you Give to the Savior an anthem of praise Come before Him now singing Give glory and honor to the Ancient of Days Let your voices be raised For the Lord is great and greatly to be praised, And sinner is loved and is glad to see. Let your heart be amazed! Lift to the Savior an anthem of praise. Come before Him with singing. Give glory and honor to the angel of praise. Let your voices keep ringing. Worthy is the Lamb. Who reigns forever on high. He died to bring us eternal life. He lives that death may die. He lives that death may die. Lift to the Savior an anthem of praise. Come before Him with singing. Give glory and honor to the Ancient of Days. Let your voices be ringing. Sing praise to God. Lift to the Savior an anthem of praise. Come before Him with singing. Give glory and honor to the ancient of days. Let your voices keep ringing. Lift to the Savior an anthem of praise. of the Maranatha Baptist Church. We're so delighted that you are here this morning. We begin with some scriptural words from the word of God. Praise ye the Lord. This is the Psalm 111. Praise ye the Lord. I will praise the Lord with my whole heart. in the assembly of the upright and in the congregation. The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein. His work is honorable and glorious, and his righteousness endureth forever. He hath made his wonderful works to be remembered. The Lord is gracious and full of compassion. Praise the Lord, he is good to every one of us. Let's stand together, please, begin our service with a word of prayer this morning, and ask God to be glorified and magnified in each one of our lives. our minds and our hearts this morning in this service. Pray with me, would you? Father, thank you for the opportunity and the privilege to be in your house this morning. Thank you, Lord, for the blessing of gathering in your name with our church family and guests who have come out for church this morning. Lord, we pray that you would make this a significant time, significant time in the life of our church, a significant time in our individual lives. Lord, help us to examine our lives in the light of scripture and do in response to your word what you would be pleased for us to do. Lord, bless each one this morning. Help us to set aside the duties and distractions that await us outside of this service. And for this time, focus singularly and exclusively on what you have for us and on your wonderful grace and mercy and love so bountifully extended to us. Help us to praise you faithfully this morning and worship you in spirit and in truth. We commit ourselves in this service to you in Jesus' name. Amen. Would you remain standing, please? Grab a songbook there nearby you. And we begin this morning, oh, for a thousand tongues to sing. You don't have a thousand, but you have one. So let's use it to praise the Lord. It's number 53, number 53. Let's sing it together, please. Oh, for a thousand times to sing Thy great Redeemer's praise, The glories of our God and King, The triumphs of His grace. My gracious Master and my God, assist me to proclaim, to His Spirit through all the earth abroad, the Brothers of Thy Name. On the third, Jesus, the Name that charms our fears and things our sorrows see, With music in the sinner's ear, take life and health, and peace to the poor. Hear Him ye now, and raise Him up, your loosened tongues and voice. Praise the Lord. Good singing this morning. Please be seated. But hang on to your songbook. Turn over one more time, hand number 121. 121, a wonderful song, At the Cross. 121 as we sing. ♪ A passion in my Savior bled ♪ And in my Sovereign died my sacred head for such a worm as I. At the cross, at the cross, where I first saw the light and the It was there by faith I received my sight And now I am happy all the day Was it for crimes that I have done He rolled up on the tree Amazing pity, grace unknown And love beyond degree At the cross, at the cross, where I first saw the light, and the burden of my heart rolled away. It was there, my faith, I received my sight, and now I am happy all the day. On to the last! But to rocks of great canary pain, I see my son happy I'm enjoying that. I'm not preaching today, so I'm singing full blast. Most Sunday mornings, I don't sing full blast, because I've got to save some oxygen for the preaching time. But somebody else is taking care of that this morning, so I'm just letting her rip. And I'm enjoying it. I'd sing some more of that. We'll have another one here in a moment, but I appreciate that. We have some visitors with us today. It looks like there's some folks who forgot to set their clock, maybe. So when they come in the door here in about an hour, go, neener, neener, neener. We're glad that you're here. We have some visitors. We would like you visitors to remain seated, please, just for a moment. We're going to ask our regular folks, folks who identify Maranatha as their church home and are physically able, go ahead and stand at this time. And as you visitors remain seated, if they've not done so already, our ushers, are gonna give you a visitor card, and we'd really appreciate the opportunity to connect with you in this way. If you would fill that out and put it in the offering plate in just a little bit, we would be just thrilled and delighted just to connect with you, and thank you for being here with us. In the meantime, we're gonna smile and greet one another, fellowship just a bit, and then we'll sing the family of God. Yeah. the land of Iowa, Georgia, as we travel there. Thank you very much. You may be seated. Next Sunday morning in the adult Bible study groups we will be receiving our offering as we do each month for the local food bank and that lets us along with other churches in the community here be a blessing and a help to some needy families and 150 to 200 Families are served every month through the local food bank local folks system bill folk and so That's the offering in the adult Sunday school classes next Sunday You could be prepared for that gentlemen if you have not gotten your tickets yet for the ironworks men's conference Please please do that be sure and see miss Margaret. She's right over here stand up miss Margaret It doesn't make a huge difference, but a little bit. Okay. Thank you very much and see her right there after the service tonight. There are brochures available if you need information about it as you leave the auditorium this morning. But it's two weeks away. It's Saturday, March the 25th, and we have Evangelist Scott Paulie, we have Evangelist Richard Harper, Evangelist Byron Fox. and then a singing musical evangelist, Bruce Fry. You're going to enjoy this, gentlemen. We'll have a good barbecue for lunch and a wonderful time of workshops and preaching, a lot of great preaching crammed into just about three-fourths of a day. We get started in the morning, wrap it up about two o'clock. Get your ticket. We work with six other churches on this. We meet at Mount Pleasant Baptist there in Elk View. They have the largest auditorium of the group, and so get your tickets and be ready to attend this wonderful meeting coming up at the end of the month, last Saturday, March the 25th. We have a couple of birthdays to recognize today, and the better halves of some of our staff guys here, right? So we've got birthdays this week for Miss Kelly Holtz-Claw. Happy birthday to you. And I'm going to let you deliver that to your wife, wonderful. And then Micah, I don't know if I've seen Micah this morning. She might not be here. Well, we'll embarrass her tonight or when we see her next. I'd just, just taunt on me. We don't see her today. Ryan's wife, Ms. Micah. Well, let's sing happy birthday to Ms. Kelly, shall we? Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, God bless you. Happy birthday to you. Thank you very much. God bless you, Ms. Kelly. Praise the Lord. This is a beautiful song. Choir hasn't done this, if my memory's correct. We haven't done this for several years. Is that correct, Brother Tina? That's correct. And you're gonna appreciate this. It's a beautiful song, Forgiven Forever. I'm forgiven forever through God's only Son Forgiven forever, a new life's begun Christ was born in a manger He lived and He died for me I'm forgiven forever ♪ The grave has no power ♪ Forgiven forever from this very hour ♪ All praise to the Son of God ♪ I'm free ♪ Glory to the King, the King to God He paid the price for all my sin and rose in victory. The Word of God has spoken. The tender sun is broken, All praise to the King of Kings! I'm forgiven forever, my darkness is gone. Forgiven forever, to him I belong. And someday in heaven, my crown at his feet I'll bring. I'm forgiven forever. shall live, forgiven forever to Jesus I'll give my worship and praise to Him I'll sing. Glory to the King, the King to die, the Galilee Son of God. He paid the price for all my sin and rose in victory. The Word of God has spoken. The tender trough is broken. ♪ All praise to the King of Kings ♪ ♪ I'm forgiven forever ♪ ♪ All praise to the King of Kings ♪ Okay, Pastor, here's a song for you. Please open your handbook, number 359, 359, for Pastor to sing out on, but not him alone, all of us to sing. Sing them again, the wonderful words of life. Remain seated, but let's have the choir join us in standing, and we'll sing this song together. 359. Sing them over again to me Wonderful words of life Let them for other beauties see Wonderful words of life Words of life and beauty Teaching faith and duty Beautiful words, wonderful words Wonderful words of life Wonderful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life. Christ, the flesh upon gifts to all, wonderful words of life. Sinner, let still with love recall, to the last Parted and peace to all Wonderful words of life Jesus, only Savior Sanctified forever Beautiful words, wonderful words Wonderful words of life Beautiful words, wonderful words Wonderful words of life Ushers, come ahead, please, to receive our offering this morning. You visitors have received a card. If you'll, again, put that in the offering plate, we'd greatly appreciate that. In fact, if you're visiting with us, that's all we ask you to put in the plate, but we would like to have that card and info and honored that you're with us today. Let's ask God to bless our offering this morning. Brother Larry Vance, would you lead us in prayer, sir? We also thank you, Lord, for your bounty that you have bestowed upon us. We thank you for the opportunity to give back to the Lord and to provide for us. Amen. So, you She passed through the crowd, so weak and so frail. So often she reached out, her efforts failed. With faith and persistence, she's determined she must see Jesus. Her friend said, just give up, for after twelve years of heartache and failures, disappointments and fears, except your condition was the multitude, He will not see us. she can hear them rejoicing as she looks down the lane she sees someone calling and they're calling his name son of david messiah she heard someone call him the healer The crippled and lame were now leaping for joy. Those who were blind, beholding the Lord. Could this be the moment? Or would hindrances many conceal her? Her heart beat so fast as he came into sight Her emotions were filled with both joy and with pride She let him pass by, but not out of reach As she touched his garments, he turned to speak Someone's been healed today A miracle passed your way. Who touched my clothes, you now remain whole. Step forward and claim. Your faith has pulled you through. Your healing has come to you. You can receive today, right now in Jesus' name. Though Satan says, give up, you're close to a miracle, Jesus is passing your way. Christ's still in business and does the impossible, sending out blessings each day. You can be healed today. Let a miracle pass your way. When God touches close, you can be made whole. Step forward and claim. Your faith has pulled you through. Your healing will come to you. You can receive today, right now, in Jesus' name. You can receive today, right now, in Jesus' name. Thank you, Trio. Most of you remember our good friend, Dr. David Wood, who was the founder and president of Operation GO and the Witness Project. of course, a mightily used evangelist across the nation and around the world. And Brother Wood was with us so many times. And we had some wonderful meetings here in our church with Brother Wood. And we have been in support of the Witness Project and Operation GO for some years. And our speaker today comes to us, and I felt like before I ever met him that I knew him, because Dr. Wood and myself would chat and talk about things. He was so excited about how God was directing in the transition for the new leadership of Operation Go as Brother Wood was coming into the latter years of his life. Now you look at Brother Wood and he was a vital man, very healthy, vibrant and excited and always on the move and always on the move fast. And so it was a shock to all of us when the Lord just took him home very suddenly last fall. And yet this transition had already begun. Well, Brother Wood was a planner and I know he had a couple of years worth of transition laid out. And again, I've heard so much about Brother Brian Treadway, Brian Treadway, as Dr. Wood talked about him to me and I know many, many other people so much. And so then I had the privilege to meet Brother Treadway back in August and the shock of Brother Wood's home going was pretty intense. But it didn't shock the Lord at all. Didn't shock the Lord at all. And what a blessing to Brother Wood and those that love him, his close friends and family, that he went out like he was going his entire ministry. Fast. Fast. It just happened very suddenly. And Brother Wood's in the presence of the Lord today. Hallelujah for that. And the leadership of Operation Go International has been Fully, of course, now transitioned to Brother Brian Treadway, who comes to us as a former pastor and evangelist and Brother Wood's good friend and confidant. And I want our church and myself, I want all of us to get to know him. at the level that we knew and loved Dr. David Wood and continue to honor his legacy and appreciate this new step of leadership. So let's welcome Brother Brian Treadway to Maranatha Baptist Church. God bless you, brother. Come right ahead. You're among friends. All right. God bless you. Well, it is a joy to be with you this morning. And I appreciate your pastor and his support and just friendship to Dr. Wood for many, many years. Just as Brother Bartlett said, he felt like he knew me. I knew your pastor from many conversations with Brother Wood and how much he appreciated him and loved him. And I'm thrilled to be here today. Just a brief history and then we'll jump into the message if you wanna go ahead and open your Bible to the book of Jonah. very familiar passage of scripture. But one, a newer message, the Lord just dealt with my heart that I hope will be a help to you today. But while you're turning there to Jonah, I am privileged to have my family with me. Originally, it was gonna be just my wife and my dad back, well, Brother Wood passed December the, the 9th, the 8th, December the 8th. And around that same time, my dad, who was an Army veteran, was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given about six months to live. And so that put everything in a tailspin on top of just learning about Brother Wood. And Brother Wood, I've had people ask me, you know, was he sick? No. I spent the week with him before he passed in Charlottesville, hours each day. He and I were up extremely early. He would go work out, and then we'd meet at the Starbucks around 5, 5.30 in the morning right by the hotel. And we were there between Starbucks and the hotel working till late afternoon. And at 81 years old, he had finally slowed down. He usually stopped around 1.30 or 2 o'clock. He said, let me go get a 30-minute nap, and then we'll pick back up. And he'd go take a 30-minute nap and come back, and we usually worked till that evening. And we were working on a lot of things, on our plans and just two major projects and phases for the next step of Operation GO. And then on top of that, I had been voted in as vice president and international outreach director back in January of 21. and we had announced in August of last year at our partners gathering that I would be taking over the presidency in January of this year. The plan was for Dr. Wood to stay on as president emeritus and handle just fundraising and getting in churches and allow me to continue the international outreach work that we've just as expanded in the last three years. We're in well over 90 countries that is growing every year. We were in probably 11 new countries last year. We will be in several new countries this year, Dubai, Canada. I will be in Canada next week for the first time ever for Operation Go with Canadian pastors above Vancouver and holding a conference, my wife and I there, a soul winning international, soul winning director's institute with Canadian pastors. And I'm thrilled about that. That's a vision and a burden that I've had for over a year that the Lord's seeing fulfilled. And Lord willing, I'll be in Dubai this year. We will be holding a conference for the first time in France this year and in Spain this year. We've not really been in Europe. Brother Wood went to London last year while I was in Papua New Guinea and the Philippines. He was in London. And so the plan was for me to take over this year as president but him to stay on, and for two more years, him work stateside, keep the fundraising coming in for what we do, and me take care of the international side. Well, the Lord had other plans, but he worked all the way to the day. In fact, the morning, or the day that he passed that night, that morning, he and I had about an hour of phone conversation, which was not unusual, about 6.45 in the morning till about eight o'clock, a little under eight, we talked. And then we text and talk several times that day. And that night he went to be with the Lord and it was a shock. As your pastor said to him, to me, when Miss June called me, it was just almost surreal. We was up most of the night just trying to see what the Lord was going to do or if he was going to make it. But what I can tell you is the Lord knows what He's doing, and God makes no mistakes, and we know that. And I met Brother Wood, I was pastoring in Abingdon, Virginia, and our home church for years was Turkey Ridge Baptist Church in Oceana, West Virginia, Wyoming County. I pastored almost eight years at Grace Baptist Church in Marlington, West Virginia, in Pocahontas County. A lot of our children were born in West Virginia, Hannah, Nathan, Levi, and... Just Levi was the last one. The others were born in Abingdon. We've got nine children. And so forgive me if I forget. They know who they are and they know their names. I don't have to, amen. I just say, who are you? And they tell me. So our oldest is married. He's 25 years old and he's in ministry. And they just gave us our first granddaughter. So he don't matter no more. Her name is Olivia and that's all that's important. And she was born while my wife and I were in Africa. before Operation Go. She was born early, but she's doing great, and we sure praise God for her. And then our next oldest is Hannah sitting there, and she's, and then Nathan beside her, beside his mama, and my wife Leanne's beside him. Nathan's in Bible college at Howells Anderson, and studying for ministry. Levi is beside the girls there, and he'll be a senior next year, and then he's going to Howells Anderson for ministry as well. and then Abigail's beside him, and then Lydia and Anna, and then the other two, Isaiah and Rebecca, I guess are in children's church and looking for some cookies, I'm sure, and something to color. And our oldest is 25, our youngest is seven years old, and the Lord's been good to us. But I was enjoying pastoring. I pastored in Abingdon, Virginia. If you know where that is, right above Bristol, we were right off the interstate. Had a great work. The Lord let us take that church in 2007, and I thought I would die there. I had no plans of leaving. I took over for Brother Tom Williams, who had been there 38 years, and church had run down to just a few people, about 40 on Sunday morning and the 20s on Sunday night and Wednesday. And if you took our church and went a 20-mile radius, we had about 100 independent Baptist churches in our area. Almost all of them were Bible-preaching churches, good churches. Just this one split off this, this one got mad at this, and there's churches everywhere. And the Lord let us build our church to a little over 400, and that area is a very large church, and God was good to us. The church was excellent to us. We had no problems, no troubles. I thought I would die there. I moved my parents there about eight years ago, and honestly, I thought I would be there the rest of my life. I was good friends with a man by the name of Gene Rowell at Gantt Street Baptist Church in Columbia. I preached there several times a year. And David Wood joined his church. I'd heard the name, but didn't really know Brother Wood. But when he joined Brother Gene's church, Brother Gene, after a little while, said, Brother Brian, this evangelist has joined my church. I've known of him for years. He said, you need to meet him. He said, he's your cup of tea, he's right up your alley. I said, well, I want to meet him. I said, well, have him give me a call and maybe, you know, when he's in the area. So a few weeks later, Brother Wood called and said, hey, I'm gonna be in Charlottesville and I'll be driving down your way. I got to stop in Bristol and you're in Abingdon. He said, would you mind if I come by? I said, no, come by. I said, do you drink coffee? Now that's a dumb question to ask Brother Wood, but if you don't know him, he said, oh, I love coffee. I said, good, we'll get a cup of coffee and we'll meet. And so I met him. and just fell in love with him the instant I met him. And, but I didn't know anything about what he was doing. Didn't know anything about his soul winning program or anything else. And he was telling me, he said, well, in a few months, I'm going to New Zealand and told me what he was going to be doing. And I said, I listened and the Lord touched my heart. I said, I'll go with you. He said, go where? I said, I'll go to New Zealand with you. He said, you're just gonna up and go to New Zealand with me? I said, my church covers any trip I wanna take. We're a very mission-minded church. Church is good to me, covers all my traveling. What's your dates for New Zealand? I'll give it to my secretary. I'm gonna have her book the plane, but I'm going to New Zealand with you. I said, I'll stay at my own hotel, rent my own car. I just want to see what you're doing. He said, man, I don't have many passes through that. I'd love for you to come. He said, I like the fact that you're getting your own hotel. I said, wonderful. You'd have to know Brother Wood and the inside joke there. So I went and fell in love with him, fell in love with what he did. And it wasn't long after that, Brother Wood and I got extremely close and he knew I'd been a missionary in Papua New Guinea and he asked me to help direct, be a director for that area. And I said, sure, I'd love to. And then it wasn't long, he called me one day and he said, I need to talk to you. I said, okay. He said, I think you're the man. Well, I said, my wife thinks I'm the man, but you know, you gotta be more specific. What are you talking about? He said, you're the man. I said, I'm the man for what, Brother Wood? He said, you're the man to take this ministry. I laughed and I said, brother, would I love you, but you're crazy. I said, I think you finally losing it in your old age. And, and, uh, we tease and I said, I'm not the man I'm perfectly happy pastor. And I'm going to die pastor. And I don't want to leave here. When God moved me here, I determined I'm here for life. I ain't going nowhere. He said, what would you pray about it? I said, well, yeah, I'll pray, but I'm just telling you now it ain't happening. Well, what months later, he asked me again. We sat down together and Starbucks was closed. So we went to McDonald's and got some coffee. And he said, I believe you're the guy. I said, well, I've already told you once. I appreciate that. But no, I'm not the guy. Well, long and short, without taking much more time, the Lord in Him knew something I didn't know. And in July of 2020, I stepped down from my church that I love. Hardest thing I ever did was step away from a church that I love. There was no problems. There was no troubles. We didn't leave because we were discouraged. Even through COVID, we were doing extremely well. But the Lord said, you're to step down. And then God gave me peace. I was to work with Brother Wood. and take the ministry. So God had everything right on schedule and right in plan. People ask me for a long time. It took me probably a year, Brother Bartlett or better, to accept the fact that I wasn't going to pastor again. I loved pastoring. And I told Brother Wood, I said, if it's God's will, I said, I'll work with you, but I ain't promising you I'll take it, because if I take it, I know I'm making a lifelong commitment. You cannot run this ministry and pastor. We've just got too much going on. And I said, if it's God's will, then the Lord's gonna have to remove the desire from pastoring out of my heart completely, because it hurts too bad right now. Took about a year. I don't know exactly how long it took, but there was one day I was talking to someone, and they said, Brother Brian, such and such church is available. Would you be interested? I said, no, I don't ever want to pastor again. And then it hit me what I just said. And I said, okay, God, now I know you're in this. I wouldn't want to pastor. I love pastoring. I thought I would never do nothing but pastor. But now that I'm doing what I'm doing, I wouldn't want to do nothing else. I love what God is doing. We are in a transition period, and I ask you to pray, and I've not forgotten. I know the time, but I can cut a message short, amen? But I want you to understand that Operation GO has not changed our mission, our purpose, We are still training and equipping Christians in soul winning and church planning, and we're just doing it with a better looking younger version of Brother Wood, okay? And I said that to him many times, and he agreed on the younger part. We debated over who was the better looking all the time. I said, well, I've got more hair than you. He said, not much. I said, but I do have more, therefore I win. And we would have a good time with that. But the mission has not changed. Our message has not changed. Our motivation has not changed. And the ministry has not changed. The location is changing. His daughter Faith is our business manager. She will continue to do that, but she was already working out of her house more than she was the office and that was her desire. And so we're selling the building down in Lexington, South Carolina. It's already on the market for sale. I wish you'd pray the Lord would sell it. And last year we had been praying, I told Brother Wood that a building come available right about half a mile from our church that we're members of. I don't know if y'all know the name R.B. Ouellette, but R.B. Ouellette pastored for years. First Baptist Church of Bridgeport was a dear friend of mine. I preached for him a lot and he preached for me. And when we stepped down from pastoring, that's where the Lord put us up. Brother J.D. Howell took over for him as a dear friend. And so we're members of First Baptist Church of Bridgeport, and we had been praying, a bank shut down about half a mile from the church, four and a half miles from our house, perfect location. And I thought, Lord, there's no way we'll ever be able to afford it. I mentioned it to Brother Wood, and we had been praying about it. And back, we mentioned it a week before he passed and he said, let's see if we can't figure out a way to maybe get it and keep the other building for a time and then slowly transition to that one. Well, again, the Lord had other plans. And so by faith, I put an offer on that building. Long and short, that building is well worth over $500,000, should have sold for a minimum, the real estate agent said, of $500. The Lord allowed Operation Go to buy that. I closed on it Wednesday of this past week at $199,500. And the Lord just gave us a tremendous building. Now we've got to put a lot of work into it, not because it's a bad building, just because we got to change it to what we need for Operation GO. By faith, we had to put it, the bank would only loan us about 75%. We had to raise $50,000. We raised all that by 5,000. I would ask you to pray about that. We borrowed from Peter to pay Paul. Many of you know what that is, if you deal with everyday life. And so we, I do have to raise that other $5,000 to cover that, but the building is ours. And the plan is to sell the one in Lexington, pay that note off, and hopefully have enough money from that to remodel this and only have the $150,000 loan on the building. And then I did find out one other need that just come up, and that was with the building. They said, we're non-profit, so we don't pay taxes. But in the state of Michigan, whatever a building was registered at in December of the previous year, The taxes have to be paid regardless of who buys that building. So I was just told by the town of Bridgeport that though we're non-profit, we won't have to pay taxes from 24 on, but we got to pay the $8,000 taxes that are due for this year. Michigan is high in taxes. They like their money. And so I wish and pray about that, that the Lord would just meet those needs. But God has been good. The plan is Sister Faith is going to work for a few more years, and then she wants to retire and just be a grandma and focus on her grandchildren and children. And we're glad to let her do that. That was the plan, even with Brother Wood living, pretty much he was going to try to stay on as President Emeritus. maybe another year after that till Faith retired and then he was going to step aside completely. Again, the Lord had other plans, but I'm thankful for the Wood family. They have been very grateful and very supportive through this whole process and we love them. And so that's kind of where we're at. I ask you to pray tonight, Lord willing, I'll tell you more about what we're doing in Africa, what we're doing in India, We've got so much going on, I don't even have the time to get into all of it now, so I'll spend more time this evening on that. Jonah chapter number two, very familiar passage of Scripture. I know I'm president of Operation Go, and so the standard is I come in and preach on soul winning, right? But you're a soul winning church, because I know you're pastor. And I prayed about preaching on soul winning. I love preaching on soul winning. I have a lot of messages on soul winning. But I felt like the Lord said, go this way. And I learned a long time ago, just follow the Holy Ghost and it'll come out all right. Now, this is a message the Lord just gave me that the Lord spoke to my heart. I preached it one time when we were coming out of Mexico and Texas, but felt like this is the direction the Lord wanted me to go. I preached one in Sunday school to the young adults that I had never preached before. The Lord just gave it to me out of my Bible reading, and I like to stay fresh and just wanna give you what the Lord's laid upon my heart this morning. Jonah chapter number two, I'm gonna read the 10 verses, and then I'm gonna bring you a thought in the short time we've got, all right? Then 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 hast cast me into the deep and the midst of the seas, and the floods come past me about, all thy billows and thy waves passed over me. Then I said, I'm cast out of thy sight, yet I will look again toward thy holy temple. The waters compassed me about, even to the soul. The depth closed me round about. The weeds were wrapped about my head. I went down to the bottoms 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. When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came in unto thee and to thine holy temple. Verse eight's my text verse this morning. They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. But I will sacrifice unto thee with the 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." I wanna preach on this thought for a few moments this morning, learning an easy lesson the hard way. Learning an easy lesson the hard way. Let's pray. Father, I love you. And Lord, I'm so privileged and honored to be in this church, in this pulpit that I've heard about for many years, and especially from Brother Wood. Thank you for Brother Bartlett. Thank you for the testimony, the heritage, and the history that is in this place, for the legacy that's been left by his dad, and now Brother Bartlett and what you're doing here. And God, I don't wanna just show up and represent a ministry. I want your power and your presence, and I wanna help your people this morning. So God, use me. If there'd be one lost, Lord, we pray the Spirit of God would deal with them, and Lord, that they would realize that they can trust Jesus Christ and be saved today. And then Lord, for all those that are saved, would you encourage, strengthen, and challenge your people? Help us now in the time we have, in Jesus' name, amen, and amen. Learning an easy lesson the hard way. Let me just jump right in. We know the story of Jonah. Most of us could probably rehearse it as good as any preacher can. We know that Jonah was told to go to Nineveh and he did not want to. And for obvious reasons, they were a Gentile nation. He was a Jewish prophet and he would have been outcast by the Jews to go prophesy to a Gentile nation. And then they were just nasty people. My kids liked veggie tales. And I can't ever think of the Ninevites, I don't think of the fish slappers. My kids have wrote me on those little cartoons. But the Ninevites, all cartoons and joking aside, were nasty people. They were a wicked nation. Jonah didn't like them and the Jews didn't like them. And God says, Jonah, go and you know the story. Jonah runs from God. And when you come to chapter number two, Jonah is in the belly of the whale. Now the Bible said a great fish, but Jesus, the best commentary in the Bible is the Bible. Jesus said, as Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights. So we know that it was a whale. The Lord, Jonah starts praying to God and I wanted to show you a few things in this prayer this morning and number one, I want you to notice Jonah's perspective. I want you to notice the words Jonah uses in verse number two as he cries from the inside of this well belly. He said, I'm crying by reason of mine affliction. Notice he says, he heard me out of the belly of hell. He said in verse three, thou hast cast me into the deep. Now what I mean, Jonah's perspective, what I mean, preacher, is that the Bible, Jonah says this is equivalent to being in hell and this is a great affliction and this is, you've cast me into the deep. I'm in a world of hurt. Jonah is looking at this well as affliction. He's looking at this well as judgment. He's looking at this well as punishment from God. Well, Jonah was running from God. Jonah was disobeying God. But may I submit to you and I that Jonah's perspective is all wrong about this well. See, his whole perspective is wrong and because his whole perspective is wrong, it creates a wrong attitude and it causes wrong actions to occur. This perspective of Jonah starts at the very beginning of chapter number one. He just assumes what God is gonna do and not do and what's gonna happen and not happen. And so his whole perspective from Jonah one now to Jonah chapter two is wrong. For you see, this well is not the punishment of God. He's wrong. This whale was not affliction. This whale was not judgment. Can I ask you a simple question? Jonah was on that ship in chapter number one, God sends a storm, and Jonah tells the sailors after some conversation, the only way the storm's going to end is for you to cast me overboard into the sea. I know we live in the mountains, but simple observation, simple logic. Had Jonah been cast into the sea and the whale not swallowed him, where would Jonah be? He would have died. He'd be dead. So this whale was not affliction or judgment. This whale was the mercy and grace of God to give Jonah another chance to do what God said do. This well is being looked at by Jonah about how bad God is, and how nasty God is, and how mean God is, and how judgmental God is, and I'm in the belly of hell, and I'm in a great affliction. No, no Jonah, you got it all wrong. God is being very merciful to you now. How does that relate to you and I? Can I say to you and I this morning that many times in our life, we view the circumstances and the situations we face, maybe it's sickness. I mentioned my dad's got cancer and he passed away Thursday night and it's been an ordeal and it hurts, but I'm thankful I know where my dad's at and I know where he's going and my mom, a marriage, almost 49 years of marriage to him is obvious. obviously hurt and deeply saddened and troubled at the loss of her husband, and me as a son and my two sisters are grieving as children of his, and we could look at things, and my dad, thank God, never viewed the cancer as judgment or punishment, and I don't view it that way, but isn't it amazing how many times we go through life and we look at situations and we feel like God's not being fair to us? Maybe it's a diagnosis of sickness. Maybe it's the death of a loved one. Maybe it's some discouraging news. Maybe it's some debt that we have. Maybe it's some disappointing thing that's occurred in our life. Maybe it's some division that's happened, but over in our life, we look at what God's doing in our life and we just feel like Jonah, I'm in affliction. When maybe what's going on is not affliction or punishment, maybe it's mercy and grace. Jonah's perspective. But then I want you to notice Jonah's procrastination. Watch this. All the times I've preached on Jonah, I've preached through Jonah. I didn't think there was anything else to get out of Jonah. Ain't that the wonderful thing about the Bible? But look at verse number seven. Never seen this till I was studying for this message. Look at verse 17 of chapter one. Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish. What's it say, church? Three days, can you just stop and imagine being in the gut of a whale? The nastiness. You ever walk through a fish market? Imagine how much worse you're on the inside, stomach, bile, juices. I just can't imagine how nasty it is in there. Why would you want to be in this thing? I understand why he thought maybe it was punishment. But now watch chapter two, verse one. How long was he in the fish? Three days and look at, ignore the chapter two because we understand the chapters and verses were added later to make it easier for us to read. Ignore chapter two, ignore that it's another verse and look at the next word. Then Jonah prayed. What's the then modifying? The three days and the three nights. Jonah, I'm talking about Jonah's procrastination. Three days and three nights, Jonah did absolutely nothing, pastor, in this well. You're talking about stubborn. Can I tell you if I'm in the middle of this well, it's taken me about five seconds to say, oh God, whatever I gotta do, get me right. Lord, I'm sorry, I repent, fix it now, I'm done. Three days and three nights Jonah endured and put up in this nasty well because he didn't want to admit to God where he was. Then Jonah prayed. Can I tell you many times when we don't think God is being fair or doing right, or asking more of us than we ought to do, or being unkind to us, many times we endure some bad situations that we wouldn't have to endure if we just do what God said do. Not only Jonah's perspective and Jonah's procrastination, notice in verse number eight, Jonah's problem. Lying vanities. What's that mean, preacher? Well, see, Jonah thought he could run from God. He ran to Joppa. That's the opposite direction of where God had called him to go. He catches a ship to Tarsus. That's the furthest point that he could go in the opposite direction from where God wanted him. God followed him at the sea. God sends a great storm. And then Jonah says, just toss me overboard. He thought he could escape God by drowning. But God sends a great fish. He sets for three days and three nights in this fish, I believe, waiting to die. It was hot. It was miserable. Seaweed, if you read these verses, seaweed's wrapped around his body and around his head. Water keeps sloshing over him because this whale is sucking in water, though Jonah's inside. And Jonah goes from drowning to living to drowning to living. And listen, many times Jonah said there is lying vanities. He thinks he can get away from God and what's going on in his life. How many times have you and I thought we could run from God? How many times did we think we could get away from what God said do or where God said go or what God wants in our life or the situation God has put us in? Hey, that's a lying vanity. You cannot run from God or his call on your life. Oh, you may try to run, but wherever you go, God's going to be right there. Jonah is admitting, I've got lying vantages. He thought he could run from God. He thought he could hide from God. He thought he could fight God's will and win. How foolish. I've been right where Jonah is. I struggled. In 2020, when the Lord made it clear I was to step away from my church, Pastor Bartlett, in March of 2020, and from March till I submitted a few months later, it was pure misery. I lost weight. I cried. I squalled. I didn't want to leave. Instead of just submitting, I did everything. I tried to bargain with God, plead with God. Listen, you can't fight God's will and win. It's a lying vanity. People that are lost, if you're here and you've never trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, you don't have to get saved. You don't have to accept Christ, but you're not gonna win against God. He's gonna win. You are gonna bow your knee. Every knee will bow. Every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, one way or the other. Just better to do it on this side. He thought he could run from God. He thought he could hide from God. This lying vanity, he thought he would be better off fighting God's will for his life. Because see, to obey for him meant some personal discomfort. Sometimes God, what he asked us to do is going to mean some personal discomfort. It seemed what God was asking him to do was too hard. You ever felt like what God wanted was too hard? Lord, you want me in church three times a week? You want me to go to a men's conference? I mean, the pastor, what's he think, that just church, church, church? I heard one evangelist say, I'll be glad when I get to heaven not have to go to church. He was being facetious. You want me to tell other people, but you want me to, it's saying what God is asking us sometimes, it's too hard. He thought it was better to fight against God than just to yield to God. And here's the bottom line, these lying vanities, that word lie, this is not true. We're lying to ourself when we think that we can advantage ourselves by fighting against God. You're never gonna come out ahead when you fight God's will. Jonah is admitting to lying vanities. But notice not only his problem, but in verse eight we see his perception. Look what he says in verse eight. They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. Notice his perception. What he's saying is when you lie to yourself, when you run from God, when you hide from God, when you think you can do it better than God, you make it hard on yourself. Jonah, for three days and three nights, has been in a whale's belly. He's stinky, he's dirty, he's filthy. You read the prayer. He's got seaweed on him, water's coming in, he thinks he's drowning, then he catches his breath. It's a horrible three days and three nights. Jonah didn't have to be in this at all. If he'd have just did what God said to do back in chapter one, he wouldn't be in this whale's belly. But this whale's still not judgment, it is mercy. When we do not obey God and do what God says do, and we observe lying vanities and think we know more than God, all we're doing is forsaking our own mercy. We're making it hard on ourselves. You may run as fast and as far as you can, but when you arrive exhausted and your feet are blistered and your muscles are aching, you're gonna find God waiting for you. All you have done is hurt yourself. You haven't escaped God. If you try to hide in the most remote area and you expend all your time and energy, when you're done, you're gonna find out God's still right there. If you try to fight against God's will for your life, you're only hurting yourself. People that forsake their own mercy, they hold back the good God has for their lives. To run from God is to run from your own good. because God loves you and only has what's best for you, do you believe that? By the way, the minute Jonah prays and gets right with God, look at verse number 10 of chapter two, look at the first word, what's the word? That's a conjunction. The minute Jonah, he didn't have to wait three days, three nights, the minute he gets in the whale's belly, if he'd have just prayed this prayer and got right, I believe God would have had the whale spit him out immediately. See, God wants nothing but good. Many times because we run and fight against God, we're fighting against our own good. We're fighting against the good God wants to do for us. You read through the Old Testament time and time again, that's exactly what Israel did. He said that when the problem is when we have lying vanities, we forsake our own mercy. Now notice in verse number nine, Jonah's praise. But he said, I've learned my lesson, no more lying vanities, no more forsaking my own mercy. Look at verse nine, we see his praise. I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that that I have vowed salvations of the Lord. Can you imagine for a moment the conditions Jonah's in? We've already talked about them. When I preach in El Salvador, Brother Rudy likes to take us to the, it's a couple hour drive, but he likes to take us to the ocean there. And El Salvador is really not a tourist country, but they've got a little spot there, but they got a huge fish market. And they got restaurants all around it, just little old seafood places. And it's all I can do, Pastor, to walk through there. The fish have laid out there all day. He takes us out on the pier and it goes way out and local fishermen have caught fish and they're sitting there with the fish that Lord knows how long they've been laying and they're swatting the flies away. It's everything I can do, just not to gag. And I like seafood, but it just stinks. I like seafood that don't smell like seafood and that ain't fishy. Can you imagine being in this whale's belly? Can you imagine being in the condition Jonah's in? The nasty stuff that's coming in from the ocean, the other fish that's there that's dying, and the gastric juices of the whale, and the darkness, and the dampness, and the stickiness, and the gooeyness, and the awfulness. Yet Jonah said, in spite of that, I'm gonna praise God. You know what God's looking for? I'm talking about learning an easy lesson the hard way. Jonah should have been praising God in chapter one, the fact that God would wanna use him, that God wanna help. God had nothing but good for Jonah. It's easy to praise God when things are going good, isn't it? But what about when we're in the whale's belly and we don't understand everything God's doing? Jonah has no assurance at this point he's getting out of the whale's belly. But here's what Jonah said, I'm gonna praise God. He praises him for his salvation. That word salvation means deliverance. Jonah praises God for something that's not even happened yet. Are you praising God in your situation? And then notice, and I'm done, Jonah's promise. Jonah said, I will pay that I have vowed. Now the Bible don't tell us, but apparently somewhere in this prayer, and it's just not recorded for us, Jonah tells God, God, if you get me out of here, I'll do what you told me to do. God honors his part and Jonah honored his part. Jonah performs what God told him to do. So I wanna ask you a question this morning and I'm done. It's an easy lesson. The easy lesson is simply this, no matter what God wants out of us, wherever you're at this morning, There's a couple things we know. Good doctrine will save you. And when I mean save, I'm not talking, it'll save you from hell, but I'm talking about it'll deliver you in bad situations. There's some good doctrine that we need to remember. The Lord is good. Do we believe that? Not only is He good, you know the rest of the statement, He's good all the time. Do we believe that? Will God always do what's best for us? Will He ever ask anything of us that we cannot perform with His help? But you know what we do many times? We ignore that good doctrine, that right doctrine, and we do just like Jonah, and we run. We think we can fight God by lying vanities. When I first went to Michigan, me and my family are Southerners. We've never lived in the North, and I know it's the Midwest, but when you're 60 miles as a cold fries from Canada, you're in the North to a Southerner. You just are. We missed out on some real good things. in our life to begin with because we were hurting so bad. All we was doing was fighting, admitting that we lived in Michigan. Everyone say, you from Michigan? No, we're not from Michigan, we're Southerners. Well, we live there. You know what? We're Michiganders. We may not sound like them, but we're Michiganders. That's where we live. That's where we're from. And when you accept that and you just say, okay, God, this is what you want. This is what you've put us in. It's amazing just the joy that can come. We miss out on so much good by fighting what God wants. I want you to bow your head and close your eyes. I wanna ask you this morning, heads are bowed, eyes are closed. Are you like Jonah this morning? Can I ask a quick question? Would there be anyone here, I don't know the church, I've never been here before, the pastor has told me nothing about nobody. I wonder, would there be someone here this morning that say, preacher, don't embarrass me, don't come to me, but if I died today, I'm not 100% sure that I would go to heaven. Is there anyone like that this morning? Would you just put your hand up? I'm not gonna come to you, I'm not gonna call you out. But would there be anyone say, pastor, if I died today, I'm not 100% sure I'd go to heaven, pray for me. Would you just put your hand up? God bless you. Someone else? Anyone else? Preacher, if I died today, I'm not sure I would go to heaven. Pray for me. I see that hand. Thank you. Now, if you raised your hand, I want to ask you another question. If you're not 100% sure you'd go to heaven, but you would be honest and say, Brother Treadway, I am 100% sure I do not want to go to hell. Would you put your hand back up if that's you? If you say, I don't want to go to hell. And you raised your hand the first time. Thank you. Thank you so much. Can I tell you very quickly that you don't have to go to hell and you can know you're going to heaven today, right now. The Bible said that we have to know a couple things to do that. You got to know you're a sinner. The Bible said, for all have sinned. What makes me a sinner? Well, preacher, I've never murdered no one. I've never robbed anybody. No, no. What makes you a sinner is that you've come short of the glory of God. None of us can match God's holiness because Adam sinned and we're all descendants of Adam. We're all sinners. We're separated from God. And because we're sinners, the Bible said the wages of sin is death. That word wage means what you've worked, what you've earned. It means that if you work 40 hours, you've earned a wage, you get what you deserve. Wage is getting what you deserve. And the Bible said, because we're all sinners, what we all deserve is death and hell. Now, if I stopped there and left the message there, we would be in trouble, would we not? That would be a hopeless message. But I got good news for you. Romans 5, 8 said, but God commendeth his love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Jesus Christ took your payment, your wage, what you deserved, and he hung on the cross so you don't have to. You don't have to go to hell. But because he died for everybody doesn't mean everyone's going to heaven, because there's another step. Romans 10, 13 said, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. You have to believe and receive Jesus Christ as your Savior. What's that mean to believe and receive, preacher? Here's what it means in a nutshell. It means when you come in today, you sat down on that pew. You don't know who engineered that pew. You don't know if that pew was working. You don't know if it would hold you. You don't know the weight limit. You don't know how many people could sit on it. You didn't ask who made it, who constructed it. You didn't inspect it. You seen a pew, you believed a pew was made for sitting, and you come in, and if you did like me, you plop down in it, believing it would hold you. And when you sat down in it and you put all your weight in it, you were receiving, it was receiving you. That's salvation. It's not just believing that Jesus died on the cross and believing you're a sinner, it's putting all your faith and confidence that you can go to heaven and that you can be a child of God by what Jesus did by resting in what he did on the cross, setting in Calvary, putting all your faith and trust in what he did. Now, if you've never done that, and you would like to do that today. No one's looking, heads are bowed. Would there be anyone say, pastor, that's me. I would love to get that settled today. Would you just put your hand up? I'm not gonna come to you. Would you say, I would love to know Jesus Christ today. I see that hand. Anyone else? If you would pray a simple prayer, it's not in the words, it's in the heart. The Bible says, man believeth. or if you wanna come and have someone talk to you privately, but you could pray a simple prayer, something like this, dear Lord, I believe everything that preacher said, I believe I'm a sinner. I believe if I died today, I would go to hell, but Lord, I don't wanna go to hell and I believe Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sin. And you could pray the simple prayer, Lord, right now, as best I know how, I am trusting Jesus Christ as my Savior. Forgive me of my sin. I repent. I ask you to come into my heart and save me. As best I know how, I'm trusting you as my Savior to get me to heaven. If you'd pray that simple prayer, God would save you today. Now, if you did that, I'm gonna ask you in a moment, or if you do that, to let me or Brother Bartlett, let someone, let one of these staff members, let someone know that you trust in Christ and let them talk to you about the next step. But how many here are saved and love the Lord, but would say, preacher, I'm saved, but I'm right where you preach this morning. I'm like Jonah, I feel like I'm in the whale's belly, and I just want you to pray for me. Any hands like that today? Maybe you've been forsaking your own mercy. Maybe you've been looking at what God's got in your life as judgment and punishment and bad, and when all along, God just wants to do you good. Would there be anyone like that today to say, preacher, pray for me? I see that hand. Anyone else? I see that one, that one. We're gonna pray. If you need to come to the altar, I believe in an altar, I believe our song leader's gonna, I'm gonna pray and I'm gonna turn it over to him. And if you need to mind the Lord, would you do that today? Father, right now, I wanna thank you for the liberty to preach. Thank you for this church. God, thank you for your people. And Lord, I do pray right now for the one, at least one that acknowledged, Lord, that they want to be saved today. They don't wanna go to hell and they want to accept Jesus Christ. Lord, if they would just simply pray a simple prayer of asking you to forgive them and repent of their sin And Lord, be willing to, as best they know how, accept you as their Savior, come into their heart. They believe they died for you on the cross, they believe you died for them on the cross, you took their sin, and you're giving them a home. Lord, if they'll pray that simple prayer, you'll save them today. And then God, for these that raised their hand that are saved, I pray right now that you help us. Lord, many times I've been guilty of being right where Jonah's at, lying to myself, though I may not have used those words, running from what you want me to do, when I ought to just submit. I've been persistent and stubborn. I've waited three days and three nights when I should have just give in, knowing you only have what's best for me. I pray for the many hands that went up, God, that you help us to not forsake the goods you want to do in our life by the lying vanities that we allow. I pray you use the message, speak to our hearts now in Jesus' name. you