If you would, please turn your Bibles this morning to Jonah chapter 2. Now, if you were To give a complete overview of Jonah 2, which I'm going to do here in a moment, you would call this chapter, Jonah the Praying Prophet. But today's lesson will be on the occasion of Jonah's prayer. If you want a title there, Joe. Jonah chapter 2, we'll read the first four verses. Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly, and said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me. Out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice. For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas, and the floods compassed 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 toward thy holy temple. The mariners had just thrown Jonah overboard to what they thought for sure was a watery grave. Jonah himself no doubt thought that his life would soon be over in the turbulent, churning sea. However, God, but God, had prepared a great fish to swallow this backslidden prophet. God had wisely ordered all the events of providence to bring Jonah to this very place. And it was the place of God's appointing. This was right where Jonah needed to be. Now on this voyage, Jonah learned some things about the nature of chastisement and probably the most concise passage of Scripture dealing with God's chastisement is in Hebrews chapter 12. If you want to turn over there, we'll look at this for just a moment. Hebrews chapter 12 and beginning in verse 5. The first thing he learned about chastisement is that it's inevitable for all of God's children who wander out of his appointed way. God told Jonah, your mission, go to Nineveh, preach repentance. And God was, he had determined to spare Nineveh, to save the people from their sins, I believe. Jonah said, I'm not going to those heathen. In fact, instead of going to Nineveh, I'm going to get on a ship and go to Tarshish way far out of the way. So there's no way that I could make it to Nineveh. So God said, Jonah, you're going to Nineveh. Whether you like it or not, you're going to learn a lesson. I'll never forget old Wilbur Johnson. 1981, he preached on the Heavens Do Rule at a Bible conference. First Bible conference I'd ever been to. And he said, God always gets His way. And he said, Jonah learned it. God had to send him to Whale Tech. That was his college he had to learn from. But chastisement is inevitable. When you get out of the way, God will deal with you and it may be different in the way that he deals with you, the way that he deals with someone else. In Jonah's case, this is almost as bad as it can get. All right. When it comes to chastisement. I mean, who wants to spend three days in the belly of a whale or a great fish? That was Jonah's chastisement. Hebrews 12 verse 5 says, And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him. For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards and not sons." So again, if you're a child of God, you get out of the way, it's inevitable you're going to be chastened. by the hand of God. And why does God do that? Because He loves you. If you belong to the Lord, He's not going to let you get away with being self-willed. He's going to teach you that the best way is His way. Now secondly, You'll also learn that chastisement is painful. It's difficult. And it's grievous to endure. It says in verse 11 of Hebrews 12, Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness, unto them which are exercised thereby." Chastisement is rough. Now, you've got to be careful because sometimes when you get self-righteous and you'll see somebody going through a trial, in your heart you may say, Well, they're being chastised for something. I know it for sure. And if you're really self-righteous, you actually bring that out. And it may be just a trial. It may be an affliction. God and that person who's receiving the chastisement, they know what is what. So be careful in your judgments of what people are going through. Now with Jonah, this is a pretty clear cut case. If I see Ed Pratt, if I hear of him being in the belly of a whale over the next few weeks, I'm gonna just tell the church he'd been chasing for something. I mean, this is so clear cut, no doubt about it. But it's not always that way. So you gotta be careful. and how you think about chastisement as opposed to affliction. Sometimes it's a fine line. Now, thirdly, chastisement by God is the preparation for our spiritual prophet. The end of that being holiness, being more conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. And that's revealed here in Hebrews 12, verses 10 and 11. For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure. Talking about the way that fathers chasten their children. But he, God, for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now also read verse 9. Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence, shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits and live? So thirdly, chastisement is aimed at bringing you into submission to God's way, His will, ultimately leading to holiness, your spiritual prophet. If you can understand that, It'll open up a whole new ability, a whole new discernment that God is not against me. Even when he's chastening me, he's trying to help me. He's trying to encourage me, empower me in the way. Now, go back to Jonah, the book of Jonah. This whole chapter deals specifically with the prayer that Jonah uttered while in the belly of the great fish. And again, this is an interesting book of the Bible. Jonah's sojourn in the fish's belly for three days and three nights was a fit type of the burial of the Lord Jesus Christ, who laid three days and three nights in the tomb. You say, now wait a minute, preacher. How can you just glean that from reading Jonah? I can't. But in the New Testament, when Jesus plainly comes out and says, you remember the account of Jonah and how he was three days and nights in the belly of the whale? Well that's what's going to happen to me. I'm going to be buried three days and three nights. So the Lord Jesus brings that out as a type. Now the ejection of Jonah from the fish was a miracle. I don't know if it's ever happened before or since. There's no record that I know of. It was nothing short of a miracle. God preserving his life in the belly of the fish and then ejecting him out of the belly of that fish. The ejection of Jonah from the great fish was miraculous and it points us to the miraculous resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And again, you realize, in order to be saved, you have to believe an unbelievable message. As far as the world is concerned, as far as human rationale is concerned, as far as mathematics are concerned. You have to believe that God, in His wisdom, appointed His Son the eternally begotten Son of God, to come from heaven to be born of a virgin, something that's never been done before or since, that He lived a perfect life, something again that's never been done by any man or woman, That one man who was God manifest in the flesh was not only willing and able and qualified to completely fulfill all of the law and be perfect, but that one person, Jesus Christ, was willing to die and suffer the penalty of His people for their sins. One man was willing to die on the cross and the sins of all his people, and I believe they were a multitude, out of every nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue. It's why we've got missionaries all over the world. Because there are people all over the world who are going to be saved. That one man who lived a perfect life was willing to offer Himself as the one and only sacrifice that God would accept in order to satisfy His wrath, His judgment against sin. And He literally died on the cross. That one man was able to bear the sins of multitudes. And he was buried just like the Bible teaches this all the way through. He was in the grave three days and three nights. He literally died. And just as he said he would, he rose again from the dead. And he's alive forevermore. And that power demonstrates that Jesus Christ is God and that the Father accepted the sacrifice that He made on the cross. And to a rational man, the way men think, that's impossible. It's just, it's not possible. Yet, He rose from the dead and there were witnesses of it. Over 500 on one occasion. You and I believe a message that to the world is unbelievable and impossible. Yet, I'm here to tell you, the work of Jesus Christ literally has changed the world for good. He saves people out of a sinful life, changes them, continues to change them. And so much good has come. People's sins have been forgiven. Families that were once broken have been mended. Great works have been done in the name of Jesus Christ over the last 2,000 years. The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. So and you say, well, how can we reconcile that? We don't, I just believe it. You know, I don't try to figure out God's sovereignty. I just believe it. I know this. Jesus Christ saved my life. The message of His death, burial, and resurrection completely, radically changed me forever. When the Lord saved me in 1980, It was a miracle. I literally went from darkness to light. And I've never gotten over it. And if you're saved by the grace of God, you owe your life to the one who gave his life for you. and rose again from the dead for you. That's why this message, the message of the Gospel, though it may be unbelievable to the world, it's one that I share with everybody that I know, and even people that I don't know. You say, well, how do you explain it all? I don't. I just say, the greatest thing that's ever happened to me can happen to you. Jesus Christ came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. God can make the message effectual. But the resurrection of Christ, it's a miracle. It's beyond human comprehension. It's beyond human possibilities. Yet, His life, His ministry, His words have changed the world. They're still changing the world. That's why I don't lose hope. That's why I don't give up. When I see ungodliness all around us, It just reminds me, that's how I was at one time. I was preaching yesterday, and I mean this, if you would go back prior to 1980, and you would have known me, you would have known the course of my life, you could ask anybody, They would have said that there is no way that that that a guy like that will ever be saved. In fact, I didn't I didn't hang around people that even use that terminology. But I'll tell you what. God can change. The worst of centers. And you're looking at one. Now, your conversion may be much different than mine. You may have been raised in church and you went to church every time the doors were open. And thank God for that. That's what I've done with my kids. My kids, they and now they're most of them are practicing. But you know what? Jesus Christ did something that men thought was impossible in my life. And He's still in the saving business. So don't lose hope. Now as soon as Jonah was ejected from the fish, what did he do? He immediately went to Nineveh. No questions asked. He got the point. He went there and He preached to those inhabitants. Interestingly enough, when the Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead, He commanded His church to preach repentance throughout all the world. Luke 24, 46 and 47, And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. Now, Joe, I'm going to have to change the title again because I only got through my introduction. So, I don't know, you can label this introduction to Jonah 2 or Jonah the praying prophet, whatever suits your fancy. But next week, Lord willing, we'll get into the occasion of Jonah's prayer in verses 1 through 4.