In this sermon, Pastor Chuck Smith discusses the story of Jonah and the important lesson he learned. Jonah initially resisted God's call to go to Nineveh and instead found himself in the belly of a whale for three days and nights. After experiencing misery and desperation, Jonah finally surrendered to God's will and agreed to go to Nineveh. Pastor Chuck emphasizes the importance of trusting in God and not in false idols or vanities. He encourages listeners to commit their lives to God and worship Him in holiness.

Oh, let the Son of God enfold you With His Spirit and His love Let Him fill your heart and satisfy your soul Oh, let Him have the things that mold you And His Spirit like a dove Will descend upon your life and make you whole Welcome to The Word for Today The broadcast ministry of Pastor Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, California Pastor Chuck is currently leading us on a verse-by-verse venture through the entire Bible And on today's edition of The Word for Today We'll be continuing with the blessing of answered prayer As we turn in our Bibles to the 30th Psalm Beginning with verse 1 And now with today's message Here's Pastor Chuck Smith I will extol Thee, O Lord, for You have lifted me up You have not made my foes to rejoice over me There were many who, when David thus sinned against Israel Had the plague not stopped, they would have overthrown David I mean, they were ready to get rid of him David was a popular king, but he also had his share of enemies As well as his share of supporters So, he is rejoicing because the Lord did not allow his foes To rejoice over him I cried unto the Lord, and He has healed me O Lord, You've brought up my soul from the grave You have kept me alive that I should not go down to the pit David's life was threatened, it was in danger And yet the Lord spared him The Lord healed It's always marvelous when we see the hand of God Working to heal Thus, he exhorts, sing unto the Lord O you saints of His, give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness For His anger endures but for a moment David was being judged by God because of his pride In numbering the people of Israel God said, you can have a choice You can be delivered into the hands of your enemy for three months Or into the hands of the Lord for three days David says, I'll take you any day For His anger endures but for a moment But His favor is for life, it's forever God's favor Weeping may endure for the night But joy comes in the morning And in my prosperity, I said, I shall never be moved David was prideful He was proud of the nation Israel, its strength, its power That was the motive behind the numbering Of the men who were capable of fighting My prosperity is said, I will not be moved Lord, by your favor, you have made my mountain to stand strong You did hide your face, and I was troubled When God doesn't seem to answer When God seems to be hiding His face It is a difficult time, it's an extremely difficult time God doesn't seem to be responding to my prayers He doesn't seem to be answering my needs And that's always a difficult time to go through It is usually, however, a time of growing Faith developing When I don't see, but I keep holding on I cried unto Thee, O Lord Unto the Lord I made my supplication What profit is there in my blood when I go down to the pit? You know, if my body, if I die, then My lips will be sealed by death, and they cannot move to praise You Shall the dust praise Thee? Shall it declare Thy truth? As long as I'm alive, I can praise the Lord, I can declare His truth, but My body, when it goes back to dust They really didn't have a clear understanding of the resurrection That was a truth of God that was clarified through Jesus Christ It was a truth that was not really Revealed that much to the Old Testament saints Hear, O Lord Have mercy upon me, Lord Be my helper You have turned for me my mourning into dancing You have put off my sackcloth, which was the Badge of grief, sorrow And you've girded me with gladness Beautiful, picturesque speech I was wearing this old sackcloth Of sadness, I was covered with sadness That misery of sadness, but Lord You've clothed me with gladness Turned my mourning into dancing The beautiful prophecy concerning Jesus That work of Jesus to comfort all that mourn To give them beauty for ashes The oil of joy for mourning And the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness It's sort of a sequel to this particular psalm there As David declares what God has done for him To the end that my glory may sing praise to Thee And not be silent O Lord, my God I will give thanks to Thee Forever 31. In Thee, O Lord, do I put my trust Let me never be ashamed Deliver me in Thy righteousness It is thought that this psalm was written at the time of Absalom's rebellion Let's see if we can find hints of that within the psalm Bow down Thine ear to me Deliver me speedily Be Thou my strong rock For a house of defense to save me For You are my rock My fortress Tesur and the Silah The Tesur was Tyre And the Silah was Petra Fortress, my rock, my fortress Therefore, for Thy namesake Lead me and guide me Thy namesake, again the name of the Lord Yahweh, for Thy namesake Lead me and guide me Pull me out of the net That they have laid privately for me For You are my strength Into Thine hand I commit my spirit That Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth Jesus used this phrase It was the last utterance from the cross Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit And he bowed his head And dismissed his spirit David is probably not talking About death He's talking about life And committing my life to the Lord He's faced with dangers The enemies have risen up against him He's not certain of the outcome He's calling unto God for help But then he is doing one further wise move And that is he's just committing himself to the Lord It is when you get to the place of commitment That you finally come to the place of rest When I take the issues and say Well, Lord, it's in Your hands You take care of it Whatever comes, Lord I'm trusting You That is the place where my soul finally rests When I can commit my issues Fully unto the Lord Commit the issues of my life Into His hands Lord, You take care of it now I'm just placing it in Your hands And I'm willing to accept However the situation turns out As God's plan and God's will So I'm really not worried one way or the other If it goes against my plan That's the way the Lord wants it So Lord, Your will be done If it falls in line according to my desires Praise the Lord That's great That's the way the Lord wants it But I'm willing to take either side And accept it as from the Lord Because Lord, I'm turning it now over to You I'm placing it in Your hands And You work out Your will in this thing And then I can rest Where we often get into conflict Where we often get into striving Is when I'm insisting that God do it my way And maybe God has a better way But I want it my way It's always a dangerous position to be in Because it's a position of strife so often Because we so often times make the mistake of Facing the problem And then working out the solutions in our own mind And then my prayer Is really that God will Follow my directions Here's the way I've got it solved, Lord Here's the way You can work it out And so I'm giving directions to God And my prayers are direction prayers Rather than direct prayers Now God may, and God often, and I'm amazed At how often God has another way of working I thought I had figured all the angles And God has another way of working And when He works it, I'm amazed at how simple it was And how much better than the way even I had it figured out But in the meantime, I went through such a hassle Because I thought, well, God isn't listening to me God isn't answering my prayer I asked God to do it this way, and He's not doing it that way And yet, He's working out a plan that is so much better So much wiser And when it's all over, I said, wow How did you do that? Why didn't I think of that? That was so wise, surely I should have thought of that So, David Commits his ways To the Lord, You have redeemed me, O Lord God of truth And again, that isn't talking about salvation Like we talk about, I've been redeemed, I've been saved He's talking about, saved from a situation You've delivered me out of this situation, redeemed me out of this situation I have hated them that regard lying vanities But I trust in the Lord There are several references in the Bible to lying vanities And it might be an interesting little Bible study For you to get a commentary And look up the different references to lying vanities An interesting subject indeed The prophet Jeremiah Was told by God to go stand at the gate of the temple And cry to the people as they were going into worship Trust not in lying vanities saying The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord Jonah Learned the most important lesson of his life a very hard way Three days and three nights In the misery of the belly of that whale As that thing was sounding, going down into the depths As he was in that hot, humid place And you can be sure the humidity was horrendous And he talked about the waves rolling over my head Seaweed wrapped around my face And then after three days of this misery He finally cried, uncle, I've had it, okay Lord, I'll go For three days he's saying, no way Not gonna go to that place in Nineveh No way But then he said They that observe lying vanities Again that word, lying vanities Forsake their own mercies There are a lot of lying vanities Or empty lies The lying vanities that Jonah was being deceived by Was he thought he could run from the presence of God You can't run from the presence of God The psalmist said, where can I hide from thy presence, oh Lord If I ascend into heaven, you're there If I descend into hell, you are there If I take the wings of the morning and I flee to the uttermost parts of the seas Even there you surround me Twice it says he was trying to hide from the presence of God That's a lying vanity, it's just foolish that you can't do that He thought he could run from the call of God You can't run from the call of God upon your life That was a lying vanity Now in following these lying vanities Trying to hide from the presence of God and run from the call of God He just got into all kinds of misery And that's what he's saying They that observe or follow a lying vanity Forsake their own mercies You make it hard on yourself You make it tough on yourself And so here the psalmist declares His dislike for those who follow lying vanities His trust will not be in a lying vanity But his trust will be in the Lord I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy For you have considered my trouble And you have known my soul in adversities David had adversities aplenty And yet through these things he discovered the mercies of God You have not shut me up into the hand of the enemy But you have set my feet in a large place You've enlarged my borders Have mercy upon me, O Lord For I am in trouble My eye is consumed with grief Yea, my soul, my belly I mean, I'm miserable, Lord, the grief My eyes are sore from crying My soul, my belly just aches From the sorrow that I'm going through For my life is spent in grief It's interesting how that Have you ever noticed that just a week Of having a problem, say You've broken a leg and after the first week You can't even remember ever being able to walk without pain And somehow you think I'll never be able to walk without pain again as long as I live I mean, it seems like forever A week of pain, a week of suffering As a way of just stretching like an eternity And you wonder, I wonder what it was like not to feel pain I wonder if I'll ever be the same again I wonder if I'll ever get over this thing And so here, David says My life is spent in grief You've probably been going through some grief for two or three days But it has a way of just Making you feel forever, you know That's the way it works on you It's like, man, I've never had a good day in my whole life I feel so miserable today My years are spent in Sighing My strength fails because of My iniquity And my bones are consumed Over in this 32nd chapter In verse 3 of chapter 32 Where here again he is talking about his Unconfessed sins And the effect of trying to hide his sin Not confessing it and getting rid of it But trying to hide it When I kept silence That is, I would not confess my guilt I would not confess my sin My bones waxed old Through my roaring all day long So here he speaks about the bones Waxing old Here in the scripture that we're considering My bones are consumed Because of my iniquity And the relating of the Sin, the iniquities to The bones of his body I was a reproach among all of my enemies But especially among my neighbors I mean, they were really getting on David's case And a fear to my acquaintances They that did see me fled from me I mean, man, I was in big trouble No one wanted to have anything to do with me I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind I'm like a broken vessel I mean, of no value You drop one of those old clay pitchers Man, you just kick the thing aside Get rid of it, you can't glue it together I mean, it's gone David is going through the real pity party here Man, you can't get much worse I'm forgotten like a dead man I'm like a broken vessel I'm a reproach To my enemies, but even my neighbors are on my case Everybody's fleeing from me For I have heard the slander of many Fear was on every side while they took counsel together against me And they devised to take away my life They were conspiring to kill me But I trusted in Thee, O Lord I said, You are my God My times are in Your hand Deliver me from the hand of my enemies And from those that persecute me I love that Here he is, faced with all these problems People conspiring against him to kill him They're slandering him But yet, Lord, my times They're conspiring to kill me They're wanting to cut me off But my times are in Your hands I sort of have a feeling That God has a plan for each of our lives And as long as we are fulfilling those purposes that God has for us He's going to sustain us Until we've accomplished that purpose He's going to take care of us We'll return with more of our verse-by-verse venture Through the Bible in our next lesson As we continue to see the Lord as our fortress And we do hope you'll make plans to join us But right now, I'd like to remind you That if you missed any part of today's message Or perhaps you'd like to order a copy For that special friend or loved one You can do so by simply contacting One of our customer service representatives And they'd be more than happy to assist you With the ordering details Simply call 1-800-272-WORD And phone orders can be taken Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific Time Once again, our toll-free number is 1-800-272-9673 And for your added convenience You can order online, anytime When you go to TheWordForToday.org And while you're 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Box 8000 Costa Mesa, California 92628 And be sure to include the call letters Of this station with your correspondence And now, on behalf of The Word for Today We'd like to thank all of you Who share in supporting this ministry With your prayers and financial support And be sure to join us again next time As Pastor Chuck Smith continues His verse-by-verse venture Through the Psalms That's right here On the next edition of The Word for Today And now, once again Here's Pastor Chuck Smith With today's closing comments God bless you Keep your eyes on the Lord Love the Lord, ye His saints Give glory unto God Worship Him in the beauty of holiness Commit your ways in your life unto Him Let God rule and let God reign And may you feel and know His presence His love and power working in your life As He molds and transforms you Into the image of His Son For His glory Amen Or how to nurture and influence The people God has placed around you As Kay teaches God's attributes Women will begin to have the mind of Christ And as this starts to happen within you Outwardly you will become a reflection of God To a world that desperately needs Him For more information on how to order the book Reflecting God by Kay Smith As well as an optional study guide To lead a women's Bible study Visit thewordfortoday.org To see a preview of this book Or call us at 800-272-WORD This program has been sponsored by The Word for Today In Costa Mesa, California