Good morning. Just getting resuscitated here. All right. The reason I chose the book of Jonah, when Brother Barker was here, I got some of his books, and one of them was Jonah, and I read his book on Jonah, and then I was going through to choose a curriculum for the class, and I seen this through striving together, and I thought that I would do that, and I have to admit that Through studying Brother Barker's book, through beginning to study in this curriculum, I'm seeing Jonah definitely in a whole new light. And I want to say before we go any further in the study of the book of Jonah, I'm talking to myself as well as to you. If it seems a little hard and you get mad at me, that's okay, because I'm mad at myself. Key verses, we have a sovereign call and a call revealed. Key verses, verses one and two of Jonah. Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness is come up before me." It's not God's fault sinners are on their way to hell. It's not God's fault that revival among God's people seems to be non-existent. God has called enough people to accomplish His work. The problem is not with the harvest. The problem is with the laborers. The problem is not with God's voice, the problem is with our ears. The next time we hear someone say, I don't know why God lets people go to hell, maybe we should say, I'm so sorry, it's not his fault, it's mine. This lesson theme, we have two voices on the street corner of our lives. the voice of the world, and the voice of wisdom. Proverbs says, my son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. Wisdom crieth without, she uttereth her voice in the streets. The end of the chapter, Proverbs. For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely. and shall be quiet from the fear of evil. Our lesson object is to encourage the student to discern the voice of God and obey his voice. And I don't know if it was subconsciously because of this lesson that I chose to teach on obedience in kid sanctuary this morning, But I hope that we can follow the command to obey as well as those children probably will. To help the student understand that as children of God, we do not have an option but rather an obligation to serve the Lord. To create in the student a tenacity and boldness to speak God's message even when it is unpopular and may bring persecution. I have three questions for Saul. Will I do this? Will you do this? Will we do this? A call revealed. In his book, the evangelist Dr. John R. Rice stated, the trouble is not with the harvest but with the reapers. Men are lost, but they can be saved. Hearts are hard, but they can be broken with the gospel. Sinners are blind. Sinners are enslaved by Satan. Sinners are even dead in trespasses and sin. But Christ has opened blinded eyes and released the captives and raised the dead before. Sinners are always lost, always hardened and blinded and enslaved. The basic facts about the power of the gospel have never changed. Around the world, in all ages and all lands, the harvest has been white and the laborers few. The harvest is white today. In any particular community, there may be times of sowing and then times of reaping, an ebb and flow of opportunity. That has been true in all ages and is not different today. But around the world, it is continually the same. Multitudes of people are ripe for the gospel and could be won by the spirit-filled, impassioned, zealous soul winners. The world is white to the harvest. It always has been and always will be as long as human hearts are the way they are and sin is what it is and the gospel is what it is. There's not trouble with the harvest. The trouble is with the reapers. Now we know this. I haven't told anybody anything new so far. We know this. As Christians, we already know this. So why do we treat this knowledge like some eerie TV show from the 60s? There is a fifth dimension beyond which is known to man. It is a dimension vast as space and as timeless as infinity. In the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition. And it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summon of his knowledge. This is the dimension of the imagination. It is the area we call the twilight zone. We know the twilight zone is not real, though we might watch it as a TV show. But if it was real, we would not allow ourselves to go in such a place. Why do we treat visitation, soul winning, and personal evangelism like they are in the twilight zone? Some of you are great in personal evangelism. Some of us are sporadic at best. And let's admit it, efforts in personal evangelism by most are virtually non-existent. Now, I'm not a medical professional, but when someone's heart is not beating, they do something like this. They put their hands together, and they begin compressions on their chest. Now, they're doing this for two things. They're trying to pump, get that heart to pump manually, because they want that blood to go to the brain so oxygen can still get to the brain, because that blood that's in their body still has some oxygen in it. And they're pumping. And then they pump a while, and they'll check for a beat again. And if it's not beating, they'll bring the defibrillator out. Had to learn how to spell that word. But what if there is no defibrillator? And they've been doing chest compressions for a while, and they check for a pulse again, and there is no pulse, they pound on that chest. These lessons in Jonah are not meant to be chest compressions. They are meant to shock us. Shock the heart of personal evangelism. A commission of authority. Much of the problem today is not that we do not allow is that we do not allow God to be God in our lives. This is the problem stated in Romans 121, because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God. We are like the people in 2 Kings 1733, who feared the Lord and served their own gods. Worse yet, we have made ourselves gods, and like the people in the book of Judges, every man does what is right in their own eyes. You might say these verses are talking about people who don't know God. Well, if that's so, why is the church, the called-out assembly of God, the blood-washed saints of God, acting like them? God's voice discerned. Do you recognize God's voice? Can you pick it out in the midst of a world of voices shouting at you? In Acts chapter 9, we find Saul on the road to Damascus to persecute Christians. The Bible says, he came near Damascus, and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven, and he fell to the earth and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul saw, why persecutest thou me? And he said, who art thou, Lord? He answered his own question. He called him Lord. You see, Saul had heard about Jesus. He was there when Stephen was stoned to death for witnessing about Jesus. He held the garments. And ever since at least that time, he was being pricked in the heart So he knew he had heard, and on the road to Damascus he obeyed. A wise man or woman would give an ear that is attentive to God's voice and a heart that is eager to obey that voice. Today if we will hear his voice, harden not your heart, Psalms 95, seven and eight. Be God's vision determined. Have you ever met someone that talks nervously, and it's just like they're just trying to keep something talking. They're really not saying anything, but they just keep talking, and you don't even know what you're talking about. Maybe they don't even know what you're talking about all the time. Just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. Eventually, you quit listening to them. This is never the case with God. When God speaks, He does so with a purpose. He has carefully crafted His message. There is not one word in this book that does not need to be there. If you're a Christian, you pray to God and you're listening to God and God is speaking to you, He will never say one word to you that you do not need to hear. It is a shame when Christians listen and do what E.F. Hutton says more than what God says. Verse 1 of Jonah tells us that the word of the Lord came into Jonah. This was God's message to His child. God's message to us, as children of God, is not to be ignored. You ever act like when someone called you and didn't want to talk to them, that you couldn't hear them? What? I can't. You what? You say, hear what? You're ing up. That's what we do to God. I can't hear you, God. I can't hear you. What? Huh? Did you say something? In Jeremiah, God speaks of a perpetual backsliding. The next verse says, I hearkened and heard, but they spake not aright. No man repented him of his wickedness. God was talking and no one was listening. How much do we actually listen to God? How much, when he's talking to us, giving us something, not telling us how to live, not telling us exactly maybe what's right or wrong, but when He's actually giving us the command to do something. We can hear Him when He says, come to church. We can hear Him when He says, come to Sunday school. We can hear Him when He says we should give. We can hear Him when He says we should pray. We can hear Him when He says so many things. Why can't we hear Him when He says go? A call for action. Three action words are found in verse two. Arise, go, and cry. Theory never gets the job done. This is not three words that I need to look up in a dictionary and write it down and explain to you. Arise, go, and cry. 1 John 3, 18 states, my little children, Let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth. John 3, 17, if we know these things, happy are ye if ye do them. We are so too satisfied with knowing the Word of God. We should know the Word of God, we should read the Word of God, we should study the Word of God, we should learn the Word of God, but knowing is not all there is. If I ask each one of you, are we supposed to tell others about Christ? If you're here today and you're saved, and if you've been saved any length of time at all, if I ask you, are we supposed to tell people about Christ? Everyone would say yes. So I'm not gonna ask you, there's no need. Neither will I embarrass you by asking the question, Do you tell others about Christ? It's time to wake up. Someone has wisely stated, the church is a sleeping giant. We have all the power of the universe on our side, but we have fallen asleep. Isaiah 50, 16, his watchmen are blind, they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark, sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. Paul said in Romans 13, 11, 12, and that knowing the time, that now it is nigh time, high time to awake out of sleep. Paul is sounding an alarm clock. For now is our salvation nearer than when we believe. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light. Proverbs 20 and four, the sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold. 26 and 13, the slothful man sayeth, there is a lion in the way. A lion is in the streets. We used to make excuses for not witnessing. We used to make excuses why we shouldn't talk to this person. We used to make excuses why we don't talk about God. We don't do that anymore. We just don't do it. It's time to walk. Interestingly, in Romans 13, 13, 14, Paul adds this challenge to his wake-up call. Let us walk honestly, as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof. We must awaken to God's message of truth, but we must also practice that truth. No one will listen to us if we do not live what we preach. Ephesians 4, 1, we are told, I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called. We are called to do a job. I can't put it any clearer that this is what we're supposed to do than the Bible has already put it. I can't tell myself, I can't read enough books, I can't study enough, I can't hear enough to know any better than I already know what I'm supposed to do. In New Year's Eve service, I said, telling people about the foundation of your salvation, your personal testimony is very important. But if they can't see anything built on it, they don't want to hear it. That does, again, does not simply include living right, coming to church. It includes that we talk about God, that we tell people about God. When we only say it once, and we're always saying something, it don't mean much. If you talk to somebody every day of your life and once a year you say something about Jesus, it don't mean much. It's time to warn. A doctor who never speaks to his patients about their eating habits or lack of exercise is not concerned about cancer or heart disease. Even so, we must warn others about their sin if we are truly concerned about their souls. Now, we say we are. I say I am. You say you are concerned about people's souls. If you knew you had COVID and somebody wanted to come and sit in your car, you would say no. If it was a stranger you knew nothing about, you would say no. But yet you have eternal life, I have eternal life, and I don't tell it like I should. You don't tell it like I should, or we don't tell it at all. Isaiah 58 and one says, cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet and show my people their transgression and the house of Jacob their sins. It may not be your personality to be negative or to warn people about their sin. It may take you out of your comfort zone. Your motive, however, should be a love for God and people. Remember what Christ said to the church at Laodicea, Revelation 3, 19? As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten, be zealous therefore and repent. Would it have been good if he could have said what he said to Philadelphia? I know thy works, behold, I have set before thee an open door and no man can shut it, for thou hast a little strength and has kept my word and has not denied my name. How many of us will hear what he said to Laodicea and not to what he said to Philadelphia? Someone once said it is better to build a fence at the top of a cliff than to park an ambulance at the bottom. a communication of agony. Verse 2 of Jonah states that the wickedness of Nineveh had come up before the Lord. Their sin affected God and somebody needed to tell them. God's declaration was not a positive message that needed to be delivered. God's message is often spoken through tears of a broken heart. Jeremiah 9.1 O that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people. Matthew 23, 37, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and you would not. People don't want to hear they're going to hell. But we're not supposed to tell them what they want to hear, we're supposed to tell them what they need to hear. An elevated position. The Bible speaks of Nineveh as a great city. This was certainly a reference to her size, but also to her influence. Often God's blessings are taken for granted. When things are going well, we think that we don't need God. No doubt, one of the excuses that Jonah told himself was that these people don't want to hear what I have to say. They think they don't need anything. They're not going to listen to me. But people don't need what we have to say, but they do need what God has to say. The Holy Spirit is knocking on the heart of anyone that God tells you to speak to. What you say can't do anything unless the Holy Spirit works. But if you say something, the Holy Spirit will work. But Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 4, 7, For who maketh thee to differ from another? And what hast thou that thou didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou hast not received it? We want anything before God saved us, and other than the righteousness of Christ, we're still nothing. Everything we possess is a gift from God and not to be taken lightly. Sometimes the more God blesses, the bigger target that Satan puts on our back. We have the example of Job for that. It behooves us to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God." Micah 6a. Sometimes we mistake God's mercy for blessing. I didn't witness that person and God didn't do anything to me. And I ate today. I got paid last week. That's not blessing. If we're not doing what God told us to do, and we're still making it, that's mercy. When your children don't do what you tell them to do, you don't disown them, you don't take them to court and say give them to somebody else, you correct them. And God's correction comes. An extreme pollution. The wickedness of Nineveh had come up to the presence of God. Sin is present in every society, but there are times when the stench of that sin reaches the nostrils of God in an unusually nauseating way. Amos 5, 12, for I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins. Now be careful, it's easy to excuse ourselves here as not being as bad as the people of Nineveh. But keep in mind that a little leaven leaveneth a whole lump. God is absolutely pure, just a little sin in our lives will pollute his presence. We should not have the attitude, well I'm not as bad as that person. That's like the Pharisee when he was praying and the publican was praying, Lord thank you I'm not like him. That's not a Christian's attitude. But let us never listen to the devil when he tells us, oh, that person's probably a Christian already. Just leave them alone. Don't bother them. We shouldn't elevate ourselves above, but we shouldn't lift them up and say, Lord, this person's saved. I don't need to talk to them. And expired patience. God is a patient, merciful, and long-suffering God. Psalm 1038 says, the Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger. Excuse me, I lost my place. Slow to anger and plenteous in mercy. However, the very next verse states, he will not always chide, neither will he keep his anger forever. Is God convicting you to share your personal testimony with someone? Don't try his patience. Proverbs 28 and 13 says, he that covereth his sins shall not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy. Sin has a medium of exchange that trades in sorrow, disillusionment, and death. Christ can forgive any trespass. He can overlook none. Forgiveness is man's deepest need to receive and highest achievement to bestow. Raymond Loomis said, the wages of sin is death. Thank God I quit before payday. The moment we quit sin is the moment we are to start helping someone else quit. Isn't it sad that Alcoholics Anonymous does a better job at this than we do? I'm gonna close with this. Most of y'all were here, or at least knew about when Brother Todd Monaghan was here. He went with us, or he was out there at the same time in Montana when we were out there. And several times, and we began a text with myself, Pastor, Brother Gary Blaylock, Brother Todd, we would text each other and include each other on a text. And I don't know how many times since then, Brother Todd is put on there. Led this person to the Lord today. Led these two to the Lord today. Led these three to the Lord today. Now this is not somebody that just says, hey, you want to be saved, say this prayer, you're saved. I saw him. I saw him go into Burger King. And tell somebody about Jesus. And tell them with compassion in his heart that the man made him wait in the drive-thru so he could hear about Jesus and receive Christ. And he did it again on that trip, and again on that trip, and again on that trip. And he's done it again on text. He's got it on Facebook that's not on our text. And when I see it on our text, It makes me a little sick in my stomach. Because I know, eventually I gotta look in the mirror. Because I can look in the text and say, amen, praise the Lord, brother, that's good, that's great! But I still gotta live with me. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this day that you've given us. Lord, help us all to do a better job, Lord. And Lord, I say a better job. The Lord help us to do the job, period. In Jesus' name we pray.