The Call of the Shipmaster — Carter Conlon

Jonah and the Call of God

I want you to turn to the book of Jonah, please, if you will. Chapter one. It's about, depending on the size of the print in your Bible, it's about 30 to 40 pages back from the end of the Old Testament.

So go to the end of the Old Testament and then just go backwards, go left, and you'll hit the book of Jonah. In my Bible, it's about 40 pages because mine is a super giant print. For those that think that I've had a healing in my eyes, it's not so, it's just that I've got about seven words on every page here in my Bible.

Messages the Lord's given me that I believe is from the heart of God this morning is called the cry of the ship master, cry of the ship master. Father, I thank you, Lord, for giving me the ability to speak this word today.

Thank you mostly that you've called this church to prayer. Thank you for those who fast on Tuesday night, all day Tuesday, for prayer here in this sanctuary and for the presence of the Holy Spirit that has come here.

Thank you, Lord God Almighty, for guiding us, not in our strength, but in our weakness. You're calling us to yourself. Help me today, Lord God, to speak from your heart. Deliver me from all preconceived thoughts of what I should share.

And I pray God that you take over my inward man and give me the grace to speak your heart today, Lord, to those people that you've gathered to hear this message. I thank you for it with all my heart. Bless this day with your presence, Lord God Almighty.

We thank you for walking with us and being among us, Lord, and we thank you for it in Jesus name. The call of the ship master, Jonah chapter one, beginning at verse one. Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai saying, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city and cry out against it for their wickedness has come up before me.

But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.

But the Lord sent out a great wind on the sea and there was a mighty tempest on the sea so that the ship was about to be broken up. Then the mariners were afraid and every man cried out to his God and through the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten the load.

But Jonah had gone down into the lowest parts of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep. So the captain came to him and the King James, it's, he's called the ship master, came to him and said to him, what do you mean sleeper arise?

Perhaps call on your God. Perhaps your God will consider us so that we may not perish. This is an incredible story and you'll see it repeated throughout the scriptures. There's so many things that of the ways of God, of the kingdom of God, when you begin to study, I studied my Bible in four places every day and I'm reading through technically that simultaneously the whole gospel at the same time, rather than getting stuck in one portion of scripture and, and more or less losing the balance of the fullness of the word of God.

And you see this pattern repeat itself over and over again. A man who knew that his calling was to cry out on God's behalf to a people who were facing a coming judgment because of their sinful behavior.

I remember, I don't know how many, I can't tell you how many times pastor David Wilkerson told me, he said, Carter, the Lord sent me here to New York city to establish a church in Times Square to cry out because this society is becoming wicked and it's days numbered and to gather a remnant.

In other words, to warn of the coming judgment of God and to gather all who can still hear, whether it's strictly in the city or it's on the internet, whatever, wherever this church's sphere of influence might travel.

I've never forgotten that. It's still very much in my heart that this is the purpose of Times Square church. We were set in place as a lighthouse, but I want to remind you that a lighthouse is only a tourist distraction until the darkness comes.

Then when the darkness comes, then the beam that radiates from it can make a tremendous difference for those that are looking for safety. And it's kind of ironic. It's now when we're entering into a season of incredible darkness in this world that the beam as it is, the radio waves from this church are going out across the nation calling this country back to prayer again.

Returning the Church to Prayer

And please be in prayer with us about this fast with us on Tuesday, pray that God give us the grace to go back to prayer again for it is written. My father's house shall be called a house of prayer. Let's not make it a den of fever any longer, a place where the stranger comes in and doesn't get an answer to his prayer, where the widow doesn't find her comfort.

Let's go back to prayer in the house of God again. You and I are called today in the same way that Jonah was your life and mine are to be a testimony of the goodness of God. And our speech must be seasoned with compassion and warning of a day of divine justice soon to come.

You saw that two weeks ago on Sunday night when God gave a message from this pulpit in the evangelistic service about the sorrow that will be in the heart of God when he has to send people into this place called hell for all of eternity.

And the hell that will be to so many people when they finally stand in the presence of divine love, so pure, they've never experienced anything like this ever in time, only to realize that what they forsook on the earth, now they have to forsake in essence for all of eternity.

What a tragedy that's going to be, that the last memory before they're cast into eternal darkness is this blazing, burning passion in the son of God's heart for them, for each man, woman, and child ever created in the image of God.

And you and I must warn about this day. We must tell people it is a tragedy, I think, in our generation that there's so few that are willing to speak about this now, even in the house of God. Everything's just about blessing and about niceness, forgetting.

Paul said, knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men, knowing what's coming our way, knowing that there's a day of darkness for those who don't receive Christ as Lord and Savior. And folks, I don't make any apology for that, that's truth.

That is, that is the word of God, there's no need to apologize for it. Many in our generation have done like the prodigal son in Luke chapter 15, and like Jonah did, taken, Jonah took this incredible calling of God on his life, and he was given resources to accomplish it.

Did you know that whatever God has called you to do, you already have the power to do it? If you and I are willing to go into the prayer closet, that's where my calling came from. It didn't come from people, didn't come from good ideas.

I didn't read a magazine that said, hey, why don't you go into the ministry? There's great opportunities there available for you. That's not the way it happened. It happened because I started to pray.

And when I began to pray, God began to speak. And when he began to speak, I was now brought into a place of having to make a decision. Do I agree with God or do I push away this calling? Do I push away what God is speaking to my heart and gravitate to what I think that my life should be and where it should go?

And that's what Jonah did. He took these resources and the calling, and he had a firsthand knowledge of how merciful God was inclined to be. You have that. Many who are here today, you know how merciful God is.

Your own story is all you need. You don't need anybody else's story. It's your story. You know what you did. You know what your life is like. You know even as a Christian what you would do in secret places, but yet the mercy of God still has covered you and still has called you to himself.

You have a firsthand knowledge of the mercy of God. Jonah had that knowledge of God's mercy. When you read the end of the book, you'll find him saying that very, very clearly. But instead of doing what he's called to do, he took a journey very far away from the heart of God.

That's what we have done in America in the last few decades. We've undertaken a similar journey to both the prodigal son and the prophet Jonah. The prodigal son took his inheritance that his father gave him, and he went far away from the heart of God.

And he lavished it on himself. And I think of what's happened in this nation. I'm not here to bash America. Please don't misunderstand me. But if you're trying to wake up somebody that's sleeping, you've got to say some things, you've got to say them plain.

If a trumpet makes an uncertain sound, how do the people prepare themselves to battle? You have to understand I speak out of a heart of compassion, not condemnation. There's a huge difference. I'm not here to judge anybody.

David the psalmist said, Oh God, if you marked iniquity, none of us would stand who among us would stand. So I know I stand by grace. And so the compassion, the cry that comes from my heart to you as a people today and to this nation, as God gives us ability to go out across it is to wake us up to our incredible inheritance and what the purpose of it is.

You think of all the theology that's gone on and it's all been focused on self. You see the prodigal son took this incredible inheritance and just focused on himself. It was all about me. It was about my journey.

It was about my blessing. It was about my slice of the pie. It was about me enjoying myself and the scripture calls it just licentious living, really living for himself. Now Jonah didn't go visibly astray like the prodigal son did, but he took a journey where he chose to become unattentive to the cries of perishing people around him, though he had within himself the power to make a difference.

He simply chose not to. And that's the sad reality of our time. Many people in the house of God have simply made a choice. We know we come to the knowledge of what our lives are supposed to be on the earth.

We're a testimony of the glory of God. We're supposed to be salt in our streets, a light set upon a hill that cannot be hidden. We're supposed to endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. We're supposed to understand that all who live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.

It will not be an easy journey, but we're not fighting for ourselves. That is already secure. I'm already going to heaven. I'm not fighting for myself. I'm fighting for you now. There's a huge difference.

Jonah knew this and he simply chose to go the other way. He chose. He made a willful choice. He understood, as many have done in our time, we've understood the cross. There was a time in my life, folks, I'll tell you straight out, that I saw in the Scriptures, I read it, and I knew if any man will be my disciple, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

Where I am, there will my disciple be also. I read the Scriptures that said unless a seed falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone. I read the Scripture that says whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, but he who loses his life for my sake, the same shall find it.

I read it. I saw it, and there was a trembling in my heart because there was a season of decision. Do I go this way or do I pursue my own objectives? I'm not saying that heaven wouldn't have been my home.

Don't misunderstand me, but what a tragedy. What a tragedy to get to heaven one day and stand at the throne and look over on one side or the other and see all those faces of people that I knew, people that I met, people that my life could have had influence over, looking at me with a longing in their eyes if that kind of a scenario shouldn't materialize, saying, you knew this.

You knew this. Why did you choose not to tell me? Why did you make the choice to go the other way? Why did you let your light be hidden under a bushel? Why did, even if I would have persecuted you, why didn't you set it upon a hill that at least I'd have a confrontation with this message of eternal life that God gives through Jesus Christ?

The Bible tells us that Jonah arose to flee from the presence of the Lord. He found a ship going in the opposite direction and he paid the fare. And you know, there's always a price to pay when we take a journey away from God.

When God's people to choose to focus on themselves and to move away from his burden for the lost, look at the price we've paid in America today. As a country, churches on almost every corner, yet with so many self-consumed, so many asleep to the needs of others in the knowledge of God, and look what's happening to our society today.

Redefining marriage now, breaking down the family, immorality is just abounding. We're in a social and moral abyss. We're standing on the edge of it now. Believe it or not, folks, I'm telling you, we're on the tipping point.

If we don't have a revival in the house of God, if there's not a grassroots awakening in this nation, it will not be recognizable in less than 10 years from now. This will be a society that you and I don't want to be in.

You're going to be surprised. We're strict. We're very quickly now moving from persecution to prosecution in the church of Jesus Christ. You can see it coming. It's not far down the road now. Oh God, help us to wake up to the moment that we're living in.

Oh God, give us the grace, not in alarm, but in passion. We have to be concerned about the glory of God. I'm concerned about the glory of the name of Jesus Christ. That is my first passion. Everything else comes after that.

I want the name of Jesus Christ to be glorified. I want him to be spoken about with reverence, even by those who make the choice to disregard the eternal life that he offers. His name can't be cast out as a curse word anymore.

Spiritual Warfare and the Need for Revival

God Almighty. David walked into the camp. The enemy is threatening every morning. Goliath is this voice that has arisen saying, you put somebody up to confide with me and if you can't, you're going to serve us.

And that's where we're living today. David walked into the camp realizing the armor of Saul had failed. It had won victories in the past, but it was over now. All the strategies, everything that's come out of boardrooms, all the human effort, all the schemes that we've come up with to propagate the gospel of Jesus Christ, it's all come to nothing now.

We're all standing terrified, seeing these voices rise up and beginning to challenge the very essence of who we are as a people. You can't bend your knee in an athletic event now to even pray without getting a threat of a lawsuit from the ungodly in this nation.

Our children can't say bless you in the schools when somebody sneezes without ending up at the principal's office under discipline for religious speech. Our children are being thrown in the river again, just as it was in the days when Israel was captivated in Egypt.

God help us if we don't rise to the occasion now. God help us if we don't begin to pray. And I'm not suggesting political action. That might be good for a few. I'm suggesting when we begin to pray, God begins to speak.

And when God begins to speak, we begin to move. And when we begin to move, the supernatural begins to happen again. It is not by human might. It is not by human reasoning. It is not by human power. It is by the spirit of God that the kingdom of God comes and advances in the earth.

And so the question arises, how will the Lord get hold of us as his people one more time? How will he get hold of this church age in America? And when you look in the scriptures, I see a recurring pattern time and time again.

I see it through the Old Testament. I see it through the New. I could, I could spend the next two hours just going through example after example after example. This is what God does. This is how he gets a hold of us.

Two examples were the prodigal son. He got a hold of him by sending a famine into the nation, a famine, a famine that made his heart begin to grow hungry for his father's house again, a famine that caused him to see the captivity of what he had embraced and what he had thought was a happy lifestyle and how empty it really was and how greedy and selfish the people that he had annexed himself to really were.

And he got up and he started to head home only to find out that his father loved him with a passion. So many people find it hard to come home because they've so failed and it's been so long and it's been so many years, such a testimony, a legacy of failure, failing to understand the heart of God.

He's waiting for you. He has waited. I can see that father sitting on the porch and, and he's just waiting and waiting. And suddenly the scripture says he saw him far off. That son was so far away. He could hardly see the father's house, but the father saw him and came running to him and embraced him, fell on his neck and kissed him and restored him completely, invited him on a journey of being an ambassador of mercy for the kingdom of God.

In Jonah's case, the Lord sent a great storm and you'll see that all the way through the scriptures to get ahold of his own people, God sends a storm. In Hebrews chapter 12 verses 26 and 27 speaks of one last storm that's going to come to this world someday, perhaps not in the too distant future.

I don't know for sure, but I know the hour and season is getting close to us. A great shaking of this world as we have known it, listen to what the writer says, whose voice then shook the earth. But now he has promised saying yet once more, I shake not only the earth, but also heaven in verse 27 tells us only those things that cannot be shaken might remain.

You can see it. Now all you got to do is read the news folks is a shaking happening in this world. Nation is beginning to rise against nation. Problems are arising that mankind is humanly incapable of solving.

It is time now to pray. It's time folks. It's not tomorrow. It's not next week, next year. It's time is now for you and I to begin to come into the house of God and cry out to the Lord, call each other on the telephone, pray together, pray with men and women of faith, pray in the morning, pray on the subway, pray on the street, pray with your children, pray in your apartment building, pray when you're walking to go do your grocery shopping.

It's time to pray. It's time for you and I to begin to talk to God. It's time to open our hearts and let God talk to us. And the Lord will begin to speak things into your life that you never believed were possible.

Begin to guide you, begin to lead you, begin to stir your heart. And most times he calls us in areas where we're not strong to do what he calls us to do. He doesn't call us in our areas of strength. I love the fact that he sends Paul the apostle who has this brilliant theological mind.

He knows mysteries that nobody else in his generation knows, but he gets sent to the Gentiles who know nothing about God and he's relegated to telling his story. I was enraged and I was persecuting the church and I was cast down to the road and I saw light from heaven.

I love it. And he sends Peter who's just compulsive to the core of his entire being. I don't know how theologically sound he is in the beginning and he sends him to the Jews who are relegated strictly to arguments about the existence and the work of God.

All the wisdom of God, oh, the power of God, oh, the ways of God. Don't limit yourself. Don't put yourself in a box. Don't say God can only take my life this far, no farther. No, sir, no ma 'am. You have the living Christ within you.

Whatever he calls you to do can be done. Not in your strength, but in the strength of Jesus Christ within you. My brother, my sister, don't be surprised now at the trial that's going to soon try all of us.

First Peter one seven, Peter says that the genuineness of your faith be more precious than gold that perishes though it be tried with fire may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Paul says in Romans eight 19, the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly awaits for the revealing of the sons of God. Now there are various ways to look at that verse of scripture and there's been argument about some of the things that it really implies, but I see it this way.

Here's what I see this verse saying, everything created by God, everything, including fallen humanity, longs to see the reality of the power of God in us and through us. The God whom we profess to serve.

There's a longing in the hearts of people as they pass by churches in America and New York city on every corner. There comes a time when we've got to stop and take an inventory. God took 120 people, governed and given to the work of God, filled with the Holy Spirit and literally overthrew the power of the Roman empire and that of the whole known world through this initial group of believers.

Now today we have churches on every corner. We can't even touch our own neighborhoods. There comes a time not to be condemned, but there comes a time when we have to take a spiritual inventory and say, what are we amounting to and why is our nation spiraling down into immorality and into an abyss?

Why are the godless allowed to sue our children in schools and tell us when we can stand up and when we can sit down, when we can pray, when we can't pray. There's a time to take an inventory. What have we done with the testimony of the cross of Jesus Christ and the resurrection power of God?

I don't know about you, but I'm going back again into the prayer closet more than I ever have before. I may be turning 61, but I'll tell you right now, the way I read it in the scriptures, Jesus saves the best wine for the end of the banquet.

And the way I read it in the scriptures, folks, is the glory of the latter house is going to be greater than the former. You think about Moses at 40 years of age, he goes in and in human effort and human reasoning and human strength.

He knows he's called to deliver the people of God, but all he does instead of delivering three million, all he does is bury one Egyptian, flees for 40 years into the desert, convinced that his life is over, his ministry is over.

God spoke to me at one time, but the time has passed. Oh no, the best wine is saved for the end of the banquet and the glory of the latter house is greater than the former. In Acts chapter two, I want you to notice when 120 people came out of an upper room completely gripped by the spirit of God and they hadn't really done much yet, but they stepped out and they had an initial evidence in their lives that God was with them.

That initial evidence is that they were given the ability to speak about the wondrous things that God has done and will do. And they were able to speak it in languages that the people there understood.

And the people looked at them and said, how were they given this power to communicate with us? And they're speaking to us about these wonderful things of God that God has done and God is going to do. And the people's hearts melted and they said, what was we do?

This was not a crowd that was really open at that time to the truth of the cross. But when they saw people given to the work of God, their hearts were stirred. In chapter one of Jonah, verse six, it says the captain or verse five talks about the fear that came upon everybody on this journey and everybody began to cry out to their concept of God.

They began to throw out things that they'd carried with them just as we are doing now as a nation, things that have been with us for hundreds of years. They've been proven. They've been essential on the journey.

Now we're throwing it all overboard, all in the name of a new society. And Jonah went down into the lowest parts of the ship and he laid down and he was fast asleep. It speaks to me of a, an age where we're going into a storm.

We've already in it. We're not going into it. We're well into the storm now, but many of God's people are fast asleep, just riding out the storm. I'm just, me and Jesus, Oh God, it's so good to know you.

It's so good to go to church Sunday. So good to sing. It's so good to get back to my business Monday to Saturday and all the things that I'm called to do. But suddenly the captain, the ship master comes to him and says, what do you mean sleep or arise?

Call on your God. Perhaps your God will consider us that we may not perish. And you and I are living at a time when the ship master is calling again. And it's, it represents to me a society that's, that's walking past our churches and looking at the doors and just wondering, wondering, is there hope here?

Can I find direction here? Can the fear of my heart be assuaged here? In this place, if I prayed, would my children come home? Would there be protection for my sons and daughters? Would I find provision for tomorrow or strength for my fearful heart?

And see the ship master came, the captain came and said, arise and call on your God. It may be that he will have mercy on us and consider us that we don't perish. Now Jonah knew he had been running from the call of God.

Jonah knew that his life was prayerless. He, he was actually rebuked by a man who didn't know the God that he knew. He knew he carried within his physical body a message of mercy that he ran from. And yet this call came and I can hear it.

I don't know if you can hear it. There's a call, there's a cry. People are scared. I was just listening to a newscast recently and the newscaster out of nowhere said, what is going on in this world? A recent magazine talking about the calamities, it was published, the headline was who will save us?

People are beginning to realize we're in a storm of unprecedented proportion. This world is spinning out of control. Ideologies are beginning to clash in an unprecedented fashion. And Jonah knew, he said, Oh God, I've walked away from you.

And in chapter two, he begins to pray. Now he told the people, he says, I know the solution to your problem. I have avoided the call of God, but if you will cast me into the midst of the storm, it will begin to cease.

And there's a tremendous type in that it's, it's the new Testament believer says, God, if I will give my life for the sake of others who are going through this crisis, if I am willing to be cast into the middle of it, if I'm willing to be, let my life be used for the betterment of others, then God, my life is going to make a difference.

And so the shipmen, they cast him into the storm. And of course the scripture says immediately the storm ceased and everybody began to worship God. But Jonah began to pray from the middle of his trial, which the scripture says was in a whale's belly.

And he said, I cried out to the Lord because of my affliction. And he answered me out of the belly of Sheol, which, or King James says out of the belly of hell. I cried. I cried. This was his experience.

And you heard my voice for you cast me into the deep and into the heart of the seas and the flood surrounded me and your billows and your waves passed over. In other words, I felt like I'd fallen out of favor with God and all of these arguments were coming against me, even getting back into the work of God.

Then I said, he said, I've been cast out of your sight. There's, you know, even when I start talking about prayer and I start talking about getting involved in the work of God, there's that argument that will come against you.

It comes from the devil himself and it comes from the frailty of your own heart. It says, I believe my time has passed. I remember a time when God called me, but I, I've walked away from that call. I knew the things that you're speaking about pastor, but I chose to lavish this great salvation on myself.

I chose to take a journey far away from perhaps where God has called my life to go. But he said, yet I will look again towards your holy temple. The water surrounded me, even to my soul, the deep closed around me, weeds were wrapped around my head.

I went down to the moorings of the mountains, the earth with its bars closed behind me forever. This is the struggle you'll have to go through until you break through, but you've got to choose to break through.

You've got to pray now. It's Nehemiah said to the people working with him, you're not just fighting for yourself, folks. You're fighting for your sons and for your daughters and for your families and for your nephews, your nieces, for other children in our streets.

The battle is not just about you and I feeling good in the house of God. We're not fighting for a whole generation. Yet he says, you brought up my life from the pit. Oh Lord, my God. When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord and my prayer went up to you into your holy temple.

Jonah says, you brought me up. Oh God, you changed my situation. You gave me the power to pray. You gave me the ability. Oh God, to fulfill your calling on my life. Those who regard worthless idols forsake their own mercy, but I will sacrifice to you with the voice of thanksgiving.

I will pay what I have vowed salvation is of the Lord. In other words, Jonah said, God almighty, I said once in my life, I would serve you. And I seemingly forgot about that. And I went far away from you.

And the prayerlessness of my life is evidence of that. But Oh God, you have saved me and I do not well if I know this and I don't take it to others. And in his heart, he said, in spite of what I have done, you are still a God of mercy.

I know that. I know you as a God of mercy, and I know you'll take me not in my strength, but in my weakness. Just as the Lord calls us in the book of Hebrews to the throne of grace, not when we have it all together, but when we find ourselves in a time of need, he's not calling us in this generation because we're strong.

He's calling us because we're weak. He's calling us because we know we need him. He's calling us because he needs us to do the work that he's commissioned us to do on the earth. And yet he is willing to do it in us and through us that he alone might receive the glory.

I thank God that we've come to this place as a testimony in this nation, where we have to go to the house of God and begin to cry out to Jesus Christ again. And when Jonah began to pray, it says the Lord spoke to the fish or his trial, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

No matter where you are today, no matter how deep your captivity, no matter how helpless and hopeless you feel, call out to God now. That's all that God has given me to speak to you. Call out to God, no matter where you are, no matter how deep or dark or down, no matter how many arguments have come against you, what people have said, what your own heart is speaking, call out to God now.

Answering the Call Through Prayer

Call out to God now for the sake of others. Call out to God, Lord Jesus Christ, don't let this city perish. When your life and light is still in it, don't let people go to hell when I bear in this earthen vessel the testimony of the living God and the power of the living God.

God Almighty, give me a mighty baptism of your Holy Spirit and bring me out of weakness and bring me into the strength of who you are. Put a new song in my heart, put a new step in my walk, put new strength in my hands, put new words in my mouth, put new thoughts in my mind, put a new direction in my life.

Oh God, that the name of Jesus Christ would be glorified and men and women could find you a savior. The moment that prayer came into Jonah's heart, he was immediately at the place that he thought he had lost forever, immediately delivered to that ministry that was once given him, that he had fled from.

When the prodigal son got up to come home, immediately he's in the embrace of his loving father. Immediately the robe of righteousness is put upon him. Immediately he's given a ring of power and authority to tread upon powers of darkness.

Right away, shoes are put on his feet because he's called on a journey to speak about this incredible mercy of his father's house. This is the message of this generation. God is good and his mercy endures forever.