Never Lose Hope | The Faithfulness of God

Greg, Lori, and Harvest Ministries would like to send you the movie Unsung Hero, the back story of the music group for King and Country. It's a story of a mom and a dad and their seven kids putting their faith into action. You're going to be deeply moved by this story of the amazing small-bone family that have gone on to impact so many through their music, and we are offering this film to you for your gift of any size.

Get the DVD and digital download of Unsung Hero at harvest.org. You know, sometimes we're in hard times and we say, I just can't praise God right now. I'm not in the mood. Do you think John was in the mood to give praise to God? Sometimes our circumstances affect our mood, and our mood affects our walk with God. Today, Pastor Greg Lori offers some important perspective. Does the Bible say, give thanks unto the Lord because you feel good?

No. Give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good. Even when things are bad, God is still good. This is the day when the lost are found. This is the day for a new beginning. Amazing grace how sweet the sound. Again you hear when the angels are singing.

This is the day, the day when life begins. When a pilot's in a bad mood, is he allowed to reroute all his Toronto-bound passengers to Hawaii just for kicks? No. If a firefighter is feeling a little down, is he allowed to take his sweet time responding to a fire?

No. We do the right thing no matter how we feel. Today on A New Beginning, from the story of Jonah, Pastor Greg Lori shows us how to look beyond our feelings to the faithfulness of God.

We'll find hope in hopeless situations. Let's talk about Jonah and the whale. There's probably no story in the Bible that's more ridiculed than this story. So we ask the question, well is this sort of a metaphor? Did it really happen?

Did this guy actually get swallowed by a whale or a great fish? Well I believe the answer is yes. And I will tell you two reasons why I believe it is true. Number one because it is in the Bible and I believe it is in the Bible. Ok.

So I will start there. And number two it was validated by Jesus Himself. Because in Matthew 12 40 Jesus said, Now people are going to say now there is no way that a man or a woman for that matter could be swallowed by a whale.

Well that is not really true. There are some very large whales. Take the sperm whale. When they captured sperm whales, not captured but killed them actually, they found very large things in their stomachs. The sperm whales basically swallow things whole. For instance on one occasion they found a great squid weighing 440 pounds inside of the stomach of a sperm whale intact. So swallowing a Hebrew prophet.

No problemo. It was sushi eating in reverse right. But let's make a clarification. The Bible never says a whale. We say a whale. We assume it was a whale. The Bible says he was swallowed by a great fish. And a better translation of that would be a sea monster. Therefore it may have been a whale. Then again it may have been a now extinct marine reptile. Who knows. Or maybe it was custom designed for only Jonah.

All we know is there was one. But did you read or hear on the news very recently about this guy that was almost swallowed by a whale? This actually happened. This is a true story. His name is interestingly enough Rainier Shrimpf. And so I am not making this up.

You can't make this stuff up. So this guy is out photographing sea life and he was actually partially swallowed by a whale. And then his concern was he would be drugged down to the bottom and would die of course. And so the whale spit him out. So I guess the whale didn't like the way Mr. Shrimpf tasted. And ironically in an interview this man Mr. Shrimpf pointed out that his son is named Jonas which is South African version of Jonah.

Interesting. So sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy there. But here is the point. The focus of the story of the book of Jonah is not about a whale. There is three verses about a whale. The focus of the book of Jonah is the greatest revival in the history of Scripture where one million very wicked people put their faith in God and turned from their sin. So we don't want to miss the bigger story.

So let's sort of pick up where we last left off. Now remember I sort of summed up the book of Jonah. And my granddaughter Allie I was with her the other day and she remembered this. She quoted it to me. Do we have a microphone here?

Oh she has one Kathy. So what was the summation of the book of Jonah? Allie. God said go. Jonah said no. God said no. God said no. God said oh. God always has the last word. There.

That's right. God said go. Jonah said. No.

And God said. Oh. Oh. Didn't you just go on a whale watching trip? Yeah. How was it? Good. Did anyone get swallowed by a whale? No.

A little commentary from a kid is always good I think. So Jonah was called to preach to the city of Nineveh and I pointed out a very wicked city. Very wicked people.

Renowned for their horrific atrocities that they committed against people that they conquered. Here was Jonah's concern. He knew the nature of God. He knew how God liked to forgive people who repented. And his fear was if he went and preached to them they would repent and God would forgive them. So he surmised if he didn't go and preach to them they wouldn't repent. And God would judge them.

That would be one less enemy to deal with. When you really get down to it Jonah was a racist. He had a hatred for an entire group of people. I don't want to preach to those people. And God said.

Oh. And as we pointed out God will always have the last word. So Jonah got in a boat going in the opposite direction. The Bible says he paid the fare. Listen to this. If you run away from God you are always going to pay your own fare. I mentioned this before. Sin will take you further than you want to go. It will keep you longer than you want to stay.

And it will cost you more than you want to spend. But he thought no I will just run away from God and I won't have to do this thing He is calling me to do. And of course he got in this boat and a great storm came. And all of these non-believing sailors who spent a lot of time in the open water started to freak out.

They had never seen a storm of this kind before. And they correctly understood this storm was from some god in their mind. They believed in many gods. It was from some god. So in their estimation some god out there was ticked off. And they wanted to know which god it was. So they said everyone call on your god. They called on all these gods. No god was responding.

The storm was getting worse. And they said, what about that stranger below the deck? Oh that some god we don't even know who he is.

Get him up here and tell him to call on his god. Jonah is brought up on deck and he says, yeah I am a Hebrew. I serve the Lord and my god sent this storm. And if you throw me overboard the storm will stop. And we read that they didn't want to do that. So verse 12 it says, the sailors rode even harder to get the ship to the land but the stormy sea was too violent for them and they couldn't make it.

So they ultimately threw him overboard. And this to me is just a classic example of how sometimes in our own strength we try to get ourselves out of our problems. You know a problem comes we say, no problem I will take care of this.

One phone call to a friend or I will have a resolution or I have some shortcut or some hack or some way to resolve this and then your problem gets worse and worse. And you realize this is something you need to cry out to God about. I find it fascinating also that verse 16 of chapter 1 of Jonah says, the sailors were awestruck by the Lord's great power and they offered him a sacrifice and vowed to serve him.

So despite Jonah's lousy witness these men still believed. So God can use us even when we are not exactly where we ought to be. Think how effectively God can use us when we are where we ought to be. And in Jonah's case when he finally got it together a spiritual awakening happened.

So it is incredible. Listen before we can see an awakening on the outside we have to have a personal revival on the inside. And if it happens to us it can impact others.

It cannot happen through us until it first happens to us. Pastor Greg Laurie will have the second half of his message in just a moment. We love to hear stories of how lives have been changed through the teaching of God's word like this one. Pastor Greg you were one of the first pastors I listened to when I gave my life to the Lord. I'll never forget that night at Calvary Chapel when you made the altar call and I accepted the Lord. I continue listening to you and your sermons are always spot on convicting and full of the spirit. God bless you abundantly Pastor Greg. It's a blessing to know that listeners are hearing these messages and God is using his word to touch hearts. How have Pastor Greg's studies impacted your life? Would you let him know?

Send an email to Greg at harvest dot org. Pastor Greg is talking today about revival as we study the life of Jonah and he's pointing out revival has to first happen to us before it can happen through us. So Jonah is thrown over the side and God brings in his super cool custom designed watercraft. Jonah 1.17, the Lord had arranged for a great fish to swallow Jonah and Jonah was inside of the fish for three days and three nights. So let's look now at the prayer of Jonah in the belly of the beast. I am reading from Jonah chapter 2 verse 1.

Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from inside the fish. He said, I cried out to the Lord of my great trouble and He answered me, I called you from the world of the dead and Lord you heard me. You threw me into the ocean depths and I sank down to the heart of the sea. I was buried beneath your wind in the stormy waves. Then I said, oh Lord you have driven me from your presence.

How will I ever again see your holy temple? I sank beneath the waves and death was very near. The waters closed in around me. The seaweed wrapped itself around my head.

I sank down to the very roots of the mountains. I was locked out of life and I was imprisoned in the land of the dead. But you oh Lord my God have snatched me from the yawning jaws of death. When I lost all hope I turned my thoughts once again to the Lord and my earnest prayer went out to you in your holy temple. Those who worship false gods and turn their backs in God's mercies will fail. But I will offer sacrifice to you with songs of praise and I will fulfill all of my vows for my salvation comes from the Lord alone."

Wow. What a beautiful prayer that is. In the belly of the beast. You know Jonah is effectively praying the Word of God. Eight times in these verses he quotes from the book of Psalms. So I think it is a good idea to quote Scripture when you pray. Why? To remind God of what He said.

No. To remind you of what He said. So often when someone asks me to pray I will quote Scripture before I pray.

Let me illustrate. Let's say will you pray for me to be healed. I will say of course I will. And I will pray something along the lines of Father you have told us in your Word. If there is any sick among us let's call for the elders of the church to pray for a personally hands on them, anoint them with oil and the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.

So Lord because You said that we pray for this person now in Jesus' name. And we need wisdom. And so we might pray Lord You promised in Scripture if any man lacks wisdom let him ask of You and You will give it generously. So now Lord we pray for wisdom. Or maybe when we are afraid we will say Lord You promised in Scripture in Philippians that we should not worry about anything but we should pray about everything. And then You promised the peace of God that passes all human understanding will guard our heart and mind in Christ Jesus.

So Lord we lay hold of that promise and pray for that now. That is what Jonah was doing. He is quoting Scripture. And I don't think he had a Bible to read from or a scroll.

It is kind of dark down there. But it was in his heart. That is why you should hide the Word of God in your heart. Here is another interesting thing about Jonah. In Jonah 2.9 he did not ask to be delivered. He just started giving praise to God.

He didn't know if he was going to get out of this great sea monster's gut or not. Verse 9 he says, Allah offers sacrifices to you with songs of praise. I will fulfill my vows for salvation comes from the Lord. You know sometimes we are in hard times and we say, I just can't praise God right now.

I am not in the mood. Do you think Jonah was in the mood to give praise to God? But he did anyway. That is why the Bible calls it a sacrifice of praise.

It is not always the easiest thing to do. But why should I give praise to God? Because I feel good? Does the Bible say give thanks unto the Lord because you feel good?

No. It says give thanks unto the Lord for He is good. And His mercy endures forever. Even when things are bad God is still good. So you can give praises to Him because of that. That is exactly what Jonah did.

And by the way I think it was here that he was experiencing personal revival. Maybe you feel like you are in a whale's stomach right now. You are just wrapped up with problems. You can't see any way out of your particular situation. And you can't see any good that is coming out of this problem that you are in.

Nothing seems to be making sense but know this. Sometimes we have to hit bottom before we can go back up. Because you look in the Bible at Abraham and Joseph and David and Elijah and Peter all became powerful leaders after they went through a time of suffering.

I can elaborate on each of those characters and illustrate that. But they all went through it. Now we see that God gives second chances. Go to Jonah 2 verse 10. The Lord spoke to the fish and it vomited Jonah on the dry ground and the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time saying, Arise and go to Nineveh that great city and preach to it the message that I gave you. God gave him a second chance. Back to Nineveh.

It was Nineveh or bust. Pastor Greg Laurie with insights today from our study of the life of Jonah. We are seeing that God is the God of second chances and there is more to come in the series called Jonah Go. In fact, Pastor Greg has more in a moment as he's joined by family and friends from his home church. We all need second chances in life. The most important second chance is our opportunity to have our sins forgiven and to come into a personal relationship with Christ. Have you ever taken that step? Pastor Greg, someone can enter into that kind of relationship today, can't they? They can and it's so simple.

And I think because it's so simple, people think, oh, it can't be that easy. Well, look, Jesus did all the heavy lifting. He carried the cross for you. He died on that cross that he carried.

This isn't about what you do, it's about what he's done. But here's what the Bible says, whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. So let's just say that you're caught in a riptide out in the ocean and you need help and there's a lifeguard at the stand and they see you. You've got to call out to them and let them know you need saving. And the same is true when it comes to eternal life. Jesus is ready to save you, will you call out to him?

You say, well, okay, how do I do that? You do it through prayer. And prayer is just talking to God. So listen, I'd like to lead you in a simple prayer. And if you pray this prayer after me, I believe God will hear it and answer it and Christ will come to live inside of you. Thousands of people have prayed a prayer like this over the years that we've been doing this radio broadcast and have seen their life change.

There's no power or magic in a prayer. It's all about your commitment to Christ. But this is a way to call on the name of the Lord in this prayer. So if you want Jesus to come into your life and forgive you of your sin, if you want to know that you'll go to heaven when you die, if you want to fill that big hole in your heart, just pray this prayer after me, you could pray it out loud if you like, pray it in the quietness of your heart, but pray these words if you would. Lord Jesus, I know that I'm a sinner, but I know that you're the Savior who died on the cross for my sin. I am sorry for my sin and I turn from it now.

And I choose to follow you from this moment forward. Be my Savior and my Lord, be my God and my friend. Thanks for hearing this prayer and answering this prayer. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Listen, if you just prayed that prayer, I want you to know that God has heard you and has answered it.

The Bible says these things we write to you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, that you may know. It's yours now. He's given it to you because it's the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Congratulations, and welcome to the family of God. And we want to help you get started in this new relationship with the Lord.

Would you let us send you something? It's free of charge. It's Pastor Greg's New Believers Bible. Scores of people have read this edition of God's Word. New believers love the study helps written just for them, and they appreciate that it's in an easy to understand translation. We'll send it to you today free of any charge. Just ask for the New Believers Bible when you call 1-800-821-3300.

You can call any time 1-800-821-3300. Or write A New Beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, California 92514. Or just go online to harvest.org and click the words Know God. And then let us take a moment to thank you for praying for this ministry and for supporting it through your generous donation.

It's an investment in kingdom business. Isn't that right Pastor Greg? Yeah, it's really true Dave, and I believe it's so important because you know the gospel saves lives. It saves eternal lives because when a person believes in Jesus according to scripture they pass from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to the power of God. And then of course that changes the course of their future.

That impacts their children and their children's children. The gospel changes everything. And thousands and thousands of people respond every single year. Thanks to the Lord. Also thanks to you for your investment in this ministry enabling us to reach people wherever they are. So if this is something you care about I encourage you to make a financial investment in A New Beginning and Harvest Ministries.

Yeah, that's right. And we really do appreciate your support. Thanks for partnering with us today.

It can make a real difference not just for today or this week but for eternity. So get in touch with your support today by calling 1-800-821-3300. That's a 24-7 phone number 1-800-821-3300. Or write A New Beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, CA 92514.

Or go online to harvest.org. Well next time we'll catch up with Jonah in the belly of the great fish and learn to find hope from the source where Jonah found it. And then before we go Pastor Greg closes as he's joined by some friends and family from his home church. Just we're going to take a few moments and kind of talk about what we looked at this evening and the story of Jonah.

Anything pop out to you that Stephanie? Well I was thinking when you said like even when we're going through something bad like we don't want to serve God. We just want to like not worship Him and we just want to kind of do it on our own. When things are going good it's like oh Lord thank you you know this is great but when things aren't going good you know we come to this place. But I was just thinking of some of the things Tim and I have gone through in our family and it's like during those times we needed to serve God because that's when we saw like how weak we were and how much we needed God's strength. How much we needed to rely on Him you know.

Yeah that's right. On the subject of worship I think that if you were to look at the hymn book of the Bible which is the book of Psalms you would see that there are different types of Psalms for different types of situations. I mean there's entire classification of Psalms that are called Psalms of lament and God is not in in the business of asking us to deny what we feel. He doesn't want us to stuff those feelings and deny them. He doesn't want us to vent those feelings and you know get all angry about them. He wants us to process those emotions in the light of who He is and He gives us those. I mean Jonah used the Psalms to express himself to God and God has given us the most beautiful means to do that if we look at the songs that God Himself approves of. So if you can't figure out what to say to God find it somewhere in the Psalms and understand that God's okay when we go through time so we don't feel good.

We don't always have to feel happy. You know there's seasons of mourning you know to everything there's a season and a time for every purpose under heaven you know a time time to rejoice and a time to mourn. So that's right and don't you think Tim like that you know Jonah knew scripture and boy did that come in handy because you know memorizing scripture isn't always the most exciting thing to do but we do it because I need to do this. I mean like if you're going to take a test you cram for an exam you get that information in your head but it's different when you're memorizing scripture because this can be life altering when you are facing a crisis and you just start quoting scripture. I can't tell you how many times man I've heard something like oh my goodness you know and it knocks me over and I literally start quoting scripture and it will like literally correct me.

It just kind of corrected because I get that defined perspective and you know have you found any ways that maybe helped to memorize scripture or have you ever memorized scripture? Yeah I'm not I'm honestly I'm not the best at memorizing scripture but I mean I've done you know flashcards help and those kinds of things and I mean just to kind of add to the point of that you talked a lot tonight about second chances and you know there's an enemy out there that wants you guys to believe that you're not good enough. He wants to feed you lies. He wants to destroy your peace. He wants to steal your joy and you know when you're feeling your heart and your mind with scripture you know and you have those things on the tip of your tongue you know that God's mercies are new every day and so when you mess up and the enemy tries to bring you back into that place of stealing your joy and you go you know what God's mercies are new every day and I can start over tomorrow and it's a new day today and you know you remember things like in John 15 where Jesus said remain in my love you know and you just you quote those things to yourself and you know it's those times when the enemy tries to knock you down and keep you down. It's so important to have it right there you know and the Holy Spirit will bring it to mind if you're if you're diligent in making an effort you know I found that in my life I'm not great at memorizing it but those times where you know I'm just I need it God brings it to me and the Holy Spirit just brings it to me and it's like oh yeah you know and so you know yeah it's super important. This is the day, the day when life begins.