
foundation of the world. We can't even talk about election
unless we talk about being chosen in Him. When we talk about redemption,
in whom we have redemption, through His blood, the forgiveness of
sins. It's in Him, isn't it? God has
made Christ to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in Him. Of God are you in Christ Jesus. We're in Christ Jesus. If you're
in Christ, you're saved with an everlasting salvation. If
you're not in Him, you're lost. You may be in the church. You
may know a lot of verses of the Bible. You may pray. But if you're
not in Christ, you're lost. Salvation is in Him. Of Him are
you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption, that according as it is written,
He that Let him glory in the Lord. Don't let the wise man
glory in his wisdom. Don't let the mighty man glory
in his might. He that glories, let him glory
in this, that he understands and knows the Lord. That's where
we glory, isn't it? Salvation is not only of the
Lord, it's in the Lord. And to be in Him is to be saved. and to have life eternal. Well,
there in the fourth chapter of Revelations, when everything
had wounded up, there had been a judgment. All the saints were
gathered round the throne. The crown of life, the crown
of glory had been set on their head by the Lord. And you know
what they did? They all took their crowns off. They all jerk their crowns off
and they cast them at His feet and they cast themselves down
at His feet. To thee, the honor and glory. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto
us. Has the Lord taught you that?
Has He put you as it were in a whale's belly and taught you
that He saved you, that He's your salvation? Off He is. Bless Him for it. Live in His
praises. What a wonderful Savior He is.
Let's pray.