[by:¿É¿ÉÓ¢Óï¡«www.utensil-race.com]
[00:00.26] But all in vain;the indignant gale howls louder;then,with one hand raised invokingly to God,with the other they not unreluctantly lay hold of Jonah.
[00:12.50] And now behold Jonah taken up as an anchor and dropped into the sea;when instantly an oily calmness floats out from the east,
[00:21.06] and the sea is still,as Jonah carries down the gale with him,leaving smooth water behind.
[00:27.40] He goes down in the whirling heart of such a masterless commotion that he scarce heeds the moment when he drops seething into the yawning jaws awaiting him;
[00:37.39] and the whale shoots to all his ivory teeth,like so many white bolts,upon his prison.
[00:44.14] Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord out of the fish's belly.But observe his prayer,and learn a weighty lesson.For sinful as he is,Jonah does not weep and wail for direct deliverance.
[00:57.15] He feels that his dreadful punishment is just.He leaves all his deliverance to God,contenting himself with this,that spite of all his pains and pangs,he will still look towards His holy temple.
[01:10.13] And here,shipmates,is true and faithful repentance;not clamorous for pardon,but grateful for punishment.And how pleasing to God was this conduct in Jonah,
[01:21.45] is shown in the eventual deliverance of him from the sea and the whale.Shipmates,I do not place Jonah before you to be copied for his sin but I do place him before you as a model for repentance.
[01:35.10] Sin not;but if you do,take heed to repent of it like Jonah.
[01:41.35] While he was speaking these words,the howling of the shrieking,slanting storm without seemed to add new power to the preacher,
[01:49.33] who,when describing Jonah's sea storm,seemed tossed by a storm himself.His deep chest heaved as with a ground swell;
[01:57.31] his tossed arms seemed the warring elements at work;and the thunders that rolled away from off his swarthy brow,and the light leaping from his eye,
[02:06.19] made all his simple hearers look on him with a quick fear that was strange to them.
[02:12.10] There now came a lull in his look,as he silently turned over the leaves of the Book once more;and,at last,
[02:18.32] standing motionless,with closed eyes,for the moment,seemed communing with God and himself.
[02:25.18] But again he leaned over towards the people,and bowing his head lowly,with an aspect of the deepest yet manliest humility,he spake these words:
[02:35.23] Shipmates,God has laid but one hand upon you;both his hands press upon me.I have read ye by what murky light may be mine the lesson that Jonah teaches to all sinners;
[02:48.49] and therefore to ye,and still more to me,for I am a greater sinner than ye.And now how gladly would I come down from this mast head and sit on the hatches there where you sit,
[03:01.07] and listen as you listen,while some one of you reads ME that other and more awful lesson which Jonah teaches to ME,as a pilot of the living God.