Jonah and our Attitude

Jonah chapter 1 and verse number 1 Now Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittai saying Arise go to Nineveh that great city and cry against it for their wickedness has come up before me but now but Jonah rose up to flee from Tarshish from the presence of the Lord and went down to Joppa and he found a ship going to Tarshish So he paid the fare thereof and went down into it to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, but The Lord sent out a great wind into the sea and there was a mighty tempest in the sea So the ship was like to be broken When the mariners were afraid and cried every man unto his God and cast forth the wood Wears that were in the ship into the sea to lighten it of them But Jonah was gone down into the sides third time He's gone down into the sides of the ship and he lay and was fast asleep and the shipmaster came to him Said unto him what meanest thou sleeper arise call upon my God If so be that God will think upon us that we perish not and they said Everyone to this fellow come and let us cast lots that we may know for whose this causes Evil is upon us. So they cast lots and a lot fell upon Jonah. You're familiar with the rest of it I'm sure verse number 14 wherefore they cried unto the Lord now notice they cried earlier unto the gods Now they cried unto the Lord and said we beseech thee.

Oh Lord. We beseech thee Let us not perish for this man's life lay not upon us innocent blood for thou Oh Lord has done as it is pleased thee So they took up Jonah cast him forth into the sea and the sea ceased from a raging Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly and offered a sacrifice Unto the Lord and made vows obviously a conversion that take your place chapter 2 and verse 1 finally then Jonah prayed Under the Lord is God out of the fishes belly said I cried by reason of mine affliction under the Lord and he heard me out of the belly of Hell cried I and now here's my voice for thou I thought was the mariners that cast him into the sea but knows what he says He recognizes a greater hand for thou has cast me into the deep of the midst of the seas and the floods compassed me about All I billows and I ways passed over me then I said I am cast out of eyesight Yet, I will look again toward thy holy Temple and verse chapter 3 verse number 1 and the Word of the Lord came unto him a Second time and so on one final reading just over the Matthews gospel to a familiar passage Matthew chapter 12 Matthew chapter 12 and verse 39 Matthew 12 verse number 39 But he answered and said unto them an evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign and there shall no sign be given to it But the sign of the prophet Jonas for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whales belly So shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation I shall condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah and notice these words Behold a greater than Jonah is here now I'm sure that I speak for likely all of her in the audience this afternoon when you're going to a conference Maybe not so much since I've been in the work, but I used to ask ahead of time Who's here? Who's here? And then I would in my mind think okay. Yeah.

All right. Let's go with it. I don't know who's here Oh, let me ask you a honest question.

If you heard that Jonah was going to be at this conference Okay, seriously Work your imagination a bit. You got one You thought Jonah was going to be at this province at this conference. Would you stay home? No, you wouldn't No, you wouldn't.

Nor would I This hall couldn't hold them The place would be packed. Think of it. Would you like to hear from a man with experiences like this? I would What might he speak about? Well, I think he'd likely would speak a bit about prayer So he wouldn't speak at the prayer meeting.

I would hold my seat because I'd want him to speak about prayer He would likely speak in ministry too because he could speak on Things that we need to know as Christians and from his experience. He would speak totally from experience You get a few years on you and I'm not stroking some long beard up here, but I want to say this I Don't have near the answers. I had 40 years ago.

I don't know and I say this before the Lord. Honestly, I do not Know as much as I thought I knew then Experience is a wonderful teacher. Nothing can equal it.

However If you were to write over the experience of Jonah Just just take Jonah if you're to write one word that would define What happens in the book of Jonah? What would that word be just one word? What's his problem I Want one word if you got a better one, you might have a better one than I have Please give it to me after one word. Let's make it quick attitude attitude So if it means a check of our attitudes this afternoon so be it I went to the overseers in your assembly and and there was just to be honest with me I've never done it don't plan to do it and said anybody here That's really in the assembly here that kind of has a bad attitude right away. They say Maybe they would God bless you if it wouldn't But let's ask ourselves this afternoon.

How's the attitude? the earliest teachings of the Lord Jesus was the Beatitudes And what they're dealing with primarily you can read it as much as you like It has to do with attitude Sometimes we get very quickly I can pick it up to a wrong attitude about somebody else some other person some other preacher a Wrong attitude has to be corrected has to be confessed because I had a wrong attitude And sometimes we have to just do that in our own Quiet way and admit to God that I had a wrong attitude However, as we've already been pointed out this conference so much of it is looking inward But when my attitude is wrong is because I'm thinking a lot about Murray Okay, just where does he fit in this and it can produce a bad attitude. However When the attitude is what the Lord taught and I'm thinking about others That makes a big difference. Oh, yes Others what can I do for others? How can I help that sister? How can I help that brother? How can I help in this assembly I Like what Phil Coulson said one time you've likely heard him say it because he's been in these parts When he came in the assembly fellowship just a young Teenager I forget what age he was his late teens the oldest man in the assembly walked up to him and said Welcome to the except assembly Phil I want to tell you something.

You've got the same rights as I have and I've been in this assembly here for 65 years So said was it really? Yeah, he says I don't have any and you don't have any either That was simple math Listen brethren and sisters Let me speak to husbands today. We're on this in our Bible read the week before I was just kind of glad I wasn't around at that time Well one thing that is a good principle learners is this when it comes to a couple When it comes to the responsibility in a marriage go back to Adam I'm responsible. I am responsible for every mistake That happens to within that marriage Privileges, they're hers She comes first in every privilege.

I'll tell you that'll make things go a lot easier, but coming back to this man Attitude if you wanted to write now, I know some of you might come to me and say well the word obedience Yes, that would be all right to the word obedience, but really in the book of Job interesting enough. It's not about Job It's about God You have Job God at the beginning of the book and they have met the end of it a book with 48 verses God is mentioned 43 times. So don't tell me God isn't important in this book So I write over Jonah the word Like I've said attitude I Say it reverently.

What would I write over God in this book? Okay, let's keep it in the top What would you write over God just take it come and tell me after if you got a better way Do you have I I'm not I'm not the illusion of this What would you write over God in his dealings with Joseph Jonah? You know what I'd write patience patience Patience brothers and sisters who is there among us here today young and old that wouldn't have to confess and admit God has been so patient so patient Times when he could have dealt with me accordingly and he didn't but he's been so patient Brethren, we have a loving God. We have a compassionate God We have a caring God and all the descriptions you want to make of God, but he's a patient God. I Stand here today before you and I Don't want to say how many years in the assembly.

I might think I'm an old man. I Remember a brother may as well tell you this just comes to my mind and this brother was complaining a bit He looked at me and said wait till you hit 74. You'll find out what it's like.

So, okay. I said that'll be a while Cuz I passed that six years ago So here we be but God is so patient He's so patient with Jonah, you know there are times when I either if I was managing the situation if I wanted a messenger to go to Nineveh and preach I'd say listen my boy Back home out of it. You're out of it.

You're fired And bring in somebody else that would do it. Oh, oh, he's so patient with him So patient but just point out some of the things here that might help us in this the first word in the book of Jonah Is God and the last word almost in the book of Jonah is God. So the book begins with God and it ends with God and In between we have this man Jonah The word of the Lord comes unto him and Jonah rises up but to flee unto Tarshish it's interesting that the Clerk down there at the boat didn't say are you sure you want to go? What would he would have said? Are you sure? You know, it's interesting.

I just noticed this reading Lately that he speaks of the God of the sea But he doesn't say what the psalmist says and all that is therein because there just happened to be off the coast of Tarshish a Large fish now if I'm gonna call him a whale, pardon me. Okay, I'm just shortening up a large fish If you're gonna tap him on the shoulder said Jonah my boy Listen, here's what's waiting for you Think he changed his mind. I sure would Sure would There are things brethren sisters when we should have I know things in my own experience I should spend a little more time praying about it Because if you don't pray before it you'll pray after it'll be plenty I've usually stepped up to him on that wharf and say Jonah.

I got a song. I thought we could sing I understand you're good singer and Good singing here brother. Tim.

You've done an excellent job starting and the brethren have asked you to start but you fell down on the last one Okay, sorry Want to say you're about a thousand, but we'll give it nine hundred. Okay, how such it is That's by the way, we're still good friends These guys they behave usually around me, but he's independent because he's flying home on the airline Because if they're not good boys They know the bus is a slow trip home However If you said to him, let's sing that song anywhere with Jesus I can safely go He'd say I don't think so. Not today Brethren and sisters be honest You're prepared to be honest There's times when we should have we couldn't sing that either because just where we wanted to go is not where we should have been Just like at a conference What we need to hear is not what we want to hear sometimes and what we want to hear is what but not what we need To hear but it's so come good to come and I just have loved the ministry given by our brethren yesterday Timely ministry, it's very searching and very good.

And I appreciate that. I wrote home and told the folks about it as well However, what am I learning with Joseph with Jonah? Why is God so patient? Why is he so patient with me? Why is he so patient with you for this reason? Who said I speak too fast, let me just slow it up a bit the work that God wants to do Through you is greater than the work that you can do with you one more time The work that God wants to do through you is Greater than the work that he wants to do with you because the truth is he can do the work without you or with or Without you me too. He didn't need me in this work.

He could have raised up. He could have said better man That's a wonderful thing Speaking fast. What are your senators down here? But we had radios more than TVs.

He was listening to himself. I don't speak that fast We call up the radio station said hey, what are you guys doing? He said I've just listened to a message I gave I spoke I don't speak that fast They said well senator pardon us But you know if you're driving 85 mile an hour people are more apt to watch and listen than if you're poking along at 45 So you can set the speed real light, but we'll try and keep it down. So here he is He rose up to flee from Tarshish and he went for the presence of the Lord went down to Joppa My that was a long ways.

It's interesting Abraham went down Jacob went down You know, it says about Joseph. He was brought down Brother such a beautiful character in Joseph, but this man just made a choice We are today. I am today the result of choices I've made in my life and I have not always made the right choices.

I'm sorry. I have not always made the right choices I go from a conference like you do reviewing our own life and Say, you know attitude that would that would be enough. I'm speaking to myself now.

I'm not I know nothing of anybody here today I'm trying to go Shooting at nobody but brother and sisters Who is there here today? It wouldn't like to have to admit. I need a little adjustment in the attitude department This man did This man did no matter what happened And we'll notice that just as you go through as you go through the book of Jonah. Oh what it took to change this man However in these chapters we learn something.

There was a service that he considered He's called to go he rose rises up he must have considered it but more than that there's a ship he caught and there's a storm he caused and And there were sailors that he confounded and There was a solution that he commanded however Even when the man if it can I said is away from God even when he's maybe not at his best point He sees soul saved Maybe the ship master was converted before maybe I'm not sure But in contrast to the other sailors that were not saved at the time he says call upon the name of your God He knew that was the answer to it. Call upon the name of your God It's interesting that Joseph or sorry Jonah Will pray in the ship in the belly of the whale He doesn't pray on the land where it's a lot easier and a lot safer a lot better You know sometimes people say poor Jonah. What about the poor fish? Huh swimming around there With this character in his belly that's running away from God And I don't think Jonah was sitting still because he doesn't know that he's up or down north or south east or west He has no altimeter.

He doesn't know what depth he's at. He says it's like the bars He said the bars will come down this is a terrible place If you don't think that that fish Was happy with his cargo. It doesn't say that he came along to the shore just kind of stepped out What's it say that he vomited him out Vomited him made him sick And if you look up the word vomited which I did earlier this morning I had before it says continually on earth as he was barfing he was Terrible to have this on board Reminds me of that Peter Orszag.

He was so kind to me at times I was preaching with Jack Nesbitt 25 years ago at the Charlottetown Gospel Hall And I thought Jack if you don't get down. I'm not gonna make the washroom I was I don't very often get sick to my stomach. I was down there Your father Doug McLeod Scott's father man.

I have a lot of respect for said Peter He says he's really sick in there. He said don't worry. He says the catalyst will settle.

He's bringing up a piano, but he'll survive And we did okay, but that fish I'll tell you I think that fish watched what he was going wrote background join the other whales Just what he was going to eat to what he was going to devour Because it's hard on the fish So what I'm saying my point is this that whatever Jonah comes in contact away from God He causes trouble He's causing trouble with the sailors with the ship master causing trouble with the fish He's causing trouble with the men of Nineveh He's causing trouble with God our father they say just what I'm on this point If you have a right attitude in the assembly brother or sister You don't have it your brethren won't have any trouble with you No, I Love it when the Apostle writes about feeding. He said our sister we've got them in our assembly back home and Something I've been through a lot and I could say our sister Florence Almost untouchable Coming to the assembly first one there tidy up the head books Has the key the brother give her a key to that comes early always a smile on her face Or lost one daughter to cancer As another daughter with cancer as cancer herself And you'll never see her or have her say a bad word about anybody or anything just down next to my wife and Sure, we have her every day. I've we have tools older sisters Just please don't ask you their age.

But and they come to our place for dinner They have a standing invitation unless you get a better one I say you get a better one you go if you don't you come to our place So they come to our place, but off for dinner joy to have them I can say those sisters our sister our sister Listen, I'm looking at sisters here today Look at older ones I've known for years You've known me for a few years and I know that the brethren here in stout or Heightsville or Hampton or the wrong would say our sister our sister a sweet How about you say our Jonah? I don't know who I'd want to be identified with him I'll sit at the conference and I'll listen to a preach and tell those stories know his experiences but however He went with them, you know, it's a bit like Peter says verse number three that he went with them finally in verse number four But Jonah was gone down into the size of the ship and he lay and he was fast asleep in the ship How much sleeping did he do in the whale? Uh Not very much. Did he? You don't sleep in no whale a lot easier to sleep on this ship I said, you know, you know what it tells me You can be away from god be very comfortable about it I had a brother say to me one time. He says, you know, this thing is worrying you more than it's worrying me.

I said, that's the problem That's the problem He's literally clawing clawing the assembly apart I Told him he should be ashamed of himself Listen, he's a son in the faith. I really believe the man got saved He's cold at heart And his attitude toward the oversight toward the assembly is absolutely wrong Brethren and sisters in god's name Don't get the attitude of a jonah Everything was wrong. None of us wrong Likely thought god was wrong and what he had done here and so on however There's the first of all There's the word the word of the lord comes unto him, you know obedience I do not need guidance Okay When it comes to obedience, isn't not in the assembly fellowship yet You know you should be You don't need guidance for that.

You got the word of god that takes obedience Obedience will take time to learn Okay Okay But I don't wait till I know all there is to be part of the assembly to come into it I just know that that's where the lord would have me to be For obedience, I do not obedient need obedience for guidance, but only in them only then am I guided so Come over to chapter Two if you like we'll just pass over some of these over to chapter two and uh verse number four Then I said i'm cast out of thy sight yet. I will look again toward The holy temple You've been looking in the wrong direction That's what isaiah was doing go to the prophecy of isaiah the king. You're the king.

Uzziah died. I saw the lord Before that he'd been looking at isaiah Or sorry. Uzziah great king though.

He was really modernized the nation And he was looking at the king and the king died And finally he says he looks at the lord john on the isle of pat was being turned So this man was looking in the wrong direction Am I looking at some today? And you're looking in the wrong direction You're looking outside the assembly fellowship You think you'll oh i'll hang on for a while. I'll just see how this goes Can I tell you something from experience there's others here that'll back me up 100 The greatest place of preservation For a child of god is god's assembly No other place are you more secure Are you more safe? That you are in his assembly. Do you know why? I said another subject our breath some of our brethren have touched on that.

I think our brother william skates did the other yesterday God has literally put something there Knowing ahead of time the whole infrastructure if you like if I could use that word the whole infrastructure of the um Of the assembly is intended to preserve me and to preserve you I'm, sorry to say that I got too many of my contemporaries men I grew up with they sat in the same conference as you're sitting in today young man They listened to the same men I listened to They listened to hector elves They listened to lauren mcmaine They listened to william worth norman crawford I thought we all believed the same thing Right to them today. They won't write back to you Met one brother at a funeral and went up to I said listen. I said I sent you an email.

I sent you a text I sent you a letter How come I never heard back? Now this is a man older than I am a man. I looked up to You know what? He said He said listen I am not responsible For all the problems in the assembly assemblies that he gave the given area For once I held my tongue I wanted to say You may not be responsible for but those problems, but you don't need to be part of the problem part of the problem Got problems in the assembly where you are seriously Are you part of that problem You can be The devil has his way. He will be see the chapter here like Jonah thought it was all about him God had purposes.

I mean none of us gonna fall. Okay But there's going to be repentance reminds me of my grandfather Guy kimber, you know a staunch english Nothing against englishmen here. I wouldn't know an englishman And he walked out the door of the gospel meeting and he was mad as could be in the gospel So he said to the preacher he said, uh, he said He said god said he's going to destroy that den of it.

He didn't destroy it. No, he says you're right. Mr Kimber he didn't why didn't he destroy it? Well, he said I suppose they repented and the preacher was wise He says it doesn't look like you have A Whoa, he was mad as a hatter mad Got saved two weeks later It was the beginning of a massive a family of 11 And a family reunion how many years ago? likely 225 and at that time I doubt there would have been Or there would have been at least 200 that were saved at that marvelous started with one man Repentant look what happened here You say well, where did jonah jonah repent? Well, you come to the end of the chapter at the end of the book And uh, I would take from the language that's given there.

There's definitely a change in jonah They never repented brought about a great change now When I come to matthew chapter 12 Of all the people that lord could say he was like unto he picks this man. Jonah Really i'd have too much pride to say well, you know, i'm something like jonah. No, I I'd I'd say I want someone like elijah Elisha some of those big names jonah Oh says the lord.

Jesus gives us all those verses Just as he was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish So also shall the son of man be in the heart of the earth now there's men that we pattern ourselves under I may have told you before the brother wrote me one time He said to me he said, you know mccandless your smell you listen to a message somewhere. I don't know where it was He said you're sounding more like elijah every day I said what a compliment I said i haven't called a lot of things but never called elijah. You ever get called elijah? Come on, you know, well, you did my god called some other names, but not elijah That was a lovely compliment elijah I said I want to tell you something about elijah.

Mr. Man I says he's the only man that wore a leather girdle And you boys are you're wearing bungee cords It's you know, whatever way it goes. That's the way we go Strange i've never heard back from him Anyhow, I think I have said enough All I am saying if I was to sum up just the total of what i've tried to put together for you simply is this Brethren and sisters myself included Let's go from this conference with all we've heard all that we might want to recalculate reconsider Think about our attitude