Let's go to Jonah this morning. There's a message over there that I've been wanting to preach now for a number of years, and I just never have, and I probably should have preached it when we were in Jonah. It's been a couple months back. We was preaching on Threw Jonah from the boat. We preached on Jonah. I've preached out of Jonah chapter 1 a number of times. Then we got into chapter 2 on God preparing that well and preached on what Jonah learned in the belly of the well. Then we got into chapter 3. I didn't preach out of chapter 3 this time, but I have before on the phrase out of verse 9 in chapter 3, who can tell what God will do, is what I had preached on. There was about three people groups there on who can tell what God will do with a back-slid preacher, who can tell what God would do with an old repentant sinner, and we kind of preached on that. And the Lord, remember now that God's a loving God, and His motive and His intent is that all men repent. and come to Him. That's God's will. God is not willing that any should perish. And so man does not go to hell because of the will of God. Now hear me now, hear me, because you walk out thinking that, you know, what about the Calvinists? Well, they just got them, they're messed up in scriptures because God's clear on this, that God's will's not any man perish. And so you say, well then, so it's not God's will that any man goes to hell. He's not putting man in hell because of His will, meaning there's not been some predestined to hell and some predestined to heaven. You either have it or you never don't. Do you ever run into one of them kind of people? Just ask them, well, how did you know you were part of the elect? How come it's always somebody that's the elect thinking that they're part of the elect and everybody else is destined to the devil's hell? I mean, they can't answer that one. They've not put a whole lot of thought in that. But it's the will of man. When man rejects a just and a righteous God and a gracious God, man puts himself in a devil's hell. And yes, man will be an intruder in hell throughout all eternity. Christ was clear that hell was prepared for the devil And His angels, man, will be an intruder there throughout all eternity. Now have you found your place? Chapter 4. Let's get into chapter 4. There's just about 11 verses. But I'd like to start reading from verse 10 in chapter 3. And he says, And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way. And God repented of the evil that he said that he would do unto them, and he did it not. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. And he prayed unto the Lord and said, Now listen to what he prays. I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying? when I was yet in my country." He's getting ready to tell God, here's why I didn't want to go to Nineveh to preach to those heathen down there. He says, therefore I fled unto Tarshish. He says here, for I knew. He said, this is what I know about you, God. Thou art a gracious God. and a merciful God, you're slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. He says, you said you was going to destroy me. He said, I knew you'd change your mind on that because you're a gracious God, a loving God, a merciful God, and he's mad at God for being kind and merciful. Verse 3, Therefore now, O Lord, take I beseech thee my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live. He's so mad he wants to die. Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry? So Jonah went out of the city, sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city. The Lord God prepared a gourd and made it to come up over Jonah that it might be a shadow over his head to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd. But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smoked the gourd that it withered. And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind, and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live. The Lord said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death. Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the witch thou hast not labored, neither madest it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night. And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also much cattle, let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we come, we thank you now for today. Lord, be with us and meet with us this morning for a few moments. Lord, we know you have something for us here in this passage, if for no other reason than that we never become this way about the work of God. And Lord, we know that you're a gracious God and a merciful God. And Lord, we love it. but we also need to love it when you're merciful and loving with our enemies and the lost also. Now, if there be any in here wayward, away from you, help them to understand that it's the goodness of God that leadeth thee to repentance. In Jesus Christ's name, amen. I'd like to spend a few moments of our time this morning on the dangers of living in a backslid condition. The dangers of living in a backslid condition. And it's a lesson that we can learn here because Jonah is definitely a backslid preacher. And one of the worst things that you could ever be around or get involved in is a backslid preacher. They'll be one of the meanest. cold-hearted, roughest characters that you've ever been around if you ever got around an old backslid preacher. But worse than that, and I think every one of us can testify to the fact that they've been around in their Christian life, some old Christian that was just a sourpuss would sit there and soak in sour, and they just hated everything, hated everybody, and so on and so forth. And I'm going to tell you there's a danger to living in that type of a situation. The dangers of living in a back-slid condition. We preached last week, and I think that's what got me rolling on this, on the dangers of living to please the flesh. Some of God's children, they do that. They live. They're saved, but they live to please their flesh just like Isaac. And they say, Lord, I want to serve you, but pass the venison first. Let's eat first. And of course, your preacher, the other night at the cottage prayer meeting, what did your preacher do? He walked right in there. He was getting ready to go for praying. Everybody's thinking we're going to pray first, and the preacher, he's eating first. Jenny had cooked strombolis, and boy, they were good when she does those things. And I was out there, and everybody's like, well, preacher, we pray first, and then we have our fellowship. And I'm like, I don't know, but I'm gonna eat first. And then I heard somebody say, well, didn't you just preach on that? Yeah, I'm guilty. I'm like, Isaac, I wanna please my flesh, and then we'll serve God, we'll bless it. And so you gotta watch out for that. And a lot of times I think God has me preach this stuff because it's for me and he gets me to testify with my mouth so you can hear it so that you can preach it back to me at some point. And the Lord says, there, that's who that message was for. I'm all the time like, well, maybe who's that message for? And the Lord says, it's for you. It's for you. It's for you, boy. I'm the one that would preach on faith and I'll be the first one to say, I don't know about that. I don't know if God's going to do that or not. You're like, what is that? That's the flesh. Oh, that's just the flesh. And like I've said a few weeks back, I didn't originate it, but I do like it. We need to stop telling God how big our problems are and start telling our problems how big our God is, is our mindset and how we need to be. Old Jonah, who had seen the power of God and the work of God, he's mad because God had given him a successful ministry. This whole city repented. They got right with God. And he's mad about it. Have you ever seen those kind of Christians? They get mad when people start getting saved. I remember years ago, We was up in Ohio. My father was pastoring a church called High Point Baptist Church. It's not there no more. It was a troubled church. And I remember when he got in there and we got to working, I was still living at home. I was 16, 15, 16, just got my driver's license, had my hot rod. I think some of you knew that was my first car, a 73 Gremlin with a six cylinder at three speed on the floor. Like I told somebody, that jacket you see me in, that was given to me. Those pants it was in, that was a missionary bag. The shirt, everything I had had been given to me. I just thought I was cool. But anyway, we got in that church and that church run about 200 folks and it had done split before he got there over the doctrine of the Baptist bride. And so there was trouble. Beautiful facility. It was all done up in red just like this. Beautiful church you get inside of there. And people started getting saved. We had a revival roll through there. We had no less than 60, 65 people saved that year through visitation. And I'm not talking about here today, baptized and gone tomorrow. They were sitting in the church. and being discipled and growing and loving their pastor and they were getting baptized, discipled, and then wanted to join the church. And that's when the trouble started. The people that had been there, I remember one Sunday morning, Dad, did he did it? You know, Purple wanted to come and join the church. They had been saved. They got baptized, been discipled. And they said, now, you know how you preachers do. We say, well, all in favor. Say, aye. Anybody opposed? Have you ever heard somebody oppose somebody wanting to join the church? I have. And that morning they started sounding it off. Now, I'd love to be able to tell you it was the men. But it wasn't, it was some ladies that was in. And I said, one lady raised her hand and said, I'm opposed to it, preacher. And another lady says, I'm opposed to it. And then there was about six people and about 200 people and they were leaders in the church said, we're opposed to that. And man, it just gets quiet in there. And that's, well, why are you opposed? You know what they said? I remember it's like it was yesterday. We don't want people getting saved, baptized and joining this church. That's what they said. You know why? Because they're afraid there's going to be more of them than them old fuddy-duddies that were sitting there in a back-slid condition and they didn't want the church to roll on. I'd never seen anything like it, never have again. But it was it. We thought there was a fight going. Now, the majority ruled on the thing, but it started from there. And I got news for you. The devil moved up in there and less than two years. We were gone. We were out of there. They did their lying. They did their running. And then 10 years later, that church was shut down. All because you had a group of people in there that were living in a backslid condition and they were mad because people were trying to repent, get saved, and to get rights. Oh boy, oh boy. And Jonah is one such person here. The Bible's so very clear that God wants sinners to repent. And when people start feeling bad about trying to come to the house of God to get a little help because they're afraid of what someone might say to them or judge them, we got some problems. It ain't right. It ain't right. And it goes on. And I'm not saying it's going on here. It's not. But we're not going to let it go on here because people need the Lord. The Lord wants them to get saved. The Lord wants them to get right. And He wants them to grow. And just like a baby when they first start trying to walk, newborn Christians don't do everything right. You're going to have to have some love and some grace and some acceptance with them as they learn how to walk and how to conduct themselves in the house of God. And right here we see that Jonah says, Lord, I'm mad because I knew you were gracious. I'm mad because I knew you're merciful. I'm mad because I knew I'd go up here and preach because you sent me up there and those folks would get saved. they'd get right. And he says, I don't like that because I didn't want you to save them. I wanted them to be destroyed. Boy, that's a bad state to be in. And that's why Jonah run from the Lord. And that's why the Lord had to give him a lesson there in the belly of that whale. But there's three points I'd like to get into this morning if I can get this thing to work here there's three things we can learn from this three dangers that you want to look out for if you're in a backslid condition verse 5 let's get into this for a few moments says so Jonah went out of the city and he sat on the east side of the city. Now watch what he does. And there made him a booth and sat under it in the shadow till he might see what would become of the city. Now you've seen it. I've seen it. People get a little mad at what God's getting ready to do. Getting mad at the work of God because you can't control it. People are control freaks and if they think they can't control a situation, the Holy Spirit takes over, starts working in people's lives. They get mad at that and what they do is they find them a shady spot somewhere in the church and they'll sit up. And they'll start sitting. And they'll sit to see what God's going to do to this city. And people will sit and they'll begin to sit with their arms folded in the service like that. They got that scowl on their face. And they're back over there in the shade part. over there. And they're just watching. They're just going to see. Well, let's see what God's going to do. They're at animosity. They're at enmity because they're mad at God because God might do a great work. And Jonah is one such preacher like that. Jonah should have been discipling new converts. That's what he should have been doing there in that city. The whole city repented. I don't know of any preachers today that would get mad if a whole city repented and wanted to be pastored. I don't know of any, but Jonah was one such preacher. But I have met so-called Christians, and I've met some deacons that were just like this. And I'm going to tell you, they're dangerous. And it's a dangerous thing to be living in a backslid condition, because one of their marks is all of a sudden they start sitting. They're not going to get involved. They're going to sit on a sideline. And look what he did. He made for himself a booth. He's going to make himself comfortable. He's going to make a booth. So as long as everything's going to to make him cozy, he's going to sit there to watch. He's not watching to be a help. He's watching, hoping that the whole thing's going to come down around you. Boy, that's a bad, bad type of person to be around. His motive for hanging around was one of destruction. He was purposely not going to help. Because he thought it should have been destroyed. Sure enough, I believe personally now that there's people in this town like that. And they purposely want to see works be destroyed. They purposely want to see things fail because they couldn't get their way. Boy, that's dangerous. That's wicked. And I know your pastor, I'm the first to say, well, they're just full of the devil and they're of the devil, but they could just be a backslid Christian. It can happen, but they're going to sit there. They're going to just get uninvolved from everything, but they're going to show up. Now, one of the lessons I learned is not everybody shows up three times a week and pays tithes is a good Christian. Yeah, I had to learn that lesson. God had to teach me that lesson. Some of your nastiest, meanest Christians are ones that show up three times a week and put all kinds of money in the plate. I'm telling you, I had to learn that lesson. And the Lord had to teach that lesson. Not everything that says it's right is right. They can be just as backslid on God. And I'm going to tell you this morning, in our churches, probably some of the most backslid people are wearing three-piece suits today and sitting in churches. And they're just full of the devil. And they're sitting on their bums, watching, hoping that God will allow destruction to happen to the work they're just kind of watching. And then the rest of us is trying to get some help. Some of us, if you're like me, you're like, Lord, I know I ain't worthy. You know, you're just not, you know, you're trying your best and you're like, you just don't feel worthy in their presence. Yeah. They're backslid on God. I see Jonah, one of the marks of this backslid Christian, he was a sitting Christian. He was gonna sit and watch because he wanted God to destroy it. So he's gonna do whatever he could to see that that happened. But not only was he a sitting Christian, he was a soaking Christian. He begins to soak. He begins to sulk. That's what he was doing there in verse two. He is just sulking because he was upset that God would forgive this wicked city. He was so upset that God would be kind and merciful to other people beside himself. Boy, what a wicked, wicked person. He doesn't mind soaking up God's blessings. Did you note that? He made that little booth. Oh, he had his own little thing going on there. But it was only for himself to bring himself comfort. Then God, being the gracious God that he is, he let a gourd grow up over that to shade him. And he sat right there soaking all that blessing up thinking it was all okay. as he's soaked and then God kills that thing and he gets faint. And what happens is God gets on him. He says, now look, you didn't plant that gourd, but yet you had pity on the gourd. You're mad because that worm eat it up. You'll find that these soaking Christians, they'll care more for nature than they do humans. You ever seen that kind? They'll sit there. You see them. Well, preacher, you got people dying, going to hell. You got sick people in your church. You got people that need help. And they say to them, will you pray for my little dog? Really? Seriously? I remember when we used to preach against that stuff. Really? Yeah, he's my little dog and he's just been so sick. You pray for him. He's my baby. Really? Really? You know what you're saying? Say that again. Will you pray for my dog? I didn't quite hear you. You pray for my dog that worships me, that does what I say, that eats when I say to eat, that comes when I say come. You know what they're saying? They're saying pray for me. Pray for me, preacher, and what affects me, because I really don't care about anybody else. because they've been sitting. And they're more concerned about nature and programs than they are souls. Now I got something to, I love dogs. And I love cats. Well, I love dogs. Let me correct that. I like cats, they're okay. Okay, I don't love them. I had to correct that. I like dogs. I've been around dogs my whole life, but I always knew if I couldn't afford to take my kids to the doctor, I sure wasn't dragging some dog to a vet. If I couldn't feed my kids good food, I wasn't feeding that dog good food. Uh-uh. Because I know that a human is more important than an animal. But we're living in an age where people are more concerned about nature. He's upset about this gourd, green gourd. You know, go green. He's tree hugger. He's more upset about somebody cutting 25% of the Amazon rainforest in the last 500 years than he was about souls. People get all upset about that. 500 years of full-time logging, we've cut 25% of the rainforest. Really? There's parts of the rainforest we ain't got into yet. And in 500 years, do you know how long it takes for a tree to mature? 80 to 100 years, depending on the species, maybe a little more. If you're cutting the redwoods out in California, 250 years or a thousand years. But we're not talking about that kind. What I'm saying is they got to go back to where they started from and cut it all again. But they'll be more up in arms about something like that than they will souls. You say, why? They're soaking. They're soaking. They're back slid. I don't know why I got on that. It was in my notes. I put it in there. Soaking Christian. You know, they're in the shade soaking. My shade that I created. My ball game. My job. My life. My person. I feel. Me, me, me. I, I, I. That's a soaking Christian. He's consumed with himself. Can't see anybody else. Now, let's get down to this souring. We've all been around that. Ain't like soured milk. Man, it's not fit for anything. Verse 8, he says, Here it is. He wants the work to fail so much that he's willing to kill himself. That's a dangerous person. This guy's saved. This is a preacher. He's wanting the work to fail. He doesn't want souls to get saved He doesn't want the work to grow and he's willing to kill himself Lord. Just kill me. I don't want to see that That's pretty bad condition folks. He's sour in here and The Lord asked him for the second time this chapter doest thou well to be angry Lord says Jonah, do you think you got a right to be angry? And Jonah says, I do well. He's mad at God. Soured Christian. Christians, let me illustrate this. Christians are like sponges. I think all of us ladies, we know what sponges are. Maybe some of us men. Sponges, we use them to clean and use them to wash the vehicles. They're great. But the bad part about a sponge is a sponge soaks, soaks up. You know, if you got a spill, you'll use it to soak up that spill. But a sponge is made to be wrung out. And when you won't wring that sponge out, it does something that we call sour. You ever smelled a sour sponge? A lot of Christians like that. They sour and they hate anything. They hate the sound of kids. They hate the looks of new Christians. They just hate everything. They're sour about it. Like, I don't like that. That's a souring Christian. You know what's wrong? He won't wring himself out. See, you can't sit and take in and take in and take in and never be wrung out for God and start giving out to others because you'll sour. God gives you the food and God gives you the milk not to hoard it all up for yourself, but to give to other people to try to minister, to be kind to. We need to be wrung out for God. If we don't, we're gonna get sour. Jonah sat, he soaked, all while waiting for it to be destroyed, until he soured to the point of death. Those kind of people are dangerous because they kill whatever they touch or whatever they're around. They're so sour, the Bible calls it like a leaven, and it'll leaven the whole lump. That's the dangers of living in a back slid condition. You don't wanna do that. You don't wanna be like Jonah, mad at God for being kind and gracious and for blessing. He would rather die than to see souls saved. Boy, I tell you what, that's terrible. He'd rather die than see God be good to other people. That's a sad, sad state. I was up at the Preacher's Fellowship this year there at Brother Bruce's. I was talking with a pastor who's been pastoring close to 40 years now. We were kind of talking and he told me, he says, I know him, Vic Wilson. He's known me since I was a kid. I helped my father cement, stucco that church on the inside, do the plaster patching. He bought an old school from the city. He said, I've learned in 40 years of pastoring that Christians can be some of the meanest, cruelest, most destructive people that you'll ever meet. And I'm thinking, man, I just figured that would be the devil. or the devil's crew. And he said, no, it's Christians. And he says, they can be mean, cold hearted and cruel. And the Bible is warning us here, the dangers of living in a backslid condition. We don't wanna do that. We don't wanna be a people that sit and we soak and then we sour. We need to be a people that wanna move forward for Christ. And that's why our theme this year I believe, unless the Lord changes my mind, it's gonna be over there in Mark, it's in Luke and it's in Matthew, where the Lord tells Peter, launch out into the deep. And we're gonna launch out this year. I've already shared with some of you my burden that I want us as people groups to find at least one person that's not saved, a family member or associated with this church that we can try to meet with once a week, begin to get to know them for the purpose of leading them to Christ and then discipling them. Not to try to promote our church, but to lift up Christ. Now that's going to take us not sitting, not soaking. We definitely can't be soured. And it's going to get us out of our comfort zone. If you're like me, a little older now, I don't like my little schedule to get interrupted. And when it does, it messes my whole little world up. But we're going to have to do that just a little bit this year to launch out. And I'll begin to preach on that phrase. I'm working on a message on it now. But we don't want to be like Jonah because it's a dangerous position to be in. God's trying to do a work and be gracious and loving. And a backslid Christian can be very destructive because they just want to sit, soak, and sour. That's not good.