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Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s Word on Bibleline, everywhere, every time. Here God’s truth on Bibleline. Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida. Clearly declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ through the radio and the internet. Your regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll-free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the Bibleline Ministries dot O-R-G homepage.

We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s message will be a blessing to you and your family. I want you to take your Bible and turn to the book of Jonah. I want you to understand that many times there are stories in the Old Testament that teach New Testament doctrine, New Testament truth. So once you trust Christ as your Savior, it is the will of God that you serve the Lord.

You don’t serve the Lord to go to heaven, but we should serve the Lord. God wants to use you. And if you don’t serve the Lord, you should understand, because it’s the will of God, that He’s going to beat the tar out of you and make you wish you have served the Lord. So there is a story in the Old Testament that is just loaded with all kind of jewels. And that’s the story of Jonah. Now Jesus was here and He talked about Jonah.

He says, an evil and a daughter of generations, seeketh after a sign, but there shall no sign be given to it but the sign of the Prophet Jonah. For Jonah was three days and three nights in the wheels, bell even so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” So we know that there’s a stamp of approval put upon the book of Jonah. Jesus says this is a true story. This year one Christian was arguing with an atheist and he says, I guess you believe in that story about Jonah?

He says, yes I do believe in the story of Jonah and when I get there heaven I’m going to talk him about it. He says, And what if he’s not there? He said, well then you can talk to him. But yes, I do believe in the story of Jonah. So this is a story about a man named Jonah. And in chapter one, he runs away from the Lord. In chapter two, he runs back to the Lord. In chapter three, he runs with the Lord.

And in chapter four, he runs ahead of the Lord. So he’s a busy man. just to run it all over the place. When you trust that Christ is your Savior, God says that He has entrusted us with the gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God which tryeth the heart. So God wants us to deliver a message. When out there it was a Gentile city in Iraq, named Nineveh. God wanted these Gentiles to know the Lord, to know Him.

So He He has his messenger, but this Hebrew, he didn’t like them Gentiles. But God says, I’m going to destroy the city. You’d think that Jonah would have been heartbroken over that. Jonah wasn’t heartbroken over that. Jonah wanted God to get him. Jonah chapter 1, look at this, in verse 1, and now the word of the Lord came under Jonah, son of Mittai saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, cry against it for their wickedness has come up before me.

Number one, he knew the will of God. God just told him what to do. You and I, we may know the will of God, but doing it is a different story. Now he didn’t want to go there. So what he did, he decided, I’m going to do some running. Verse three, Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarsus from the presence of the Lord. Now the presence of the Lord is in the will of God. So if you want to be in the presence of God, just simply be in the will of God and voila, there he is.

Many people run from the Lord and wonder, I wonder where God is, I wonder where God is. Well you’ll find him in the will of God. That’s where God is. So if you was to do the will of God in the will of God, there he is. And you get to know him. But he wanted to run from the presence of the Lord, means he wanted to run from the will of God. So when you run from God, you’re not just running from the will of God, you’re trying to get away from his presence.

But where can you run that God is not there? Can you send him to heaven? He’s there. Go down to hell. God’s there. God’s everywhere. God can be everywhere all at the same time. You can’t run from God, though people try. But get what he says here. And he says in verse 3, and he went down. You ought to underline that word down. It shows the direction that you’re going to go when you try to get away from doing the will of God.

Now, remember, we’re reading this because it’s to help you to know how to live your life. So he says, and he went down to Japam, and he found the ship going to Tarsus. So he paid the fare thereof, and he went down into it to go from them unto Tarsus from the presence of the Lord. And so anytime you want to run from God, you’re going to go down. You’re either walking toward the Lord with the Lord or away from the Lord.

So how are you doing? You’re walking with the Lord away from the Lord or going back to the Lord? He says in verse four, but the The Lord sent out a great wind into the sea. Remember the Lord sent the wind. The Lord did that. God sent the problem into the sea. And there was a mighty tempest in the sea. God did that so that the ship was like to be broken. God knew what he was doing. God caused a problem.

That’s why, see, when you run away from the Lord, you can expect, yeah, you’re going down. You’re going away. But there’s more problems where you’re headed than what you ran from. Anytime you run from the Lord, you’re heading into more problems, then you can shake a stick at. I was told you not to pull the trouble trouble till trouble troubles you. But some people just look for trouble. You think you’re getting away from something, you’re getting it worse. You see, if you think the responsibility of doing what God wants you to do, and he says, my yoke is easy, my burden is light.

Whenever you try to get rid of that yoke, do you realize that he’s gonna put a yoke of iron up on your neck? Now which one’s easier? The yoke of the Lord or the yoke of iron and it will weigh you down until it destroys you. So he says here, then the Mariners were afraid and cried every man unto his God. So they had different gods and cast forth the wares that were in the ship and to the sea to lighten it of them.

But Jonah was gone down inside the ship and he lay and went to sleep. The nerve. He didn’t care. He didn’t care if he lived or died. He’s just running. And what he says, so the ship master came to him and said to him, what means thou? Oh, sleeper, arise. Call upon thy God. If so be that God will think upon us that we perish done. It’s amazing how holy these guys got all of a sudden. And they’re on the ship and it’s about to be broken up and then know they’re going to die.

And now it’s time to call upon the Lord. You know, some people are just like that. They don’t need God, don’t want God. But something happens, all of a sudden they got a call upon the Lord. Lord get me out of this mess or out of this jamming, then they make a whole bunch of pledges and promises and vows. How many times I’ve been to the hospital and I have to pray for me. If I ever get out of this I’ll be in church every Sunday.

And they get well and I never see them. They meant some other church. I should have known that. Have you ever had something, a crisis in the family and you would ask God, Lord, if you ever get me out of thisachelors, I promise you’ve got a vow that you made. Look what he says in verse 7, and they said, everyone to his fellow come and let us cash luck that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us.

So they cash lots and the lot fell upon Jonah. Ha ha, you’re the bad guy. You’re the one who did this. Then said the unto him, tell us we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us. What is thine occupation? When’s it coming from? Where’d you come from? What’s the country? What people are thou? And he said, in the name of him, I am a Hebrew. I fear the Lord, L-O-R-D, Jehovah, not just any God, God, the God of heaven, which made land and the dry land and sea.

Then were the men exceedingly afraid and said unto him, why hast thou done this? For the men knew why he fled from the presence of the Lord and you are not aligned with it because he told them. He knew what he had done, knew why he did it. They had all kinds of questions. Did you know that sometimes problems come so that people ask you questions? They ask him questions. Did you know he really wasn’t in a soul when he moved?

But God was forced in this upon him. Well, he told him. He said, now, if you want to solve the problem, look at verse 11, then said the end of him, what shall we do unto thee that the sea may be calm unto us, for the sea wrought and was very competuous? And he said of him, take me up and cast me forth unto the sea. So shall the sea be calm unto you, for I know that for my sake this great tip is upon you.

Have you ever had a Joan on board? Sometimes it can be the husband in the home. He’s a Joan on board. He knows right but he won’t do right and because of his decision everybody else suffers. Sometimes the man wants to serve a Lord and the wife doesn’t want to serve a Lord and she can be a Jonah on board. He would rather die than do the will of God. So he says here in verse 14, wherefore they cried unto the Lord.

Now they’re all crying to L O R D, his God. We beseeze the let us not perish for this man’s life and laid not upon us innocent blood without old Lord L O R D, see before they were praying to their God, now they’re praying to his God. Isn’t it amazing how God can use people to get people to the Lord? And so it says in verse 15, so they took up Jonah and cast him forth into the sea and the seasies from her region.

Problem solved. Boy, solved that problem. Just threw the man overboard. But it ain’t all over yet. Looking verse 16, then the men feared the L-O-R-D, Jehovah, exceedingly and offered a sacrifice unto the Lord and made vows. You’d be surprised how many people have made vows unto the Lord and they never kept them. You probably made some vows sitting here. For example, have you ever made a vow to a wife or your husband until death do us part and it didn’t last very long?

You’d be surprised you could make vows about your children to raise them up in the nurturing admonition of the Lord and then you don’t do it. The story of Jonah is in here to see how God works in the life of a disobedient person. You know what to do and you don’t do it. It says to him that know if to do good and do it not to him it is sin. And look what he says in verse 9, that’s everything.

Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Now, many people say that Jonah was in the belly of the fish and so he died. And he may have died. But it says he was three days in three nights in the fishes’ belly, and if he had died, he wouldn’t have been in the fishes’ belly for three days and three nights. He would have been in the heart of the earth.

Now that’s where his body was, but where was he? But when Christ referred to it, it says even as Jonah was three days in three nights in the whales’ belly. So shall the son of a baby, three days in the heart of the earth? Well, I believe if he had died, he would have been there. But it doesn’t matter. It was a type of the death barrel in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So in verse one, where Jonah runs to the Lord.

Now look what God had to do. It was the Lord, remember, that prepared the wind. It was the Lord that made the storm. It was the Lord that prepared the fish. God’s been busy. God is working in your life. In verse two he says, and he said, look at verse one, then Jota prayed unto the Lord, his God out, out, of the fish’s belly, that’s where he was. Now get what he said. And he saidMars I cried by reason of my affliction.

Well, he thought it was going to all be over with. Oh, it’s not over with. He said, I cried under the Lord. And he heard me out of the belly of hell, cried I, and I’ll hearse my voice. Now, that’s why some people believe that’s where he might have went. Well, maybe he did. I don’t really care where he went. I just know he’s in the belly of the fish, and he’s crying out to God, and he’s got problems.

In other words, what did it have been worse to have been in the belly of the fish? And you can’t get out, and you’re whirling it all around, and seaweed all over your salt water, and you’re trying to fight for your air. But it was miserable. And can you imagine all this, your acid inside of a fish’s belly? I believe whenever he came out, he must have been pure white. If Jonah had never got right with God, that fish would have never vomited.

In verse three, he says, for thou hast cast me into the deep in the mist of the seas. The floods compass me about, all thy bills and thy waves pass over me. Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight, yet I will look again toward the holy temple. The waters compass me about, even to the soul that debts close me round about. The weed wrapped around my head. I went down to the bottom 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.” You can get what he says in verse 7. “…when my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord.” That’s a good time to do it, isn’t it? And my prayer came in under the Holy Tepam. They that observe lion vanities for sake their own mercy. But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that which I have vowed and underlined this phrase, salvation is of the Lord.

Hey, I’m ready to go now. And in verse 10 of chapter 2 and the Lord spake unto the fish, it vomited out, I join up on the dry land. If verse 9 had to take in place, verse 10 wouldn’t have taken place. But always remember, there’s a God in heaven who’s going to beat the tar out of you. You can’t live as you please and get away with it. You can’t thumb your nose at God and be rebellious in your heart toward God and not do what God wants you to do and then God just lets you along.

He don’t give you a pass. So chapter three is second chance. Now Jonah begins to run with the Lord. He’s doing a, he’s going to run with the message God gave him and he’s going to where God wanted to go to start with. Now look how much he could have saved himself. All that that happened to him didn’t have to happen. If she can’t, it was rebellious. So in verse one and the word of the Lord came on the Jonah on the line the second time the message did not change.

The will of God did not change. Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city and preach unto it the preaching that I bid. In other words, I want you to tell them what I’m telling you. So Jonah arose and went into Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now, Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days journey. journey. Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey and he cried and said, yet forty days, and none of us shall be overthrown.

So the people of none of them believed God. They believed. This is what Jonah was afraid of. He knew they would believe it. He didn’t want them to believe it. He wanted God to get them. And they proclaimed it fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them, even to the least of them. Verse six, word came unto the king of none of us. And he arose from his throne He laid his robe from him and covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes and he caused it to be proclaimed and published throughout Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles saying, let neither man nor bees heard nor flock taste anything, let them not feed nor drink water.

What this guy was serious? He believed what Jonah preached and he didn’t want his city to be destroyed but because of the wickedness going on in the city he said, now you need to clean them things up. Christians are supposed to do right, but you don’t do right in order to go to heaven. But doing right can keep the hand of God’s judgment off of you. I believe that if God can see Nineveh, God could see America. Look at verse 7, and he causes to be published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and is noble saying, let nobody have anything.

Verse 8, but let man and bees be covered with sackcloths cry mightily unto God, ye let them turn everyone from his evil way. This is not to be saved. This is to keep from having physical death. You see, you’ll find that mentioned throughout the scriptures about a man turning from sin, turning and forsaken his evil way. That’s because as a nation, even Israel, God could chasten them, whoop them, take them out of their land, all kinds of things. Even a Christian, Christian, once you’re saved, should depart from evil.

A Christian should turn from sin, but not to be saved, but because you are. If I do not want the chastening hand of God upon me, I better correct the errors of my way. I better stop doing the things that’s going to bring God chastening upon my life. He says here in chapter 4 verse 1, but it displeased Jonah exceedingly. He was very angry. Now why is he so upset? You say, he’s mad at God, and he prayed unto the Lord.

In amazing, you can even pray when you’re not right. And he said, I pray the old Lord was not this my saying. When I was yet in my country, he went to another country. I believe that God has over the years, and we may not know how many different people that God has sent to other countries in order to preach. He says, when I was yet in my own country, this is Lord, this is why I didn’t want to I told you this is what you would do.

Therefore I fled before unto Tarsus. For I knew, get this, for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of a great kindness, and repentist thee of the sieve. And I knew you weren’t going to do it. If they listened and they changed their minds, I knew you wouldn’t do it. Well, what did he want him to do? He wanted me to do that. So give what he says, in verse 3, therefore now, O Lord, take IBC, see my life, let me die.

Boy did he have a pity party. This man just doesn’t learn his lessons. He says, for it is better for me to die than to live. You ever get down so low that this was, listen, and literally do you know and understand that What he just went through was a type of the death, virulent resurrection of Jesus Christ. What an honor to be said, I was an example.

This one guy told me, he says, I’m not totally useless. I can be used as a bad example. Lord, take I beseech my life from me, for it’s better for me to die than to live. Well, why didn’t God just do that? Well, he didn’t do it. Look at this. He says, then said the Lord do a star well to be angry. In other words, is that helping you? You feel better now? You’re all mad. You’re all upset. You’re angry.

How do you feel? You feel better now? Verse 5, so Jonah went out of the city, sat on the east side of the city and there made him a booth, sat under it in the shadow till he might see what would become of the city. So he went up there and sat on the hill. So while he’s sitting there for on the hill, mine is his own business. The Lord God prepared a gourd. Have you noticed how many things God prepared?

He prepared a win. He prepared a great fish. He prepared a gourd? God did this. God prepared a gourd and made it to come up over Jonah. That it might be a shadow over his head. Now isn’t that gracious and kind of God? To deliver him from his grief because of the hot sun. So Jonah was exceeding glory. was exceeding glad of the gourd. Now here’s all these people in the city. He don’t care about them. But now he cares about this gourd.

Kind of like a turtle that fell in love with our army helmet. In verse seven, but God prepared a worm. See there? If God can use a gourd and God can use a worm, don’t you feel like God can use you for something? But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day. The next day. and it smote the gourd and it withered. Now God did this. God made a gourd to grow, shaded from the sun, and he liked that.

And then God prepared a worm, sent the worm, the worm ate the gourd, killed a gourd. And verse eight, and it came to pass when the sun did rise, that God prepared a vahimat-ease wind. God did this. and the son beat upon the head of Jonah that he fainted and wished in himself to die. And he says, it is better for me to die than to live. And God said to Jonah, doest thou well to be angry for the Lord?

And he says, I do well to be angry, even in the death. See, God was giving him an object lesson. Look what he was trying to teach him at verse 10. Then said the Lord, Thou had had pity on the Lord, for the which Thou hath not labored, neither made it to grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night. Should not I spare none of us? That great city wherein our more than six score a thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, and all that cattle.”

He says, there’s all those people, and they can’t discern between the left hand and right hand. He said, they were totally ignorant. They didn’t know the Lord. He says, you got more compassion for that goer than you have for those people. God’s like saying, am I wrong because I love? Am I wrong because I am gracious? Wouldn’t it be need if more people had more love and more kindness and a little bit more grace? Look up here. If you’re here this morning and you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, this is what God would want you to know.

I, just like Jonah, have been commanded by God to take this message for anybody that I can get it to. This is you and me. This is sin. God says that he loves us, but he hates our sin. But everybody has a sinful nature, and that’s why we do all these bad things. Now God sees everything that we do. There’s a God in heaven that knows everything, and he says that he’s going to have to judge us. And the penalty for sin is death and hell.

Since every man has sinned, every man has to die. And spending the eternity separated from God. But God says, I want you to tell the people that I love them. And I don’t love the sin, but I love them. And because I love them, I want you to tell them something. You see, they can’t go to heaven the way they are. See, heaven is perfect. God is perfect. To go to heaven, you have to be perfect. No sin. Sin, we can’t get in.

So God says, you can’t earn eternal life. You can’t work your way to heaven. This hand represents Jesus Christ. He’s the Lord God in the flesh. He came into the world because he loves us, hates our sin because it separates us from him. So Christ who had no sin did not have to die. So what he did is he took our sins, paid for them on the cross, came back from the dead. And God said, if we’ll believe that he did it for us, that he would give to us as a free gift, everlasting life.

And we go to heaven on what he did. Once you trust Christ as your Savior, you say, OK, I believe that. Then God says that he gives you as a free gift, eternal life. You’re his child. You’re going to heaven when you die. But God says there’s still a lot of people out there that don’t know and don’t understand. Now, you that know Christ as your Savior, did you see the reasons why we need to be found faithful in serving the Lord?

God says that He will chasten us. Chasing means to discipline, to correct. He uses another word, they’re chasing and scourge it. Scurge it means a pretty good-sized little beating. It’s not just a, don’t do that again. The other one might be bringing you down to the depths of the sea. I mean, where He’s trying to wipe you out. I mean, He can do it health-wise, finance-wise, He can do it. don’t underestimate the power of your heavenly Father. Now the reason he doesn’t because he loves you.

He needed Jonah. I used to have people tell me, well, God doesn’t need you. He don’t need you. Yes, he does. He does need us. We are important. And God left us here to get a job accomplished. And the most important thing we can never do is to get people to trust Christ as their Savior. Let’s pray, shall we? With every head bowed and every eye closed, no one looking around. If you are here today and you never trust the Christ as your Savior, just never trust Him.

Why not right now and just talking to the Lord? Say something simple, Lord, I’m a sinner. Friend God knows it, just a matter of each one of us admitting it. I’m a sinner, means I’m not perfect. I’ve done things wrong, I’ve sinned. When you say I’m a sinner and I’ve sinned, it means I deserve to go to hell. I deserve to pay for what I’ve done. But I believe Jesus Christ that He died, paid for my sins. And friend, God says, if you’ll trust Him as your only hope of going to heaven, He will save you from hell and give to you the free gift of eternal life.

And he’ll never cast you out and never lose you. With his bow nice and close, anyone that all say, yes, I’ll trust Christ as my Savior and preach, I’d like you to pray for me. Would you just slip me in a very quickly, but I’ll write back down. In one of all, let’s God bless you man. You can put it down. Anyone else, just slip it up very quickly with just God bless you man. I appreciate that. Let me just change it just for a second.

When Jonah ran ahead of the Lord, he didn’t have any patience, he didn’t have any peace. He had no perception. He lacked discernment. He had no purpose to live. And God had to teach him a very important lesson. You have trusted Christ as your Savior maybe many years ago. And you dedicated your life to Him. You said you were going to serve Him. And you haven’t done like you promised. You haven’t kept your vow. If you hear this morning, you say, I want to renew my vow.

I want God’s blessings. I want God’s will. I’ve been running long enough. I want to do whatever God wants me to do, whatever time I’ve got left. And preach your life to pray for me. Now I’m not going to have you forward. I’m not going to embarrass you. I do it with heads bowed and eyes closed. But you say, yes, you spoke to me today. And I need to get things right. And I want you to pray for me.

Would you just slip your hand very quickly and put a right back down on this God bless your hands all over? God bless you all. Thank you so much. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you are blessed by today’s message. If you have enjoyed our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, you can reach Bibleline and pledge your support to keep us on the air in your area by dialing tool free.

800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. To listen to today’s message again or to obtain a free download of any of our Bibleline programs, just go to our homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the Radio Broadcast link. If you are in the area, we welcome you to visit us. The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Our Sunday morning services begin at 10-30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org.

Thanks for joining us on Bibleline, and now a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. Friend, one day it will happen. The trumpet will sound, and we will be changed. Caught up to meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day, believing that the Lord is coming soon and just keep looking up.