Turn back to the Book of Jonah. I don't suppose there's anyone
here who questions the accuracy of the Book of Jonah. I don't
suppose you'd be here if you did. I think the most convincing proof,
and I don't like to use that word in reference to God or His
Word or His grace, Because those who believe do not need proof.
They believe and they live by faith, not by sight. And those
who don't believe, proof won't help them. Our Lord said to the
rich man in hell, they won't believe though one rose from
the dead. One did and they didn't believe. Lazarus did also and
they didn't believe. The widow's son. I think the
most convincing, if you want to use the word proof, is that
Frank, our Lord said, as Jonah was three days and three nights
in the belly of the fish, so shall the Son of Man be three
days and three nights in the heart of the earth. And that's
sufficient. Jonah's not a myth. True story. And I don't propose
this morning to spend our time proving that a great fish swallowed
Jonah. You do not believe that. You
do not believe Jesus Christ, because he himself quoted that
passage, as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly
of the whale, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three
nights in the heart of the earth. Now, in Jonah 1, I don't know
how much importance can be attached to this, whether any importance
at all, but it strikes me, I think it's significant. But in Jonah
1, verse 1, the word of the Lord came unto Jonah and said to him,
Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it. Now
let me read you the other passage in chapter 3, verse 1 and 2. Now let's look at chapter 3.
Chapter 1 says, The Lord said, The word of God came to Jonah
and said to him, Go cry against Nineveh. Now I'm not going to
try to determine when Jonah was saved or anything like that. I do know that God said to Jeremiah,
Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee. Before you came
out of your mother's womb, I separated you and sanctified you and made
you a prophet. Now that little fellow wasn't a prophet, and
he's six months old, and when he's six years old, he became
a prophet. And John the Baptist was filled
with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb. I just know what
God has done today, He decreed to do from all eternity. And
no surprises with God. He declares the end from the
beginning. I've known men to say, well, you say you were called
to preach. You felt impressed to preach
the gospel back yonder years ago. And you went out and preached
and even pastored, but you didn't have the message. You learned
the message and you became a preacher. When did God call you? Before
I was born. When I learned the message, it had nothing to do
with it. That's right. If you're anointed a prophet,
you've been anointed a prophet when God anointed his prophets
from all eternity. That's right. And I'll show you
that here in the book of Jonah. Read chapter 3, verse 1 and 2.
Now, the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time and
said, Arise, go into Nineveh, that great city, and preach to
it. There's a whale of a lot of difference
between trying to get something and preaching something. God says, Here's a wicked city
down here. It's a great city. Three days' journey walking across
it. It took that long to walk across it. And God said, Their
wickedness has come up before me. Jonah, you're my messenger. You're my messenger. God used
Balaam's ass to be a messenger. And here he said, Jonah, you're
my messenger. You go down there and cry against them. Cry against
them. Cry against them. Now anybody can do that. That
doesn't take any wisdom. It doesn't take any understanding.
It certainly doesn't take any compassion to go out and blast
people and skin the hide off and pour in salt and do all this
sort of condemning, crying against something. That doesn't take
any wisdom or understanding or knowledge. But then God came
later to Jonah and He said, Jonah, go to that city and preach to
them. Listen. Preach to them the preaching
that I bid thee. Something happened between these
two commands. Something very significant happened.
And that's what I'm dealing with this morning. There's a difference
in crying out against someone, condemning, woe is you, woe is
you, woe is you. And we see that in Isaiah 5,
if you want to look over there with me. In Isaiah chapter 5,
we see it in the book of Job. The book of Job. And we see it
here in Isaiah chapter 5. Here's a man called Isaiah. God's
hand was upon him. He was certainly in the purpose
of God, in the will of God. But if you look at verse 8, he's
saying, woe unto them, woe unto them. If you look at verse 11,
he said, woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, woe
unto them. Verse 18, woe unto them that draw iniquity with
cords of vanity. Verse 20, woe unto them that
call evil good and good evil. Verse 22, woe unto them that
are mighty to drink wine and men of strength to mingle strong
drink. All the way through chapter 5, he's woeing everybody in town.
But now look at chapter 6. Verse 5, woe is me. Woe is me. Now there's a difference. And
over here in the book of Jonah, God came and said, Jonah, go
to the city of Nineveh and cry against them. Cry against them.
I could pick up anybody in this congregation, anybody, saved
or lost, old or young, and tell them to tell me what's wrong
with Ashland. And boy, we could spend the rest of the day. And
the people of Ashland, your neighbors, you know what's wrong with them?
Your family, your sisters-in-law and your brother-in-law and your
mothers-in-law, you know what's wrong. You can just tell what's
wrong. But now if I call on somebody to stand up and tell me, How
God, in His mercy and grace through Jesus Christ, can be just and
justify the ungodly, that's different. That's different. Jonah learned
the truth. Between this command to go and
cry against Nineveh and this command to go and preach the
preaching I bid thee, Jonah learned something that every one of us
need to learn. I trust by God's grace I've learned
it. Now here's the background. Jonah, when the Lord came to
him and said, go cry against Nineveh, go cry mightily against
that city. And Jonah fled from the presence
of the Lord. He despised Nineveh. He didn't
want to preach to them. He didn't want to tell them the
word of the Lord. He didn't want to associate with
them. So he just fled from the presence of the Lord. He caught
that ship. It was going to Tarshish, and I read what happened. And
the storm arose, and they cast Jonah over the side, and he went
down to the bottom, and God prepared a great fish. That's what it
says in verse 17, chapter 1. God prepared a fish to swallow
up Jonah. And he was in the belly of that
fish three days and three nights. There's debates going on whether
he was alive or dead, a better type of Christ if he died. There's
a debate about whether or not a man could survive whole in
the belly of a whale. There's no whale. Somebody argued
about the throat not being big enough. It says God prepared
a great fish. God prepared a gourd, God prepared
this, God prepared that. But anyway, Jonah went down into
the belly of the fish, and he learned the truth. Now, here's
my outline this morning. First of all, I could turn these
two parts around. I'm going to preach, first of
all, on where Jonah learned the truth, and secondly, on the truth
that Jonah learned. I could reverse that. I was sitting
there a moment ago debating in my own heart about which I should
deal with first, the truth that Jonah learned or where he learned
it. But let's go along with the way that I've set up the message.
Where did Jonah learn the truth? And then secondly, what truth
did he learn? And then thirdly, the result of learning this truth.
It says in verse 1 of chapter 2, Then Jonah prayed unto the
Lord his God out of the fish's belly. And he said in verse 2,
I cried by reason of mine affliction. This is where men learn the truth
of God's grace and of God's mercy. And the good news and gospel
of Jesus Christ, they learn it in trouble. They learn it in
great affliction. They learn it when they realize
that they are nothing, have nothing, and know nothing. Turn to Psalm
107. This is what the Scripture is
saying here. chapter in Psalm 107 deals with this very truth.
Men learn the truth of God's mercy and God's grace in Christ
Jesus in trouble. A man will never be saved until
he's lost. A man will never be clothed with the holiness and
righteousness of Christ until he's stripped of his own. A man
will never be made alive until he's been slain by the Lord.
In chapter 107, it says this, Give thanks unto the Lord, for
He is good. Psalm 107, His mercy is forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord
say so, whom He hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy. He's
gathered them from the lands, from the east, the west, the
north, and the south. Now here's a description of those
people. They wandered in the wilderness in a lonely way. They
found no city in which to dwell. They were hungry and thirsty,
their soul fainted. Then they cried unto the Lord,
in their trouble." This is where we learn the grace of God in
trouble, in distress of soul. This is where we learn the grace
of God. They cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and He delivered
them out of their distress. Verse 12, He brought down their
heart with labor. They fell down, there was no
one to help. Then they cried unto the Lord
in their trouble, and He saved them out of their distresses.
Look at verse 17. They were fools because of their
sins, because of their iniquities, they're afflicted, their soul
abhorreth all manner of meat, they're drawn near unto the gates
of death, then they're crowned to the Lord in their trouble,
and he saveth them out of their distresses. Verse 27, they reel
to and fro, stagger like a drunken man at their wits end, then they're
crowned to the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them
out of their distresses. Now look at the last verse in
Psalm 107, whoso is wise. Whoso will observe these things,
even they shall what? Understand the mercy of God.
They shall understand the kindness, the loving kindness of the Lord.
And this is where Job learned the truth of grace. He learned
it in affliction. It's good for me, David said,
that I've been afflicted, that I may learn thy statutes. Let's
listen to what he says down there in the whale's belly. Verse 2,
he said, I cried by reason of my affliction. Verse 3, he said,
Thou hast cast me into the deep. That's what David said. He said,
Out of the depths have I cried unto thee. Out of the depths
of infirmity, of affliction, of distress, of weakness, of
inability. Out of my distress. Out of the
depths have I cried. Verse 4, I said, I am cast out
of God's sight. This is the very thing that our
Lord said on Calvary when he was bearing our sins and our
guilt. He said, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? The prophet
said your sins have separated you and your God. We're not walking
with God in our sins, in our rebellion, in our fallen state. Adam's race is separated from
God. Paul said to the Ephesians, we're
without hope, we're without God, we're without Christ, we're without
help, we're without strength. I'm separated from God. I'm cast
out of God's sight. That's what Jonas said down there.
He's painting a picture of his condition. I cried by reason
of affliction. God has cast me into the deep,
into the midst of the sea. I'm cast out of God's sight.
Listen to verse 5. The waters have compassed me
about even to my soul. This is the battleground of sin.
It's the soul and the heart. God says over and over again,
keep your heart out of any of the issues of life. My son, give
me your heart. where the heart man believeth
unto righteousness." This is where the problem is. And this
is what he's talking about. The waters have encompassed me
even to my soul, even to the deepest, innermost part of my
being. That's where I'm troubled. That's
where I'm concerned, my soul. Look down at verse 6. He said,
I went to the bottom. I went to the bottom. Paul said
that. In my flesh dwelleth no good thing. In the flesh no man
can please God. I went to the bottom. all the
way to the bottom. And he says, the earth with her
bars was about me forever. In other words, no hope. No hope. The disciples looked at our Lord
and they said, well then who can they save? He said, with
me and it's impossible. With me and it's impossible.
The earth closed her bars about me forever and forever. And verse 7, my soul fainted
within me." There's no hope at all. Can the Ethiopian change
his skin? Can the leper change his spots?
Neither can you do good that are accustomed to doing evil.
This is the condition in which men really learn the truth. God
will never open a man's heart till he shut his mouth. That
every mouth may be stopped and all the world become guilt. Jonah,
Jonah before this, A proud man who decided when he'd go and
where he'd go and to whom he'd go. A man, I'm sure, who was
religious, who followed the traditions. He said, I'm a Hebrew. He said,
my people worship the Lord God Jehovah. I know this, that, and
the other. He was a very proud man, a very
outspoken man, a very religious man, traditional, ceremonial.
He had convictions and principles and all these things, but he
decided when and where and to whom he'd go. And God put him
down in the bottom of the sea and made him realize his own
inability, his own helplessness. I cried by reason of my affliction.
God cast me into the deeps. I said, I'm cast out of God's
sight forever, forever, forever. Even to the deepest part of my
soul, I fainted with him. Now watch this. And then something,
he said this in verse 8, this is something that Look at verse
8. They that observe lying vanities
forsake their own mercy. You know what that's saying?
We'll look back at verse 7. My soul fainted. Here I am in
helplessness. Here I am in hopelessness. Get
the picture. This man in the depths of the
sea, in the belly of a whale, totally unable to do anything
about his situation. And he said, I remembered the
Lord. I remembered the Lord. I remembered that He's holy,
but I remembered that He's merciful. I remember the Lord. I remember
that he's righteous, but I remember that he's gracious. I'm where
I ought to be. I'm where I deserve to be. I'm where I am as a result of
my own foolishness. But I remember God is gracious. God is merciful to the undeserved.
I remember that. I remember God's holy. He will
not afflict without cause. And what God does is right. Shall
not the judge of the earth do right? But I remember There's
mercy and love and grace with God. I remember that. I remember
that God is just, but God is pleased to show mercy. I remember
that, and I remember He's able to do all things. Now, I know
this, verse 8. Those who pay regard to false
and useless and worthless idols forsake the only source of mercy. In other words, here's a man
in sin. His only source of mercy is God. If he turns to the church,
he's forsaken the only source of mercy. Here's a man in desperate
condition spiritually, and we are by birth, by nature, by choice,
and by practice. God looks not on the outward
countenance. Comparing ourselves with other people, we shape up
pretty good, but God looks on the heart, and we're compared
to his holiness, his law, his perfection. God says, love one
another, not like you think you ought to, but as God loves me.
God says, speak the truth, not part of the truth, all of the
truth. God said, think upon that which is holy and righteous,
not upon that which is holy when it's convenient, but all the
time. And God looks on the heart and He finds there evil and corruption
and men in that condition. If they turn to the law, if they
turn to decisionism, if they turn to ceremonialism, if they
turn to the vanities of religion, they forsake the only source
of mercy, who's the Lord. Now here's Jonah, and this is
what he's saying here in verse 8. Here's Jonah in the belly
of a fish. Nobody out there can help him,
nobody in here can help him. He's beyond hope, beyond help,
without strength, without ability. His condition will never change.
He can't will it, he can't accomplish it, and nobody else can will
it or accomplish it. And he says, in my affliction,
in my distress, in my hopeless state, I remembered the Lord. I remembered the Lord. And I
remember that he's the only source of mercy. Now, he said, the people
that turn to idols or strange gods or foolish vanities or lying
wonders, they forsake, Charlie, the only source of mercy. And
this is the thing that I'm trying to impress upon you this morning.
The Scripture gives us another example. It said there were some
lepers, three or four lepers. And they were sitting out here
hiding in the woods. And the city was under siege
by a pagan army. And the city had been encircled.
And the people in the city were starving, starving to death.
They were dying. They were eating their own children.
And these lepers were sitting out here, and the enemy was camped
over there and surrounding the city, and the people were dying.
And these lepers reasoned among themselves. One of them said,
now, if we stay here, we're going to die. No question about it. If we go into the city, we're
going to die. Our only hope is to cast ourselves on the mercy
of our enemies and hope they'll feed us. Now here's the condition
of the sinner. This is the condition of Jonah.
Helpless, hopeless, without any ability, no hope of deliverance,
no way to get out. He says, I've got to cry unto
the Lord. I'll look once again to his holy temple. I remember,
I remember the Lord. I remember I'm getting what I
deserve. I'm where I ought to be. I'm here as a result of my
vanity and my pride and my arrogance and my rebellious, but I remember
God shows mercy and He's the only source of mercy. The only
source of mercy. So I'm going to cry one more
time to the Lord. I'm going to cry one more time.
He says, I will sacrifice, verse 9, with a voice of thanksgiving.
I'll pay that which I vowed. Salvation is of the Lord. Salvation
is of the Lord. And this is where we are. If
we stay where we are, we're going to perish. In our iniquities,
in our afflictions, in our wickedness, we're going to perish. If we
join the religious crowd, they're perishing, they're starving,
they don't have anything to offer you. You can join the hope-to-do
set, you can join the religious set, you can join those who are
following after ceremony and laws and statutes and do's and
don'ts, but they're starving too. Our only hope, our only
source of mercy is where the food is, to cast ourselves on
the mercy of God in the hope that he, in his mercy and grace,
will be pleased to receive us. He's not obligated to, he's not
indebted to us, he doesn't owe us anything. Yes, he does, he
owes us the wages of sin. And Jonah, in this condition,
learned the truth. What truth did he learn? This
right here summed up in five words. He learned that salvation,
deliverance, pardon, forgiveness, life is of the Lord. It's not of his own will. He
could will himself out of there, and you can't will yourself out
of your eternal damnation. No one else could help him. God's
the only source of mercy. Don't you forget that 8th verse
right there. I felt like that the 9th verse was the most important
verse in the book of Jonah, but I believe verse 8 is just as
of equal importance. People who turn, those who pay
regard to false, useless, worthless idols forsake their only source
of mercy. Jonah couldn't will himself out
of there. He had no outside help. There's one person who could
deliver him. And that's the Lord of Glory.
And he said, that's when he cried, salvation is of the Lord. Now let me point this out briefly.
Five things I want you to remember. First of all, salvation is of
the Lord in that he planned it. And I'm talking about, when I
say salvation, brethren, I mean salvation from Alpha to Omega,
from beginning to end and all in between. I'm talking about
regeneration, quickening, the new birth. I'm talking about
conviction of sin, a realization of our lost condition, conviction
of judgment, of righteousness and of sin. I'm talking about
repentance toward God and faith in Christ is the gift of God.
I'm talking about God keeping us, sustaining us, providing
for us, protecting us, God keeping us from falling, and I'm talking
about God raising us from the tomb and taking us to glory and
conforming us to the image of God's Son. None of it, from Alpha
to Omega, is of any works or any deeds or any efforts on the
part of any man. It's of God and of God only.
The royal bath in which black souls are washed white from their
sins and guilt and shame was drawn from the veins of Emmanuel's
Son. And no works or flesh or deeds of men enter that noble
strength. The banquet of mercy is served
up by one host, the Lord of glory. He is the one who prepared it,
he is the one who serves it, and he himself is the food, the
bread and the drink. I'm saying that salvation is
of the Lord. Here we are, and you'll learn this if you find
out where you are and who you are and what you are. Jonah knew
this. Jonah was in the belly of a fish.
in the bottom of the sea, separated and cast out from God's presence.
And he said, the earth closed her bars about me forever, forever. There's no hope. I remembered
there is a hope, and it's in the grace of God. It's in the
mercy of God. That's the only place it is.
It's not in an altar. It's not in water. It's not in
bread and wine. It's in God himself, in his will,
in his will. It had pleased God to grant repentance
to the Gentiles. It had pleased God to give us
faith. Lord, if you will, you can make me whole. That's where
the mercy is, in the will of God. Salvation is by free will. It's by God's free will. It's
not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth, but of God
that showeth mercy. We're born. Those who receive Christ are
born, not of the will of man, not of the will of the flesh,
but they're born of God. This is just so, Ron. It's of
the will of God. It's by the free will of God.
Jonah will stay in the belly of the fish if he depends on
his will or anybody else's will. He'll come out of the belly of
the fish if God wills it. Is that too strong? I don't know
whether it's too strong or not, but it's so. Brother Barnard
said one time, he's preaching on this, the man said, that's
deep. He said, it's not deep, it's just so. Nothing deep about
it. I'm stating what it is. Not deep
at all. Not mysterious at all. It's in we're in a mess, and
God's the only one to get us out. And if He gets us out, it'll
be His will. If He leads us in, He passes
us by. Well, that's just so. Nothing deep about that. God
planned salvation from eternity past. Paul said in 2 Thessalonians,
God has from the beginning chosen you unto salvation. He said,
I thank God for you, brethren. My friends, election's not a
harsh doctrine. Election's not a cruel doctrine.
When you realize the shape we're in by birth and by nature, election
is a glorious doctrine. Because if God had not elected
us, we'd have never elected him. If God had not delivered Joe,
he'd never been delivered. If God had not taken him out
of the state in which he found himself, he'd still be there.
That's not harsh. If God doesn't seek us, we won't
seek Him. He said, this is condemnation.
Light has come into this world. Men love darkness rather than
light. Their deeds are evil. Christ looked at that crown.
He said, you will not come to me that you might have life. Oh, Jerusalem, how oft would
I have gathered you unto myself as a hen doth gather her brood
under her wing. But you wouldn't do it. You don't
seek God's honor. You don't seek God's glory. I
come in my Father's name and you receive me not. Let another
come in his own name, him you will receive. God didn't seek
us, we'd never seek him. The natural man received it,
not the things of God. They're foolishness to him. He
can't know them, they're spiritually discerned. The carnal mind is
enmity against God. It's not subject to the law of
God neither indeed can it be. What I'm saying is that we're
in the same shape spiritually that Jonah was physically. We're
hopelessly and helplessly trapped in the bondage and slavery and
dungeon of evil and darkness and we're not coming out. One
amazing thing is we kind of like it there. Our Lord said in Jeremiah, the
prophets lie and the people love to have it so. He said the preachers
don't tell the truth to people and they love to have it so.
He said the preachers throw me in a curve, but they like to
swing in curves. It fascinates them. Tell me something
that fascinates me, Preacher. Don't tell me anything that convicts
me or troubles me or makes me want to, what you preached last
night, reason together. Well, I'll tell you this, God
plans salvation. From eternity past, blessed be
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ,
even as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the
world, that we should be holy and without blame before him.
In love he predestinated us to the adoption of children. You
say, that preacher was a heretic. That was Paul the Apostle. Not
only did God plan salvation, he provided it. In the fullness
of time, God sent his Son into the world. Nobody ascended into
heaven and brought Christ down. God sent his Son into the world.
It pleased God to bruise him. It pleased God. He said, yes,
you with wicked hands have crucified and slain the Lord of glory,
but you've done what God determined before to be done. God delivered
him by his own purpose into your hands, and you with wicked hands
crucified his Son. But God Almighty provided salvation. He executed salvation. And then
God applied it. God applied it. Jonah ran and
God arrested him. The Apostle Paul said, God who
separated me from my mother's womb was pleased one day to reveal
his grace in me, his son in me. Paul wasn't seeking God. Somebody
said Paul was troubled over his sins. I don't believe that. I
don't believe he had any. He said, I had not known sin.
He didn't have any in his own mind. He said, I wouldn't have
known sin except the law came and said, I shall not covet.
Somebody said, well, he was troubled because he helped stone Stephen.
He's going down there to stone some more. He was on his way,
it said, with papers in his pocket to haul out of their homes and
cast into prison these people that were of this way. God Almighty
stopped him in his tracks and said, that's as far as you're
going. He said, who are you? He said, I'm Jesus of Nazareth.
Lord, what will you have me do? And I'll tell you this, we'll
run till God arrests us. We'll flee till God stops us.
We'll go our own way. There's a way that seems right
to me. The broad road of religious tradition, the broad road of
religious, we'll follow it and follow it to its dead end unless
God Almighty arrests us and stops us and puts us on the narrow
road which is Christ to life everlasting. God applies salvation,
and not only that. But God keeps men safe. He said,
my sheep hear my voice, and they follow me. And I give them eternal
life. And no man's going to pluck them
out of their profession. If you got in your profession,
you can get out of it. If a man talked you into it,
another one come along and talk you out of it. No man's able
to pluck them out of their convictions. No man's able to pluck them out
of their religious profession. No man's able to pluck them out
of my hand. My hand. My Father which gave them me
is greater than all, and no man can take them out of my Father's
hand. We are kept, how? By the power of God. Not apart
from faith, through faith. Now unto Him that's able to keep
you from falling. And then in this fifth place,
God not only plans salvation and not only provides it, not
only executed it, not only applied it, not only sustains it, but
God will perfect it. Here you are. Are you saved already?
You say, yes, I'm saved. Completely? Completely. Well,
you want to spend eternity like you are? Well, no. Well, then
you're not completely saved, then, are you? You're not just
like Christ yet. I'm not either. We have been
saved. We're being saved. Our salvation
is nearer than when we believe. We've got to go the way of all
flesh. We've got to die. This body's got to wrinkle, get
old, and die. and going to be put in the ground,
go back to the dust. God said, dust you are, to dust
you're going to return. So somebody's got to get me out
of that grave. Somebody's got to give me a new body, because
somebody's got to turn the weakness into strength, and the shame
into glory, and the corruption into incorruption, and mortality
into immortality. Who's going to do it? The same
one who gave me life. the same one who gave me a new
heart and a new nature, the same one who gave me the knowledge
of sin and the knowledge of Christ as my substitute, the same one
who gave me the knowledge of Christ as my Redeemer, the same
one who sustained me and kept me from falling, kept me from
departing from the faith. He's going to, by His power,
the same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead and gave
me life, will raise me from the dead, and He is able to make
these vile bodies like His own. And then when I get to glory,
my song is going to be the song of Jonah, unto him who loved
me and washed me from my sins and made me under God a king
and a priest. Unto him be the glory, all of
it, from beginning to end. That's what I'm preaching. That's
what I believe. That's what this Bible teaches.
Jonah was down here in affliction, in the depths, cast out of God's
presence, even to his soul. the bottom of the sea forever
without hope. His soul gave up. My soul fainted
means I gave up. And I remembered one thing. I
remembered the Lord. I remembered He is the source
of mercy. Now if you ever come to this place, if you ever come
to this place and you ever remember that That's the sole source of
mercy, God's grace, God's power, God's mercy. And he doesn't owe
it. I'm going to cry. Jonah said,
I'm going to sacrifice unto God with the voice of thanksgiving.
What? Thanksgiving? In the shape you're
in? Thanksgiving? This is the last place a man
gives. Yep, I'm going to give thanks. If God saves me, I'm
going to praise him. If God damns me, I'm going to
say his justice is to be praised. He's clear when he judges. It's
not God's fault I'm where I am. It's my fault. It's not God's
responsibility. I'm going to offer the sacrifice
of thanksgiving because I know this, salvation is of the Lord. And you know something? That
old fish just spit Jonah right out on the dry land. Somebody
said the reason that fish spit Jonah out on the dry land is
he couldn't stomach a cow, that may be so. But that fish on orders from
God gave up its victim. And I'll tell you, when a man...
I'm going to preach this tonight. There's nobody in hell, nobody,
who can say, I realized my lost condition, I was distressed and
disturbed, I wanted deliverance, I realized there was no hope
in myself or anybody else, I realized only God could save me, and I
cried unto Him, Lord have mercy, and He wouldn't hear me. Ain't
a word of truth in that. No, sir. Jonah found out who
he was and where he was and why he was there, and he said, God
can deliver me. I'm going to cry one more time. I'm going to cry. And he cried,
Salvation is of the Lord. And just as soon as he did, he
was delivered. You see, the dungeon of sin cannot
hold a man who praises Christ. The dungeon of sin cannot hold
a woman who looks to Christ. The dungeon of sin cannot hold
a sinner who casts himself on the mercy of God. It's not possible. It gives up its dead. There's
no man who praises God in the grave. The grave gives up those
who praise God and those who look to Him. All right, the results.
I'm going to quit. Verse 3 says, In the word of
God came to Jonah the second time and said, Jonah, go preach
to Nineveh. Verse 3. He didn't run this time. Jonah rose and went according
to the word of the Lord. What I'm saying is this. In Jonah's
case, he obeyed God's command. In our case, we'll obey God's
son. We'll look to him. The hymn writer
put it this way. I'll go to Jesus, though my sin
hath like a mountain rose. I know his courts I'll enter
in, whatever may oppose. I'll lie before his throne and
there my sin confess. I'll tell him I'm a wretch undone
without his sovereign grace. I'll to the gracious King approach
whose scepter pardon gilds. Perhaps he will receive my touch,
and then this sinner lives. I can but perish. If I go, I'm
resolved to try, for if I stay away, I'll forever die." Old
Roland Hills said he dreamed that he died. And after he died,
that he was found himself in a vast, in a vast valley, just
stretched for miles and miles and miles. And in that valley
there were people. People, thousands and thousands
and hundreds of thousands and millions of people just everywhere. And they were conducting a judgment.
Almighty God was judging men. The books were being opened.
He said he found himself in the day of judgment, and men were
giving an account. And he said, I was religious.
I had been a preacher. I had been in the church. I had
made professions of faith. So he said, I wasn't greatly
troubled. And he said, I sat there, and time was nothing,
meant nothing, time didn't exist anymore. He said, I just sat
there and I heard names called and I heard the voice of God
say, enter ye blessed. I heard the voice of God say,
depart from me ye cursed. I heard God say, I never knew
you. All these scriptures, he said, came to my mind. I could
hear the voice of God speaking to these people. And he said,
I just sat there, sort of numb and sort of unrelated to my surroundings. And he said, as I was sitting
there in my dream, I heard a voice say, Roland Hill. And he said, I froze. My name? But I was a preacher. But I was
in the church all my life. Roland Hill! He said, my legs
just turned to water. I couldn't even stand. Fear gripped
my heart. Cold chills popped out on me.
Doomed? Damned? forever cast away from
God's presence? Can it be?" And he said, when
I started to get to my feet in my dream, I heard a voice say,
here, here. And he said, I was so relieved. There's another rolling hill
here. They're not talking to me. Maybe I'm saved after all. And he said, I stood up to see
who the other rolling hill was, and I looked, and I looked right
into the face. of the Son of God. And there he stood with
his nail pierced hand and he said to the Father, I'm Roland
Hill. I lived on the earth as Roland
Hill. I obeyed your law as Roland Hill. I went to the cross of Calvary
and I died for Roland Hill's sins. And my Father, there's
nothing on that book under the name of Roland Hill. There are
no sins, there is no charge, there's no condemnation, except
rolling hill into your presence." And he said, the father turned
and said, enter my son, enter my son. Now let me tell you something. I'll preach it till God takes
me home. Ever since by faith I saw the stream, his flowing
wound supply. Redeeming love has been my theme
and will be till I die. If anybody here enters the gates
of glory, after you die, and you are delivered from judgment.
You'll be there. You'll be there as a participant
or a witness, but you'll be there. You'll be there as one out of
Christ or one in Christ, but you'll be there. I'll be there.
If anybody enters into the Father's kingdom, he'll enter not because
of anything's ever said or given or done or accomplished, but
because somebody stands and says, I'm Charlie Payton. I'm Jim Harris. I'm Bob Coffey. I'm Charlie Miller. See what
I'm saying? God Almighty planned this redemption. God Almighty executed this redemption. God Almighty applied it and sustained
it, and God Almighty perfected it. And if we're not found in
Him, we'll be found under God's judgment. Now that salvation
is of the Lord. You're welcome to any other kind
of salvation, but I know at the judgment The praise is going
to be His, and the glory is going to be His. And if I'm damned,
they'll lay the fault at my feet. If I'm saved, they'll lay the
crowns at Christ's feet. Salvations of the Lord. Jonah,
what have you got to say? I've got one thing to say. The
mess I was in, I couldn't do anything about it. And I didn't
call on anybody else, because to call on anybody else to forsake
the one source of mercy, I remembered God. And I remembered that God
is merciful. Not obligated now, not indebted,
but he's mercy. And I call one more time, and
bless your heart, he saved me. Would you call one more time?
Lord, grant me repentance, grant me faith, give me mercy. Our Father, for your glory, teach
us this solemn, eternal truth that to many is hid, a mystery
to so many. And to us too, apart from your
revelation, salvation is of the Lord. It's God who loved us and
God who called us, and God who saved us and God who justified
us. And Lord God, it's you that made
Christ unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.
To thee be the glory now and forever. For Christ's sake. Amen.