In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the need for a deep hunger and thirst for God's presence in our lives. He acknowledges the deadness and sameness that can often be found in churches, and urges believers to not just go through the motions, but to truly seek God. The preacher also highlights the danger of hiding from God by joining a church without facing reality. He emphasizes the importance of salvation and the need to believe in it, despite the mockery it may receive. The sermon concludes with a reminder that God is always present and willing to save, and encourages believers to cry out to Him in times of trouble.

This morning is the Book of Jonah. The Book of Jonah, Chapter 2. The Book of Jonah, Chapter 2. And I want to speak on the Bible's doctrines this morning that salvation is of the Lord. Salvation is of the Lord. I want to bring a companion Bible message tonight. I know we'll do that, but we will. On the Bible teaching that it is in the wealth and worth of the Scripture that we're not sow among thorns and we're not to give poor things to dogs nor cats to foals before swine. That message naturally, as a Bible message, would follow the message this morning. And the two together introduce us, most importantly, to the church people we face. Somewhat, I think, is well said, that the best way on earth to hide from God is to join a church and go through the motions and never face reality. The most fertile field for evangelism in the world today is the membership of our churches. I believe this generation of Baptists, you included, want to believe in the Lord. Don't think you do, but I think you do. I think some of you might be titled seekers after the Lord. I hope someday you'll find it. But you see, we've made strong one of the great and distinguishing marks of the fundamentalists for the last thirty years is we've made strong the salvation by grace. And with that, preachers going all over the country and making fun of the truth that after all, the Bible's been true all the time, the preachers and the congregation notwithstanding, salvation is first, last, always, in the beginning, in the middle, in the ending, out in the meager, salvation is utterly, entirety of the Lord. We haven't been willing to believe it. Just damnable stuff is… We sold the country, but honest to God, think they saved themselves. And then to them, they said, God's just been a… He's And tonight, our chickens are coming home to roost. We're going to talk about how we sold God. And now, instead of having churches full of people, we're talking scriptural language. And they say, well, I've said before, but I say, mercy. No, you haven't got to go along that way. It's out of trust of Jesus. And people say, thank the Lord that we've obtained life, precious faith. We've obtained it. We didn't have it. God gave it to us. Thank God we obtained life, precious faith through our Lord Jesus Christ. Instead of having language like that. And we get people now in the testimony stand up and say, I love the Lord's people. I'm not a whole lot of people, so be it. So am I. I, I, I, I. Oh, that just ran far as the corner of my dream. They'd listen to us talk, so on. And our language portrays the condition of our hearts, that after all, our salvation we did instead of receiving it from God. So thank God that I explained it. And I want to give you a Bible message this morning on the truth. Salvation is with the Lord. I ask you, if you're interested, to examine your own heart, see whether you're a product of God's salvation, the way you and God got together, and He did part of you this way. Mix it up and stir it and call it salvation. I believe it on my heart that the only salvation that brings power into an individual life and transforms a person so he is a new person. I believe that the only salvation that accomplishes that is the gift of Him who's sitting now on the throne, and He gives it to whom He wills. Jonah learned that salvation is of the Lord. You know, God came to him, and it's interesting, they built a doctrine of backsliding on the subject of Jonah, but the Scriptures do not call him a prophet to start with. They said he was a man who could call his daddy's name, and God came and told him, go down to Nineveh and prophesy, preach against him. And he did just like every other unregenerated faith member or unregenerated priest, he said, I ain't going to do it. Not going to do it. You see, a child of God just won't rebel against God. Center rail for the Christian woman. Now, a Christian's not perfect, and he doesn't make perfect tripe for the child's food. No, sir, he's learned better than that. He's learned better than that. So this unsaved man by the name of Jonah, he said, I ain't going to do it. And so God turned him over to some people in a storm and to a fish. And he went down and took a ship to go to Tarsus just as far away from God as he could get. And God interfered, thanked the Lord. He ran right in and interfered with me. And God said, God won't invest your world if he don't choose to up the hills I'm preaching to you. And God said, God won't save you against your will. He don't do something about that old gone. God ain't a fool. Old Jonah headed out to Tarsus and wound up in the belly of a fish. And he found out where everybody else finds out, and they don't find out anywhere else. When he got in deep trouble, he found out that salvation is a gift to God. It's all of God. It's not what you and God worked up together, it's God's work. And God's always together. And man is always a receiver. And you can't change that order. Let's listen to the language of this man Jonah, down in the belly of a fish. It's recorded in chapter 2, verse 1. Then Jonah, then Jonah, because he was milked full, but then Jonah came unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly. And here's the kind of thing he did. He said, I cry, and said, I cry as by reason of my affliction unto the Lord. Only reason he cried unto the Lord was because he's in deep trouble. Nobody ever will call on God until he gets in deep trouble. It's not bagging on you, brother, but if you can get out of it, you ain't gonna have nothing to do with God. You trust me, you'll find out I'm not worth trusting, you see. But you won't trust God. We're just men that way, we're just maids that way. We'll try everything else. And if God shows His love on man, He's got to interfere with him and get him in deep trouble. And he and I, who've got no other place to go, could never do that. I yell, cry unto the Lord. Don't tell me that God won't invade you wherever He don't choose on us. Don't tell me that God hung His Son on a cross and put Him in a grave, and God raised Him from the dead, and they're sitting up and hurting Him as innocent mass offenders, wondering what's gonna happen. No, sir. You're gonna get interfered with. And you got in deep trouble. And you cried, and when you cried, God heard him. In that case, remember those streams of water, and you cried, and you cried, and you cried, and you cried, and you cried, and you cried, and you cried, and you brought up my life from corruption. Oh, Lord. My. Let me read that again. I bound to read that wrong, that last phrase. Here's the way it is. Yes, as thou didst three-fourths of it, and I left you with the other fourth, and working together, God has a pit. No, I'm gonna read that way again. Huh? No, sir. He said, I was in this, but thou brought up my life from corruption. Oh, Lord, my God. When my soul fainted within me, then I remembered the Lord. Didn't until then. And my prayer came unto thee, unto thine holy temple, and they that observe thy manifest, forsake thou in mercy, but I will sacrifice unto thee with the loss of thanksgiving. I'll pay that that I have owed. Salvation is of the Lord. And tell old Jonah who saved him, brother. He knew. Huh? Oh, you know what part old Jonah played in it? All part of you are leaving the mess. He did for us. God did for him and he did. You've got to listen to me this morning. This is a hopeful hour. There are more preachers today than ever lived at one time on the face of this earth that have brokenhearted, utterly, utterly thanked God. Oh, crying 24 hours a day in their hearts. Oh, God, come thou for the rescue. We've gone about as far as we can go without God. I don't know any other tricks we can use now, but I've used them all up. And we've got one out of alibi. And the most hopeful thing in this world today, and I think I'm speaking the truth, I would know how to separate it, but I'll just betcha, I'll just betcha there are some people with the names on the roll of this great membership that are thirsty and hungry to see God Almighty work. And you've got one out of what we can do. Brother, I get letters from preachers now that wouldn't let me speak to that face ten years ago. And they say I'm desperate. Come and help me. By which I'm talking about churches everywhere else. But the deadness and the sameness and the going through the motions and the whistling by the graveyard that we need God, that we need God to intervene. We can't go on much longer going through the motions. And I'm there. There's a scripture that says I'll pour out a quarter on first to ninth. And I believe the first thing that takes place before a blessing comes is a deep concern, and a deep thirst, and a deep need. And I thank God, Brother Wilson, I don't know about you, but it's been a good long while now since I met a cocky preacher, Brother. We need the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we are learning the salvation, after all, is our God Almighty. You know, most of the grand truths of God's Word have to be learned in the school of trouble. And here in this story of Jim and I, there's a way of a lot more than just being in the cellar of a room getting out of it. I want to introduce to your thinking, then, what this true salvation of the Lord really is. Oh, Jonah, crying unto the Lord, experiencing the power of God. And I'm greatly concerned. I don't know when did we, when did we switch? It used to be that if a man got saved, that meant he got in by the touch of a supernatural power. He had access to strength that wasn't his own. In the meantime, when a man's saved, does he then change and lead to the source? What does it mean, salvation is in the world, in the beginning, in the middle, and in the end? It simply means that the whole of the work, what I mean to say, from the natural state of sin and ruin, and are translated into the kingdom of God, made ours of eternal happiness, is of God and of God only. Now, what I'm headed for in the next fifteen minutes is this, perfectly quiet, nobody else will leave unless their grandmother dies. The life is a scandal of present days, such life. And deep down in brains in such people today have been listening for the most part to false preaching on the radio and in most places, and we've been getting people saved, and didn't even need God to be around to do it. Therefore we don't need the church. What we call revival campaign, this time around, gets us a little worse in the bits than we were before. And we're hiring somebody to manufacture new church members. And I'm looking in the face and telling you that God Almighty is displeased and Christ isn't interested in our services now, because we do not face the fact that it is impossible for anybody to get saved unless God saves them. And if we believed that, we'd have churches that, you know, that this church in North Carolina that isn't praying, terribly, dangerously praying, making a mockery out of the truth that only the Holy Ghost can open the eyes of sinners. Melt their wicked hearts and change their perverted wills and meet Jesus Christ. My friends, the plan, if that's a good word, is salvation, is entirely of God. No human intellect and no created intelligence assisted God in the planning of salvation. God contrived the name, even as He instead carried it out. The plan of salvation was devised before God created angels. Angels could not have conceived it, because the plan of salvation is older than angels. It was the law, and it was of the Lord in its being conceived. Salvation is of the Lord in its execution. No one helped God provide salvation. God done it all Himself. The banquet of mercy is served up by one host, that's God. The royal banquet of mercy wherein black souls are washed was stilled from the veins of the Lord Jesus Christ. No blood of martyrs mingled from that stream. No blood of noble confessors and heroes of the cross given in the deliverance of the womb. The work of Jesus Christ, the good, blessed person, is entirely of His work. Saving work of God in Christ is absolutely unhated. Jesus did pay it all, all the debt I owe. Sin had left the crimson stain. He washed it by the snow. Salvation is not of the Lord entirely in being conceived by Him. We couldn't have called that. Salvation is entirely of the Lord in the application of it. And God says, and it's of the Lord in so much as He does command all that He can do. Many are sitting there waiting to see what God will do. But if you do unto Him, to contemplate and pray for your salvation, you'll mess it up and go to hell for your trouble. This generation of us, honest to God, they've listened to this damnable stuff called God's wisdom on His part. Now, He's waiting to see what He wills. You were warned from making a contribution in receipt that if God did something and ran off now, He'd watch it. I don't believe in that kind of a God. I don't believe He does the right thing at all. I believe He does the preaching through the voices of men. I believe He still fingers around the hearts and consciences of men. I believe His men hear the word. He does grant them faith for faith cometh. Men don't have it. Faith cometh. God's got to give it. How's He do it? Ladies and gentlemen, if I believe what the call of the gospel to be, I wouldn't worry about it at all. After all, except for the sinner I've been told for thirty years, God bless your heart, I don't need it. I don't need that old grey-haired mother who lets her children out and talks to God about her boy. I've been excited about preaching at this age. Some of the old grey-haired haven't believed it. And I still believe that some of them still know how to pray and say, oh God, my boy's lost, and he's tired, and he's death-accused, and he's this, and he's that, and he's the other. Oh God, You do something. I believe that old grey-headed woman still thinks God's around. And I believe, maybe she doesn't understand the theology of the heart, but she doesn't have to say who God is. And we should have some prayer like that again. If you ever know a family that doesn't follow the faith of their children. Huh? Lord, there's no God. Salvation is in the Lord. I still believe in the God. He's determined not to be conquered. In times of the messenger of the Lord, I guess He got disgusted, and He smote him, and started it. I know one thing, honey, if you have anybody killed over there, you ain't going to be saved if you can help it. I know that God cripples everybody, and wounds them, and heals them up, and interferes with them, just to give them glory. That trouble you take yesterday, they're full of people praising themselves, they give all the glory to God. God forbid that I should do anything except one thing, the cross of Christ. And that angel smote him, and crippled him. And for the first time, old Jacob came to his senses, and he said, you're a blessed man. I still believe in that kind of God. I wish our churches did, oh God. There's a whole community around us. There's wild jackrappers. Well, you can get out your workers, and do personal work, and house-to-house campaign, that's all wonderful, more than we've done. They don't give a hoot. They've got big tribes all in with religion, and there's something very sinister in what's going on. Oh, God. You interfere. You walk the street, walk through us. Well, I'm telling you, it's been 40, 50 years since we've had any of this, just about. The same kind of ill, untransformed life. I believe that we believe that salvation was a work that God Almighty does. Conquering sin, interfering with sin, changing sin, saving sin. I believe we believe God had to do it. We could go past it. I believe, I believe in a God who interfered with a fellow named Saul Parker. He's going down the road one day, just as religious as all get-outs, to kill off some more of those fools going up and down the country, saying that fellow Jesus was the Son of God, and that he'd been raised from the dead. And he says, I'm going to wipe that blasphemy stuff off the face of the earth, so help me God. He ascends to heaven. And he's headed to Damascus to put some hope. But the God, the God who followed the Lord Jesus Christ, the God who says, I'm God, we need to pray, instead of this helpless little, the God of Nazareth. And you heard the noise, and saw a vision, and found who can interfere with your boy. He's wild as a jackrabbit. He's a member of your church, and lives like the devil chances are. But I still believe that if we believe that his only hope was in a God who saved, we could have some more permanence in our church. We could. Salvation is of the Lord, and it's being conceived by him, it's being executed by him, it's being sustained by him. There's no stock of grace given for all of life, but day by day, as life always should, shall life's strength be. As a man does not make himself spiritually alive, so neither can he keep himself so. Watch it. A man can feed on spiritual food, walk in the commandments, but still the inner life is depended on the spirit, as much for after existence as for life. No man of himself, even when he's converted, has any power, except as that power is daily, constantly, and perpetually infused into him by the spirit. And then the ultimate perfection of salvation is of the Lord. He did all this to the praise of the glory of his grace. One day he's going to show off his worth. Many years ago, I was in New York City in a meeting in the past that said, if you've got some time today, I want to show you something, see if you've got sense enough to see what I'm talking about. So he said, he took me to the site where the first world fair in New York, and he says, this all was built on the dump, the city dump. Fifty years that's been the city dump. It isn't it beautiful? Beautiful, beautiful lawn, beautiful landscaping, beautiful building. Then some other senior, he said, that is built. He said, you see anything? I said, I see a bee, and two, and seven. But God who's rich in mercy, for his great love, ever yet loved us, putting us together in heavenly company. So by grace he is saved, and he shall have his blessings and love upon us, but in the ages to come. He might show the worthiness of the greatest power in his kindness toward us by Christ Jesus Christ. He's going to be showing the riches of his greatest power by displaying the products of his kindness, taking people into his love. Making you creatures. Some day your souls will know the joys of heaven will be ours, but it still must be of love. It must be by no means. Some say, well, I don't know about that, but I'd rather have nobody know, you see. I got there because of God. There are people who ascribe some little to their own actions, but there they'll cast their crowns of redeeming esteem, and acknowledge that he did it all. In the Lord's wonderful heaven, when grace shall have done its work, this truth shall stand out among those who know his rule. Salvation is of the Lord. I won't take about three minutes now to say this otherwise. How has God hid this wonderful truth about? This is important. Salvation is of the Lord. Some say salvation is the result of one's natural temperament. But strangely enough, the most unlikely are saved and the most likely are lost. The old bootlegger down there, he'd rather get saved. That nice moral man's a deacon in the church, pretty sure to go to hell. Isn't it strange that not many, no. Some, but not many. Not many, why? That old devil down there that everybody's getting up on, thanks to all the Lord who saved him. He passed by that nice fellow. No, he didn't. One fellow's nice, another he isn't. One fellow's got sense, another fellow doesn't. It's the goodness of God. They tell the story of the attempt to rescue King Charles when Carmel had him in jail, finally to cut his head off, you know. They organized a party to rescue him, and he was being held in a castle called Crispbrook Castle. He was surrounded by water. And they got everything ready for escape. They got the boats all ready, lined up on the coast, everything. But he had to do the rest. He had to get out of jail. Left him pretty bad shape, and fed away with a sentence. If God had provided every means of escape, and only required the sinner to do one more thing, just get out of jail. He would have remained there in the cell all eternity. You better listen to them, digging against this stuff they've called auspicion, that's damning this country and fixed our churches so we've got no power with God or influence with Him. Listen to them. If God requires the sinner to make himself alive and then go and do the rest, the old sinner's in a bad shape. If there's one thing a fellow can't do, he can't give himself life. But for God's sake, if you don't do this, if you don't do that, if you don't do that, God's hands are tied to you. I'll get you in a little time. But you know, they tell a story of a Romanist priest, St. Dennis, that cut his head off. And after they cut his head clean off his head at the bottom, the story says he carried his head 2,000 miles. That'd be quite a job, wouldn't it? But the root said, so far as the 2,000 miles that he carried his head, separate from his body, said that's nothing at all. So the same guy knew how to take the first step. Do you get it? If you cut off your head, I'm pretty sure if you carried 2,000 miles, brother, you could take the first step. God said this, read my glory and salvation to the Lord. Read my stand before you in faith unto death. On Christ, the solid rock I stand. All that abounds is sinking sand. Brother, God said, he don't come halfway and say, you'll meet me halfway and we'll work this thing out. Just let your heart, he said. He don't say, sonny, you take the first step now and we'll kill you. That's terrible, sonny, you can't take that step. He said, there's a toenail in your spine, look at that. You know what that sinner needs? He needs power. He needs somebody to give him life so he can take a step. We don't believe that, do we? That's why we have Revival Campaign. The poor old pastor says, I want you to meet me. And we set a time, we're going to end soon. We'll have cottage paramedics. We'll do everything but pray. God, help us. We've been getting on without God a long time. How much longer do you think we'll make it? Make it till your boy finally winds up in hell? I hope not. I tell you what, friend, we need to sew this country down with this curse. And churches will begin to bombard the throne of God. And talk of the only one who can change a sinner's will and who can take the seals off his eyes and who can melt his whole heart hard and who can set him to seek the Lord until he finds him. And we'll start preaching to shut sinners up. Because nothing on God's earth a sinner can do except to run from God if thou wilt. And thou can't. You can't bother him. You can't bother him. You know, it's a blessed paradox, and I must pose it. Salvation was with God. You can receive it. You can't help it. You can't contribute to it. You see what I'm saying? I would be surprised if we wouldn't have revival all over America if we'd go back to praising the Lord. All the testimonies I hear praising our Savior. And who saves sinners? God saves sinners. Oh, a person can stand up for the truth. Not bragging on himself. Let's not be bragging on the Lord. I'm a father of the saving grace of Almighty God. Just look what grace can do. Paul said, I was a blasphemer, I was a persecutor, I was injurious, but I obtained mercy. He said, I obtained mercy. I obtained mercy. Salvation's in the Lord. And then the paradox is that damnation is with man. You have no one to blame but yourself. You die and go to hell. You lie forever in perdition and reflect upon the fact I destroyed myself. I've made a suicide of my soul. I've done my worst for you. I can never return to God. Remember, if you're ever saved, you must be saved by Almighty God. But if you die and go to hell, it'll be your fault. If your ears refuse the language of God's grace, your hearts grow hard, the Lord, with vengeance dressed, shall lift his hand and swear, you that despise my promise will have no portion there. Faithful. In John Bunyan's pilgrim proverbs, he tells of how he finally reached the pearly gates, and they let him in. And he said, as soon as he got inside, he did hear such singing as his little ears had never heard. And he said he did look in the distance, and he did aspire to heaven, the choir. And he did start walking toward it. As it came nearer and nearer, he could hear them singing. And the singing was more beautiful the nearer he got toward it. He kept walking. Finally he saw there was a vacant seat in the choir, and he wondered, but he kept walking. Finally he saw there was some letter in all that vacant seat. He wondered, but he kept walking. Ah, he said the music got sweeter and sweeter. Then he said, I did see that there was somebody's name written on that seat, and I kept walking. Then I did see it was my name. And he said, I did sit me down in the seat with my name on it. They'd been reserving for me. I did sit me down, and I did pick up the music. And he said, I did not miss a note. He said, thank God I knew the tune. I'd been singing it on my pilgrim way. It was the song of Moses, slain by God's holy law, and of the Lamb healed by Christ. And I did hear the tune. God grant for our churches to learn the tune again. God is the God who kills this private off of a man, brings us to the point of despair. Then they cried unto the Lord in their distress, and he delivered them out of their trouble. They started on their journey, praising him.