Jonah 1, verse 14, down through the end of the chapter. The Bible says, Wherefore they cried unto the LORD, and said, We beseech thee, O LORD, we beseech thee, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not upon us innocent blood. For thou, O LORD, hast done as it pleased thee, So they took up Jonah and cast him forth into the sea, and the sea ceased from her raging. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly and offered a sacrifice unto the Lord and made vows. 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. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the Word of God. And now as we come to this portion of Scripture to consider these accounts, this account and these things that have transpired, Lord, I pray that we not just simply look at it from a historical point of view and just see it as it is fact and a part of history, but I pray the Spirit of God would aid us, and Lord, that He would apply the truth that we find in the Word of God to our hearts, that there would be application made tonight. We desire to make application, but Lord, there's only so far our words can go. We need the power. We need the effectual working of the Holy Spirit in our midst. We invite Him to speak through us and speak to us tonight from the Word of God to do what we cannot do, to accomplish what we cannot accomplish. And I pray, Lord, You'd forgive me of every sin, empty me of everything that's unlike Your Son. Fill me afresh with the Holy Spirit. Give us power to preach. that unction that we've received. Lord, I pray that you'd help us, Lord, to be able to share a word in season. And we'll thank you for what you accomplish in our hearts and in our midst this evening. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. You may be seated. Title of my message tonight is Man Overboard and Mercy for All. Man Overboard and Mercy for All. I was thinking about when we come to this portion of scripture, of course, as we just read in verse 17, this is Of course, the first mention of the great fish that God had prepared and sent out to swallow Jonah, and that this is a great miracle that we see takes place in the Word of God. It is not the only great miracle that takes place in the Word of God, though. We have a Bible that is packed full of one instance after another of God's supernatural power and His ability to work miracles. I thought about in the Old Testament we have a man by the name of Enoch. The Bible said he walked with God and he was not because God took him. That's the way I want to go. Looking for the upper taker, not the undertaker. I want to go when the Lord calls. And I hope it's before I go by way of the grave. Either way, I'm ready to go. But Enoch walked with God. One man said that one evening Enoch and the Lord were out for a walk, and the Lord said, Well, it's closer to my house than it is to yours, so just come on to my house. And Enoch went with the Lord. There's, of course, the account of the widow of Zarephath, whose crews of oil and barrel of meal never ran out, so that she could make cakes for herself and her son, because she had given all she had unto the Lord to meet the need of God's prophet. On another occasion, you'll remember there was a man who was fellin' trees and he had borrowed an axe. He didn't have his own, and as he's fellin' the trees, the axe head flew off the handle and it went into the water and sank. And he said, Alas, for it was borrowed. And of course, Elisha causes the axe head to swim and it came to the top of the water and they were able to recover it. So many miracles that we don't have time to remind you of all of them. But when we come to the New Testament, excuse me, it's no different. blind were made to see, lame were made to walk, deaf ears were opened so that they could hear, lepers were cleansed. That had never taken place in such a way as it did in the New Testament, not just by the word of a man. There were at times in the Old Testament where there were some miracles that happened, but not in the same manner. And of course the dead were raised to life by the power of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. But I say all that to simply say there perhaps is no miracle that has been so scorned and so mocked as the miracle that we see here before us in our text tonight. There has been so many who have cast doubt and shade on the Word of God when it comes to this account of Jonah and the whale, as it's called in the New Testament, fish, as it's called here in our text tonight. I thought about, again, the account. of a little boy who had gone to school and always took his Bible with him. And the teacher said, you don't really believe everything that's in that book, do you? And he replied, well, of course I do. It is the Word of God. And the teacher said, well, what about that guy that was swallowed by a whale? And the little boy said, oh, you're talking about Jonah. Well, yes, I believe that that happened. And the teacher said, well, how do you suppose he survived all that time inside of the well? And the little boy said, well, I'm not certain. I guess when I get to heaven, I'll ask him. And the teacher said, well, what if Jonah's not in heaven? When you get there, he said, then you can ask him. And that's about the way it is. You say, preacher, you don't really believe that God prepared a fish to swallow Jonah and three days later, sped him out on dry ground, vomited him up on the dry land alive. Yes, I do. I really do believe that. I believe it so much, not just because I read it in the Bible, but I believe it so much because I know what he's done for me. I know what He did in my life when He saved my soul and He transformed me by His grace and power, and if He can do that for me, there's NOTHING beyond the realm of possibility with our God. See, God not only created nature, but the Bible tells us He CONTROLS nature, doesn't He? and uh... so yes god could do this uh... i heard another story that's actually it's come out of uh... here just in recent years of the iraqi war and the story's been told about more than i think it was somewhere around fifty thousand american troops uh... soldiers that were in the iraqi desert during a three-day sandstorm and uh... the muslim media said it was the worst uh... sandstorm in a hundred years Many Muslims were out proclaiming that the storm had been sent by Allah to bog down the American troops and prevent them from getting to Baghdad. And there were many news experts, if you will, that spoke on this subject and spoke of the troops as being in a quagmire and only saw gloom and doom in the situation that was happening. And yet, however, after all of the weather had subsided and it cleared, the Marine unit that was there in that storm looked out over the plain that they had just been fixing to cross, and they saw their anti-tank mortars and mines that the wind had revealed by blowing the sand away. And so they were able to dismantle and disarm that anti-tank armament or weapons there and get safely across, and not one single soldier was harmed. And had they went on ahead, they no doubt would have suffered major casualties. It's just amazing sometimes how when we see something and we can perceive it as one thing and yet it may be God working to do and to accomplish His purposes. I think about again here we understand that God controls nature, whether it be the weather, He had sent out a great wind, or whether it be His creation, He had sent out a great whale, a fish to swallow Jonah. And I believe that there's so much attack on the book of Jonah and on this particular miracle because it happens to paint for us a picture, a type of the death, the burial, and the resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ. And Satan will go to any length to destroy the person and the work of Christ. And so if he can cause doubt here, cast doubt here, then he can cause us to question ALL that Christ has accomplished. And so, just thought I'd give you some of that by way of introduction. I want to get into some of these verses. And I want you to notice with me tonight as we pick up in verse 14 that there was a cry. We see it twice in the text. It says, Wherefore they cried unto the Lord, and said, We beseech thee, O Lord, we beseech thee, let us not perish for this man's life. Twice they beseech, or they call upon God. That's the idea of the word beseech. It is to beg or it is even to plead one's cause or one's case. And it was that they would not perish. They recognized that their life was in danger and there was nothing that they could do to fix their current situation. These, as we've mentioned before, sailors were very well trained in the area of of being mariners, of being men of the sea. This was not the first storm they had seen. However, it perhaps was the worst storm they had ever seen as God was rocking this boat back and forth, and it was nigh unto being broken. And so they began to cry out, unto the Lord." And I thought about here, we see a picture, don't we, of these sailors and how God saves sinners. There's a picture here of the conversion of sinners whenever they are under conviction and God is bringing them to a place of faith in Jesus Christ. Again, I say there was a cry, and anytime somebody gets under conviction of sin, There is going to be sorrow over that sin. When sinners come to realize their need of Christ, there will be tears of sorrow. There will be a crying and a calling upon the name of the Lord. I find it interesting, in my ministry at least, I've seen this in dealing, whether it be with young people or even older people, whom the Lord is dealing with their heart right then and that moment, and they are under the heavy conviction of Almighty God, there is always a brokenness, and there is a weeping, and there is a crying out unto God, to be merciful unto them. And we see that here. They realize that there's nothing they can do to fix their situation. They're at the end of their rope. They've tried to row it in the land, and it hasn't worked. And all they have left to do is what? Call upon the name of the Lord. And isn't it sad that that's always the last resort of fallen man? He tries to fix his situation on every hand and at every step, only coming up short where he's left with empty hands and having to cry out unto God to be merciful unto Him. But that's the way it is. That's the way God works in the hearts and in the lives of sinners. What's amazing to me is how many times you and I as believers are prone to do the same thing. We'll get out of God's will. We'll get into a mess. Maybe it's of our own making. Maybe it's not. But nevertheless, we're going through a storm and we start trying to fix it ourselves. We start trying to put the pieces back together instead of just throwing our hands up saying, God, I can't do it. I don't know where to turn, but I'm trusting in you because I know you can. And beloved, God has compassion on those who come to Him in a moment of crisis, asking Him to be merciful, asking Him to give grace, asking Him to do for them. And we see that these mariners are going to experience this mercy, mercy that comes from God alone, but there's plenty of it. Now I want to say this, there is a difference in crying that your situation might be fixed and crying because you see the pain and the destruction that your sin has wrought. And if you're lost tonight, you've never been saved, let me just say this, you need to understand that you don't just need your situation fixed, you need your soul saved. You don't just need God to make everything right, and that is a big part of a lot of quote-unquote gospel preaching in this day and age. A lot of people just preach a gospel that come, repent, believe, they get those aspects right, but basically they're saying come to Christ and He'll fix everything for you. Listen, you may come to Christ and it might not all get fixed. Your soul can be saved, you can be destined for heaven, you can have eternal life, you can BE a son of God, and yet still have to endure the pain and the affliction and the persecution and the trials of life. And so we understand we don't just come to God to fix our situation, we come to God because we realize He's holy, He's righteous, He's just, we're sinful, we're wicked, and we deserve judgment, but He's offered His Son on the cross to die for sinners, and He's told us that we can come unto Him and find rest for our soul. And so we come recognizing our need. There's a cry. in our text. But I want you to notice, second of all, there was a consideration in these verses. The Bible says in verse 14, For thou, O LORD, hast done as it pleased thee. Wow! These are mariners that for all intents and purposes, at least from what the context has revealed, they don't know who Jehovah is. They may have heard of the nation of Israel, maybe there's a slight knowledge there, but they don't know who God is, and yet these fellas got a fast-paced course in Theology 101. I mean, they're just... I don't know if Jonah's revealing all of these things. I mean, He's told them who He is and where He's from and who His God is. He's the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land. Man, I'm telling you, they're taking what they're hearing from Jonah and they're looking at everything happening around them and they're like, well, this must be true. Because we're in a pickle here, and if we don't find some kind of help beyond what we can do and what our false idols have not done for us, we're going to perish. And so they cried out unto the Lord and said, We know that you're a God that does whatsoever He pleases. In other words, they were saying, We understand your sovereignty. We know you're the sovereign Creator of all things. That's how the psalmist said it, and that's one of the greatest definitions, I believe, Biblical definitions of sovereignty, where the psalmist said, the Lord is in the heavens, and He hath done whatsoever He hath pleased. He's on the throne and He does what He wants. And that's a good definition of sovereignty. God doesn't have to get permission from anybody to do anything. But let me say, when a sinner becomes guilty before the Lord, he will consider some things about God and himself. And here they were considering who God was and His nature. He was eternal and He was sovereign. They recognized Him as having all power and being worthy of all glory, and He did whatever pleased Him, and so they're crying out for mercy. Would He be pleased to show them mercy? Not only did they consider His sovereignty, but they also considered their exceeding sinfulness. They considered how rotten they were. They considered how low they were. They said, We beseech thee, let us not perish. And then they say, Let us not perish for this man's life. And then they go on to say, Let not upon us innocent blood be laid. Or, Lay not to our account innocent blood, is the idea. For thou, O Lord, hast done whatever thou hast pleased. They recognized that in them, that there was enough that caused them to be worthy of death, even apart from Jonah's rebellion. And they're crying out for mercy. They saw themselves in the lowliest state, their inability, their need of mercy. And again, I say when God deals with a sinner, there is a cry that comes forth that is produced by conviction of the Holy Spirit, but there is also a consideration of God's eternal sovereignty and their own exceeding sinfulness. And they are expressing that. in their cry unto the Lord. Are you lost tonight? Do you know that if you died right now, you'd die and go to hell? Or maybe ask this way, do you know if you died right now, you'd stand before God and He would receive you unto Himself? Can you pill your head with that fact, with that faith, with the hope, a certainty that when you leave, you're ready to meet God? If not, oh, it's my prayer, it's my burden that you would cry unto God through conviction that you would consider the nature of God as holy and just and your own sinful nature as depraved and ungodly. And you would look to Christ who took your place on Calvary's hill and died for sinners and trust in Him and be saved. Well, that's what they're doing here. Maybe not so much a picture of Christ, but they're trusting in Jehovah. You see that not only was there a consideration, there was a casting. So they took up Jonah and they cast him forth. Jonah told them, said, the only way you're going to fix this is get rid of me. And they rode hard against that. They weren't willing to do that at first, but then they finally came to the conclusion, well, we're going to have to do something. So they did it. They took up Jonah, they cast him forth. I thought about how this is such a picture of the casting of sin. One sense there will be the casting of sin away in repentance as one turns to God from sin. Jonah was the problem. Jonah was the one God was putting His hand on. So they had to deal with God where He had been crossed. Jonah was where God was crossed. So they had to get the sin out of the boat for the storm to stop. And I believe it's true in every sinner's life. I believe there'll be a point of rebellion that God'll cross every sinner on. Sin is sin, must be dealt with and must be paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ if anyone's gonna go to heaven. But I believe every person at some point has got some sin in their life that keeps them from coming to Christ in faith and God'll cross you at that point of rebellion. And you will have to deal with that sin, you will have to repent of that sin as you are trusting in Christ alone for salvation. So there was a casting of sin, there was a casting of self. In one sense, there'll be a casting of one's self totally upon the mercies of God. The very act of casting Jonah overboard was an act of casting themselves at the feet of Almighty God saying, be merciful. We're doing what is required, that's all we can do and we're left at your mercy. We're asking you to be merciful. And isn't that true when a sinner comes to faith in Christ? As they're turning from their self-righteousness, they're casting the eternal state of their soul upon the grace and the mercy of Almighty God, saying, You alone are our hope. There's the casting of self. Then there's the casting of the sinner. In one sense, if there's no repentance and faith in Christ, one day there will be a casting of the sinner into the eternal ocean of God's wrath and judgment, the lake of fire. Upon death, hell, but in eternity, the lake of fire. when hell is called up before the white throne judgment and it gives up the dead and they stand there and they're judged according to those things that are written in the books and then they're cast into the lake of fire for all of eternity. Listen, you're better off to cast your sin away and to cast yourself upon the mercy of God and to have eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord than to continue on in rebellion and one day be cast into the lake of fire. I hear it said all the time, old Jesus won't send nobody to hell. Well, they ain't read the Bible. And I get it. We don't serve a tyrannical dictatorial God who is just so transcendent that He doesn't care about His creation and He just beats and whips all of His subjects into complete and total obedience. That's not how our God is. He's so gracious and so kind and so compassionate. His followers serve Him out of love and devotion. The love of Christ constraineth us. We're not beaten into submission. But listen, at the same time, we do serve a holy God. And He will deal with sin. And if you want to know how He thinks about sin and how He deals with sin, look at the cross and see what He did to His own Son to pay for sin's debt. And yeah, every one of us are already going to hell. This idea, well, God votes for you, the devil votes for you, and you cast the deciding vote. There's no Bible for that either. We're all headed to hell. Adam cast the lot and with him we all fell and we're all going headlong into sin and into rebellion away from God and toward eternal judgment because of Adam. And the only hope is Jesus Christ steps in between us and our path to hell and has mercy upon us and saves us by His grace. But those that reject Jesus Christ will be punished. And it will be the very words of Christ and His eternal judgment that is what has those sinners cast into the lake of fire. Let not the words of 2 Thessalonians escape us. Jesus Christ is coming again in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and obey not the gospel. Don't rebel, don't wait, don't come to that date, that time, or really no time, but when we stand before God in eternity and experience the casting that will take place as sinners are cast into judgment, into eternal separation from God, forever suffering. So there was a casting here, as they cast Jonah overboard, it was a picture of their getting rid of the problem, their repentance, their turning to God. and turning to His mercy alone. But there was a conversion. I believe these men got saved. Some may question that. I believe they did. I believe they had enough knowledge of Jehovah. And I believe it's seen here in verse 14 to 16, this latter part, as they plead with God and they confess, hey, we know that you're the true and living God and you do whatever you please. So they took up Jonah and they cast him forth into the sea and the sea ceased from a raging. Now look at verse 16. Then the men feared the Lord. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of what? They feared the Lord exceedingly and offered up a sacrifice. I don't really know how you do that on a boat, but evidently it's possible. Under the Lord and made vows. They made vows here. I believe these mariners were converted. Note the reverence of sinners. Then they feared the Lord. They reverenced the Lord. They respected. It's even a word that's translated as worship. They worshiped Jehovah. They're worshiping God because now the sea is as calm and as still as glass. Those waves that had just been about to overtake that ship, now they're still. There's reverence. And let me say, whenever a sinner is saved, that's the first thing you'll see them do. Bow their knee to the Lordship of Christ and they will worship Him. They will exalt Him. They will bless Him. They were reverencing God. They'd seen His judgment. They'd seen His righteousness. They saw His sovereignty. We see the reverence of sinners. We see the revelation again of the sovereign. They offered a sacrifice unto the Lord. Where did they learn to sacrifice? From Jonah. Jonah's already overboard while they're doing this. They are offering a sacrifice. They know enough from everything they've learned of Jonah that they offered a sacrifice that was pleasing unto the Lord as Abel did out of his flock and so forth. And here they are worshipping God yet further based upon God's holy requirements. God required sacrifice, so they're doing it in obedience. I don't believe because they think it's going to save them, but because they love the Lord now and they want to please Him, and that's how it was in the Old Testament. They were looking ahead to the Messiah, but out of obedience and faith to the One who had come, they obeyed the law, the ceremonial law that required the shedding of blood and the innocent life being taken. And then you have the resolution of service. They made vows. They resolved no longer to linger. They're going on with Jesus. They made vows. They're going on with Jehovah, I should say. There was a conversion. And look, whenever God saves you, there's going to be reverence, there's going to be revelation from the Word of God as you begin to read and study. God's going to open up your understanding to understand more and more as you grow and as you walk with God. And with every bit of knowledge God reveals to you, there's going to be a resolution in your heart to obey. and to follow. And there'll be times when you may plateau out as a Christian. You think, you know what? I've learned more than I ever thought I would. Maybe more than I ever will. I'll never learn more than what I know. And all of a sudden, God will bring somebody along or you'll just be reading and the Holy Spirit of God will begin to open up truth from the Word of God to you. And you'll begin to see new light that you've never seen before as God illuminates your understanding. And then as that truth comes to bear upon your heart and life, in light of where you are with God, You will make vows. You will resolve to follow the Lord even in those areas as He reveals it to you. That's one thing I think it's so great about like youth camps is we get young people away from their everyday activities, right? We get them away from distractions, away from technology, and you get out and you kind of be one with nature, you know, and just your mind gets cleared out, and all of a sudden you're hearing the word of God in the morning, in the evening, you're being challenged, and your heart's being given more and more and more spiritual nutrition, And God begins to speak to hearts about areas maybe where there's been neglect, maybe some areas of disobedience. And then there's commitments made, right? Lord, you've shown me this. I know it's not right. I want to do right. I want to live for you. God, help me to be faithful. And I'd encourage again our young people here tonight to maybe make commitments this week. Don't back up on those commitments. It's better not to vow a vow at all than to vow a vow and not keep it. Follow God. Go on with God. And it's not going to be easy. The enemy's going to fight you. You're going to be discouraged. There's going to be hindrances. But if you'll be faithful, keep walking with God, you'll see God's hand at work in your life. And trust me, you'll get 10 years down the road and look back and say, I never went wrong following Jesus. This is what happens when there's conversion. We believe that's what happened here. Well, let's look at verse 17. There was a cry, there was a consideration, there was a casting, there was a conversion, but then we see there was a consuming fish. Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. As I've already mentioned, there's no miracle in the Bible that's so criticized, mocked, or attacked as this miracle. Skeptics have cleverly tried to disguise their disbelief in the name of scholarship, or intellectualism, or science, and the such. And there's two reasons I believe liberals and skeptics attack this miracle. As I've already said, it's a type of our Lord's death, burial, and resurrection, being in the grave three days and three nights, and then rising forth victorious, but second of all so-called scholarship tries to do away with the miraculous they try to prove that all miracles could have occurred normally uh... apart from divine miracles making every miracle you know humanly possible and if you can make every miracle humanly possible then you no longer need God you take God out of the equation so that's what a lot of again quote-unquote scholars try to do uh... it's amazing to me how they do some real intellectual gymnastics to come up with some of their ideas. One theory that was proposed is that Jonah was floundering in the water, another ship came by and rescued him, and the name of the ship was The Whale. Another explanation is that as Jonah was struggling in the sea, that the carcass of a dead whale just happened to be floating by, and he crawled up inside of it and was found later alive in the whale. I'm not kidding. This is the so-called thinkers of society. Now, I'm just going to tell you, I prefer the miraculous to the ridiculous. That's just, those other things are ridiculous. But what we are seeing in the scripture and what we believe is miraculous. Someone said that it appears the whale swallowed up the commentators as well as the prophet. Others try to help God and the Bible out by giving a natural explanation or maybe even a historic event to show that something could have happened Several commentaries that I read gave documented historical accounts where men were actually swallowed up by a whale, and the whale was later killed, and the men were rescued from that fish, which just gives evidence that this is something very much so possible. But again, I want to rely on the miraculous. We don't have to logically find an answer for everything the Bible teaches us. The Bible doesn't tell us to debate or to apologize. And what I mean by that is taking on the actual act of apologetics and defending the faith in that sense. It just tells us to believe it and declare it. That's our responsibility. When we try to find a natural explanation for such a thing happening, we're leaving God out of the event. There's nothing wrong, again, with enacting nature and logic whenever it's just common. But when it comes to the miraculous, we need to take God at His word and believe it. And really, when you bring God into any picture, when you bring God, listen, into any equation, anything is possible. If God had wanted a tadpole to swallow Jonah, God could have made a tadpole to swallow Jonah. And if God would have wanted Jonah to swallow the fish, Jonah could have swallowed the fish because that's the kind of God we worship. When you bring God into the picture, NOTHING is impossible. Folks say, well, explain it. It's a miracle. You CAN explain a miracle. except from the fact that God intervened in human history and performed the miracle. That's the explanation. And so as we look again here at this verse 17, the emphasis is not on the fish, but it's on the God that CREATED the fish. Did you catch that? It doesn't say now there was a great fish that swallowed Jonah. No, it says now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah. God is at the center. He is the one who is to have our eye gaze. He's the one that we should emphasize in the miracle. Not the fish, the God of the fish. God often uses his creatures to provide for man. Isn't that true with Elijah? Ravens brought him flesh every day. Where'd they get it from? God. He used a fish to bring Peter a coin, didn't he? He used a dumb donkey to speak important truths to Balaam. I believe there are several reasons why God prepared this fish for Jonah, but let me just give you two of them, and I'll give them to you quickly. We'll be done. Number one, God prepared the fish to reach Jonah's heart. That fish became God's classroom to get Jonah to an end of himself, to get him willing to wave the white flag of surrender and say, Lord, I'll do what you want me to do. His classroom was totally dark. burning with digestive acids. It was slimy, it was filthy, and it was filled with decomposing sea life, constantly in motion for three days. I bet Jonah learned a lot. He wanted to reach Jonah's heart. Number two, God's discipline of Jonah inside that fish proved God's love for him. Wait now, wait just a second preacher. If you're saying God loves Jonah, He's got a funny way of showing it. No, God loved Jonah. If He hadn't loved Jonah, you know what God would have done? He would have just let him go down in that ship. And that would have been the end of the book of Jonah. Or maybe there had never even BEEN a book of Jonah. This is a picture of God's faithfulness and patience and love and long-suffering with His disobedient children. He LOVED Jonah. That's why He sent a great wind. He LOVED Jonah. That's why He sent a great fish. And He loved Jonah enough He wasn't going to let Jonah go on and do what Jonah wanted to do. He was going to have Jonah do what the LORD wanted him to do. That's CHASTISEMENT! It's DISCIPLINE! God loves His CHILDREN! And He brings us back into line when we get out of line. What a loving God we have. What a loving Savior we have to deal with our hearts when we get out of line. Picture of salvation here, but there's also a picture of God dealing with His servants to bring them back into fellowship and obedience to His will. Maybe you're here tonight and you're not saved. I'd plead with you. Come to know Christ. Come to Christ now. And as I plead with you, let me again emphasize the gospel is not just to invite sinners, but it is a command of God for you to respond obediently when you hear and receive that command. God commandeth men everywhere to repent. God is not asking you to do it. He is commanding you to do it. And the longer you continue in rebellion, the more and more you disobey the command of God to repent and believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ. I plead with you, don't keep fighting and resisting God's mercy and grace. For those of us that are saved, may God help us to be faithful. and to recognize His hand of chastisement when it comes against us, to examine our lives and see, make sure there's nothing. And I'll say this, there's times when we suffer and it's not because God's chasing us. It's because this world hates God's people and there'll be times of persecution. But when you examine yourself, see where you stand before the Lord. And maybe you're in a storm tonight, just like these mariners were. There's a practical word there. God can help you in whatever storm you're facing. And I know some of you tonight, you've got some major storm. There's some major crises going on in your life. I'm praying for you. I love you. I hate that you're having to go through it. But I want you to know something. God will be with you in the midst of the storm. Don't lose faith. Be faithful. Keep looking unto Him. He'll settle that score. He'll take care of that situation. He'll cause that sea to lie still. One day you'll come through the storm and you'll look back and you'll see God's hand of faithfulness guiding you through it all. Just keep being faithful. I thought about the hymn writer who wrote the words. In the dark of the midnight have I oft hid my face, while the storms howl above me and there's no hiding place. Mid the crash of the thunder, precious Lord, hear my cry. Keep me safe till the storm passes by. Many times Satan whispered, there's no use to try, for there's no end of sorrow, there's no hope, by and by. But I know thou art with me, and tomorrow I'll rise where the storms never darken the sky. That third verse goes, when the long night is ended and the storms come no more, let me stand in thy presence on that bright and peaceful shore, in the land where the tempest never comes. Lord, may I dwell with thee. when the storm passes by, and the chorus says, till the storm passes over, till the thunder sounds no more, till the clouds roll forever from the sky, hold me fast, let me stand in the hollow of thy hand, keep me safe till the storm. passes by. God will keep you safe till the storm passes by, brothers and sisters, no matter what storm you may be going through in life. And I'm thankful you can take God at his word.