Sermon Outlines

Jonah 1:11-17

None of us is immune to the storms of life. The great hymns of our faith were written out of the crucible of experience. It is Well With My Soul was written by H.G. Spafford immediately after he received news that his four daughters had been lost at sea.

The real issue is how we deal with the storms that come our way. Some of us simply fuss about them as the Israelites did when they asked God, “Why have you brought us out of Egypt? Are you just going to let us die in the wilderness?” Others of us respond to the storms of life as Job did. Job feared them. When Job lost his wealth, health and family, he said, “What I feared has come upon me” (Job 3:25). Still others of us are like Jonah. We flee. Jonah was on the run, but (as we have seen) he soon learned he could not flee forever.

Three factors enable us to deal with the storms of life in such a way that they can become calm. There are reasons for the storm. Before we can experience calm, we must discern what brought about the storm in the first place. There are reactions to the storm. Several ways in which people can react to the storms of life are illustrated by Jonah and those on board the ship. There is a sense in which the test of our Christian character is not in our actions but in our reactions. Finally, there are results of the storm. Once we have discerned the reasons for our storms and reacted properly, there comes an amazing result. The Bible says, “The raging sea grew calm.”

1. Reasons for the Storm

The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, “What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?” “Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” he replied, “and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you” (Jonah 1:11-12).

“What shall we do with you?” That is quite a question isn’t it? In every storm of life it is important to get to the root, the cause of it. In the midst of our storms, many of us are far more concerned with the cure than the cause. The reason we cannot find the cure is that we have not discovered the cause. It is strange that when the storms come, we never want to deal with the reasons for them. Instead, we are obsessed with the cure. In calming those storms, the place to begin is with the reasons for the storm.

Some of the storms of life are inevitable. There is a new wave of preaching that says if a storm of life comes, a sickness or a setback, it is because of one of two things: either we have sin in our lives or we do not have enough faith to overcome. But Jesus said that the Father “sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45). Some things come our way because we are fallen men and women. This is a fallen world.

Other storms come our way for testing. This was certainly the reason for Job’s storm. There is a difference between testing and trials. Testing comes from God to cause the Christian to stand. Trials come from Satan to cause the Christian to stumble. It is not unusual to find that many storms come our way to test our faith. Much of the epistle of James is written concerning this very point.

The reason for other storms of life is discipline. This was true of Jonah’s case. A storm was raging as a result of his going his own way, rebelling against the will of God.

If the storm is a storm of testing, God is able to give victory through it. James said, “Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials.” If your storm is a storm of chastisement or discipline, then punishment might be severe until you repent. Peter said:

If you are insulted because for the name of Christ, you are blessed for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. If you suffer it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal or even as a meddler. However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name (1 Peter 4:14-16)

One can hardly believe how stubborn human nature is until we see Jonah. At this stage of his flight, he would rather die than do the will of God. How stubborn we are sometimes. Like Jonah, some of us let pride so rule our lives that we would rather die than do God’s will. Even reading these words, some may grit their teeth and stiffen their backs. We do not want to humble ourselves before the mighty hand of God.

The sea was getting rougher and rougher; the storm was intensifying. It was becoming virtually impossible to steer the ship, which was about to break in half.

Now remember, God had sent the storm. Some of us have the idea that God is like an old man with a long white beard looking feebly down on our experience on this planet and simply smiling and overlooking our sin. No, a thousand times no! To know how serious God is about our sin, we need to look at Calvary. God is so serious about sin that He gave His only Son to die for it. He is not looking down with a little smirk on his face, ignoring our sin. If we are His children and we are in open rebellion, He will pursue us and chase us down, and if we will not hear Him, a storm of life will come about to get our attention.

Look at Jonah. His storm came to bring him to his senses. But he still refused to take God’s message to Nineveh.

An encouraging thing to me about this whole encounter is that God still used him after he had gone to Joppa, found a ship, left the will of God, and headed toward Tarshish. God still used him. A great revival eventually came to Nineveh. So often, some of us think, “I’ve failed. God can never use me again.” The storm, however, just might be there as an indication that God is not through with us yet. God did not have to send the storm. He could have let Jonah go on his rebellion. He could have cut him off. He could let us go. But the reason for the storm often is that God still wants to use us.

The storm was there to teach Jonah a valuable lesson. God has a purpose in continuing a storm. If we are His children and we turn away from His will, we should not be surprised when storm clouds gather. “The Lord disciplines those He loves, and He punishes everyone He accepts as a son” (Hebrews 12:6). It is a good indication that we are His children when the storms come. “If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons” (Hebrews 12:8). When storms come, many Christians say, “God must be angry at me. I sinned and I knew that something like this would happen.” Others are saying, “Twenty years ago I did this (or I did that) and this is just God’s way of getting even. That is extremely faulty thinking. Listen to Psalm 103:3: “He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.” If God dealt with us according to our sins, we would be chastised every moment of every day.

God does not get even by sending storms our way. God got even, so to speak, on the cross of Calvary. “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). God’s justice was satisfied at Calvary.

For Jonah the storm was the voice of God, as it was to Adam in his rebellion (“Where art thou?”), as it was to Elijah in his rebellion (“What are you doing here?”)[1]. What was the reason for Jonah’s storm? A loving heavenly Father was getting the attention of his runaway prophet.

2. The Reactions to the Storm

And he said to them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will become calm for you. For I know that this great tempest is because of me.” Nevertheless the men rowed hard to return to land, but they could not, for the sea continued to grow more tempestuous against them. Therefore they cried out to the Lord and said, “We pray, O Lord, please do not let us perish for this man’s life, and do not charge us with innocent blood; for You, O Lord, have done as it pleased You” (Jonah 1:12-14).

Once we discover the reason for our storm there are several ways we might react. First, note the reaction of the sailors. They rowed harder. They exerted themselves more and more in strenuous activity. They did their best to row toward land. Here was a group of men who tried in their own strength to find a solution. “But they could not.” Many people react like that. They dig in deeper; they try harder; they work more diligently. But they never make it.

The lesson here is that by our own efforts alone we can never do or be what God wants us to do or to be. We can do our very best, but our best is not good enough. In fact, the Bible says our best is like a “filthy rag.” Once in while we hear someone say, “Do you best for Jesus.” It is a happy day in the life of believers when we realize that our best will not cut it. The secret is allowing God to work His best through us, to let the Lord Jesus Christ think through our minds, speak through our lips, walk through our feet, touch through our hands, live through our lives. So many Christians today attempt to live the Christian life with the philosophy, “I’m going to try hard to be godly.” And so, with good intentions, they go out in their own power. Andrew Murray once said, “The Christian life is not difficult; it is impossible.” We cannot live it. Our only hope in living the Christian life is found in Colossians 1:27: “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” We must be filled, indwelt and empowered by the Holy Spirit.[2]

Frankly, I’m amazed at how many Christians live life like these sailors; that is, by just trying harder. That may work for Avis Rent-a-Car, but is not the secret to victory in the Christian life. Some of the philosophy has come from a bestselling Christian classic, the basic premise of which is that we should walk in the steps of Jesus and do what Jesus did. When we get to an intersection of life, we stop and ask, “What would Jesus do in this situation?” Then we simply do what He would do. The problem with such an outlook is threefold.

First, it assumes that we always know what Jesus would do in a certain situation. As I read the New Testament, I find He was continually astounding the disciples because He was always doing something new and saying something different . Second, it assumes that once we know what Jesus would do, we will go on and do it. If you are like me, and like Jonah, your problem is not knowing what you ought to do but going on and doing it. Third, the great fallacy of this philosophy is that it presupposes that Jesus is not there. The question is, “If Jesus were here, what would He do?” The marvelous truth is that Jesus is here. If we are Christians, we are indwelt by Him. Christ is in us. It is not a matter of our trying to do what He would do; the secret is in allowing Him to do it in us and through us.

As hard as they tried, the sailors could not get back to land. We need to hear those words. We may row as hard as we can in our own strength, but that is not enough. So many of us have found this to be true. We thought we could overcome that temptation and we did our very best, “But we could not.” When marriage problems came, we thought we could overcome them by doing our very best, “But we could not.” Many people today are trying their best to solve the problems of life, while all the time the storm clouds grow darker, the thunder rolls.

It is futile to fight against God. We must come to the end of ourselves and learn not to trust in our strength but in the Lord. Paul was getting at that when he said, “ I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20).

Note that these sailors tried two things before they surrendered to God’s will. First, “they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship” (Jonah 1:5). They thought that by getting rid of their cargo, they could ride out the storm.[3] Many believers are still trying this today. They attempt to calm the storm by getting rid of their cargo. They try to get rid of certain things in their lives. Some stop hanging out after work at the bars. Some try to stop swearing. Others seek to cease lying. Others give up immorality. We give up this and give up that, but still we have no peace.

Finally, the other thing the sailors tried to do was row harder to get to land. There was, however, one way they could be saved and that was that Jonah had to be sacrificed. Jonah brought it up. “Use me as a substitute, a sacrifice.” But they rowed all the harder. They are not different from so many people today who, after hearing about this substitute for sin in the Lord Jesus Christ, go on trying to row their way to heaven.

How do we react to the storms of life? Are you a reader who is rowing hard in your own strength? Give up. It will only get worse. Let go and let God have His way. If it is a storm of discipline, stop trying to calm the storm by simply throwing your cargo overboard and rowing harder. What we all need to do is fling ourselves totally on the Lord Jesus Christ, and, as the songwriter said, “Let go and let God have His wonderful way.”

There is another way to react to the storms of life. Note the way Jonah reacted. “Pick me up and throw me into the sea, and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.” Jonah had stopped running. He had admitted his sin. Now he was submitting to God. He took responsibility. Some of us never get to this place. Had some of us been Jonah, we would simply have continued to blame everyone else for the storm, and it would have continued to beat on us.

The men responded by asking a question, “What should we do to you?” Those on board that ship believed in the doctrine of substitution. Some practice it even today.[4] Somewhere at this very moment someone is wringing the neck of a scrawny chicken, letting the blood spill over a grotesque mud idol, because he or she believes in substitutionary atonement. It was the first lesson God taught Adam and Eve when they sinned. God took a substitute, an innocent animal, and after slaying that animal took its skin to cover their nakedness.

But we are too sophisticated to want to talk about the fall of man. We hear only about the ascent of man. The evolutionary process is in vogue. Our children in public schools are not taught that human beings are fallen creatures; they are taught that we are ascending, getting better all the time. Humanism is the modern god. Man is all-sufficient and needs no substitutionary atonement, they tell us. The truth is that those heathen sailors were a lot better off than many modern educators. At least they knew the truth of substitution, which one day would send the Lord Jesus to the cross of Calvary to die for our sins.

Jonah reacted to the storm by stopping his flight and surrendering to God. He offered to be a sacrifice. WE see the truth vividly here. Human efforts cannot calm the storms of God’s judgment on sin. There must be a sacrifice. At this point Jonah became a picture, a foreshadow of our Lord Jesus Christ.

How could Jonah make such a request? What he suicidal? What he self-destructive? No, he had finally begun to react properly. HE realized that his life was not his own. Eight hundred years later our Lord would put it like this: “Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the Gospel will save it” (Mark 8:35).

We often are prone to forge this paradoxical principle of our Lord. WE try to hold on, try to solve our own problems, by doing the work of the Holy Spirit ourselves. I believe that when Jonah said, “Throw men in,” he was saying, “I’m flinging myself on the Lord and returning to His will.”

None of us will ever get to this place until we sense God’s love and concern for us individually. Like Jonah, when we sense that, we will let go of our lives. We will lose our lives so that we might really find them.

One test of Christian character is not our actions but our reactions. Jesus delivered the entire Sermon on the mount to teach us the importance of our reactions. He said, “If a man slaps you on the cheek, turn the other also.” He also said, “If he asks you for your cloak, give him your coat also.”

Jonah eventually reacted to the storm with submission to God’s will. We too must cease our flight from God’s will and surrender to Him.

3. Results of the Storm

So they picked up Jonah and threw him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice to the Lord and took vows. Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights Jonah 1:15-17.

What a result! “The raging sea grew calm.” When? It grew calm when Jonah discovered that the reason for the storm was his flight from God’s will. And then he reacted properly by ceasing his flight and surrendering to the Lord. Some storms continue to rage because we never discern the cause, or because we react with stubbornness.

When Jonah was in rebellion against the will of God, the sky was dark, the thunder rolled, the lightning flashed, the winds blew, the waves beat against the ship, and the rain fell in torrents from the sky. The moment he surrendered to God’s will for his life, peace came. Calm. The clouds rolled way. The waves fell down flat and gently thumped against the sides of the board. The sky became a beautiful blue. A gentle sea breeze blew.

Peace came when Jonah began obeying the will of God. More was accomplished in one moment in God’s will than in hours of tense toil and labor. How slow we are to grasp this truth. The secret is in surrender.

God accepted the offering of Jonah. Our Lord Jesus said:

A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here (Matthew 12:39-41).

Jonah was a sign of the Lord’s death and resurrection. Our lord showed us a picture of one greater than Jonah who one day would go to Calvary, into the grave, and rise again in order to offer himself as a sacrifice that others might be saved.

When the raging sea grew calm, the sailors feared the Lord, offered sacrifice and made vows to God. They called on the name of the Lord. They had cried to “Yahweh” (Jonah 1:14). Previously, they had been “calling upon their gods” (1:5). What a transformation had taken place in their lives.

The new-age philosophy running rampant across the world today tells us that we are all going to the same place. Buddhists and Hindus and Muslims alike. They have been teaching us songs lie, “We are the world; we are the people.” As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we are not the world. We are the church. WE are in the world, but not of the world. New-age thinking sounds like the philosophy of the sailors, where they “Each cried out to his own god” It didn’t matter to them which god they served. But note an interesting thing when deliverance came. They began calling on the name of the Lord. The same thing happened on Mt. Carmel when Elijah was facing the prophets of Baal. He challenged them to call on the name of their god and he would call on the name of the Lord and the deity that answered with fire would the true and living God. “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13). “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

These sailors made promises to God. They said, “We are going to do some things differently.” They made their promises after the sea became calm. A lot of us promise God all sorts of things when the storm is raging and then we forget them when the storm passes by. These men made their promises, and thanksgiving after the storm. How many of us have been in the midst of a storm and promised God something we never kept when the sea was calm? Ti was only when these rough sailors were willing to admit they could not by their own efforts save themselves, when they flung themselves on God’s remedy, that they were truly saved.

They were not saved because they offered sacrifices; they offered the sacrifices because they were saved. Works are not for salvation. These men offered their sacrifices after the se ahead calmed. Good works are the fruit of salvation. The Bible says, "We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10). They said to God, “You have done as you pleased.” Here is proof that these men were transformed. They surrendered to the sovereignty of the Lord God. God is sovereign which simply means HE does what He pleases (and He is always pleased with what He does). This is one reason more folks do not come to Christ: they do not want to bend to His sovereignty. They would rather do as they please than to allow God to do as He pleases in their lives.

These callous-handed sailors saw the need for atonement. They also saw that it was outside themselves. No one will ever be saved as long as he thinks he can do it in his own strength. WE need a substitute, and one has been provided for us in the Lord Jesus Christ.

What was the result of the storm? For the sailors, they greatly feared the Lord and offered a sacrifice to Him as they made vows to Him. When we see the reason for our storms and react properly to them, we will see similar results. The raging sea will grow calm. We will acknowledge that the Lord can do as HE pleases in our lives, and we will make our lives a living sacrifice to His glory.

What was the result of the storm in the life of Jonah? God saved him, and used a fish to prepare him for revival. Jonah had resigned himself to death. But God appointed a great fish to preserve his runaway prophet. God did not want to kill Jonah: He wanted to save him. It’s the same with us. The belly of a great fish is not a happy place to live. But for those in rebellion, it is a healthy place to live. Had it not been for the fish’s belly, many of us would not be living for Christ in victory today. We do not learn spiritual lessons on the mountaintop. We learn them down in the valley.

I am always a little amused at the way Christians think they need to prove the possibility of a miracle. While I was preaching for several months through the book of Jonah in our church, several well-meaning people gave me articles explaining how it is possible for a person to live a certain number of days in the belly of a large fish — because the stomach gases emit enough oxygen, and other explanations of the miraculous. I have read documented accounts of men who survived for days inside a fish. Why is It that we always think we have to explain the miraculous? What happened to Jonah was a miracle. Take away the miraculous from Jonah and you destroy the miraculous of the Gospel — the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord.

This great fish is an object lesson about the mercy of God. God performed a miracle to preserve His man. God specializes in doing that. He’ll do the same for us when we surrender to Him. Shortly after my conversion, I remember singing a little chorus at youth camp. It went like this:

Are there any rivers that seem uncrossable?
Are there any mountains you cannot tunnel through?
God specializes in things that seem impossible?
He knows a thousand ways to make a way for you.

Although we may forsake God, He never forsakes us (Deuteronomy 31:6; Hebrews 13:5). God has promised never to leave us nor forsake us. Many of us can remember a time when we turned and went our own ways, but not one of us can recall a time when God has turned on us. There is no shadow of turning in God. He is faithful. Great is His faithfulness.

Do you see what is happening in the pilgrimage of our prophet? Jonah was saving his life by losing it. Previously God had commanded him to go to Nineveh and Jonah said no. He grabbed tighter to his life. God said go, and Jonah said no. He clutched his life all the tighter and in possessing his life, he lost it. He lost joy, freedom, happiness, purpose. He lost his high calling and he found himself in the midst of a storm. He is not different from many of us. So many people today are clutching their own lives, not willing to let go and let God have His way. The tragedy is that in holding their lives so tightly they are losing them. “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it” (Mark 8:35).

Do you see it? Jonah let go of his life. He said, “Throw me overboard.” And when he let go of his life, he found it. A lot of Christians are in trouble today because they will not let God have their lives. When the storm comes, we grit our teeth, throw out a little cargo, row a little harder, and the harder we work in clutching our lives, the worse the storm becomes and the more of our joy and purpose and peace we lose. Some of us are concentrating too much on the second part of Jesus’ commandment; that is, on “Finding our life.” This is the fallacy of a lot of modern psychology. We hear from many circles that we must “find ourselves.” The way really to find ourselves is to lose ourselves in the love of the Lord Jesus Christ. To lose our lives in Christ means to take our hands off it, to surrender totally to Him, and say, “Lord, here’s my life; take it and use it to your glory.”

The Old Testament is full of shadows (or types) of Christ. You have never seen a sunrise until you see it rise over the Atlantic Ocean on Fort Lauderdale beach. You can stand on our beach and your shadow will stretch across the beach and across the street to the building beyond. No one could ever make out the fact that it was a human shadow. But a strange thing happens as the sun continues to rise. IF you were to keep standing on the beach by 10 a.m., your shadow would be in complete proportion to your body and would be easily identifiable. By high noon there would be no shadow at all.

The sun of God’s revelation began to shine in those early chapters of Genesis. It rose there with the slaying of the innocent animal to cover Adam and Eve’s sin. IT rose a little higher with Abel’s offering, and still higher with Abraham and Isaac. Then came the Passover lamb, and the shadow was coming more into focus. Jonah in the fish’s belly gives us a beautiful picture. We come to Isaiah 53 with the suffering servant. There we see a perfect shadow, a perfect picture of our Lord Jesus Christ. Finally came the day when high noon on God’s clock of revelation struck, when God became flesh and dwelt among us in the body of our Lord Jesus. But one of the clearest pictures of the coming Christ in the Old Testament is found here in Jonah.

The storm beat on Jonah in the ship because of sin, and sin must be punished by death. The guilty must die. The Bible says, “The soul that sins, it shall surely die.” “The wages of sin is death.” What a picture we see in Jonah of Jesus who took the sinners’ place. The Bible says, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). “We all like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). “He himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24).

Here is the doctrine of substitutionary atonement; that is, one must die that others might live. Caiaphas, the high priest must have surprised himself at the trial of Jesus by saying, “You know nothing at all! You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish. He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation” (John 11:49-51).

Our Lord was cast into the sea of God’s judgment to die and rise again for our redemption. This great ship of humanity was battered by the waves of judgment and was headed for destruction. There was only one way that such a storm could be stilled. “Jesus paid it all / All to Him I owe /Sing had left a crimson stain / He washed it white as snow.” Jonah was thrown overboard. Our Lord Jesus was nailed to the cross. “He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him and by His wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5).

Alas! and did my Savior bleed
And did my sovereign die?
Would He devote that sacred Head
For sinners such as I?

Was it for sins that I have done
He suffered on that tree?
Amazing pity! Grace unknown!
And love beyond degree!

But drops of grief can ne’er repay
The debt of love I owe;
Here, Lord, I give myself away —
‘Tis all that I can do!

At the cross, at the cross,
Where I first saw the light,
And the burden of my heart rolled away —
It was there by faith
I received my sight
And now I am happy all the day.

Have you seen this Savior as your personal substitute? There is only one way we can be saved, and that is to surrender to God and accept the gift of His Son, our substitute, who took our place on Calvary’s mountain and died our death so that we might live His life.

Perhaps some of my readers find themselves in the belly of a fish this very moment saying, “How can I hold on?” How many people feel as if they have been swallowed by some great fish of life? It’s dark, and confusion sets in. I’m sure Jonah felt that there was no way out of his dilemma.

It is wonderful to remember that Christ is at the right hand of the Father making intercession for us. I wonder what He would pray for those who find themselves in a fish belly today. I think He might be praying what He prayed for Peter: “I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers” (Luke 22:32).[5]

What a thought. Jesus prays for us at the right hand of the Father that “our faith may not fall.” In the end, it is really our faith that matters. That is why Paul would say later, “I live by faith in the Son of God” (Gal. 2:20). If you are swallowed by doubt today, remember that there is one who is forever faithful in offering his prayers in perfect faith for you that your faith will not fail. Lose your life in Him and you will find it.

The raging sea grew calm. Those who were lost were saved. Those out of the will of God were recovered. Oh, that the result of our storms today might be that we see Jesus in Jonah, that we might see Jesus as our substitute.

In the dark of the midnight
Have I oft hid my face,
While the storms howl above me
And there’s no hiding place,
‘Mid the crash of the thunder.
Precious Lord, hear my cry,
Keep me safe ‘til the storm passes by.

Many times Satan whispered,
“There is no use to try,
For there’s no end of sorrow,
There’s no hope by and by,”
But I know Thou art with me,
And tomorrow I’ll rise
Where the storms never darken the skies.

When the long night has ended
And the storms come no more,
Let me stand in Thy presence
On that bright, peaceful shore
In the land where the tempest
Never comes, Lord, may I
Dwell with Thee when the storm passes by.

Til the storm passes over
Til the thunder sounds no more,
Til the clouds roll forever from the sky
Hold me fast, let me stand
In the hollow of Thy hand.
Keep me safe ‘til the storm passes by.