Sunday Morning - Bill Parks

Good morning, everyone. Y'all are a fine-looking crowd of people. I'm flattering you because I want some amens this morning. It is really good to be back here to be with y'all again. It's been a lot of water under the bridge for all of us since I was here last. My parents, both of them are going through some very major health crisis. My wife's father is a very sick man. My wife, again, this year wasn't able to ... We planned all year for her to be here with me, and she's running back and forth to West Plains, Missouri, and she's helping my father. My parents also, and then on top of that, we had a funeral this week. I have been at the church that I pastor for 30-some years, 34, 35, something like that. I pastor a lot of people that don't show up until they pass on, so I had someone that showed up this week who had passed, and so my wife stayed there to help with that, make sure that funeral goes okay. She's more important to that church anyway. I'm just the preacher. She's the ... Man, she has so many titles there. She's got a lot more titles than I do, but I miss her, and I'd like for you to meet her. She's a sweetheart, and you would like her, but she just unfortunately wasn't able to come. So good to be here with y'all. I've enjoyed the services this far, and singing to them kids was great, that song, and Sister just sang. I'm telling you, that got way down deep to me. It's good to be here with Brother Randy, always enjoy him conducting this service, doing commercials in between, and all that. I come up here and store up laughs, and take them back home with me, and sometimes I just laugh at Brother Randy when I think about things he says. We love him, don't we? We love him. We love him. So good to have the ministry here this morning. Good to see you, Brother Brown. Good to have you with us. All the rest of you brothers, with Coral, everybody, we're good to see you. Good to see you. Praise the Lord. All right. I don't generally have a lot of fluff before I preach, so I need to get in here and preach to you this morning. I will say, let's just pray that God would move for us, and help us, and work for us. Thank you for your accommodations. God bless you. Praise the Lord. I'll tell you, when we drove away from that airport, I had a long day yesterday. I didn't know that any time you're in a hail storm, that a plane has to be entirely inspected. So I sat four hours at the airport yesterday morning, through the storm, waiting for all that stuff to happen, so I could get up here, had to get another flight, catch another connecting flight. We got in here. But man, when we left that airport, and started winding through them mountains, wow, I felt them mountains massaging my soul. Praise God. That's what mountains do to me. I go see them two, three, four times a year. I got to have that mountain fix. Praise God. It's good to look out across the road there, look at that thing. I've talked to that thing a few times. I've told that mountain, I can get up there. I don't know how many times I've stopped, but I can get there. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. 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I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I need to preach. I feel like preaching to you. Stars leave their course at His command. Death itself unquestioningly obeys. Yet Jonah insults God by the disobedience of His Word. Amen. In disobedience, Jonah shows disdain to the omniscience and the wisdom of God. He questioned the reasoning as to why God would show mercy. He pits his own mind and his reason against the mind of God. That mind knows the end of things from the beginning. He knows the heart. Amen. The secret of every heart. He knows the future in every minute detail. And Jonah is insulting God by saying, I have a better plan with my own life than what God could have for me. He pits his human thinking against the wisdom of God. Amen. I'm just trying to show us the heinousness of our disobedience. In disobedience, Jonah shows disdain to the personality of God. The Bible said, Now the Word of the Lord came. Amen. Now the Word of the Lord came. This is more than just an audible voice. This was actually a manifestation of the Spirit of God. God has a way of stepping into the physical world and becoming visible to God in some form or manifestation, such as a cloud or a voice or a fire or a human figure. Hallelujah. Amen. The upper room was filled with cloven tongues. Amen. Of fire. And that's a manifestation of God. But Jonah walks away from the very presence and from a very manifestation of God. Amen. Can you imagine that when the Holy Ghost is working in this place and it's so thick and the power of God is moving in such a great way here. Amen. That we stand in awe. Can you imagine turning your back on that, putting your hand out, shoving all that away and say, I've got something better to do right now. I've got a place that I want to go that's better than this. Hallelujah. In reality, that's what Jonah was saying. He went away from the presence of God. In disobedience, Jonah shows disdain for the sovereignty of God. He was pitting his will against the will of God. Amen. I want to tell us that the will of God is not just a mere purpose of God that is subject to human scrutiny and then changed according to the will of man. We don't get God to go against God's will. We don't change His will because we disagree with it. Hallelujah. So Jonah, in his own self-will and his self-government, he writes his own story. He went out from the presence of the Lord. He pays a fare toward Tarshish. Amen. The Bible says that he went down into the sides of a ship. Jonah is doing what Jonah wills to do. He thinks his next chapter is going to be better than it would be if he would have went to Nineveh. He thinks Tarshish will be his next chapter. He thought he could control what happened on his course of disobedience. Amen. But he finds to his dismay. Amen. That just turns out to be a very unwanted chapter in his life. Hallelujah. I want to tell us that the holiness of God always requires that He responds to our disobedience. Amen. If there is no acknowledgment of our sin, if there is no hesitation on our journey toward Tarshish, Amen. If there is no prayer of repentance, God's holiness requires that He responds to Jonah's disobedience. Amen. Jonah fled the manifestation of God in a voice. Amen. But God isn't just limited to talk to Himself through a voice. He can manifest Himself in a storm. Are you all with me out there this morning? Hallelujah. And if we won't listen to the voice, God can talk through storms. God can talk through tragedies. Amen. I want us to know that when you walk away on a rebellious path, God still owns the dirt under your feet wherever you go, whatever you do. Amen. Hallelujah. I want you to look at the helplessness of Jonah in this unwanted chapter. Hallelujah. Amen. He admits to this shitty shipment that He is the cause of the storm. He goes down into the ship. They sail away. And there is a great storm. Amen. They try to lighten up the ship. Amen. But Jonah begins to express that he is the cause of the ship. They cast lights and the lights fall upon Jonah. Amen. He said, tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us. What is that occupation? Where did you come from? Whose people are you? He said, I'm a Hebrew. I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, which made the sea and the dry land. And he said unto them, take me up and cast me forth into the sea. Hallelujah. Now Jonah don't have any control over what's happening in his life. Amen. It was his steps that took him away from the presence of the Lord. Hallelujah. And for a while you can do what you will to do. But there comes a time in your progression toward Cassius that you lose control of what's happening. You lose control of destiny. Hallelujah. And that is in the hand of others or in the hand of the devil. Hallelujah. He no longer can help himself. He has no control over everything, anything. He's helplessly floundering in the sea. Amen. The whale exercised its will over him and took him wherever it would want to go in the ocean. And it goes down to the bottom of the mountains of the sea. And the only thing left for Jonah to do is cry. Hallelujah. Amen. His rebellion has taken him to unexpected places. He never did think that his decision would put him in the guts of a fish. Just like the prodigal son didn't think that his journey would take him to a pigsty. Or Judas' decision would take him to the place where he hangs from a rope. Amen. Listen to me. Amen. Saul didn't see himself impaled on his own sword. And Samson didn't see himself with his eyes put out grinding in the prison house. Hallelujah. Oh yeah. Amen. Amen. When you take God's pen away and say, I want to do it like I want to do it. Amen. You're writing unwanted chapters into your life. Hallelujah. Amen. I hope you helped me preach here this morning. I've got to preach to you and I'll be brief. And we'll come to an altar here today. Hallelujah. Amen. Listen to me. Praise God. Amen. But God, amen, is still, amen, trying to take Jonah's pen away from him. Hallelujah. And His mercy, amen, God still wants to have a say over his life. Praise the Lord. Because God sent a great wind into the sea, God sent, amen, and prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. Amen. Jonah is in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. The storm, I want you to notice, is God's judgment and His chastisement. The great fish that God had prepared is an instrument of salvation. It's God showing mercy. And it's God that's showing grace. Amen. When He's even at the bottom of the sea, God wants to write mercy and grace back into the life of Jonah. Hallelujah. Amen. The Bible said that God had provided a great fish. Amen. That word, or prepared, it's the same word as provide. That word means provision. Amen. Pro means before. Vision is to see. God saw Jonah before he ever got to where he was going. Did you hear me? I said God saw Jonah in the depths, in the mountains at the bottom of the sea, before Jonah ever got there. Hallelujah. The Bible said God had prepared. That's past tense. Amen. God didn't have to wait until the problem come up and then work out a solution. God had a solution already fixed for the problem. I don't know how many thousand years that that whale had been swimming around in the bottom of the ocean. Amen. But before Jonah ever got there, God had prepared grace. And God had prepared mercy. Hallelujah. Amen. That whale was older than Jonah's disobedience. And all God's solutions are older than all your problems. Because there is a sovereign God who looks down on you. Amen. Even in your waywardness. He sees you in your struggles. He sees you in your war with life. Amen. And He's prepared things. Amen. To get you out of what He knows that you're going to go through. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Amen. In the first chapter, God gave Jonah the power to make a really tough decision. He failed. But in chapter 2, God gives Jonah the power to redeem his bad decision. Hallelujah. And in the redemption of a bad decision, we must recognize the sovereignty of God. Amen. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. God, or Jonah, in his prayer, he recognizes God is in control. He says, Thy floods and Thy billows and Thy waves, amen, have come over me. Praise God. He realizes that God sees him at the bottom of his life. Hallelujah. Amen. If you're going to redeem a bad decision, you've got to recognize God's mercy. Jonah described in chapter 2 and 2 his time in the belly of the whale as being in the belly of hell. Hallelujah. If God had not prepared this fish, Jonah's story ends alongside the boat where they threw him in. Hallelujah. Jonah's story would end alongside the boat where they threw him in. Amen. I want to tell us, amen, when life gets tough and we make bad decisions, praise God, God's caring chastisement is much safer than being outside the whale of his mercy. Hallelujah. It's a terrible place and its consequences. He explains how he, amen, he's sitting there in the vomit of that whale. He's sitting there with those seaweeds wrapped around his head. Hallelujah. That's the worst place he's ever been in his life. But I want to tell you this morning, the worst places in life are the best places to pray. Hallelujah. And he said, I will look again toward the temple. Hallelujah. Amen. Are y'all preaching with me? He said, I will look again toward the temple. Hallelujah. Praise God. Amen. Amen. The redemption of the bad decision is faith in God's character. He is looking again toward the holy temple. And everybody that reads the Bible knows that the temple was a type of Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. The gate, the brazen altar, the laver, the ark of the covenant, all of those pieces of furniture, amen, were symbols of Jesus Christ. Joseph said, or Jonah said, I will look again toward Jesus. I will look at everything that prefigures Him that is to come. Amen. The divine Son of God. The holy God of heaven who would come down and dwell among us. Amen. He looked in faith toward the forgiveness that God could grant a man who had made mistakes. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Listen to me. Amen. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. He said, Thou hast brought up my life from corruption. Oh Lord, my God. Amen. He changes His prayer right there from a prayer of repentance to a praise to God for His salvation. Amen. I always thought that Jonah wrote all this stuff after he got back out of the whale's belly and he got up here on dry land and he's walking around and he's singing praises and thanking God, amen, for what he came through. Amen. In this little short praise of Jonah, there are six different psalms there. Hallelujah. Six different psalms that he quotes from. Praise God. But as I looked at this text, the tenses in this Hebrew text, amen, teach us that Jonah is in the whale while he's praising God. He's not out of it yet, but he's still glorifying God. Hallelujah. That's faith. Amen. He believed, amen, that God was going to deliver him. Amen. If you don't ever believe that He will, amen, amen. Your faithlessness can limit what God can do in your life. Did you hear me? Your faithlessness can limit what God can do in your life. Praise the Lord. Exercise faith in the fact that God is saving me from this corruption, amen, and from this bad place and this bad chapter. Hallelujah. Amen. The sixth chapter of Romans said, Likewise reckon ye yourselves to be dead, indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Hallelujah. In saving faith, amen, when he comes to an altar, he has attached to him all the vices of this world. He has to bow his head, say a prayer of, amen, repentance. Then he has to reckon, amen, himself dead, amen, to this world and alive to Christ. He may still look like the sinner. He may still deal with some of the struggles that he had as a sinner. He still may have some of the vestiges of the whale's belly, amen, wrapped around his life. Hallelujah. But he is standing on the faithfulness of God. Hallelujah. Amen. I want to tell us here today, amen, you don't wait until your circumstances change for you to praise Him. You don't wait until you've got dry ground underneath your feet to give Him honor. Amen. When you're in the middle of it, when you're at those low places in your life, we've got to learn how, amen, to reckon that God is at this moment bringing about deliverance in my life. And that in His sovereign plan, He's got something in mind that's bringing, amen, everything to fruition that God wants to bring to fruition. And we stand and reckon ourselves, amen, on the very nature and the person of God. When God sees that kind of faith, He says, it's time to release that man from the whale's belly. Praise God. I might be the only one getting anything out of this this morning, but I'm telling you, praise God, there's been a lot of times that I've been caught up in a lot of circumstances in life. And I had to just stand and reckon and stand and believe. Amen. My circumstances hadn't changed. My problem hadn't gone away. I still busted, broke, depressed and sick. Hallelujah. But I can lift my hand and say, praise God. Hallelujah. Amen. Listen to Jonah. Amen. Hallelujah. Listen. Listen to Jonah. Amen. I want to read a little bit of his praise right here. Amen. Thank God. Amen. Listen to him. He said, when my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord. My prayer came into Thee. Amen. I will sacrifice unto Thee with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that that I have vowed. Amen. That word right there is tada, which means to lift up your hands in thanksgiving. Praise God. He still, amen. Amen. Can I talk to you just real plain? And this might be a little controversial here this morning. I understand. Amen. When I got saved, and speaking from my own experience, when I got saved, there were some instantaneous deliverances in my life. Praise God. I walked from those things, and I never had a problem with them again. But there were a couple things. There were a couple addictions and some bites that I had that I struggled with. Amen. And because I struggled with them, the devil said, you're not all the way there. You're not saved. Because if you were really saved, you wouldn't be struggling with this while you got delivered from that. Now, I can't answer all of that. But I will say this right here. Amen. Amen. You have to believe that God is doing it and will do it. And if you're still struggling this morning, if you're still down there in the vomit, if you're still in the whale's belly, you still feel some of the vestiges, and you're honest, and you're struggling, and you're trying, you need to thank God that deliverance is on the way. You need to put your hands up and reckon on the Savior. Lord Jesus Christ, you need to stand on that and believe that. Hallelujah. And hold on to that. Amen. This text teaches us we can put our hands up and thank Him even in the midst of real bad places in life. I'm fixing to close right here. Praise the Lord. Listen to me. I'm preaching to you that bad chapters don't have to ruin your story. Praise the Lord. You know why? Because Jesus had something to say about Jonah. Praise the Lord. Jesus wrote some resurrection into Jonah's life. For as Jonah was assigned into the Ninevites, so also shall the Son of Man be to this generation. Jonah's was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. For as Jonah's was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Jesus writes resurrection into Jonah's story while He's down there in the bottom of the sea. Praise God. Hallelujah. Amen. The direction of death is down. The direction of resurrection is up. Praise God. The natural regression of sin is shown in the story of the Good Samaritan. A man goes down to Jericho and falls among thieves. O thou Capernaum which art exalted to heaven, you shall be brought down to hell. Amen. A man takes a son to Jesus. He's full of the devil. And while he's coming, the devil threw him down. Praise God. Hallelujah. Listen to me. Jonah said, I went down to the bottoms of the mountains. He went down to Tarsus. He went down into the ship. He went down into the sea. He went down into the whale's belly. He went down into the bottom of the ship. Praise God. It was down, down, down, down, down, down, down. That's what happens to us. Is there anybody in this house this morning that's feeling down? Has there been anything going on in your life? Amen. That's put you down. And you just feel yourself sinking beneath the waves of despair. Amen. But beneath the crushing burden of your life. Hallelujah. Amen. Praise God. But Jesus had, amen, resurrection power that he wrote into his story. Amen. The same Christ who said, rise up to the man with the palsy and take up your bed. But the same God who brought us up out of a horrible pit and set our feet on a rock. The same one who raised us up together and caused us to sit together in heavenly places. Jonah goes down. He goes down. He goes down. He goes down. But then God spoke to the whale and said, amen, spit him up on that dry ground. He said, Jonah is fixing to have his resurrection. Y'all stop preaching with me right here. I said, Jonah is fixing to have his resurrection. I want to tell us, God has an up for every one of your downs. It don't matter what's got you down this morning. He has an up. Amen. He wants you, amen, to come up this morning. Praise God. Praise God. This whole meeting is about getting you up and getting you back to where you need to be. Hallelujah. Praise God. My message here this morning, amen, is bad chapters don't have to ruin our story. If we look the right direction, the Lord wants to help somebody in this house here this morning. Amen. God came to Jonah the second time. In chapter 3, he starts off his conversation where he had left it off. Amen. Amen. In chapter 1, he never makes a reference to chapter 2. He never brings up what happened in the sea. He never brings up the storm. He never brings up the folly of his decision. Praise God. God wants to come back to you, amen, and help you pick up where you lost it, where you give it up, where you wandered away. God wants to come back. He's not wanting to have a conversation, amen, about your, amen, have a conversation about your foolishness and about your mistakes. He don't want you to, amen, necessarily talk about the trial and the persecution and the problem that you're going through. He wants to have a conversation about your usefulness and get you back where you need to. I feel God in the Holy Ghost in this place here this morning. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Amen. Let me tell us here this morning. Praise God. Amen. God is faithful. Amen. I said God is faithful. And He wants to help us in this house. Somebody come get me a song this morning. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Glory to Jesus. Glory to God. Amen. Hallelujah. They brought that little girl to me. Brother Randy, her mom and her dad were busted up. Her dad had wandered off in sin. He still comes to church for over a year. They were separated. Mom would still pick her husband up for church on Sunday morning, bring him to church. They'd go to church together and that's all they'd done together. They were separated. The little girl knew it. Not very many other people did. The little girl went into depression. She was struggling a whole lot with that. Her mom was an educator. She had a lot of experience dealing with children who were struggling with different stuff in their life. And she brought me a picture. She had sat down and she'd ask her daughter, she'd draw a picture of our family. And she drew a picture. She handled all the crayons, laid them out. And she took and drew with two or three dark colors. But when she went to draw the sun, she used a black crayon to draw the sun. Amen. The light had gone out in her life. Amen. But I can tell you that God spoke resurrection. And He wrote resurrection in her little story. Just like He wants to do for you here today. Amen. He is risen. And because He is risen, we can rise. He is risen. It's not just a historical statement. Like Julius Scissor. I came, I saw, I conquered. Or like Everett Hale. I regret that I have but one life to leave for my country. Or like Franklin Roosevelt. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. All famous historical sayings, I want to tell you, He is risen. It's not just a historical statement. I feel the Holy Ghost right now. Jesus said in John chapter 16, when the Holy Ghost has come, He will reprove the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. And then as He clarifies and explains each statement, we know that that word reprove means convince. It's actually a legal argument. The Holy Ghost comes to give a legal argument against sin, for His righteousness, and against the devil. He said that He came to give an argument against the devil because the devil has already been judged. While I've preached here this morning, your flesh and the devil has argued with God's word. And it's said, that's great to hear about Jonah. But that's not necessarily for me. But the Holy Ghost is here this morning to take the devil to the court. And argue against everything He's telling you. I feel God's Holy Ghost right here. Let's all stand all over this house. Listen to me. He's come this morning to argue against everything He's telling you. That life's always going to be like this. That I'm never going to get out of this. That I have irrevocably wrote these chapters and there's nothing I can do to change. But the Holy Ghost just steps in here this morning and presents the evidentiary presentation of a resurrected Savior. Because He lives, you live. Praise God. And this morning, God wants to give an up for somebody's down. I'll never heads bowed, never eyes closed. Amen. Would you let God speak to your heart right now if you're here in this service. And your waywardness has led you away from Him. There is no better time. The Holy Ghost is arguing against everything the devil is saying. Right now, there's hope. He's speaking to us that there's hope. Why don't you get out of your seat. Make you an altar. And let Him write resurrection in your story. Anybody in this house? Come on. There's like me. You're struggling with something. You don't understand it. Why don't you come on. Come on. That's right. We have brave souls here today. There's others. I could be addressing Christian folks. You're dealing with things that are taking you way down. Why don't you come this morning. Why don't we find an altar. Let's gather around as you're praying.