The Word Made Plain

Guest (Female): Welcome to The Word Made Plain with Senior Pastor Tony Clark of Calvary Chapel Newport News in Virginia. Currently, Pastor Tony is teaching a study in the book of Acts. Please open your Bible to Acts Chapter 27, verses 39 through 44.

Tony Clark: All right, let's dive into the Word of God together. Turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Acts, Chapter 27. We're going to be looking at verses 39 to 44. We're going to finish up this chapter as we continue to go verse by verse and chapter by chapter through the book of Acts on Sunday mornings. As you know, we're in First Samuel, Chapter 18 on Wednesdays, going through the Old Testament and just hearing all that God has for us.

Father, we do thank you that you've given us this book to guide us, to direct us. Lord, you could have just easily left us here to our own devices, but you've given us your Word to guide us, to lead us. So, Lord, we pray that your Spirit would illuminate your heart to us so we can know your ways. Oh God, reveal the secrets of our hearts today that we would leave here saying, "Truly God was in this place." God, we are so grateful for your Spirit to lead us and guide us into all truth. In Jesus' name, amen.

Acts Chapter 27, looking at verses 39 to 44. The title of this message is "Joy Comes in the Morning." Joy comes in the morning. Now, this title comes from the second part of Psalm Chapter 30 and verse 5, which says, "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning."

We just finished seeing Paul and his crew of men fighting to stay alive in the midst of a storm called, in verse 14, the Euroclydon. This storm was so powerful that verse 20 said that all hope that we should be saved was finally given up. However, Paul spoke up in verse 24 and told them that God told him that he was going to make it to Rome and everyone on this ship would be saved as well, but they needed to stay on the ship.

This storm was so terrifying that it blocked out the sun and the stars for many days. Verse 27 said that the sailors sensed that they were drawing near some land, and after taking soundings, it was getting closer and closer. Paul finally encouraged them to eat food since it had been 14 days since they had eaten anything. It is for your survival. What happened next? Look at verse 39.

"When it was day, they did not recognize the land, but they observed a bay with a beach onto which they planned to run the ship, if possible." I want to draw your attention to the first part of verse 39. The phrase is "When it was day." What a beautiful phrase this is because we have already talked about how God uses storms to correct us and get us back on course with Him.

For the last three weeks, we have been talking about the different storms that come into our lives and how we navigate through them. How do we recognize them? How do we navigate through them? Now we're going to look at the last aspect of it: how do we come out? What would it look like, us coming out of storms? There's so much to the different storms that we go through in life that I had to spread it out over at least three weeks.

Some of the things are going to be reminders, some of the things are going to be new, but it lets us know clearly when a storm is blowing in our lives, we will be able to identify them. Then we'll be able to know how to navigate through them because we've been dealing with this the last three weeks. We talked about how storms come to correct us and get us back on course with the Lord.

It had been dark and rocky for two weeks straight. Too in the midst of our storm, we will shed a lot of tears. You remember Psalm 30, verse 5 says, "Weeping may endure for a night." In the midst of storms, especially storms of correction, we're going to shed some tears. There are going to be some heartbreaking moments. There are going to be some things that break our heart to where we are crying. "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning."

The morning is coming for some of you here today. I've said it for the last three weeks: all of us are either about to go into a storm, in the midst of a storm, or just coming out of a storm. The morning is coming for you. It won't be dark and windy and stormy always. The morning is coming. Now, the morning time speaks of a fresh start. It speaks of a new beginning.

Lamentations 3 and verses 22 and 23 says, "It's through the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed." I paused first service at this moment because there's an aspect of God's character that I want to draw to our attention. I want you to notice what it says: "It's through the Lord's mercies that we aren't consumed." God is so holy and we're so sinful that if God would just come near us, we would be consumed.

We have to come to Him and deal with Him and cry out to Him based upon His mercy. Mercy, by way of definition, is not getting what you deserve. Notice it said through the Lord's mercies we're not consumed. I'm reading through the Old Testament and I'm in the book of Exodus. When Moses was on top of the mountain receiving the Ten Commandments from the Lord, the people were down below and they were fooling around, dancing and swirling around the golden calf.

God tells Moses, "Look here. Get down there. Your people are cutting up." Moses said, "No, they're not my people, they're yours." Here's the part that blew me away: God said, "Moses, move aside. Let me just consume them in a moment's time." Moses began to intercede. He said, "God, you can't do that because the Egyptians will hear that you brought them out in this wilderness to kill them and your reputation is on the line. You can't do that."

Please understand, God put it on the heart of Moses to intercede for the people because God always wants to forgive. He always wants to show mercy. He put it on Moses' heart to intercede, and so he interceded. Notice what God said: "Move aside. I can consume them in a moment's time." This is why it says through the Lord's mercies. Never go to God and say, "God, give me justice."

We go to Him strictly based upon His mercy, not giving us what we deserve. We deserve hell. We deserve judgment. We deserve punishment. This is an aspect of God's character you don't hear a lot about today. All we hear about is "God is love." Yes, He's that, but it's through His mercies that we aren't consumed. God could have allowed this plague, this COVID-19, just to consume the world, and He would have been just if He had done that.

There was a time by which Balaam was called a prophet in the Old Testament. He was hired by King Balak to curse the people of God. Balaam said, "No, I can't do that. They're God's people." He said, "No, I need you to do this." He said, "No, I can't curse God's people." He said, "I'll give you so much money." "How many ways you want me to curse them?" He took the money, but he still couldn't curse the people of God.

He said, "But look here, bro. I can tell you a way to get God to deal with them. Just get them to sin against their God, and then God will get them. I can't curse them, you can't curse them, but God can get them. All you've got to do is get them to sin against God, and watch what He says." "Watch this. I've got something for you. This is what you do. You take your little honeys and let them go into the camp of Israel."

"When the men see them, oh, they're going to want those little honeys. Then when they have sex with them, then tell your little honeys to pull out their little gods and have them worship their gods. Then you don't have to touch them, I don't have to touch them, God will get them." Sure enough, he had the little Moabite little honeys go into town. They started being intimate with them. Watch this: a plague broke out. It was consuming the people.

Aaron's grandson, Phinehas, took a spear, went into the tent, and saw those two people fooling around. He took a spear and boom, jammed it into them and killed both of them. The plague stopped. But it wasn't until 23,000 people were dead. Another thousand died the next day for a total of 24,000 people. God can consume us in a moment's time, but it's through His mercies we're not consumed.

God can take us out. He can just cause a plague to go around the world, which has happened. He could allow all seven and a half billion people to be consumed, and He would be just and righteous because we are sinful and we deserve His judgment. This is why I always go to God strictly based upon His mercy, God not giving me what I deserve.

Notice it says, "His compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness." Isaiah 50 and verse 4 says, "He awakens me morning by morning. He awakens my ear to hear as the learned." I bring all this up because I believe that there are many of you who need a fresh start, who need a new beginning.

Some of you are waiting for the day to come for you because the storm you're in has been raging in your life. God has awakened your ear to hear as the learned and brought you here today to hear that you can have a new beginning and a fresh start today through a relationship with Jesus Christ, or a renewed relationship with Him. I say renewed because there's been many people who backslid in 2020. Their relationship with the Lord has stunk, and you need a renewed relationship with Him.

Disoriented sailors did not recognize the land. Now, keep in mind that they had been in the blackness of a storm for two weeks. They had no clue where the storm had taken them. The same is true in our lives. When we are going through a storm, especially the storm of correction, when the daytime finally comes, we won't recognize where we are because the storm blew us away from people and things that caused us to be in disobedience to God in the first place.

Just trust that God is in control and He is blowing us back on course with His will for our lives. How do I know? Oh, just ask Jonah. We briefly talked about it last week. I brought out a certain aspect of Jonah, but I'm going to take it a little bit deeper and dive in a little bit deeper this week. God told him to go and preach to the Ninevites in Jonah 1 and verse 2. He said, "Nope, not going to do it. I'm going in the opposite direction to the city of Tarshish" in Jonah 1 and verse 3.

God said, "Okay." He sent Jonah into a storm, a storm of correction. When we are disobedient, we end up taking those closest to us into the storm sent to correct us. Innocent people always suffer when we're disobedient to God. We always take those closest to us into that storm with us. Innocent people suffer in our disobedience. When we disobey God, it just doesn't affect us; it affects those closest to us as well. They end up suffering.

The captain of the ship woke Jonah up in Jonah 1 and verse 6 and said, "Awake, oh sleeper, call upon your God. Perhaps your God will save us." Jonah tried to sleep through his storm. There's no sleeping through the storm. He tried. He said, "Call upon your God. Perhaps your God will hear us." Jonah told him and those on the ship in Jonah 1 and verse 10 that this storm was because he had disobeyed God.

Then he convinced them to throw him overboard, and this is where God prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah. It was while in the belly of the fish he prayed to God and repented of his disobedience according to Jonah Chapter 2 and verse 1. Why would a prophet of God want to purposely disobey God? Prophets were mouthpieces for God. Why would one purposely want to disobey God?

The Jews hated the Assyrians whose capital is Nineveh. In 721, 722 BC, the Assyrians captured the ten northern tribes of Israel and took them into captivity. They did some cruel, unthinkable things to them, especially to the women. As a result, the Jews hated the Assyrians for what they did to their people in the past. The Jews hated the Assyrians for what they did to their people in the past.

Oh, that sounds familiar. So, here is God telling Jonah to go and preach to these people, and Jonah said, "No way. No way." He later tells him in the book, "Look here, God. This is why I didn't want to come here and preach. Because I know you to be a loving and a forgiving God." Jonah didn't want to see them forgiven, but judged. God said, "Look here, bro. I'm going to send you into this storm."

God loves all people. This is why He sent Jesus to die for the sins of the world according to John 3:16. If He tells us that He wants us to go and preach Jesus to the people in the Middle East, especially to the people of ISIS, like my friend Victor Marx who came here to speak, then who are we to tell God no? Keep in mind that the storm of correction is not to punish us, but to purge us.

It is to get rid of our wicked, evil prejudice in our heart toward people we don't like. Or if God told you to preach Jesus to the KKK if you're Black, or to go preach Jesus to the Black Muslims if you're White. God wants to purge us of our wicked prejudice against people, and He will send a storm our way to purge that sort of evil out of our heart. Racism never goes away; it just goes under the surface. It just goes under the water. Then as soon as an incident comes, it rises back up.

Only Jesus can purge that stuff out of people's hearts. It just went silent. People are saying, "Well, race relations have gone back 50 years." It never left. It just went underneath, and then as soon as the incident, it comes back up. It never went away. The incident just shows what was already in the heart. God wants to purge His people of that evil in our heart. We can't just preach the gospel to people who look like us.

God loves all people. For God so loved the world last time I checked. He loves the world. To get that stuff, sometimes He has to purge us through a storm to get this stuff out of our hearts because it's there. It's in our hearts, and each incident just brings it to the surface. God is saying, "You see, this is what's in your heart. Oh, you do your best to try to hide it."

Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. You begin to speak it. They begin to speak it. You begin to speak it. It just shows it's in your heart. God wants to purge our heart of this sort of wickedness, this sort of evil that we have in our hearts. God was doing that with Jonah. Jonah said, "I like Jews. They're my people. But I can't stand Assyrians. You know what they did to my people in the past. Oh, let me rehearse in your hearing what the Assyrians did to my people."

Jonah did not want to see them forgiven; he wanted to see them judged. A prophet of God said, "Deuces, God. I'm out of here. I'm not going to Nineveh. I'm going in the opposite direction, far away from that thing you want me to do. I'm going to the city of Tarshish." There are some of you in the city of Tarshish right now. There's something God told you to do, but because of the people that He's pointed out to you to share with, you're in the other direction.

Some of you are on your way to the city of Tarshish because you say, "The last person I want to see forgiven is that X amount. My baby daddy. My baby mama. They're the last ones I want to see forgiven." Next time you see them, don't get into a fight. How about just sharing me with them? That's the last joker I'm going to share anything with but some knuckle sandwiches. God wants to purge us of that kind of stuff.

The most beautiful part about coming out of a storm, especially a storm of correction, is it normally turns into a storm of direction. Jonah Chapter 2 and verse 10 says God spoke to the fish Jonah was inside of and barfed him out onto the dry land. Guess where the land was? The land of Nineveh. God said, "You're getting there, Jonah, by hook or by crook. You're going to get there."

Once that great fish vomited him onto the dry land, the land of Nineveh, then some of the most beautiful words to me ever penned in the Bible is Jonah Chapter 3 and verse 1: "And God spoke to Jonah a second time." This is where we get the phrase: that God is a God of the second chance. Even when we disobey Him and blow it, He corrects us and gives us a second chance to do what He told us to do in the beginning.

He told Jonah to go to Nineveh. He said, "Nope, not going." All of a sudden, the great fish barfed him onto the land of Nineveh. Once he preached to the Ninevites, the entire city repented. Jonah got mad. He said, "God, this is why I didn't want to come here and preach. You're a forgiving and merciful God." Because he hated the Assyrians. He hated the Ninevites. He wanted to see them judged, not saved. God said, "You have no right to feel that."

The book goes on to say how Jonah, after he preached—it was only an eight-word sermon. It was basically almost like saying, "Turn or burn," and he said, "I'm out. Deuces. I'm out." Only an eight-word sermon. He said, "I'm gone." He went up onto a hill with a smile on his face because he was ready to see God judge them. He sat up there. He got a little hot.

God was merciful and had a plant grow up with a giant leaf and covered up his head. He had a bald head. Covered up his bald head and he was like, "Oh, God. Thank you for the shade so I can really watch you judge them in the shade here." Probably had him a little lemonade there, ready to see God's wrath come upon them. All of a sudden, he fell asleep.

A worm came and ate the plant and put a bunch of holes in it, and that sun was beating down on his head. He started to get mad. "God, what's up with this? Why'd you let this happen? Man, what's wrong with you? This plant was keeping me cool. What's up with that?"