WEBVTT 00:00:03.988 --> 00:00:05.793 Turn in your Bibles to Jonah, chapter one. 00:00:05.793 --> 00:00:07.447 That's where we're going to start this one. 00:00:07.447 --> 00:00:21.248 We're starting a brand new sermon series called Jonah, embracing God's Mission, and the focus of this series is to consider God's sovereign mission in the earth and how he desires for us to embrace it. 00:00:21.248 --> 00:00:25.428 Aren't you thankful that God had a sovereign mission to reach you? 00:00:25.428 --> 00:00:32.051 How many of us found ourselves in places where we needed rescue in a spiritual way? 00:00:32.051 --> 00:00:40.005 We needed God to find us, to embrace us, to show us who Jesus was, so that we could come out of darkness into the light. 00:00:41.200 --> 00:00:45.170 The book of Jonah is unique in the Old Testament because it is a prophet. 00:00:45.170 --> 00:00:48.810 It's about a prophet, but it's about his life instead of about his messages. 00:00:48.810 --> 00:01:00.033 Most of the Old Testament books where we find prophecy, the majority of them, are actually messages that God gave to those who were prophets, and then they wrote those messages down and that's what we read. 00:01:00.033 --> 00:01:06.125 But the little book of Jonah is different because it's a telling of his life story, a part of his life story. 00:01:06.125 --> 00:01:15.689 We see Jonah's reluctant prophet failing to wholeheartedly embrace God's mission in many ways, and yet God's purpose was accomplished, despite his shortcomings. 00:01:15.689 --> 00:01:20.063 Aren't you glad that God is bigger than our mistakes, amen. 00:01:20.063 --> 00:01:24.891 We will conclude this series on Easter Sunday, which is March 31. 00:01:24.891 --> 00:01:32.852 It's early this year, and we're going to be talking about, on that Sunday, one greater than Jonah, whose name is Jesus. 00:01:32.852 --> 00:01:47.745 He was sent to accomplish the mission of God and he did it perfectly, without any reluctance, without any rebellion, without anything other than complete obedience and compliance, and we're thankful for that, aren't we? 00:01:47.745 --> 00:01:57.171 So our desire is to learn from Jonah's mistakes and, as followers of Jesus, to find ourselves deeply engaged in God's mission in our day and time. 00:01:57.171 --> 00:02:02.990 I am so glad that God chose to put the faults of people in the Bible. 00:02:02.990 --> 00:02:08.865 It's filled with flawed individuals, and what does that do for you and I? 00:02:08.865 --> 00:02:10.008 It gives us hope. 00:02:10.008 --> 00:02:17.233 It gives us hope because if God could use people like that, he could certainly use people like us, amen. 00:02:17.233 --> 00:02:20.489 And so let's go into this message this morning with that mind. 00:02:20.800 --> 00:02:26.132 The title of the message is I Am Jonah, jonah, chapter one, verses one through 16. 00:02:26.132 --> 00:02:29.919 Kind of try to picture this as we talk about it Now. 00:02:29.919 --> 00:02:40.911 The word of the Lord came to Jonah and the son of Amity saying arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me. 00:02:40.911 --> 00:02:45.528 But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. 00:02:45.528 --> 00:02:49.247 He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. 00:02:49.247 --> 00:02:56.722 So he paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord. 00:02:56.722 --> 00:03:06.108 But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea and there was a mighty tempest on the sea so that this ship threatened to break up. 00:03:06.108 --> 00:03:15.407 Then the mariners were afraid and each cried out to his God and they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. 00:03:16.560 --> 00:03:23.822 But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was passed asleep. 00:03:23.822 --> 00:03:28.087 So the captain came and said to him what do you mean? 00:03:28.087 --> 00:03:34.989 You sleeper, arise, call out to your God, perhaps the God will give a thought to us that we may not perish. 00:03:34.989 --> 00:03:42.004 And they said to one another come, let us cast lots that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us. 00:03:42.004 --> 00:03:46.413 So they cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. 00:03:46.413 --> 00:03:57.647 And then they said to him tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us, what is your occupation and where do you come from, what is your country and of what people are you? 00:03:57.647 --> 00:04:06.163 And he said to them I am a Hebrew and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. 00:04:07.219 --> 00:04:11.510 Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him what is this that you have done? 00:04:11.510 --> 00:04:18.225 For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them. 00:04:18.225 --> 00:04:22.391 Then they said to him what shall we do to you that the sea may quiet down for us? 00:04:22.391 --> 00:04:25.187 For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. 00:04:25.187 --> 00:04:35.889 He said to them pick me up and hurl me into the sea, then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you. 00:04:35.889 --> 00:04:45.028 Nevertheless, the men rode hard to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them. 00:04:45.028 --> 00:04:54.161 Therefore, they called out to the Lord oh Lord, let us not perish for this man's life and lay not on us innocent blood For you. 00:04:54.161 --> 00:04:56.408 Oh Lord, have done as it pleased you. 00:04:56.408 --> 00:05:02.872 So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. 00:05:02.872 --> 00:05:11.353 Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. 00:05:11.353 --> 00:05:12.966 Let's pray together. 00:05:12.966 --> 00:05:38.310 Father, I am so thankful today to have the privilege of speaking your words, and I ask, lord God, that you would take these words of life and that you would cause them to penetrate our heart, our soul, our spirit, our mind, every part of us, and that your spirit would do the work that only he can do to bring about transformation and change in our lives, so that we might more fully embrace your mission. 00:05:38.310 --> 00:05:43.170 We ask that you would do these things in the mighty name of Jesus, amen. 00:05:44.201 --> 00:05:52.267 So, for those of us who have been in church for a while, stories like this one we probably learned in Sunday school or children's church, right? 00:05:52.267 --> 00:05:57.250 Maybe some of you first learned of Jonah by watching Veggie Tales. 00:05:57.250 --> 00:06:00.329 Remember the movie Jonah Veggie Tales. 00:06:00.329 --> 00:06:02.649 Some of you right now are thinking of one of the songs. 00:06:02.649 --> 00:06:05.865 Derek was doing an interpretive dance earlier to one of them. 00:06:05.865 --> 00:06:07.386 That was interesting. 00:06:07.386 --> 00:06:13.589 We didn't get that on film, but maybe next time, but anyway, yeah, so we have all of these things that we remember. 00:06:13.899 --> 00:06:17.490 Maybe some of us learned about these stories through puppets, through a puppet show. 00:06:17.490 --> 00:06:32.170 Right, that was another way that a lot of these stories were told or communicated to us and for some of us of a certain generation, maybe we learned with this beautiful thing called a felt board and flannel graph images. 00:06:32.170 --> 00:06:34.144 Anybody here relate to that? 00:06:34.144 --> 00:06:38.509 Yes, wasn't it amazing how colorful they made those? 00:06:38.509 --> 00:06:44.531 I mean, they really did a good job for it being sort of a 2D experience. 00:06:44.531 --> 00:06:49.490 But I'm telling you, back in the day when we experienced that, it seemed very high-tech to us. 00:06:49.490 --> 00:06:53.949 It was amazing how they got those things to stick on that board. 00:06:53.949 --> 00:07:02.190 Right, I like to volunteer in children's church and go up there and be the one that would move them around, you know, and they're walking along and all of that stuff. 00:07:02.190 --> 00:07:07.461 So, anyway, that's just a little nostalgia for some of you to lighten the mood a little bit. 00:07:08.360 --> 00:07:20.607 But one of the things stories like this one, daniel and the Lion's Den, david and Goliath one of the things that we need to remember, probably more than anything else, is these stories are true. 00:07:20.607 --> 00:07:23.764 They actually happened. 00:07:23.764 --> 00:07:38.949 Even though we may have learned about them in story form or we may have experienced something that was said to us in a way that was to express it as a tale or a story, these things actually occurred in history. 00:07:38.949 --> 00:07:43.103 They really happened and they are absolutely true. 00:07:43.103 --> 00:07:48.658 Now, that doesn't stop people from trying to deny that these things are true. 00:07:48.658 --> 00:07:50.362 Some people say they're just. 00:07:50.362 --> 00:07:53.230 You know, the Old Testament is just allegorical. 00:07:53.230 --> 00:07:57.699 It's just filled with parables, which are stories meant to teach an important spiritual truth. 00:07:58.646 --> 00:08:04.324 They ask questions like how could Jonah have possibly survived in the belly of a fish for three days? 00:08:04.324 --> 00:08:06.014 I've asked that question. 00:08:06.014 --> 00:08:14.658 It's a question to be asked, right that maybe they would say things like why, how could the whole city of Nineveh, including the animals, repent? 00:08:14.658 --> 00:08:16.408 How is that possible? 00:08:16.408 --> 00:08:24.228 Or maybe they said how is it possible for a plant in one day to grow up to give Jonah's shelter? 00:08:24.228 --> 00:08:25.310 How is that even possible? 00:08:25.310 --> 00:08:28.016 And I thought, you know, it must have been kudzu. 00:08:28.016 --> 00:08:38.414 Yeah, sorry, the things that happen in the mind of a pastor. 00:08:38.414 --> 00:08:49.318 Right, you and I may have similar questions, we may have thoughts that cross our minds, but it's really important for us to understand again that these things are true. 00:08:49.365 --> 00:08:54.453 So I want to give you a couple of reasons why we should believe that the story of Jonah is true. 00:08:54.453 --> 00:08:57.480 Number one Jonah was a real person. 00:08:57.480 --> 00:09:01.096 Jonah was a real historical person. 00:09:01.096 --> 00:09:09.451 Okay, he was a Hebrew prophet from Gath Hefner Heffer in Sebulent, which was near Nazareth. 00:09:09.451 --> 00:09:14.394 Why do we know Nazareth, because that's where Jesus, his family, was from right. 00:09:14.394 --> 00:09:15.899 So it was near Nazareth. 00:09:15.899 --> 00:09:17.585 That's where Jonah grew up. 00:09:17.585 --> 00:09:22.517 He ministered in the northern kingdom of Israel during the reign of Jeroboam the second. 00:09:22.517 --> 00:09:27.557 Okay, and we know this for sure because second Kings 14, 25 talks about it. 00:09:27.557 --> 00:09:42.211 It says he restored the border of Israel from Lebo Hamath as far as the Sea of the Arab, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he spoke by a servant, jonah, the son of Amity, the prophet, who was from Gath Heffer. 00:09:42.211 --> 00:09:48.398 So we have evidence here again of the historic nature of the person of Jonah, right? 00:09:48.398 --> 00:09:49.509 So that's one reason. 00:09:49.610 --> 00:10:00.825 The second reason is Jesus referred to Jonah not as a story or as a tale, but as an actual person, and you can find this in Matthew, chapter 12, verses 39 through 42. 00:10:00.825 --> 00:10:10.110 I'm not going to read that today because in March, at the end of March, in our Easter service, this is going to be our main passage that we're going to study, so I'll leave that for then. 00:10:10.110 --> 00:10:23.115 But Jesus considered Jonah a historic person and he pointed to his experience as a type or a shadow of his own death, burial and resurrection, and We'll see that as we go through the rest of the story right. 00:10:23.115 --> 00:10:27.303 So for Christians, jesus's testimony should be enough. 00:10:27.303 --> 00:10:29.971 For us, that should be the deciding factor. 00:10:29.971 --> 00:10:40.918 If Jesus said Jonah was a historic person and he actually did go and Live in the belly of a whale for three days, as Jesus said that he did, that should be enough for us. 00:10:43.846 --> 00:10:54.557 Here's the deal we have to believe that with men, things may seem impossible, but with God all things are possible. 00:10:54.557 --> 00:10:57.333 We believe in an all-powerful God. 00:10:57.333 --> 00:11:07.839 If we don't believe that the stories of the Old Testament are true, then how in the world can we believe that Jesus rose from the dead after being dead for three days and buried in the grave? 00:11:07.839 --> 00:11:11.562 We have to believe that these things are true. 00:11:11.562 --> 00:11:25.217 It's interesting I was getting my tire patch the other day and I got into a conversation with the manager and as we were talking, he was talking to me about the fact that he reads the Bible and I appreciated that, was so glad that you read the Bible. 00:11:25.217 --> 00:11:27.345 And then he started in on the Old Testament. 00:11:27.345 --> 00:11:33.979 He said I don't know how anybody in their right mind could read the Old Testament and just believe, just believe what it says. 00:11:33.979 --> 00:11:41.991 And I'm sitting there saying, god, could we have just landed on the New Testament. 00:11:41.991 --> 00:11:53.304 You know I'm not, but anyway, I had a really great conversation with this guy and I'm gonna go back Hopefully not this time because I have a large screw in my tire. 00:11:53.304 --> 00:11:56.596 I'd like to go back and just have a conversation with them, right? 00:11:56.596 --> 00:12:02.284 But it's really important for us to believe that these things are true because they are right. 00:12:02.284 --> 00:12:04.131 So let's move on talking about this book. 00:12:04.734 --> 00:12:07.524 First of all, jonah is not the hero of this book. 00:12:07.524 --> 00:12:09.028 Even though that's the name of the book. 00:12:09.028 --> 00:12:11.196 He's not the hero, right. 00:12:11.196 --> 00:12:14.144 In fact, to be honest, he's kind of the anti-hero. 00:12:14.144 --> 00:12:17.493 He's the opposite of hero in a lot of ways in this story. 00:12:17.493 --> 00:12:19.197 So who's the hero of Jonah's? 00:12:19.197 --> 00:12:23.230 Not God is the hero of the book of Jonah. 00:12:23.230 --> 00:12:33.135 We can see it clearly this way the fish is mentioned only four times, jonah's mentioned 18 times and the book is called Jonah. 00:12:33.135 --> 00:12:47.480 Right, god is mentioned 38 times and In literature, when something is repeated over and over and over again, there's a reason for that, because there's an intent for an emphasis to be there. 00:12:47.480 --> 00:12:57.205 So Jonah is really a story about God and the way that he deals with people, and that's a good thing that, as we read through it, let's be thinking like that. 00:12:57.946 --> 00:13:00.993 If we eliminated God from this book, it wouldn't make sense at all. 00:13:00.993 --> 00:13:03.678 It would be completely confusing. 00:13:03.678 --> 00:13:08.625 But with God at the helm of it and as the focus of it, it makes complete sense. 00:13:08.625 --> 00:13:16.418 You see, this book is actually about God's missionary heart and his desire to reach those who are far from him. 00:13:16.418 --> 00:13:21.856 It highlights the fact that in his goodness, he wants to partner with his children on mission. 00:13:21.856 --> 00:13:31.524 Not only does he want to save us, but then he wants to partner with us on his mission as he continues the work that he's doing here on this earth. 00:13:31.524 --> 00:13:36.504 It also shows and I hope that this is hopeful for each and every one of us. 00:13:36.504 --> 00:13:45.092 It shows how great God's mercy is towards protocols, prodigal son and daughters who run away from him. 00:13:45.092 --> 00:13:51.576 God never, never gives up on Jonah, even when he had every right to walk away. 00:13:51.576 --> 00:14:00.158 That should be hopeful and helpful to us as we continue to stand and pray and ask God for the protocols to return to him. 00:14:00.986 --> 00:14:06.057 Next, the call of God for Jonah was personal, pointed and passionate. 00:14:06.057 --> 00:14:07.629 Why was it personal? 00:14:07.629 --> 00:14:09.634 Because God called him by name. 00:14:09.634 --> 00:14:15.179 Not only did he call him by name, but he said the son of, to make sure that it was this Jonah. 00:14:15.179 --> 00:14:16.865 Everybody knew it's this Jonah. 00:14:16.865 --> 00:14:19.772 This guy is the one who I'm calling. 00:14:19.772 --> 00:14:21.857 God is a personal God. 00:14:21.857 --> 00:14:27.125 He desires to have an ongoing personal relationship with each of his children. 00:14:27.125 --> 00:14:29.990 That's the purpose of him. 00:14:29.990 --> 00:14:35.768 Bringing about salvation is so that we can be restored into right Relationship with God. 00:14:35.768 --> 00:14:38.917 Each and every one of you who are followers of Jesus. 00:14:38.917 --> 00:14:46.630 God knows you by name and he calls you by name, and he has a specific purpose For each of you to accomplish. 00:14:46.630 --> 00:14:59.751 That is unique to you Doesn't mean that you won't do it in conjunction with other people, but it's unique to you because it's what God is calling you to participate with them in doing so. 00:14:59.751 --> 00:15:02.578 Not only was it personal, but it was also pointed. 00:15:02.578 --> 00:15:03.841 How was it pointed? 00:15:03.841 --> 00:15:08.475 Because God called Jonah to go to a place, to go to Nineveh specifically. 00:15:10.152 --> 00:15:15.538 Nineveh, the ancient capital of the Assyrian Empire, was about 500 miles east of Israel. 00:15:15.538 --> 00:15:17.395 It was a massive place. 00:15:17.395 --> 00:15:20.818 It was very much ahead of its time. 00:15:20.818 --> 00:15:24.320 It had a huge walled city. 00:15:24.320 --> 00:15:32.416 It was just, in a lot of ways was a step above Anything else from a development standpoint in that time, in that era. 00:15:32.416 --> 00:15:38.458 It was located on the eastern bank of the Tigris River, which is near modern day Mosul, iraq. 00:15:38.458 --> 00:15:44.719 So if you can think of Iraq and think of where Mosul might be, that's about where Nineveh would have been back in the day. 00:15:45.450 --> 00:15:47.238 So it was also passionate. 00:15:47.238 --> 00:15:52.578 It was passionate because God told Jonah to confront the Ninevites' sin. 00:15:52.578 --> 00:15:57.456 He wasn't just going there on a trip like to observe Nineveh. 00:15:57.456 --> 00:16:02.874 He was being sent there to preach a strong word, a strong message. 00:16:02.874 --> 00:16:07.336 In fact, it says "'And call out against it, "'for their evil has come up before me'". 00:16:07.336 --> 00:16:12.938 Note what Jonah was to do Go to Nineveh and preach against it. 00:16:12.938 --> 00:16:16.995 This is way different than God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. 00:16:16.995 --> 00:16:20.256 This is not your best life now. 00:16:20.256 --> 00:16:30.761 This is God's hatred of sin and his judgment of sin and his wrath towards sin. 00:16:31.409 --> 00:16:35.355 In order for the gospel to be powerful, it has to start with the bad news. 00:16:35.355 --> 00:16:46.938 How could it be good news unless we understand first the bad news that we are all sinners and that we all, because of our sin, deserve to die and to be separated from God forever? 00:16:46.938 --> 00:16:55.357 And yet the good news begins because Jesus stepped in our place and took our sins upon himself. 00:16:55.357 --> 00:16:57.996 And we know the rest of the story right. 00:16:57.996 --> 00:17:03.134 When God said Nineveh was evil and wicked, he wasn't kidding. 00:17:03.134 --> 00:17:11.816 There's artwork and all kinds of things that have been found from this era where they would draw of the different things that they did when they conquered lands. 00:17:11.816 --> 00:17:15.318 They were violent people, were wicked people. 00:17:15.318 --> 00:17:17.998 They did things like skin people alive. 00:17:17.998 --> 00:17:21.779 They decapitated, decapitated, they mutilated people. 00:17:21.779 --> 00:17:23.175 They ripped out their tongues. 00:17:23.175 --> 00:17:30.076 They made pyramids of human heads, just to begin, and I can't even talk about the rest of the graphic things that they did. 00:17:31.809 --> 00:17:38.213 This is where God was calling Jonah to go and preach the Ninevites. 00:17:38.213 --> 00:17:45.296 Evil had come up before God like a dirty stench in his nostrils and the time for judgment had come. 00:17:45.296 --> 00:17:48.323 Here's the problem. 00:17:48.323 --> 00:17:50.415 When God said go, jonah said no. 00:17:50.415 --> 00:17:54.417 God said go and Jonah said no. 00:17:54.417 --> 00:17:58.074 Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. 00:17:58.074 --> 00:18:02.778 Interesting thought, jonah's been called the reluctant prophet. 00:18:02.778 --> 00:18:05.816 I wanna call him the runaway prophet today, because that's exactly what he did. 00:18:05.816 --> 00:18:06.653 He ran away. 00:18:06.653 --> 00:18:09.196 He ran away as far as he could run away. 00:18:09.196 --> 00:18:12.058 He did not want to go to I don't wanna go to Nineveh. 00:18:12.058 --> 00:18:13.855 He didn't want to go to Nineveh. 00:18:13.855 --> 00:18:15.355 He didn't care about Nineveh. 00:18:15.355 --> 00:18:17.657 He didn't think God should care about Nineveh. 00:18:17.657 --> 00:18:19.516 He didn't want them to repent. 00:18:19.516 --> 00:18:23.380 He didn't want to follow a God who loved people like that. 00:18:23.380 --> 00:18:37.397 We're not told here in this chapter exactly why he ran, but spoiler alert in a future sermon you're gonna hear the reason, because it's spelled out clearly later, the reason why he actually didn't wanna go to Nineveh. 00:18:38.430 --> 00:18:47.217 I don't wanna give it away today, but you gotta understand the relationship between the Jews and the Assyrians at that time. 00:18:47.217 --> 00:18:49.434 They literally hated each other. 00:18:49.434 --> 00:18:54.056 The Assyrians had no use for the Jews and the Jews hated the Assyrians. 00:18:54.056 --> 00:18:56.699 They hated them for their blood thirsty cruelty. 00:18:56.699 --> 00:18:58.415 They hated them for their idolatry. 00:18:58.415 --> 00:19:00.395 They hated them for their arrogance. 00:19:00.395 --> 00:19:07.377 For a Jewish man to be told by God to go to that place and preach to those people was repugnant. 00:19:11.349 --> 00:19:17.554 As far as Jonah was concerned, nineveh could go straight to hell and he would have been fine with that. 00:19:17.554 --> 00:19:20.998 That's how Jonah felt about Nineveh. 00:19:20.998 --> 00:19:25.851 But you see, jonah's problem was never really about it. 00:19:25.851 --> 00:19:26.594 Nineveh was it. 00:19:26.594 --> 00:19:29.355 Jonah's problem was with God. 00:19:29.355 --> 00:19:38.157 Jonah had a problem with God, the God that would call him to go to a place like Nineveh. 00:19:38.157 --> 00:19:40.262 Let's not mistake it. 00:19:40.262 --> 00:19:46.178 Many times we count our enemies in different places, in different ways, and yet we're really resisting God. 00:19:46.178 --> 00:19:48.778 We're really fighting against God. 00:19:49.030 --> 00:19:54.718 Hc Woodring said this "'God wanted him to go to Nineveh, "'500 miles northeast of Palestine. 00:19:54.718 --> 00:19:58.881 "'instead of going east, jonah went 2,000 miles to the west'". 00:19:58.881 --> 00:20:02.876 Wow, that's extreme. 00:20:02.876 --> 00:20:07.777 God wished Jonah to take an overland trip via the vertical crescent. 00:20:07.777 --> 00:20:10.537 Instead he took a distasteful sea voyage. 00:20:10.537 --> 00:20:13.838 God sent him to the greatest metropolis of the day. 00:20:13.838 --> 00:20:19.238 Instead, jonah headed for a remote trading post on the fringes of civilization. 00:20:19.238 --> 00:20:21.657 Because they need God too. 00:20:21.657 --> 00:20:33.519 The Lord wished to go with his prophet, but instead Jonah tried to flee from the presence and power of God. 00:20:35.136 --> 00:20:39.750 Jonah's life began a downward spiral from that point because he rebelled against God. 00:20:39.750 --> 00:20:42.644 You can see it even in the way that things are written down in this chapter. 00:20:42.644 --> 00:20:45.869 The text says that Jonah went down to Joppa. 00:20:45.869 --> 00:20:50.170 Now, he had to go down to Joppa because it was south of where he was geographically. 00:20:50.170 --> 00:20:53.846 But it also talks about four times within the chapter that he went down. 00:20:53.846 --> 00:20:59.169 He went down to Joppa, he went down into the inner parts of the ship in verse four. 00:20:59.169 --> 00:21:08.339 He went down into the sea in verse 15 and he went down into the belly of the great fish in verse 17. 00:21:08.339 --> 00:21:10.470 That's not written like that as a coincidence. 00:21:10.470 --> 00:21:15.109 It's a statement about what happens when we disobey God's call. 00:21:15.109 --> 00:21:28.266 He was not just going downward from a location standpoint, he was spiraling downward spiritually because he was rebelling and being disobedient to the call of God upon his life. 00:21:28.266 --> 00:21:36.335 Any time that you and I run from God, we never go up, we always go downward. 00:21:36.335 --> 00:21:42.375 That's the trajectory of our journey when we rebelled against God. 00:21:44.829 --> 00:21:49.477 But here's something that this passage really this jumped out at me and I wanted to share it with you. 00:21:49.477 --> 00:21:53.058 Satan can work through circumstances, just like God can. 00:21:53.058 --> 00:21:56.334 What do I mean by that? 00:21:56.334 --> 00:22:08.978 Jonah had enough money to buy a ticket on a ship that just happened to be available at the time that he needed a ticket and just happened to be going as far away from Nineveh as humanly possible in the known world. 00:22:08.978 --> 00:22:16.000 Satan has his ships and he always has room on his ships. 00:22:17.849 --> 00:22:35.315 Just as much as God can maneuver and manipulate circumstances, satan does the very same thing, and he uses circumstances to his favor to try to dissuade us, to discourage us, to move us away from God's perfect purpose or his plan for our lives. 00:22:35.315 --> 00:22:40.518 He makes disobedience look really good by things seeming to go in our favor. 00:22:40.518 --> 00:22:44.096 Here's a test for you, and I guarantee you you've never heard a pastor say this to you. 00:22:44.096 --> 00:22:50.720 But take two months out of church and in those two months your life will get better. 00:22:50.720 --> 00:22:58.396 It will seem like it gets better. 00:22:58.396 --> 00:23:03.314 Let me put it that way Take two months and don't tithe or give anything to the Lord. 00:23:03.314 --> 00:23:07.316 You will feel like you have more money than you've ever had in your life. 00:23:07.316 --> 00:23:15.632 But how many of you know the end of that thing is not where you want to go right? 00:23:15.632 --> 00:23:21.844 He can make disobedience look really good. 00:23:21.914 --> 00:23:31.103 Jonah is so much at peace and he follows the sleep in the bottom of the boat in the middle of a storm, thinking things are going my way. 00:23:31.103 --> 00:23:34.303 God must have changed his mind about Nineveh. 00:23:34.303 --> 00:23:40.762 You see, my friends, peace alone isn't a proper indicator of God's will. 00:23:40.762 --> 00:23:44.762 I'm so tired of people saying I felt peace. 00:23:44.762 --> 00:23:51.038 God can provide peace, but how many of you know peace is not dependent upon circumstances? 00:23:51.038 --> 00:24:01.378 Peace is the fact that the Prince of Peace walks with us through the darkest nights of our soul, through the most difficult experiences that we ever go through. 00:24:01.378 --> 00:24:08.945 Yay, though I walk through the valley of shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. 00:24:08.945 --> 00:24:20.019 I'd rather have the person of peace than the principal of peace in my life, cause I can be moved in the wrong direction by a false peace. 00:24:22.515 --> 00:24:23.259 Sin looks good. 00:24:23.259 --> 00:24:27.224 For a while, jonah experienced the pleasures of sin for a season. 00:24:27.224 --> 00:24:37.621 If sin brought immediate misery, if we all got felt like we were getting cut or harmed or hurt by the sin that we committed, immediately we would run from it. 00:24:37.621 --> 00:24:45.164 We wouldn't run to it as often as we do, but the repercussion is usually delayed by some time. 00:24:45.164 --> 00:24:52.942 It becomes attractive to us until stolen water, which seemed sweet at a season, leads you to the gates of hell. 00:24:52.942 --> 00:25:01.786 Sadness will come, bitterness will come, on the heels of living a chosen sinful life. 00:25:05.075 --> 00:25:08.180 And Jonah learned the hard way that running from God is useless. 00:25:08.180 --> 00:25:10.196 It's interesting. 00:25:10.196 --> 00:25:11.803 This is a prophet of God. 00:25:11.803 --> 00:25:22.742 He had to have been well versed in Old Testament scripture that had been written up to this point, and the book of Psalms, and especially King David's writings in Psalm 139, verses seven through 12. 00:25:22.742 --> 00:25:28.442 Where shall I go from your spirit or where shall I flee from your presence? 00:25:28.442 --> 00:25:31.182 If I ascend to heaven, you are there. 00:25:31.182 --> 00:25:34.903 If I make my bed in shield, you are there. 00:25:34.903 --> 00:25:52.662 If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me If I say surely the darkness shall cover me and the light about me be night, even the darkness is not dark to you. 00:25:52.662 --> 00:25:57.903 The night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you. 00:25:57.903 --> 00:26:02.980 Where are we gonna hide from God? 00:26:02.980 --> 00:26:04.877 Where can we run? 00:26:04.877 --> 00:26:09.123 That's far enough where he can't find us? 00:26:12.595 --> 00:26:19.803 Now it's true that Jonah was no longer hearing clearly the voice of God like he had heard him before, but that does not mean that God stopped speaking. 00:26:19.803 --> 00:26:23.124 In fact, he continued to speak very loudly and clearly. 00:26:23.124 --> 00:26:26.624 The first way that he spoke is he used the stormy sea. 00:26:26.624 --> 00:26:28.958 He used this. 00:26:28.958 --> 00:26:33.240 Yes, god used a stormy sea to prove a point to Jonah. 00:26:33.240 --> 00:26:42.042 It says the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea and there was a mighty tempest on the sea so that the ship threatened to break up. 00:26:42.042 --> 00:26:44.542 This hurling we're talking about it's not like he. 00:26:44.542 --> 00:26:54.623 He hurled the storm upon the sea, and when God does something, he does it right. 00:26:54.623 --> 00:26:56.159 He does it all the way. 00:26:56.159 --> 00:27:01.001 It's interesting to me that everything in nature obeyed God except Jonah. 00:27:01.001 --> 00:27:14.443 The sea obeyed him, the wind obeyed him, even the great fish obeyed God, and yet Jonah was disobedient. 00:27:14.443 --> 00:27:18.825 There's a lot of hurling going on in this whole passage. 00:27:18.825 --> 00:27:20.662 The Lord hurled a great wind on the sea. 00:27:20.662 --> 00:27:23.203 The sailors hurled the cargo overboard. 00:27:23.203 --> 00:27:26.605 Jonah told them to hurl him into the sea to save themselves. 00:27:26.605 --> 00:27:36.260 The sailors finally hurled him overboard and I promise you that if I was there, there would have been a whole, nother level of hurling that we cannot even talk about here this morning. 00:27:36.260 --> 00:27:39.602 I did not appreciate a stormy sea. 00:27:39.602 --> 00:27:41.598 It either does my stomach. 00:27:47.934 --> 00:28:00.781 Here's a real question that I had to ask myself how many times in our lives do we resist and rebuke the storm in our lives that was sent by God to bring about a course correction? 00:28:00.781 --> 00:28:09.660 How many times do we cry out against the storm and command it to cease and to leave when God's in the storm? 00:28:09.660 --> 00:28:15.362 Now, I'm not trying to say that there are times that we don't need to resist the storm. 00:28:15.362 --> 00:28:21.443 Obviously, there are times when we need to resist the storm because it is Satan that is moving in the storm. 00:28:21.443 --> 00:28:29.444 But we have to be able to discern the difference Whom the Lord loves, he corrects, he disciplines. 00:28:29.444 --> 00:28:37.482 It's interesting because this storm was not meant for Jonah's demise or destruction. 00:28:37.482 --> 00:28:40.742 This storm was meant for his correction. 00:28:40.742 --> 00:28:46.461 What is God gonna do with the storm? 00:28:46.461 --> 00:28:47.820 This storm had a great purpose. 00:28:47.820 --> 00:28:49.740 He's going to save a whole city with this storm. 00:28:49.740 --> 00:28:56.501 He's going to turn around a prophet who's been going the wrong way and start him going in the right direction. 00:28:56.501 --> 00:29:01.084 God used the storm to speak to Jonah. 00:29:01.084 --> 00:29:07.222 God also used the superstitious sailors to call Jonah to account for his sin. 00:29:07.222 --> 00:29:13.939 I don't you hate that when God uses either our children or sinners to? 00:29:14.279 --> 00:29:24.265 I remember one time I was a, I had witnessed my whole junior year to this one girl in my high school and she was like she was really into some dark things. 00:29:24.265 --> 00:29:27.480 And then I lost 50 pounds. 00:29:27.480 --> 00:29:31.743 Between my junior and senior year my parents bought me a red Chevy Camaro. 00:29:31.743 --> 00:29:34.883 I don't know why they did that brand new Chevy Camaro. 00:29:34.883 --> 00:29:36.438 I show up at school. 00:29:36.438 --> 00:29:37.942 Everybody's like who's the new guy? 00:29:37.942 --> 00:29:41.083 And it was like I'm still Tyler right. 00:29:41.083 --> 00:29:46.402 And so all of a sudden, I became cool, and what cool meant was that I had. 00:29:47.215 --> 00:30:00.421 I chose to maintain a certain image, which that image caused me to begin to say things that I wouldn't have normally said last year, because last year I was carrying my Bible around and I was talking to people about who Jesus was. 00:30:00.421 --> 00:30:03.623 This year I love to make everybody laugh. 00:30:03.623 --> 00:30:07.000 I was telling those jokes that if my parents found out about them. 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:12.920 That car would have been sitting in the garage for a couple of weeks, and this I'll never forget. 00:30:12.960 --> 00:30:29.202 I was in computer class and I was just laughing at myself and telling these jokes and this girl looks at me and she says Tyler, you almost convinced me to be a Christian and now I can tell you're no different than anybody else. 00:30:29.202 --> 00:30:38.768 Whew, I didn't speak for the rest of the day, but she was right. 00:30:38.768 --> 00:30:40.461 She was right. 00:30:40.461 --> 00:31:00.384 I had run so far away from God, even to where my demeanor, my conversation, didn't even carry any kind of remembrance of Him barely, of course, when I went to youth group and church on Sunday and Sunday night and Wednesday night, and all of those days I was yeah. 00:31:00.384 --> 00:31:07.342 So God used the superstitious sailors. 00:31:07.342 --> 00:31:37.557 The good news is we moved back to Florida about 14 years ago and on Facebook I saw I got a message from this girl and she said I just wanted to tell you that 20 years ago, whatever it was, the Lord Jesus got ahold of me and I'm a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ and I rejoiced because, in spite of me, god still reached her right. 00:31:37.557 --> 00:31:38.621 That's the good news. 00:31:38.621 --> 00:31:41.708 That's the good news, amen, amen. 00:31:43.414 --> 00:31:49.442 So it says that every man, all of these sailors, cried out to their gods and they were like what do you expect? 00:31:49.442 --> 00:31:50.700 I mean, they had never seen. 00:31:50.700 --> 00:31:52.541 This is a storm like they had never seen before. 00:31:52.541 --> 00:31:57.563 They're all crying out to whatever their God is, because when we're in trouble we try to fix the problem. 00:31:57.563 --> 00:31:58.881 Why we want to do it our way. 00:31:58.881 --> 00:32:01.083 We want us to figure out what it is that we can do. 00:32:01.083 --> 00:32:06.779 So they threw the cargo overboard and when it wasn't enough, like I said, they called out to their gods. 00:32:06.779 --> 00:32:10.580 They did everything that they knew within their power, but nothing was happening. 00:32:10.580 --> 00:32:12.201 Nothing was changing anything. 00:32:12.201 --> 00:32:21.780 It's interesting because there was one man on board who had a relationship with the real God, the true God, who knew his word and who worshiped him. 00:32:21.780 --> 00:32:23.618 But what was he doing? 00:32:23.618 --> 00:32:25.422 It was asleep. 00:32:28.333 --> 00:32:33.262 Spurgeon says it like this Jonah was asleep amid all that confusion and noise. 00:32:33.262 --> 00:32:45.309 And oh, christian man, for you to be indifferent to all that is going on in such a world as this, for you to be negligent of God's work in such a time as this, is just as strange. 00:32:45.309 --> 00:32:51.369 The devil alone is making noise enough to wake all that Jonah's, if they only want to wake. 00:32:51.369 --> 00:32:52.799 All around us. 00:32:52.799 --> 00:33:01.124 There is tumult and storm, yet some professing Christians are able, like Jonah, to go to sleep in the sides of the ship. 00:33:01.124 --> 00:33:17.760 My friends, it's time for the body of Christ, including me, to wake up, to throw off our slumber and to be about the Father's business in our day and time. 00:33:20.674 --> 00:33:24.041 So the next thing that happens is the captain woke Jonah from his slumber. 00:33:24.041 --> 00:33:28.119 The captain knew that his crew cried to their gods and nothing happened. 00:33:28.119 --> 00:33:30.157 And so he wakes Jonah up. 00:33:30.157 --> 00:33:32.636 Perhaps his God could do something in the crisis. 00:33:32.636 --> 00:33:40.102 It must have seemed ironic to Jonah in some way that the sailors demanded that he call on his God. 00:33:40.102 --> 00:33:40.823 Didn't they know? 00:33:40.823 --> 00:33:44.720 In fact, they did know, because he told them that he was running from God. 00:33:44.720 --> 00:33:48.278 Why would he want to call on the God that he's trying to escape? 00:33:48.278 --> 00:34:06.461 In fact, in this story there's no indication that Jonah said a prayer at all, and later he will pray in another sermon coming soon to a church near you, but in this account there's no account of him praying. 00:34:06.461 --> 00:34:09.177 He remained, it seems he remained silent. 00:34:09.177 --> 00:34:14.621 So the sailors discover on their own that Jonah is the source of the trouble. 00:34:15.791 --> 00:34:23.159 It's interesting the same Hebrew word that was used for the evil of the Ninevites is also used for the evil that's caused this storm. 00:34:23.159 --> 00:34:33.516 It's interesting how we can always observe and comment on the evil of others, but we have a very hard time seeing the evil in ourselves. 00:34:33.516 --> 00:34:45.121 We want to pull the little speck of somebody's eye when we have a tree growing out of ours. 00:34:45.121 --> 00:34:54.932 Oh man, it's hard to prepare for a message like this, because then I have to deal with it all week and then I get to share it with you. 00:34:54.932 --> 00:34:56.315 So you're welcome. 00:35:01.451 --> 00:35:08.759 The sailors believe that a storm of this magnitude could only be done, could be caused, only by something being done wrong. 00:35:08.759 --> 00:35:11.798 They didn't know to call it sin, but that's what it was. 00:35:11.798 --> 00:35:13.894 And so what do they do? 00:35:13.894 --> 00:35:20.802 All that they know to do is they cast lots, rolling dice, trying to figure out who it was that this dice would fall upon. 00:35:20.802 --> 00:35:24.157 And somehow God got in the dice and it fell on Jonah. 00:35:24.157 --> 00:35:34.481 The lot fell on Jonah, but these men had such character, even though they weren't followers of the true God, that they didn't blame him. 00:35:34.481 --> 00:35:40.452 Initially they said explain to us why there's this storm, help us to understand. 00:35:44.811 --> 00:35:48.780 And somehow, in the midst of all of this, the rebellious prophet becomes a part of God's mission. 00:35:48.780 --> 00:35:52.637 He introduces the sailors to the God of heaven and earth. 00:35:52.637 --> 00:35:59.771 He says the God whom I fear, the maker of heaven and earth, kind of interesting. 00:35:59.771 --> 00:36:01.295 It was like he was reading his business card. 00:36:01.295 --> 00:36:12.721 There's not a lot of proof in this story that he's fearing God much at all at this point, but he's representing, he's presenting this God to them in this way. 00:36:12.721 --> 00:36:22.422 So all of a sudden, their hearts began to fear the God of Jonah, knowing they'd never heard that there was a God who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in it. 00:36:22.422 --> 00:36:28.519 And so now they're being drawn towards this God that Jonah just is answering their questions. 00:36:28.519 --> 00:36:37.420 Even a believer who's in a state of rebellion can give glory to God if he will only tell the truth about God. 00:36:41.230 --> 00:36:44.170 It's tragic, though, that Jonah's life contradicted his knowledge of God. 00:36:44.170 --> 00:36:52.101 It's hypocrisy at one of the greatest forms of it, but God uses the unbelieving crude to rebuke Jonah for resisting God. 00:36:52.101 --> 00:36:54.577 They cry out to him why have you done this? 00:36:54.577 --> 00:36:58.115 That's a legitimate question. 00:36:58.115 --> 00:37:09.458 Why in the world would you do this and why would you bring that stuff on this ship, and why would you cause harm to us and our livelihood and our families? 00:37:09.458 --> 00:37:16.278 And so, finally, the sailors reluctantly agreed to throw Jonah overboard. 00:37:18.230 --> 00:37:20.538 Jonah's solution was for them to throw him overboard. 00:37:20.538 --> 00:37:39.065 Can you imagine Again, I wonder, what would have happened if Jonah would have just knelt down on the surface of that ship and if he had turned his heart and his eyes toward God and said God, forgive me, for I have sinned against you? 00:37:39.065 --> 00:37:41.637 I wonder how this story might have changed. 00:37:41.637 --> 00:37:45.543 But it doesn't seem like he was ready to do that yet. 00:37:45.543 --> 00:37:47.170 And so what does he do? 00:37:47.170 --> 00:37:50.170 He says throw me overboard, just make the end of it. 00:37:50.170 --> 00:38:10.702 If you throw me over, everything will be fine Seems sacrificial in a way, but really I think Jonah just didn't want to obey God, and so he was willing to end his life if that meant that he could get out of the call to go to Nineveh. 00:38:12.550 --> 00:38:14.474 Sailors didn't want to throw Jonah into the sea. 00:38:14.474 --> 00:38:22.170 As bad as things were, they feared God now to a certain extent, and so they were concerned about doing this. 00:38:22.170 --> 00:38:28.170 So they all got their oars and they rode as hard as they could, trying to get closer to shore. 00:38:28.170 --> 00:38:32.541 And yet the tempestuous storm just kept growing and growing and growing. 00:38:32.541 --> 00:38:37.170 Remember there was one time my dad and I were fishing and we were having a really good fishing day. 00:38:37.170 --> 00:38:44.170 And so we didn't notice the cloud the size of a man's hand in the sky that began to grow and it overtook us. 00:38:44.170 --> 00:38:56.623 And when it overtook us and this is in Florida if you've ever been to Florida or lived in Florida, you know that a storm can, just like that, turn from something that seems manageable to torment. 00:38:56.623 --> 00:39:17.983 And so we found ourselves ducking into this cove and crying out to God that this storm would not kill us, because the lightning was striking all around us, and even as a teenager, I was soaked to the bone, not just with rain, but with fear and torment. 00:39:17.983 --> 00:39:27.150 I can't imagine what these guys must have been feeling and experiencing, except for just a small experience like I had. 00:39:27.150 --> 00:39:29.923 Thankfully, it cleared up and we sailed home. 00:39:29.943 --> 00:39:31.170 We didn't say much on the voyage home. 00:39:31.170 --> 00:39:39.130 We got back in the car and then we sighed a sigh of relief and from that point on we were much more cautious. 00:39:39.130 --> 00:39:44.659 I think my dad spent about three hours watching Weather Channel before we ever left the house. 00:39:44.659 --> 00:40:11.795 After that Anybody have a dad like that, hi those of you watching the internet there was a rebellious young man that raised his hand Happened to be one of my sons. 00:40:11.795 --> 00:40:15.655 You can never be too careful. 00:40:15.655 --> 00:40:21.137 You got to be prepared, right, okay? 00:40:21.157 --> 00:40:22.721 Well, listen to what the sailors did. 00:40:22.721 --> 00:40:26.797