<TITLE>10. Par 80-88</TITLE>L-80 And when he got out there in that ocean and in that deep sea, and--and the ship got stalled in the storm, and they had hoist up the sail and then turn around and around, they wonder what the world was the matter out there. But they couldn't make out, looked like the thing getting waterlogged. And--and every man calling on his god, and first thing you know... Jonah was on his vacation, so he thought he might as well sleep, and he must have went down in the bulkhead of the ship, and laying up there with his feet propped up, asleep. And he said, "Awake, O sluggard, and call upon your God!" And Jonah knew what was wrong.
So does every man know what's wrong today! See?

L-81   And he said, "It's all my fault. Take me and bind my hands, and throw me out in the sea, and then this trouble will let up." And they were kind of a gentlemen like bunch of fellows and they didn't want to do that, but they found out he was a prophet and knowed what he was talking about. He said, "I--I thought I'd take my vacation first, but--but the Lord don't want me take this vacation. I got to get down there, I got a job to do. I thought I'd rest up a little bit before I went, but I got to go. The--the message is urgent, I got to get there."

L-82 I'd imagine, when that certain prepared fish got Jonah down in his stomach, he done about-face and throwed water all over the country, and took out for Nineveh as hard as he could go. God was taking that message over there in that certain prepared fish. And he took out for Nineveh just as hard as he could go, because he--he had the messenger aboard and he had to get him over there. He took the wrong ship, but God had provided a ship for him.

L-83 So, you know, God's able to do great things if we'll just listen at Him. See? He--He'll make He'll make ways where there is no way. He is the Way. See? And when the Message is absolutely urgent, as It is today, God provides a way.

L-84   We notice again when Amos... I preached on this fellow, Amos. If you'd like to read the story sometime, it's great, read the story of Amos, first chapter of Amos. He's another type of the--the warnings before judgment strikes sin. Now, the city that he was going to warn against, over there, was a bunch of Jews that--that they all got kind of off of the beaten line and had become a great tourist center. And--and I imagine, as I give the illustration that morning, speaking on him, that, when his bald head come up over the top of the hill and his little of eyes narrowed as he looked down and seen the sin of that great nation and people, his white beard as he fingered it like that. My, what a thing! But nobody knows where he come from.

L-85 Nobody knows those prophets, they just rise up from somewhere and go the same way.

L-86   But he went into the city with "THUS SAITH THE LORD! Repent, or perish! For God will destroy this nation. He'll--He'll wipe this place off of the earth. You've made an agreement with your enemy. And you're--you're at peace, you think, with your enemy, but all the time the Assyrians are--are building up out there. You can't walk two together unless you be agreed. That's all." So he said...

L-87 And God wants us to separate ourselves. He wants us "come out from the world," not try to live with the world and God too, not try to fashion after the world and after God. You have to live for One or the other, you have to believe One or the other.

L-88   And now we find out that, this Amos, he certainly predicted a judgment upon this people except they repented. (And--and, my, so--so well does it fit our day.) I think this great city, as looking back through this again, the great city down there, how that it was all give over, and--and a great economy they had of everything, prosperous. And they thought they were just exactly in the will of the Lord, because they were prospering. But they found out that God is not always the author of prosperity. No, God... Sometimes when prosperity strikes the churches, it gets away from Him.


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