First of all, let me say this. I apologize for having to read so much of my message, but God has made my memory like he did my height short. Our pastor kind of got irritated with me. Last week, he called me in his office to talk to me. He said, Brother Denny, you're going to have to quit making those Sunday school lessons so short. He said, everybody's going to get used to that and then they're going to expect me to do it. I don't think that's going to happen. The title of our message this morning is A Common Rebellion. Rebellion, what is rebellion? It's defined as organized resistance or in opposition to government or other authority. It's a dissent from the accepted moral code or convention of behavior such as appropriate dress. We all know that ladies should wear appropriate clothing when they're in public. Resistance to or defiance of any authority, control, or tradition. We're a rebellious society. Rebellion against authority has always been a problem since the beginning of mankind. Adam and Eve, yes, they were rebellious. Even though they were disobedient, it was an act of rebellion for them to do what they did. Rebel literally means to resist authority. God is not only a father figure, but biblically speaking, he is the highest authority. An act of sedition or rebellion occurred in heaven when Lucifer said in his heart, in Isaiah 14, 13 and 14, for thou said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will also sit upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the most high. I will, I will, I will. Sounds like a matter of pride to me. Because of his pride and his rebellion against God, Revelation 12, nine states, that old serpent called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world. He was cast out into the earth and his angels were cast out with him. Rebellion against the government has gone on since there was a government. and it's not just in this country, it's around the world. The transition of power from one dynasty to another resulted in the Taiping Rebellion in China. This rebellion lasted for over 60 years, and more than 25 million people were killed. A little closer to home, on January the 6th, 2021, an attack on the US Capitol building was an attack not just on our Capitol building, but it was an attack on democracy. Nate Turner, a slave, Nate Turner's rebellion was one of the bloodiest, most effective rebellions against slavery. We've got the LGBTQ rebelling over sexual orientation and gender identity. I believe, I may be wrong, but I believe that in most cases, a rebellious attitude starts at home. Children need love, but they also need discipline. They need freedom to do certain things. The older they get, the more freedom they have. But there are always boundaries. There's always rules that have got to be followed in order to get that freedom, in order to keep it. Jonah was a rebel. Perhaps you've heard the expression that we're all different. While that is true, we are all different, which is probably a good thing. We are very similar in our human makeup. We're all made in God's image, but at the same time, we've all sinned and come short of the glory of God. Every person has sinned. We all have our sins of the past. Some of them I wish I could forget, even though I've been forgiven of them. You say, well, I just don't feel forgiven. Well, you may not feel forgiven, you may not feel saved, but it's not a matter of what you feel, it's a matter of what God promised. I confess sins, I ask for forgiveness, and God forgives me. The devil loves to keep Christians doubting. As soon as you start feeling just a little bit better about yourself, you begin to forget it. The devil brings it up again. God doesn't bring it up. If you've been forgiven, God has forgotten your sins. This is where the word of God or his promises and your faith meet each other. We have past sins. We have sins that we struggle with on a daily basis. Once again, I faced Satan this morning. You'll remember this. Once again, I faced Satan this morning, and I battled him all the day long. But in my weakness, God sent reinforcements, and at sundown, I sang this song. And the sun's coming up in the morning. Every tear will be gone from my eye. This old clay's gonna give way to glory, and like an eagle, I'm gonna take to the sky. Facing Satan and sins on a daily basis is not a new thing. And there are sins that we'll face in the future. I don't know what they are. You don't know what they are. But when Christ died for my sins, he died for all my sins, past, present, and future. He won't have to go to Calvary again. Like I said, all of us have sinned on a daily basis. We have a weakened, sinful flesh. But we can yield our lives to the Holy Spirit and have God's power working through us. One reason Jonah is such a popular character in the Bible, and while we hate to admit it, we see ourselves in Jonah's life. My mother started college at a very late age. She was in her, not very late age, but later than most. She started in her early 30s is when she went back to college. She was, we were living in Jonesboro. She was going to ASU. I was about 15 or 16 years old. Now my mother had already warned me very sternly, do not get in a car with those other teenagers. You ride the school bus home. Well, being a little rebellious, the title of our message, being a little bit rebellious, defiant, I was not going to ride that bus home. I was going to ride home with my friends. We took the long way home, needless to say, so my friend could drive around just a little bit longer. What I didn't know was that my mother had gotten out of class early. The bus had come and gone. It had already come and gone, Denny wasn't on that bus. When I pulled up to my house, my mother was standing in the doorway of that house with a great big switch in her hand. Well, I knew what that meant. You know the kind of switch that has little bumps all over it? That kind. Well, I mean, I'm a 15 or 16 year old kid, and just to use an old country saying, she wore me out. Needless to say, I rode the bus home the next day. I can remember years later after I had become an adult. I was married with a child of my own. I can remember my mother crying. and apologizing for how hard she had whipped me. I couldn't do anything except hug her and say, mama, I didn't get near as many as I needed. That saying, your sin will find you, excuse me. While rebellion may be a common human characteristic, the result of that rebellion is also gonna be the same. Therefore, we need to learn from Jonah's mistakes and attempt to flee. Verse three states that, excuse me, Jonah rose up to flee into Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. Honest confession is not our first thought when we sin. We want to get away from it. We want to flee from it. Our flesh wants to find an excuse to escape. We hope there will be no ramification to our disobedience, but such is never the case. Someone has said, sin is the world's best detective. It always finds you out. That saying, sin will find you out, was a statement made by Moses to the tribes of Gad and Reuben. Before the Israelites crossed over to Jordan, the tribes of Gad and Reuben let it be known that they liked it right where they were, on the east side of Jordan. The land was good for raising cattle, and the leaders of those tribes asked Moses for permission to stay rather than go enter into Canaan. Moses refused to grant that permission. He accused them of failing to desire to enter the promised land, just as the previous generation had done. It was that sin that caused the Lord's anger to be kindled toward them for 40 years. They risked bringing destruction on the whole nation all over again. Gad and Reuben had different intentions. They asked Moses if they could leave their families behind in the settlements while the men armed themselves and went to war in Canaan. After that, they had assured Moses that they were not abandoning their fellow Israelites, he agreed to their request. He told them that they must fight until the land was subdued, and only then could they return to their property east of Jordan. Moses then added this warning. But if you fail to do this, you will be sinning against the Lord, and you may be sure your sins will find you out. Now, he didn't mean that everyone was gonna know what you did, everyone's gonna find out your sins. What he meant was that their sin would be obvious to the people who saw them. This is the true nature of sin. God warned Cain that sin lath at your door, and unto thee shall there be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. James, figuratively speaking, said, every man is tempted. When he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed, then when the lust has conceived, it bringeth forth sin. And sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. No doubt we're familiar with Adam and Eve's sin in the Garden of Eden. but notice what happened right after they sinned. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden. The goodness of God knows no boundaries. He made Adam from the dust of the ground, and he breathed life into his nostrils. He realized that it was not good for man to be alone, so he made a woman. He put them in paradise. They kept the garden and had dominion over all the earth. God gave the man and the woman that he had made free will, and they chose to disobey God. And we say, I wish God had put me in a place like that I would rather do anything than to displease God and get me thrown out of that, get me thrown out of the garden. Well, first of all, it's an impossibility. You and I have a sin nature. It's passed down to all humanity from Adam. We are not able not to sin. Being a child of God, we've experienced the power of a new birth. Despite this miraculous transformation, we keep on sinning to our dismay and shame. The first reaction that Adam made was to run. Man's been running from his sin ever since. Jeremiah 23, 24 says this, can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him, saith the Lord. Do not I feel heaven and earth, saith the Lord? The psalmist asked a similar question and finds the same answer in Psalm 139, seven through 12. Whether I go from thy spirit, whether shall I go from thy spirit, or whether shall I free from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there. If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, surely the darkness cover me, even the night shall be the light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee, but the night shineth as the day. The darkness and the light are both alike to thee. Sometimes teenagers say, well, when I'm 18 years old, I'm out of here. While you may be legally able to be on your own, there's a certain age that you'll find where can you go that God isn't already there. in which city or which state or which planet you live, where God does not exist. The prodigal son left home, but God never left him alone. I was that way, many of you may be that way. When we get saved, especially those of us who are younger, we're on fire for the Lord. on fire for the Lord. I know I was at an early age. Your attendance to church is good. Your Bible reading is good. Your prayer life is good. But as we grow older, we grow colder. If we've not had the person to guide us, the world and its allurement begins to distract us from what is right and what is wrong. It may be greed. that draws you away from the Lord. You work hard for your money, but you begin to feel some resentment toward the pastor that preaches on tithing and giving to missionaries. You begin to distance yourself from the church and from God. It could be that you just disagree with the teaching of the church about how we should conduct ourselves outside the church. We should be concerned about modest dress for women. We should witness to those who need to hear the gospel. We should be careful with our speech and our eyes. No profane language or listening to dirty jokes around the water cooler. That church is just too strict, you say. Well, the preacher didn't make the rules, God did. Lust may be a weakening factor in our lives. It could be a lust for power. Many churches have been weakened, even torn apart by those who want to be in charge. Church splits have been caused by silly things like arguments over the color of the carpet, or the color of the toilet tissue, or where the piano bench sits during the preaching. Yes, those are all true, they cause church splits. I'm sure you've all heard of other ridiculous things and reasons for destroying a congregation. I don't think any of these things matter to God. It's how we react to a new or a different idea that matters to God. Maybe it's a lust for life that draws you away from God, or maybe it's just a lust for someone of the opposite sex. This man desires that man's wife, or that woman wants that woman's husband. It's adultery, and it's fornication, and it's wrong. This day and time, it could be that that boy desires that other boy, or that girl desires that other girl, and it's an abomination to God. We can all be forgiven, and we can all go home, like we sometimes do. The prodigal son left home, but God never left him alone. God was just as much alive and well under the bright lights of sin in a far country as he had been under the rules and regulations of the Father's house. But you got to have an alternative. In the middle of this verse, we read these words, And he found a ship going to Tarshish. Satan will make sure anytime that you try to go against God, he'll make sure that there's always a ship going in the opposite direction of God's will in your life. He makes sure there are lots of choices besides those of obedience. And amazingly, we often find it so coincidental that there is an alternative to doing right. We can even spiritualize that seemingly open door before us. Eve reasoned that the forbidden tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eye, and a tree to be desired to make one wise. Lot lifted up his eyes and beheld the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere. before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Achan confessed in Joshua 7.21, when I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment and 200 shekels of silver and a wedge of gold of 50 shekels weight, then I coveted them and took them. Satan's alternatives are always attractive. for it is his goal to be the perfect counterfeit of Christ, the perfect counterfeit of Christ. Paul warns us about Satan's tactics in 2 Corinthians 11, 13 through 15. For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into the angel of light. Therefore, it is no great thing if ministers also be transformed, as the ministers of righteousness whose end shall be according to their works. In this passage, Paul is speaking to Corinthians about false teachers. They pose as apostles of Christ, but the truth is they are not servants of God, but truly are false apostles and deceitful workmen. Paul wants us to be on guard against their deception. Satan disguised himself as an angel of light, a powerful illustration of the artful and deceptiveness of Satan and his servants. They are masters of disguise and will go to any length to lead people away from the truth. So is it any surprise that they'd want to look like righteous servants? The Bible says that many of us will be fooled by this deception. The Bible says in Matthew 24, 11, and many false prophets shall rise and shall deceive many. And in verse 24, it says, for there shall arise false Christs, false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch that if it were possible, they should deceive the very elect. That's kind of scary. We think we know what's going on, but some of us will be deceived. An atheist was boating in a lake in Scotland. It was a happy sunny day, birds were flying around, a light breeze was blowing. Suddenly the birds stop and they turn away. It's as if the whole scene has somehow turned dark. Up from the deep lake, a large shadow is rising. All at once, this man's boat was struck. From underneath, he finds himself tumbling in the air, about to fall into the massive open mouth of the biggest, ugliest reptilian sea monster imaginable. A cavernous mouth with long, sharp teeth. In a panic, the Aesir shouts, God, please save me. As he gets closer and closer to the monster, The scene seems to freeze, and he's suspended in midair. Suddenly, a deep voice says, why should I do anything for you when you didn't even believe I existed? They say, please, give me a chance. Five minutes ago, I didn't believe in the Loch Ness Monster either. Why did God make Jonah the way he did? Job offers some wise counseling in Job 9, two through four. I know it is so of a truth, but how should man be just with God? If he will contend with him, he cannot answer him one of a thousand. He is wise in heart and mighty in strength, who hath hardened himself against him and hath prospered. So we go in opposite direction. In verse three, the Bible says that Jonah fled from the presence of the Lord and went down to Joppa. Any direction away from God except up is always down. By the way, once you head down, the trip's a lot more difficult. You ever tried to go downhill running? It's almost impossible to stop. Later in verse three, he says he went down into the ship. By the time we see him in verse five, he's gone down in the sides of the ship. Once you start going down, there's a momentum that's difficult to reverse. It took a very sick fish to start heading back up. An agreement on the fare. Once Jonah found an alternative, the devil makes sure there's a ship in port that is headed in the opposite direction of God's will. In verse three it says, so he paid the fare thereof. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ. He died for your sins and he died for mine. A debt does not need to be paid twice. If Christ paid it and he did, I don't need to pay it. The debt is wiped clean. Amazingly, none of us wants to pay the wages of sin, but we are willing to pay the wages to sin. We don't like it when a preacher tells us that there's a cost to living and serving God with our lives, but we're willing to pay the cost to run from that service. By the time we get to 2 Samuel 24, David has paid a great price for his sin. Every time he's disobeyed God, it's cost him dearly. A little seven-day-old baby has died. Uriah has died. That was Bathsheba's husband. David's sons had died. And now because he had numbered the people, 70,000 of his men had died. That's a pretty hefty fare for sin, don't you think? God instructs David through Gad to build an offer and offer a sacrifice to the Lord. David has learned that every decision, both good and bad, has a price. In verse 24 of 2 Samuel, David responds to Arnuah's offer as follows. And the king said to Arnuah, nay, but I will surely buy it of thee at a great price. Neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the Lord, my God, of that which doth cost me nothing. So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for 50 shekels of silver. We all know that there's a price to be paid It often looks like a good deal, but the product we receive is death, for the wages of sin is death. Jesus spoke of the price of service in Matthew. And he that taketh not his cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me. Often that price of service doesn't look attractive to us, but verses 39, and following the peak of the product of that price, he that findeth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it. In Mark 10, 29, and 30, he reiterates this message. Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left the house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my sake, and the gospels. But he shall receive a hundredfold now in time houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands with persecutions, and in the world to eternal life. Every decision has a purchase order. Purchase orders are essential if organizations are going to stay within their budgetary restrictions. They enable us to make wise decisions about the money we have or the money we don't have. It is interesting that God made human beings with the ability to delay a decision. Animals don't have the same capability. They simply react to a stimulus. This is why a dog may bite his owner because he does not possess the ability to think before a decision is made. Temptation is a part of every person's life. Every one of us will be tempted. Jesus was tempted in all points as we are, according to Hebrews 4.15, and yet without sin. By his grace and enabling, he gives us that same potential. There hath no temptation taken you, but such is common to man. But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able. But with the temptation also, he makes a way to escape, that you may be able to bear it. The next time you're tempted, and you live contrary to God's will and direction, before you pay the fare, stop and think for a minute. You're about to sign a purchase order for a product. What kind of product do you want? The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust until the day of judgment to be punished. Either way, you will pay. So make your decision worth the price. Well, the pastor told me one time, when you're preaching, you shoot your gun till you run out of bullets. I'm out of bullets. So, Brother Lloyd, would you pray for us?