Episode Transcript
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A Jonah Chapter One. If you
have one of the black bibles from the
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cart it's on page seven hundred and
seven, seven seventy four and seven seventy
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five is the book of Jonah.
Going to be preaching on verses one through
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three this morning, but I'll read
verses went through six. Let's give our
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attention to God's word. The word
of the Lord came to Jonah, the
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son of Amy Thai, saying arise, go to Nineveh, that great city,
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and call out against it, for
their evil has come up before me.
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But Jonah rose to flee to tarshish
from the presence of the Lord.
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He went down to JOPPA and found
a ship going to tarshish, so he
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paid the fare and went on board
to go with them to Tarshish, away
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from the presence of the Lord.
But the Lord hurled a great wind upon
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the sea and there was a mighty
tempest on the sea, so that the
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ship threatened to break up. Then
the mariners were afraid and each cried out
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to his God and they hurled the
cargo that was in the ship into the
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sea to lighten it for them.
But Jonah had gone down into the inner
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part of the ship and had laden
down and was fast asleep. So the
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captain came and said to him,
what do you mean, you sleeper?
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Arise, call out to your God. Perhaps the God will give a thought
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to us that we may not perish. You may be seated. For a
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few years now, I'm not even
sure how long, I've been preaching the
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New Testament in the mornings and the
Old Testament in the evenings, and I
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thought it might be good to switch
that up because there are some of you
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who are only able to attend here
in the mornings, are only able to
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attend in the evenings, and for
those of you that's true, I thought
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it'd be nice for you to hear
an old testament book preached and for those
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who come or are only able to
come to our evening services. Soon,
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well, we're in a new testament
book now. So that's the reason for
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the switch. Nothing more complicated than
that. But here we are with Jonah,
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and Jonah is a great book for
many reasons. One of the reasons
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is it's a great it is it
provides us a really helpful opportunity to understand
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why the Old Testament is so important, why the Old Testament is so important
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to Christians. One of the ways
we see that is because of something Jesus
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says in the New Testament. Says
it's several times. It's recorded throughout the
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gospels. It's there are probably at
least two different times in his ministry that
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he says it and he refers to
something called the sign of Jonah. There's
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this incident, and it seems to
happen at a couple times at least,
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where the rulers of Israel will come
to come to Jesus and ask him for
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a sign. Now, this is
a kind of a strange thing that they
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asked because after one of the instances, he had just fed fed four thousand
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people with just a little bit of
food. In other instances he had been
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doing great miracles, healing people,
a man with a withered hand, other
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things, and then they go to
him and I ask for him a sign
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that they might believe, or so
they say. I have a hard time
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understanding their perspective. What exactly was
it that they were looking for? What
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else did they want to see?
Well, Jesus's response is no, he
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says to them. Truly, I
say to you, I'm you are not
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going to be given a sign.
I will not give you a sign except
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for the sign of Jonah. In
mark it simply says that he left in
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a later passage. In Matthew same
thing. There's no explanation given. Earlier
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in Matthew and also when Luke,
which seems to be maybe the first time
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this happens, Jesus does explain a
little bit. He tells them that the
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sign of Jonah, on points to
him, is the son of man.
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He says, as Jonah went down
into the belly of the fish for three
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days and three nights, so will
the son of man go in to the
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heart of the earth. So you
see, Jesus makes this connection with a
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story, this account of this history, with Jonah and the Old Testament.
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Now, if you don't know the
Old Testament you might be a little confused.
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If Jesus says nothing's going to be
given except the sign of Jonah,
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you say Jonah who? And even
if you read the little bit that he
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tells, the references that he makes
the story, you're still not left with
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a whole lot. You'll get the
basic point that Jesus is making and we'll
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talk about that continually as we go
through the book, but you'll still be
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left without a lot of the details, details which God gives to us in
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this book. Maybe a simpler way
to say it is that the book of
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Jonah is expressly given to us at
least for one reason, and that's so
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that we can understand what Jesus is
saying, when Jesus tells us about the
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sign of Jonah, and how that
relates to him. So understanding the Old
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Testament, in this case and in
every case, helps us to understand the
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New Testament. I hope that makes
sense to you and is an encouragement to
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you to pay attention to this book, to understand it's it's points, it's
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applications, it's texture, it's details, the sense it gives us of God,
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of man, in of who he
is, of what he's doing.
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Jesus tells these Pharisees, I believe
it's in marks Matthew Sixteen. He says
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them you can interpret the signs of
the weather, the way the sky looks,
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but you can't interpret the signs of
the Times, and he points to
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Jonah as a way to do that. Jonah is supposed to wake us up.
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In a way, is gives us
a lens through which to perceive our
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world. Jonah is in the Old
Testament. The Old Testament is critical,
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essential for understanding our faith, and
so we turn to Jonah in in particular
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and we consider the beginning of this
story today. The story begins by introducing
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us to this prophet WHO's mentioned in
one other place in scripture, a prophet
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that seemed to have a some measure
of success in delivering God's message and he
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having it received. But here our
introduction to Jonah is not so nice.
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Jonah is introduced, yes, as
a prophet, but one who is running
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away from his task. God tells
Jonah Arise. This is in verse two.
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He says a rise, go to
nine them, but we read that
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he arose, yes, but to
fleet, to flee his task and to
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flee the presence of the Lord.
God told Jonah to go to Nineveh.
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Jonah was supposed to take a right
hand turn. If you're looking at a
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map, Jonah was supposed to go
east. Instead he went west. Jonah
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was supposed to arise and go to
an INNOVA. insteady goes down to tarshish
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and or down to JOPPA, down
into this boat. Jonah was supposed to
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go over the land and instead he
hikes it over to the Mediterranean to cross
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the seat. The mission as says
that in Roman Times it would take sometimes
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a year to get from Israel,
from JOPPA, let's say, the port
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city there, to Tarshish, which
was likely on the southern tip of Spain.
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All of those stops, all of
those resupplying, the bad weather,
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and it couldn't be done all the
time. There certain times of the year
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that such a trip could be made. Jonah drops everything, pays his own
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fair, some people think, even
paid the fare of the whole ship to
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just get the thing moving. Either
way, he's going to great expense personal
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cost, to go the other way, to do the exact opposite of what
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God has said. He's commit and
to disobedience. Is Striking, isn't it?
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There's no hesitation, no thinking it
over. We don't even get Jonah's
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sort of internal motivations at this point. We'll hear about them a little bit
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later in Jonah Chapter Four, but
here he just books it. God says
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go to Nineveh and he goes the
other way. We hear nothing about hesitation.
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There's no obstacle in his way,
there's nothing to discourage him. It
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doesn't seem he simply disobeys a direct
command, a one in one of the
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blessings of Jonah of the book is
it teaches us a lot about our sin,
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and as we go through this book
I want you to reflect a lot
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about the nature of sin in general
and, of course, in your own
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heart in particular. There's so many
lessons to be learned, many which I
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have yet to learn. One commentator
pointed this out to me, Hugh Martin.
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He points out just how easy it
was for Jonah to find this ship
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and how true that often is of
our sin. When we commit to a
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path of destruction, all of a
sudden it seems so easily laid out in
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front of us. I'm this is
often the case, and Jonah seems so
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secure in his path. He decides
to go the other way, and he
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does, even to the point of
falling asleep. He's resting in it.
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He feels satisfied, perhaps safe,
secure in the thing that he's doing.
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He's decided what will be and what
will happen. But of course it's not
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the case, is it? Jonah
has gone to sleep and this great storm
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arises, a storm which the these
pagan, unbelieving sailors are even telling Jonah,
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call out to your God and perhaps
we won't die, something that will
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be echoed in the Ninavites a later
in the book and when we get there.
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So we see this striking disobedience of
Jonah and many people have wondered why,
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and Jonah tells us why. But
it's a funny reason. It's a
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surprising reason. In Jonah, Chapter
Four, in verse two, he says,
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oh Lord, is this not what
I said when I was yet in
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my country? That is why I
made haste to fleet a Tarshis, for
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I knew that you are a gracious
God and merciful, slow to anger and
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abounding insteadfast love and relenting from disaster. Therefore, now, oh Lord,
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please take my life from me,
for it is better for me to die
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than to live. This is one
of the strangest passages in the Bible,
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least on the surface level. Why
didn't Jonah want to go to to Nineveh?
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Why did he flee? Why did
he go the opposite way? Why
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did he risk his own life?
And even now, after God's salvation of
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his life, I'm referencing the story
which perhaps you don't yet know. All
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encourage you to read it. I
won't review it now for the sake of
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time, but he he's lamenting something
that God has done. God's Graciousness,
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God's relenting from disaster. These kinds
of words are often found on the lips
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of the PSALMISTS, who praise God
for these things. Thank you, Lord,
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for your abounding love, your steadfast
mercy. You're relenting from disaster.
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And here Jonah's saying, Ah,
I knew you were this way, the
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very thing we're often begging for,
the very thing Jonah will soon be begging
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for when he's sinking down into the
depths of his watery grave and he calls
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out to the Lord Save me.
I knew you were this way. Well,
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yeah, you knew he was this
way. You were saved by this
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very God. Yet not that long
ago. Why would Jonah feel this way?
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Well, as usual, I'm going
to try and put you in his
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shoes, because when we put ourselves
in the shoes of sinners, we often
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find ourselves in them. We find
that the crazy things that they say are
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often the very things that we say
too. We've you about it from Jonah's
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perspective. Nineveh is not just some
great city. Nineveh was a terrible city.
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Nineveh was the capital city of Assyria, located near Mosul in northern Iraq.
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Today, a very important city,
in fact so important that almost everything
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we know about Assyria comes from archeological
work done in that area hugely important.
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All kinds of artifacts and documents and
inscriptions and things come from there. Well,
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wasn't just great as important, it
was great as in terrifying. From
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Nineveh and from Assyria in general,
the destruction of God's people was happening and
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was coming. These were scary,
dangerous people who were the enemies of God.
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To go there as a messenger of
the Lord, proclaiming their imminent doom
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would have been disconcerting, and not
only would it have perhaps been a little
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bit scary, but it would have
chipped away at the pride of the people.
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Gentiles are enemies. This is who
you want me to go to?
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I am a prophet of God,
and God is for Abraham, for Isaac
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and for Jacob, not for the
gentiles who, by the way, are
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intent on destroying us. Well,
the word of the Lord is spoken throughout
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in the world, throughout the world. In some ways, the Israelites,
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God's people, were the apple of
his eye, and now God is reaching
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out to Nineveh, calling attention to
their evil deeds, perhaps even drawing them
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in to his covenant promises, perhaps
going to people and offering them salvation,
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where Israel had yet and or was
he was currently failing to respond? To
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help you understand this a little more, I want you to imagine right now,
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bring to your mind someone you are
having a hard time getting along with,
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or perhaps even were, someone you
would describe as your or enemy,
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someone who you despise, someone who
is a thorn in your side, a
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bur in your saddle, someone you
wish would just go away, not an
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annoying person and abhorrent person, a
terrible person, someone perhaps, who has
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done you great harm, who has
tried to make you unhappy, who has
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tried to take away things that rightfully
belong to you. And now imagine that
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God tells you specifically to go to
this person, tell them of their sins,
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call them to repentance and then invite
them to become members of Covenant Orthodox
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Presbyterian Church, that you might sit
with them and sing with them and confess
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with them and praise with them.
This is what it would have felt like,
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I think, for God to say
arise, go to Nineveh, that
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great city and call out against it, Jonas thinking this is a city that
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had deserves justice. This is like
going to Sodom and go mora. This
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is like going to the evil empire
and calling out to them their repentance,
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not just because justice is eminent,
but because I know who you are and
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there is a possibility for race and
forgiveness. Indeed, God had let this
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period of grace be quite long already
for Assyria, or for Nineveh in particular.
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Eventually Assyria would be destroyed, for
there's very sins justice would come swiftly.
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But here we have this moment of
grace, this moment of grace for
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a gentile people and enemy people of
God and of his people. And Jonah
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was to go. So he said
no, I don't want to, I
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don't see how I can, I
don't want to. He said No.
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He said no to God. Now
it doesn't seem, or it's not recorded
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any way, that he says this
with his words, but he says it's
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with his actions, and that's often
true of our sins. We don't actually
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have to verbalize our no, to
say no, do we? You just
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do the other thing. You do
the opposite of what God says, God
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says go up, you go down, God says go left, you go
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right, or whatever it is.
And so I think we all, when
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we hear these words of Jonah or
see these actions of Jonah, this great
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no of Jonah, we can't just
stand over him and say, silly prophet,
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what are you doing disobeying God?
We have to take account for our
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own sins. We have to look
at our own lives with the same sort
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of clarity and ask ourselves, are
there places in my life where I am
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directly, willfully disobeying God, just
like Jonah was? I think we'd all
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like to say, or perhaps most
of us are willing to say, yes,
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of course I sin, but when
we say that we're talking about accidental
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sins and unintentional sins and that I
was trying really hard, but of course
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I'm a sinner. Kind of sins, and of course our personal disobedience covers
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all of that, but doesn't it
cover more? Aren't there sins in our
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lives where we simply disobey, and
that's just as simple as it is?
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I have to ask you to ask
yourself about this, because this is the
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clarity of God's word here. When
God says yes, are we saying no?
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Or if God says go, do
we? Are we fleeing? There
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are ways that every single one of
us have disobeyed and maybe are even now.
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Our disobeying in our life going directly
against something God has commanded. Talking
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about the obvious stuff, not the
gray area stuff, but the black and
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white stuff, the stuff your crystal
clear on. When we think of these
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things, as you think of these
things, let's be clear about them.
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Let's not hide them or push them
away, because they are as open before
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the Lord as Jonah's sins were.
They're not any more hidden, though we
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might be as selfdeceived as Jonah was
as he goes down into the ship,
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as he falls asleep and sort of
consigns himself to despis obedience and even death.
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Instead, let's mourn our sins,
my friends. Let's more in them,
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let's see them what for they are. Let's let them sting our conscience.
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Why? So that we can wake
up, so that we can go
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to the Lord in repentance while there
is yet still time, as necessarily,
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as the sailors say, that we
may not perish. As we think of
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these things, as we do this
hard, thinking, hard not necessarily as
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in difficult as or a complex but
hard, as in emotionally challenging and revealing.
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In light of the command to Jonah
and as light of the questions about
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obedience and disobedience, let us remember
that not only is the message and the
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necessity of obedience very clear in Jonah, but so is the message of power
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and God's greatness and forgiveness, the
work of God in pursuing us through his
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word. Palm one thirty nine talks
about the presence of God. Let's turn
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to it actually, rather than me
sort of semi quoting it. Jonah flees
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the presence of the Lord. And
when we're in disobedience and when we're in
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sin, we like to try to
think we can get away, and the
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reminder that we can't is terrifying.
But it can also be good news to
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you, as it is to David
here in Psalm one thirty nine. Listen
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to what he says. Oh Lord, you have searched me and known me.
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You know when I sit down and
when I rise up. You discern
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my thoughts from afar, you search
out my path and my lying down in
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our acquainted with all my ways,
even before a word is on my tongue.
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Behold, oh Lord, you know
it all together. You Hen me
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in behind and before you lay your
hand upon me. Such knowledge is too
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wonderful to for me. It is
high. I cannot attain it. Where
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shall I go from Your Spirit,
or where shall I flee from your presence?
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If I ascend to heaven, you
are there. If I make my
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bed and she all, you are
there. If I take the wings of
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the morning and dwell in the uttermost
parts of the sea, even there your
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hand shall lead me and your right
hand shall hold me. If I say,
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surely, the darkness shall cover me
and the light about me be night.
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Even the darkness is not dark to
you. The night is bright as
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the day, for darkness is as
light with you. This is the word
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of someone who he's thinking about the
presence of the Lord, the Omni presence
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of the Lord, his everywareness,
and yet also realizes at the same time
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it's sort of beyond his comprehension.
It's so high. He he cannot attain
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it, he can't comprehend it,
he can't get it all together. It's
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so big. There's nowhere that he
can go where God isn't this is ultimately
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a wonderful thing, he says in
verse fourteen. I praise you for I
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am fearfully and wonderfully made in the
way that he has known and searched out.
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When we flee from the presence of
God, it's a vain exercise.
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Where are you going to go from
someone who is everywhere? How can you
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flee someone whose power is omnipotent,
all powerful, capable of raising up great
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tempests in the sea, monsters that
can swallow you from the deep, or
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little tiny plants and worms? That
was will read at the end of the
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chapter. God commands the entire world
and he knows US inside and out,
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beginning an end, his presence,
if we are trying to flee from him,
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will be our death. But when
we are fleeing from God, yes,
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when man was fleeing from God,
God came to him. When Jesus,
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this one, who is, he
will tell us in the gospels,
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is greater than Jonah, a prophet, greater than Jonah. When he came
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to preach this message in the world, he came with his with the very
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presence of God. You may remember
that at Christmas sometimes he's called Emmanuel,
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which means God with us. When
man was fleeing from God. God came
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to man and came in such a
way to save us. As we will
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consider again and again, Jesus is
both like and unlike Jonah. He is
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like Jonah and that he too also
descended into the depths for three days and
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three nights. He also descended into
the depths because of judgment. But the
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big difference, beloved, is that
where Jonah was descending into his own judgment
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for his own sins, Jesus was
descending into death and judgment for our sins.
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He came to do what Jonah's like
us, are incapable of doing,
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bearing our own punishment, suffering our
own death and coming out on the other
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your side. The only thing we
can rely on. Is the thing Jonah
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is having a hard time getting his
head around God's grace. It's the hard
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it's a thing that we all have
a hard time getting around, but we
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must, we must begin to understand
this grace of God and instead of fleeing
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from him as either and and try
and either thinking that we can get away
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or thinking that we'll just give up
and consign ourselves to our sin, to
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give ourselves over to death and say, well, I guess that's just going
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to be it. Why would we
do that when God has given us his
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promise in this prophet who has spoken
a word better than the word of Jonah,
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because we are saved by him and
his word. He doesn't just preach
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repentance through faith, but Jesus preaches
repentance through faith in him. He tells
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us, believe on me and you
will be saved, you will be lifted
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up out of those waters of baptism, those waters of judgment, the herd
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and grave of the Earth, into
life itself, the life in God.
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We can find our yes to God
because of his yes to us. That's
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how we are saved and that's the
message that Jonah is ultimately preaching, though
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somewhat unwillingly and but ultimately also pointing
forward to in this one who comes.
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And so it's my word to you, in that same prophetic word that God
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has brought into the world, to
believe and to trust this one who comes
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in grace, while there is yet
time, see your sins for what they
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are, recognize your disobedience for what
it is and, instead of fleeing from
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God, flee from it and turn
to the presence of the Lord not so
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that you might be judged in in
and condemned to your sins, but so
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that you might receive the forgiveness of
your sins, as he is freely offering
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it to you in the better Jonah, in Jesus. That's all I have
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to say about that. That's all
there is to say about that. So
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we're going to end there and I
pray that you would do that. Believe
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in this savior. Believe in him
and you will be saved. Let's pray
