Sermons on Jonah

Sermons on Jonah By Pastor F. Dwight Thompson of the Atwater Community Bible Church in Atwater California.

WHEN IT GETS BACK TO GOD

Pastor F. Dwight Thompson of the Atwater Community Bible Church preached this sermon the morning of August 3, 2003. The Old Teacher believes it is one of the most important sermons he's ever heard. It's pertinent to the day we live in, and all peoples of the world, Christian and otherwise. There are places, where we will have to do a small amount of editing. Our apologies to Pastor Thompson.

Pastor Thompson opened his message by displaying and explaining the importance of the relationship geographically and politically between Israel and Nineveh.

"Iraq's on this map somewhere. Prior to Iraq and prior to all the problems in this area that we see today with Iraq there was a major kingdom struggle that involved not just the people here, but all the people of the Mediterranean, including the Egyptians. One of those major powers was Assyria. There were some minor players in the power struggle. They were Syrian and Aramaeans, and what they were trying to do, like every major power, they would try to control others. You say well was it just a power issue? No. You have to remember that back when resources had to be traded, that one of the nicest and easiest things to do was to conquer the people, and then you didn't have to worry about trading them. You didn't have to worry about tariffs or anything like that. If you had people that you wanted to trade with and you liked what they had you just conquered them. Then you got free. And so one of the major reasons for a kingdom to conquer another was the resources the other kingdom had. The only resource that may be available may just be a trade route. If they could control the trade route they could tax what went through the trade route, then it was free money. So what we have is major powers from this area, Assyria and later Babylonia trying to conquer and control this entire trade route, this entire Mediterranean area. Now what we need to remember is that this is the area where Nineveh is located.

Now let's go back a little. We are talking about what goes on in Jonahs day. The Assyrians attacked Damascus, captured it and destroyed its power. Now what’s important about that is, the people of Damascus are controlling the northern border of Israel, and they are trying to oppress the people of Israel. So when the Assyrians come up and captured Damascus and destroyed its power, it sets Israel free. Suddenly the two peoples are so busy with what they're doing, that at this point Israel can now carry on business as they always wanted. Life for them now becomes very nice for a very short period of time. In that very short period of time when things are very nice and they can expand their northern border, guess what happens. They immediately forgot God. As soon as things became comfortable for them they stopped praying to God as though their prayers meant something. Now we all know that experience. Right. We all know that we pray daily. We all know that we go through this, and sometimes it becomes a ritual because there are other things on our mind, other concerns and so we just kind of go through the motions until, suddenly, BOOM, something lands in our lap that is bigger than we are and it is panic time, and then suddenly our prayers become significant in that fever pitch that we put in. Well, you see, the Jews forgot God in less than a generation. They cried to God for some help at their northern border. They got it, but not because got helped them, but because the Assyrians went and took care of the business of Damascus. The Jews made no connection to God doing that. They just felt now they were free. So they turned away from God. So you have in the scriptures, if you want to read some harsh statements, you have two prophets, Elisha, you know that name, that's not Elijah, Elisha is the one that follows Elijah. Elisha, and you have Hosea. And if you read the book of Hosea, you have two think does not sound like a very nice book. Some of the things he is saying to Israel are not very nice to the Jewish people. And both of them warn that judgment is coming. But Assyria attacked Damascus. What that does it is that it puts them on the threshold now to do what they wanted to do for a long time. That was to attack Israel and go down into Egypt and control the entire trade route and all of the resources. They are poised to do that when all of a sudden there are internal troubles in the nation of Assyria. The armies have to retreat, and the king has to go back and they have to fix the matter and put things in order in their own house. It is during this time that two prophets are prophesying in Israel telling the people that they need to pay attention to God and do things that God says, you need to do them God's Way. Amos. If you read the Old Testament or leaf through it, here is Amos. Well, he and Jonah ministered at the same time, now Elijah half a generation before talked about Damascus. You need to understand that he prophesied about it and to them. He had this information about Damascus.

Now we move into the new phase in which Israel has this freedom to do what they want and they use that as an opportunity to forget God. And we had Amos saying some very strong things to the people of Israel about how to turn back to God and along comes Jonah, and he (God) says, “I have a job for you to do.”

And this is what you read in Jonah, chapter one, verse one and two. "The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me."

And this great city in the northern ends of the Assyrian empire and province and kingdom is going through this internal shuffle and turmoil, but the city itself is like a city state all to itself, a huge walled city, a city filled with wealth and every pleasure that you could think of, because it is on the trade route. And the city is on the brink of destruction and doesn't know it. It is on the brink of destruction, because of its wickedness. It is on the brink of destruction because it is so evil.

Now I want to take some time this morning and not talk about the wickedness, and not talk about the evil, and not talk about the horribleness of everything that is going on, because you know what, it probably would not shock us. Because of communications today we hear about everything, see everything around us. We know what is going on in our world. It seems like we cannot be shocked. So I would like you to kind of have your mind in that vein that is to realize that this would have been shock able about 40 years ago. It is no longer shock able, because it is standard fare. What I would like you to do with that though is see what God's response is, because this book is about God. It is not about Jonah. This book is about what God does. Not what Jonah does. This book is about us. It is about the same God of Jonah's day being our God. And this God is working with us in our world, a world where major powers clash. Major kingdom's fight. And it has all of these ramifications. This book is about a God who knows that we are going through what they went through in 850 B.C. Of major powers in that area shifting, pulling, struggling, fighting, scratching, persevering, stubborn, irrational, very wise, very smart, all that put together.

So I start this morning, and talk about this one piece that lets us know about the heart of God. You see it says that the wickedness of the city got to Heaven. That is, it was so bad that the news reached God. Now, we are challenged. What would God do? What should God do? What do you think God is going to do?

Now you see I think is important for us to see the heart of God and the priorities of God. Because the scriptures says that when their wickedness piled so high, like a stack of manure, that it got to Heaven, God's response was to go send somebody to preach the Good News. The truth. That's what it says. He says to Jonah “ go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it”. What he was doing was showing them that they were wrong. They were evil, and what they were doing was violating the conscience of God and destruction was coming, if they did not change. In a couple of weeks we will see that's exactly what the people did do. They listened. I'm a firm believer that there are a number of people who have to come to the end of their wickedness, before they can be opened to God's goodness. I am a firm believer that there are certain people that need to come to the full end of their imaginations and efforts of evil and bad and wickedness before they will be opened to how good and gracious and kind and compassionate God is.

Now turn over a couple pages. In chapter four, after the whole preaching event took place, after the city's response took place, in verse number two, Jonah is complaining. But he is saying this about God. He says, “I knew that you were gracious and compassionate God; slow to anger, and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. We are learning about God. And they've stacked their sins until the stench had reached God’s nostrils. And God's response was to send them the opportunity to repent so that he could show them his love.

Somebody would say, well that's not what he did in Noah ’s day. Yes he did, yes he did. I would like you to turn to second Peter, chapter number 2. You might say, the flood is not in second Peter 2. Yes it is. It is too. Okay. Look at second Peter chapter two. I don't know if you've noticed this about Noah. But in second Peter2, verse 5, he says. “ If he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people,” (but now watch this)” but protected Noah” “(but Noah was not a silent man, Noah was not keeping a secret, Noah was not in any way with holding the truth. It says “Noah a preacher of righteousness.” It took more than a week for Noah to build the Ark, and during that time period people had their opinions about Noah and about what he was doing. But they never, never doubted the truth about what he was doing, and why he was doing it, and what God would bring. There is no difference from what Noah did when he preached righteousness while the boat was being built and Jonah, who went to Nineveh and said "you know what, you guys are going to run into the wall here shortly if you don't change course. You guys are going to run in to the judgments of God, if you don't repent. There is no difference between the two. You see, the sin piled so high. In Noah's day it is said that the evil intents and thoughts of men's heart, that they were evil continuously all the time. It's all that they could think about. Nothing more than that. The same picture for Nineveh. What's God going to do? What's God going to do? He is going to give them the opportunity to turn around. He's going to give them the opportunity to come to a God who is loving and compassionate and forgiving and kind.

You see in Jonah, we will find out that Jonah had a real problem with God. The problem was that Jonah did not like God being loving and kind and gracious to a group of Gentile people called Ninevites. In fact Jonah did not like the fact that these Ninevites were so evil and wicked and bad and the Assyrians presented in ultimate threat to them. In fact, I think he knew, because his buddy Amos was talking about it, that the Assyrians would soon be controlling the people of Israel and Jonah had a problem offering redemption and salvation to those people. He had a problem with it. The reason he had a problem offering it is because he knew that if they accepted it God would grant it.

We live in a world today in which we can moan and grown and bewail and lament all the wickedness and evil and the stuff that we see. Paul told Timothy that this time goes along to the coming of the Lord. Things are not going to get better morally. Things are not going to get better spiritually. They may get better financially. They might get better in the health field. They might get better in a lot of areas, but spiritually and morally they are not going to get better. The question is what is the heart of God? What does God want to do? Paul told this same Timothy that this is the God, which would not wish, or desire that any man should perish. That all, all should come to repent.

What is there about this repentance? Just for a moment, I want to remind us of a very important wonderful truth about our God, about people who are sinful. That's us. And it's called the Good News. That's what the gospel means, Good News. The Good News.

Turn to Romans, chapter number one. When God saw the ugliness of the end coming for them and that was his judgment because of his righteousness, the first thing he did was give them the opportunity to turn to him. And Romans chapter number one, in verse 16, he says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God".

Now folks please understand this, not without cause and not without reason, we have worked hard at bringing health care so that we understand the basic germ theory, all the way up to genetics and things like that, but we're still working in those areas and God gifts people to do that. He gives people the heart and the desire to do that and all those are wonderful things. Understanding how we tick emotionally is provided those people who work in the area of counseling. But let me tell you that none of those are substitutes for a person coming to Jesus Christ, and simply saying Lord be my savior. Not one of those things is a substitute for bringing the full power of God into a person’s life because you understand that that is what the gospel is all about. It is God's power, and man’s weakness. It is God's ability and our inability. It is God's grace and our need. For it says " I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes." You see, I'm afraid that the wonders of medical science and the counseling and all of those pieces that are important pieces in our lives at times, can cause us to divert the attention to the fundamental heart need, and mind need and body need, because we cannot separate them, we are all one person, of the power of God in redemption.

Some of the things (ailments) that people take to be fixed at the doctors are spiritual. I remember several years ago, they did a survey of medical doctors, and many doctors were leaving the country for other countries and were quitting their practices. They were asked why are you leaving? These are general practitioners. The answer came back over and over and over again "what these people have, the sickness they have, cannot be cured by medical science". Some said, " We admit that we give them placebos. We prescribe bottles of pills that have absolutely no value, nothing." We don't want to overlook the need of our neighbor, the person who works next to us, our boss, the person who works under us. We don't want to overlook the need of the guy that's involved with road rage as he passes you on the highway doing stupid stuff. We don't want to overlook the fact that people need Christ. And what that means is not just another trip to the doctor or another trip to the counselor because the pieces may still be in their lives. What it means is that the power of Almighty God, as represented in the resurrection of Christ, comes in, and does the one thing that no one, not I, not you, no one on the face of the earth can touch, and that is the forgiveness of our sin. And better than that, because the Spirit comes in and makes us a new creation, old things are gone away and we have become new. Brand-new.

In First Corinthians, Chapter 15, verse 2 and 3, it explains very clearly about the savior who came, and he lived, and he died, and he was resurrected. It explains all this, and this is our gospel, the power of God, the offer of forgiveness and cleansing and a new heart and a new mind and a new life.

You see, it is possible that the difficulty that people have in life, is that they just don't have God. They just don't have him. They have no one to rely on, no one to go to, and no one to be next to them, no one to guide them. They are on their own. And some of them are scared to death and running scared, but they would never let you know. When we see the sin that sickens us and is piled so high, and we say, "Oh man those people. How can they do this?" God's reaction is, they need a heart change. They need the gospel. They need the opportunity to repent. They need the opportunity to know my love and my compassion and my forgiveness. That's what they need.

Turn to second Timothy, chapter number one. Paul is talking about the savior, and this gospel and it says in verse nine that " this grace was given in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time. But it is now revealed through the appearing of our savior Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel". You know, we as human beings, all of us had this sense of eternity. Life goes on. Every major culture in the world has had some kind of afterlife. We had the sense that something else is supposed to happen, something else is supposed to go on. We had this wonderful sense that we couldn't be here just as we are and to pull the plug at 90 years, and that would be it. Who fills in that information? Who puts in that information? Who brings in all that truth about after we die stuff? Who fills it in? Just so their rudiments of knowing that there is an eternity is in the heart of man. But the joy of knowing that we will spend eternity with Christ is only the result of the gospel of Jesus Christ. But we suddenly say death may be a shadow doorway that we walk through, but we walk into the brightness of life because our savior is there we are going to spend eternity with him. Ask people; I dare you to "where are you going when you die? What's going to happen to you?" Very few people say, " I'm just like my poodle, when I'm gone I’m gone." Most of them will go” well I hope. Or I think." You see the great blessing and joy of our gospel and salvation is to absolutely know for sure that eternity is already in our heart. Have you been to a motel recently where they're using those security passes, the little credit card type thing? Ever gone up your room, and looked for it and didn't have it and you realize you have a problem. We stayed a motel where there was a causeway, and you had to leave one group of buildings and walk across a causeway to another group of buildings and when you wanted to get back to the causeway you had to have the key card to your room or to get back into the other to get back down the desk. Slight just envisioned that I could be stuck on this causeway in between the two buildings, not able to get into my room and not able to get back to the desk, you know just 15 ft. above the ground.

That's exactly what a lot of people feel like in life. " That doesn't matter we are just out to make a buck and everything else." Listen, it doesn't take the death of a friend, loved one or relative, or near death to make people be concerned about eternity. One of the wonderful things about our gospel is that it puts eternity in their hearts and life and that it is Christ that we will spend eternity with them. There are even a couple of commercials on TV now that start out with the words, " Why am I here? Why am I going to work? " And they are not religious commercials. If you listen to and are aware of what people are saying in our world a lot more of them are asking those questions.

One last little thought, our gospel brings God's blessing of salvation. Our gospel is the power of God in a life. Whatever that life needs the power of God provides. Our gospel places eternity in our heart, because we know that we are going to spend eternity immortal and visible God. They are going to spend eternity with the Lord Jesus Christ who died for them. They are going to be there by the promise of God.

One last little thing. The Scripture says about the Scripture, which is interesting. God talking about what he says,” that when he sends it out, it will never come back void, worthless, vain, empty. It will accomplish the purpose for which it was sent. That's what the Scripture says about Scripture. Now I want you to read with me. First, Peter, chapter four, verses 5,6 and 17. Talking about people and the gospel. "But they will have to give account to him, who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For this reason, the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead. So that they might be judged according to men in regard to the body, but according to God in regard to the spirit."

Now I know whom he is talking about. I know these people he is talking about in the context. But I want you to understand something. When someone has a difficulty do you feel strange about going down to the Hallmark shop and getting a nice little card that says you're thinking about him or her? Is that strange? Is that weird? Is that what caring people do. Has someone a loved one that died? Is it strange to go down to the Hallmark shop (we are not advertising Hallmark) and get a sympathy card? Is something wrong with that? Something weird about that? And the world, do they appreciate that? Yes they do. They come to you and say, “Thank you for the card” like they never got one before in their whole life. Thank you, for actually signing it in ink. It wasn't just a stamp. You were thinking, you cared, and you took the time.”

Why is it different when a card cannot resolve the significant need they had? It needs to be a simple prayer to Christ. Why does this seem to be different for us to share that? When we know a person has a need, we do what we can. We get the card. We clean the house. We do what we can. I know what happens to you all, you think, "They are likely to say, no-no. We think that was wasted. No it is not. Giving the gospel of Jesus Christ to people, not only gives them the opportunity to believe, to find God's compassionate love and his Grace but it is also part of their accountability to God. One day they will stand before him and he will say” I absolutely am faultless in my judgment. You heard the gospel. It was presented by loving and caring and gracious people, and you turned away from that. And Peter says that when you present the gospel it is simple so that people when they stand before Almighty God will be without an answer. This morning, what kind of God is in the book of Jonah? To begin with, he is the God who when he was confronted by a group of people who have offended him so greatly, that the next thing on God's day planner is to send judgment to that society, to utterly destroy, them he himself makes every effort and every resource to send someone to tell them the truth so they can repent so he doesn't have to destroy them. Now, what kind of a God is that? You see we are watching a lot of political machinations going on right now. The establishment of kingdoms and all, but you know what, from the nation of Iraq an order for 10,000 Bibles has already been placed. Two churches have already started meeting publicly. Christian churches for the first time in over two decades. When you do think of all the big political machinations and the powers and the struggles and everything else, there is a God in Heaven that says, “Every one of these souls is precious to me. I want them to come in to my kingdom”.

Please enjoy the blessing of your salvation. You are in a minority. Please don't hoard the salvation that you have.

SHARE IT

The God of Second Chances Pastor F. Dwight Thompson preached this sermon on August 10, 2003.

It is his second sermon in a series from the book of Jonah. We hope to be able to bring them all to you. They are well worth your attention and a little extra time.

We are in the book of Jonah.

I really want us to remember that the book of Jonah is not about Jonah. It’s about God. The book of Jonah is not about Jonah at all. The book of Jonah is about God. Actually the whole Bible is about God. But actually the focal point of the book is not even about Jonah as a person. It's about the God of Jonah. It's about how God responds to the circumstance. And I hope we can see ourselves in these circumstances, because to tell you the truth, The Middle East, Near East and all that area is still in turmoil and similar things are happening over and over again. We often wonder, is God there? Is he in charge? Does he know what's going on? And the answer is yes.

Everything that is taking place if you've been reading the Old Testament of this taking place over there is something that God talked about then, and also talked about it as happening continuously in the future, That turmoil, the frustrations and the arguments, and the fights, and the wars and the struggle over World power. The Scripture says that in the very last days,.I mean the very very last days. I mean the very end, that's when they turn the lights, that little space of time after you turn the lights out and you can still see a little bit. Did you ever have that experience? They turn the lights out, and you can still see for a second. When you get that close to the end the Scripture says that a huge army is going to march from the East and cross over the Tigers and Euphrates rivers and move itself towards Palestine. That whole area of the world is embroiled in what is going to be a continuous battle until the Lord brings it to a head. Then it will finally resolve itself with the Lord Jesus Christ himself Coming to earth, not just as the Savior and a Lamb slain, but as the King of kings, and the Lord of lords and the leader of great armies.

When we look at Jonah, we need to remember that Amos who was one of his compadres, one of the people who prophesied, so if you read the book of Jonah, you can read the book of Amos and get the idea that there was a little bit of political and economic interchange that was going on with the people of Assyria. Now just in case you have forgotten, we are dealing with the Bible land , the Tigers and Euphrates rivers, the little strip of land that we call Palestine. The Palestinians are fighting over that little strip of land today. Assyria takes over the power of Damascus, which sets Israel free. It frees their northern border and Israel suddenly knows prosperity and freedom from difficulties and everything else. The first thing they do is turn from God. The first thing they do is turn away from God. You know when things are tough, people learn to walk forward on their knees don't they. All of a sudden, when it's not tough, they just seem to walk their own way. Sometimes, our greatest prayer of Thanksgiving to God, probably should be, " "Thank you for making life so tough that I have to rely on you." By the way, because he cares for us, and that's what's best for us, he will always make sure that that happens. That is just a word to the wise. What happened was that just as soon as they had destroyed the power of Damascus, Assyria had these political problems internally, and so it just kind of freed that part of the world. It was at that time, that Jonah was sent to Nineveh, the great city that had its own King. What Jonah did not know was that 50 years from then, the nation or kingdom of Assyria was going to make Nineveh the capital. You have to understand God's mindset here. Last week we realized that the wickedness of Nineveh was so great. It was just like before Noah’s day. God was going to destroy them. We ask what does the God do when people are so bad he is just about to destroy them? What is his response? Send the Gospel to them.

He does not tell the Christian church to write critiques and scathing editorials about them. I remind you again, please, as Christians, don't do that kind of silly theology that complains about the world living like the world. Don't act shocked when the world acts like the world. Why should we want, or expect, or think that the world is going to act like Christians, when they are not. And we get our selves caught doing the wrong thing. Alienating them by our caustic way of talking about their lifestyles, rather than doing what God did when things got as bad, gross, and as horrible as they possibly can be, God sent Jonah to tell them that if you don't straighten up in 45 or 50 days God was going to come in and destroy you. You see the answer to evil is the Gospel. The answer to evil people is the new birth in their heart, changing them from the heart out. The answer to people who are troubled in their sin is forgiveness so they can let it go. And God knows that.

So Nineveh was horrible and bad. Jonah, Chapter 1 verses 1 and 2, says they were just horrible. So God sent Jonah. Or that least he endeavored to send Jonah. And so we see God's mindset. But I remind you that God is eternal. There is no past, and there is no future, so he sees everything as happening constantly. He knew that the ruler of Assyria was going to make Nineveh the capital prior to Jonah going. What a wonderful gracious opportunity for the capital city of a country to hold up the Word of Truth and the Light in the whole kingdom. So God was not only giving them the opportunity to repent and turn back to the Lord and do all of these wonderful things God’s mercy and grace can do contrary to what they had been doing before, not just for their own sake and their own health, but they would now become the leaders of a great empire and could spread it from there.

So you see we have to remember that everything that happens to us personally, everything that happens to us locally and nationally has effects and influences on the whole world around us, and God is aware of that. That's why God’s timing is so absolutely right, and it's so important for us to wait on that. God is ready to take the Gospel to them, the good news that he will forgive them. That's what the good news is. Please, please understand. The good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is about forgiveness, because the need is about sin. And forgiveness means total, absolute, 100% liberty, now we need to keep those in mind. In a few minutes we are going to remember the Lord's Supper. What's that about? It's about sin. Our sin, on him, God's judgment for sin, on him, Christ paying the price, so that we could be what -- forever burdened with the disappointment of our own sinfulness. No, but so that we could ever live, a joyful life in praise for his forgiveness.

By the way there is a whole section of the church, (I don't mean this church,) but the church in general, that lives every day to feel guilty. They live every day to be motivated by how little they do, or how much they fail. In both cases that is not why Christ died. He died so that we would know everything has been paid, so that we can joyfully live in the total Liberty of a child of God.

You and I have to remember this, if you've ever been a parent, you know you have to discipline your kids. Right. But if you've ever been a parent, and you've had the discipline your kids you know that, that is small potatoes, because you know that your love for them is so great. It's just small potatoes. And that's how God lives with his children.

Now we are going into God telling Jonah, " You need to go"

Now I'm going to read and you can follow along starting with verse one of Chapter one. So you can pick up the whole story " The Word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai. " Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it because its wickedness has come up before me." But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. (The opposite direction by the way). He went down to Joppa where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord. (Second time that's mentioned in about 50 words). Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. (Now that's literal, that means come apart, I mean literally boards come off and it sinks.) All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own God, and they threw the cargo into this sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. (Now that's an interesting posture, isn't it? But I want to stop and say this. There is a whole emotional issue here. When we run from God, and we know we are, and we live with this ugly black cloud hanging over our head, with this horrible weight on our back, there is such thing as the sleep of exhaustion, simply because we are not doing what God wants. Now that's what happens to Jonah.) The Captain went to him, and said, how can you sleep, get up and call on your God, maybe he will take notice of us and we will not perish. Then the sailors say to each other, come let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity. They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. So they ask him. Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us. What do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you? He answered. I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of Heaven, who made the sea and the land. This terrified them and they asked, what have you done? They knew he was running away from the Lord, because he had already told so. There is no doubt in Jonah's mind about what he's doing. I feel as we talk about this today, there will be some people who are struggling with issues and they're just not sure where the Lord is with them. They are just trying to put it together, and they are wondering am I running from God? Let me tell you if you're running from God there is not us soul of the face of the earth that has tell you that you are. You know it. It is a deliberate intention on your part. The sea was getting rougher and rougher so they asked him. What should we do to you to make the sea become calm for us? This is an interesting response. Pick me up and threw me into the sea (why did he not just jump over board himself? But anyway-) he replied, and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come up on you. Is there any doubt in Jonah's mind? Any doubt at all? No, he's very clear about this, no doubt. Instead, the men did their best to row back to land, but they could not for the sea grew even wilder than before. Then they cried to the Lord O Lord, please do not let us die for taking this man's life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man for you O Lord have done as you please. Then they took Jonah and threw him over board and the raging sea grew calm. At this the men greatly feared the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to him, but the Lord provided a great fish to swallow Jonah and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights.

Now I want to say this right now -- right up front. If you are challenged to believe that as to whether that can happen or not. I want to provide a phrase for you. It says, "The Lord provided a great fish to swallow Jonah." If you have a hard time believing some huge koi out of somebody's garden fishpond, swallowed him, and kept him alive for three days, I want you to understand this, God prepared the fish and made it so this could happen. The issue is not whether fish could do this, although there are two records -- two distinctly verified records, during the whaling days, that when they cut open whales that men were alive inside them. They gotten to the airways and had been able to stay alive for three days. That's verifiable. But folks, there is nothing in here that says it has to be a whale. God did this. The issue is not whether fish can do this; the issue is whether God can do this. We need to understand that. Now, having said that, this is a miracle, I want you to understand, this is nothing. This is child's play, compared to the miracle it takes to give us a new heart and redemption. If you are a believer in Christ then, while some of these things seem to be way out there, I want to understand it is nothing for God; after all, he made everything at the beginning. He made everything in the beginning, how hard is it for him to make a fish to do this? fish

We were in Awana training the other night, and Barno who does a lot of research and statistics and you know what statistics are, kind of willy-nilly sometimes. But he tries to be accurate. He asked thousands of high school students, teenagers, junior and senior high school students, who said they were at Evangelical believers, (they were believers in Jesus Christ as their savior,) how many of them believed that there were absolutes, things that do not change, no matter what. Only 9% of them said they do. That means 91 out of 100 students who said they were Evangelical believers did not believe that there were absolutes that did not change. If that is even close to true, we have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of work to do; we have a lot of work to do because I wonder which one of the things that God said might not be true to. Is it that we are all sinners? Is it that Christ died for us? That there is Heaven? We need to think about this. It is important to believe the Scriptures, and believe that God would not lie and that God would not lead us on. And God wouldn't play tricks.

So from inside the fish (now I don't know about you), it is a good exercise, what would you do for three days inside a fish? For the first time in your life you feel like a sushi wrap. You know when they wrap you in a leaf and all that seaweed. That's what you'd feel like probably. Three days and three nights inside this old fish.

Verse one chapter two “ from inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. He said, " in my distress, I called to the Lord and he answered me." Did you hear that? He answered me. From the depths of the grave, I called for help and you listened to my cry. You hurled me into the deep, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me. All your waves and breakers swept over me. I said, I have been banished from your sight. Yet I will look again toward your holy Temple. The engulfing waters threatened me; the deep surrounded me. Sea weed was wrapped around my head, to the roots of the mountains, I sank down; the Earth beneath me barred me in for ever, but you brought my life up from the pit, O Lord my God. When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you Lord. And in my prayer rose to you, to your holy Temple. Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs. But I with a song of Thanksgiving will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. Salvation comes from the Lord (and what was the Lord's response?) and the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

This whole event, this whole historical event, this whole story, Christ uses as an illustration of him going in to the grave and coming out again. Christ verifies the historical fact, of all this, the history of it when he talks about it. But this story is not about Jonah. It isn't about a big fish. It's about God giving second chances. It's about God who allows us to start again, it’s about God, the God of Jonah, that takes a Prophet named Jonah and basically says,” Go” He says "not on your life". And he ran. God said; OK, now you're ready, let's try this again.

The first thing I want to talk about is the fact that he ran. Psalm 139, verses 7 to 12 tells us very clearly, you can never run from God. Psalm, 139, 7 to 12 simply says. Where can I go from you? If I go to the heavens, you are there, if they go to the depths you are there, as far as the East is from the West, wherever you are, you are there. You cannot run from God, I cannot run from God, and none of us can run from God. Jonah is not really running from God. What is he running from? He is running from what God asked him to do.

Now I want to stop for just a moment this morning, and point this out to you. We don't have to be asked to go to Nineveh and preach to the city and tell them that they are all going to be destroyed, if they don't straighten up. We don't have to be asked to do something that is so huge and outlandish, so spectacular. We don't have to be asked, to run from our responsibilities. This was Jonah's responsibility. He was a Prophet in Israel. That's what he did regularly. And God said, I want you to go be that Prophet in Nineveh. And that is his responsibility, and basically he said, no I'm running from it. If it you look in the world around you, and I know you felt the temptation to, we have responsibilities and our responsibilities have a tendency close in on us. Our responsibilities have a tendency to mount up on us. Our responsibilities have a tendency to wear us down. Our responsibilities have a tendency to become mundane. So we become bored with having to carry on the same responsibilities over and over and over again. But I might remind you, it is God who put the responsibilities in front of us. It is God who has prepared us for that, and it is God who has preparing us by that for what is next by that. Jonah is running from his responsibility, what God prepared him to do, wanted him to do, and was preparing him for what was coming next. And Jonah ran. I want to remind you that you will never run from God. God is omnipresent. There is no place in any universe that God does not exist, that God is not there. But I do want you know it is possible for you to run from your responsibilities. It is possible for me to run from my responsibilities.

You see life comes at us pretty fast. We were talking today about some friends, and who had gone to Alaska. They drove 9300 miles in five weeks. What did their vacation look like? Swish, swish, swish, and swish. That's what the landscape looked like. How many of you feel that your responsibilities make your life feel like that. Swish swish. It's going by and if you ever get to sit down and relax and think about it you’ll fall asleep. We need to take seriously the fact that our responsibilities laid in front of us by God are things we should not run from. Now we can think of the big horrible ones right. People go out and do stupid things and lose thier marriages. Kids who throw everything that is good and wholesome away. They go out and do something horrible or wreck the car, or get arrested or something like that. We think of all the big horrible things, but let us just talk about the everyday responsibilities that chew on us. They are there everyday, and we get so tired of seeing them and get so bored with doing it. I just want to encourage you. Don't run. Don't run.

Second point, God pursued.

Somehow I was raised in the religious tradition that said you got one-shot at everything. They used to preach that if you walked out of the church, and don't accept Christ, you might never have the opportunity again. Now that might be true, but it has become one-shot ism. Now let's do a little truth and reality here. After you became a Christian, how many of you have ever sinned. Don't put your hand up please. What would happen if God said, " that's it? I forgave you once. It's over with.” What would happen if God only gave you a responsibility once? Did you notice what Jonah finally said. "What I vowed, I will make good." Well, he was talking from the inside of the fish. He hadn't made good, but now he's going to go make it good. I really do think we sell God short. God is the God of second chances. We sell people short. We don't give them second chances. We don't let them change; we don't let them fix it. We don't let them do it and undo it. I want you understand this is about God. It is the God who gave Jonah the responsibility. Jonah ran, but he gave Jonah the opportunity to go back and fix his mistake. By the way, that should be the model for all disciplining of children, that ability to fix it and go back. Jesus gave the story where two sons were told to go out and do their responsibilities to the father. One said yeah, I'll go do it and he didn't do it. The other said, not on your life Dad, but he went and did it. Jesus’ question was, which one did the right thing? You may be sitting here thinking of the God of one-shot. You know the responsibility that God placed in front of you and you told him no a couple of years ago. You know what? That may still be dangling out there waiting to you. What kind of God do we have? We have a God that, when his Prophet ran, prepared a fish and patiently waited. How long do you think it would take you to make this prayer if you were inside the fish? What I'm amazed at is it took him three days to get it together. How long would it take you to make this kind of a prayer if you got swallowed up by a big fish? I'm amazed! Here’s Jonah sitting there and calculating what's going to happen next. For day one, day two, and finally day three, he says well, I think I'm in serious trouble. Do you think Jonah was stubborn? Do you know what? Yours might not be days. It might not be a few days. It might be a few weeks. It could be months. Folks in reality, there are some people who have lived inside of their fish for years. They have lived so long that they just think that’s the way God wants it for the rest of their life. And it's not. What kind of God do we have? The God of second chances. That's why we celebrate the Lord's Supper. He doesn't ever want us to forget the fact that there is forgiveness and there is restoration and beginning again. So Jonah returned his vow. You know what? It was a vow of submission. That's a tough word, isn't it? It's not a proper or positive word in our culture because it seems like we are just letting people walk all over us.

The fact of the matter is in James 4: 7, It tells us, in the light of all God does in Scripture; we are required to be submitted to him. In Ephesians 5: 25, it says we are to submit ourselves as the Church summits itself to Christ. Our posture and our mindset, our position to God, this God, and the God we worship, the God that we believe, is one of submission. That is why, when he puts a responsibility in front of us, it is futile to run. We will never get away from him and it is futile to run, because he's going to pursue us.

Jonah had his reasons for not wanting to go to his Nineveh. Some were cultural, some were fear, and some was distance. He had to travel several hundred miles to get there. He had all those pieces. Had all of them there, but the fact is, it is what God placed in front of him.

Now I want to be sure that we hear this from God. In chapter two, verse 10, "And the Lord commanded the fish." Now I'm experimenting with a little pond that has koi in it, and I'm a real disappointed because they've been there about 2 1/2 months and the book says that if you feed them the same time every day, they are very brave and they will come right up to the surface and eventually get so that that they may even eat out of your hand. You know, I just don't know if it's my aftershave or mouthwash or what, but when they see me, swish, they are gone and I cannot see those little guys on the bottom, and they are orange. I cannot control those fish. But God commanded the fish, he prepared it, He made it, but he commanded it. See, I want you understand this; God is in control of everything that is going on here. Nothing has going out of his control. Nothing has gone into craziness. It is all completely within the control of God. You know that should be a great comfort to you and to me. I know it is for me. I can tell you times I've told God, " I don't think so. You want me to do that. Come on God. Look at me. Do you expect me to do that? Come on God." And he has had his fish. It takes awhile to acknowledge it. The nice thing is you go and do what God says, and God never brings it up. He never hits you on it. He never reminds you of it. It's like it never happened to him. That's what forgiveness is all about. That's what second chances are all about. You see this morning I want us to say in our hearts and our minds; that God really does love us. And what he puts in front of us he does for our good as well as his glory. And that he really does intends for us to take our responsibilities and follow-through. As hard as it can seem and as boring as it may be a times. But all of that is for the purposes of God. And if you muff it, if you ignore it. If you run from it, if you say no to it, it’s not the end. God is there. He is waiting. All you have to do is talk to him and he lets you start again. This is the God of Jonah, the God who controls, makes fish and hears prayers from inside a fish's tummy.

The God of Forgiveness

This is the third in our series by Pastor F. Dwight Thompson on the book of Jonah. Delivered on August 17, 2003.

Jonah by calling, and probably by occupation was a prophet. He and Amos were contemporaries and buddies. He was prophesying during the time when the people of Israel had a little window of freedom from real political stress, especially on the northern borders. And the people that caused that to happen, were the Assyrians who had defeated the people of Damascus, who were causing the problems of the northern border, and then the Assyrians had internal problems so, they had to back off on their plans of domination of that part of the world, because that is what everybody wanted to do they wanted to dominate the entire fertile crescent. It had resources and what resources they didn't have, trade brought to them. Back in this time they were receiving objects from China and India. They were going all the way to Egypt through this Fertile Crescent. All precious metals, jewels and gems of the African continent were finding their way into Egypt and going all the way around and traveling to the Far East. This was a critical piece of territory for people who had designs on world domination, knew they had to conquer it. Now there was a city in the northern Assyrian province, hundreds of miles from northern Israel named Nineveh. Maybe what Jonah did not know was that for the few decades of his lifetime, this Nineveh would be made the capital of Assyria. It was going to become even more prominent than what it was. It was a trading center. It was on the trade route. It's whereby everybody came through and so it was a city of great size and significance and wealth, But wasn't the capital of a great empire. It was going to become that. But it happened without the guidance of the Almighty God, the God who sent his son Jesus Christ, the God who gave us the Word of God. Without that guidance, what do you do with great wealth, great power, and great status? It goes to serve your means, my means. It goes basically to satisfy what we want. We need to understand that whole mindset is contrary to the mindset of God for his people. Jesus reminded us that he came, not to be minister to, but to minister. One of the last significant events that he did with his disciples to teach them the mindset of life was in the upper room. He took off his outer garment and did what was beyond words culturally. To express the shock of what Jesus did, he put a towel around his waist and took a basin of water and washed the disciples feet. You see to the Jews in the Jewish culture the ugliest, dirtiest, filthiest part of your body was your feet. Only the lowest servant in your household would dare to wash somebody's feet. That is the lowest, most disgusting, filthiest task in the world to do. When you do that you know you're on the bottom rung. When Jesus donned the towel, Peter was quick to pick up on it and deny Jesus the right to wash his feet. But Jesus said if I don't do this you don't have any part in me. Peter's response was, well then wash my head and my hands, my feet and everything. He said you don't need that. You just need your feet washed. And then he turned his disciples and said, what I'm doing now, you do not understand. You do not understand. You will later. What I'm doing to you now, you need to do to each other. Jesus took on the lowest form of servant hood and served. You see all that God gives us, all that God enriches us with, all that God blesses us with, whether we want to account that as time, or effort, or energy, or our gifts and skills, or abilities, or money, all of that was meant not to enrich and engorged ourselves with our riches. They were meant to be used as tools to serve. Do you see the power of a person who makes the connection with humanity? When I was in Chicago, they were building the Sears Tower and everyday I went down there and I watched them dig out the foundation. You do not realize how deep the foundation of that building goes. It's an incredible hole that they dug. Then they drove pilings in and then poured big huge holes full of reinforced concrete, poured underneath the foundation. It’s huge. Well, it is fun to get into those buildings and ride the elevator up and down, and up-and-down in fact, many of them won't let you do that anymore. You cannot get into the elevator unless you have a pass to get into the building. It's not a matter security. It is just that to many people get in and ride up-and-down, especially college kids. We would run the stairs up and then ride elevators down, time ourselves, and have races. 100 floors is a tough thing to run up, a real tough thing to run up. But they stopped us from doing that kind of stuff. College kids! It was innocent, but business people didn't like it If you ever gotten on the elevator, everybody's going to work, everybody stands there; it's in their dark blue suits staring forward at the person ahead of them. It was a businessperson that who could stand it no more. He worked his way to the front of the elevator and then turned his back to the door. And he said, basically, " I can't stand this. We are all in this elevator every morning, and every afternoon together. We don't say anything to each other. So we are going to sing. You know what men think about singing, anyway, but you know what businessmen think of singing on elevator. So he started singing kids songs, you know, stuff you'd sing as a kid. Well, he would sing and then one would start, by the time two floors went by everybody was just singing with gusto with these silly Kids songs. And so the elevator would stop the door would open, no one would get off. It would stop on the next floor, and nobody would get off. No one was willing to get off on their floor. It went all the way to the top, simply because they wanted to finish. Then they went back down to their floor. And as they got out, each one of them thanked the man, and that was the last time they didn't speak to each other all, all the year. They got on, they laughed, and they talked. The power of influence by that one individual; and that's a true story. It took place, I believe in New York, of all cities, to have something like that happen. It is so important though for you and I do realize what God has given us, he has not given us to hoard, he has given it do us to share. And that's exactly what he asked Jonah to do. Please understand this, God, when he called Jonah to go to Nineveh and Jonah did not understand that Nineveh was going to become the capital and Nineveh needed to be the city that was the center of all spiritual growth. What God asked Jonah to do was not invent something. He did not ask Jonah to do something that he did not know how to do, that he did not have the skill to do, had not been equipped to do. God did not ask Jonah to do anything that he had not prepared him to do. All God asked him to do was share what he had. And you know Jonah's results. Jonah Chapter one, verse three, tells us. " But Jonah ran away from the Lord." We talked about that. You can't run from God. God is omnipresent. He's everywhere. You can't run from him. You can, and I can run from our responsibilities, the responsibilities that God gives us. Now occasionally, I hear a Christian say, "I just wish God had not given me this gift.” That's because as they are using it, wherever they're using it, all of a sudden they realize that it is truly a chore its a job, it's tough, and they say I wish God had not given this one to me, I would have give it to someone else. And they struggle with that. And you might be there today, you might be there at that place where you realize that God has given you, you are sharing and it is tough. I have also heard Christians say, " wow man, why don't they." Well God didn't give them that gift. When it gets tough, we want everyone else to have the same gift that we do, and the same abilities we do, and everybody to do the same thing we do. What God asked Jonah to do was to simply do what he was prepared to do. What he was capable of doing by the grace of God, and what he was already doing. He was being a Prophet. "Go tell them they are going to be destroyed in 40 days, if they don't fix it." So this is where we start out in chapter three. Jonah ran, got thrown overboard, got swallowed up, three days later vomited up, and now he is ready to do business. But in the belly of the fish though he had three days to think about it. He made his prayer to God and the prayer was” Lord I'm ready to do what you want." OK

Chapter three verse one. "Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. "Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you." Please understand this, it is not Jonah's message. It is God's. So he says to Jonah, " I just want you to do what you are prepared to do. Go to Nineveh, and I want you open your mouth, I will tell you what to say."

We need to pull over for moment, because this is about God, this is not about Jonah now. All of a sudden, this whole thing is about God again, and we learn a little bit about God dealing with us, or with Jonah, when we have said no to God about our responsibilities. Let's face is, do you believe our culture has a very strong, strong strain of, just forget your responsibilities and enjoy yourself. Come on now we all joke about men my age, wearing a gold chain and buying a red car, especially a convertible, right. Second childhood, we call it. You know what that is. It's the fight; it's that sense, that we are getting old. Our knees start to creak when we bend down and when we start to stand up again, the world starts to spin on us. So it's our last vestige of saying I'm not getting old. It's kind of that self-denial thing. It can also be a sign that I won't take my responsibilities that come with age. That happens. How many times have you seen them throw to the winds the whole family relationship? How many times have you seen them throw to the winds their entire work relationship? Just throw it to the winds, and say, I can't handle this anymore. I don't want to handle this anymore. I don't want to be responsible anymore for anybody but me. In fact it would be a tad disappointing, if we didn't point out that, we, our culture, unfortunately teaches us that’s all we have to be responsible for, is ourselves. And that's not so. We have a responsibility to others.

Well, I want to talk about God just for a second. God came and knocked on Jonah shoulder after he peels off the slime and the seaweed after getting out of the fish, he washes himself off, from the vomit and that stuff. Gross huh. Anyway, he does all of this and God comes to him and you notice, God doesn't do this, he does not scold Jonah. He doesn't come up to Jonah and say, "learn your lesson yet kid? Get the message?" He doesn't do that. You notice he doesn't come up with sarcasm. " Where did you come from Jonah? I missed you for the last three days? My, my, Jonah, don't we smell good. My, Jonah aren’t you alert this morning." Sarcasm is supposed to be a sign of intelligence and some people are trying to act way to intelligent when they communicate. The thing is, God was not being sarcastic with him. God did not in any way belittle him for his previous unwillingness to accept responsibility.

The third thing, God did not remind him. God did not remind him of his failure. God did not remind him that he had just come out of the fish. God did not say, OK, this is the second time I told you to do this Jonah, pay attention. He just did not remind him. It's like the whole thing started over again. It's like the first-time God told him. We need to learn something about God and then that might be a nice model for us, and suggestions for us in how we deal parents with our children or with each other in our adult relationships. The first thing God understands is that because he made us free will agents, all the way back to Adam and Eve, who made that horrible choice to eat of the tree, God understands that people do that. And secondly, when they do it and they turn around (that's the definition of repentance, to turnaround), when they turn back to him, then it's time to do business, but it's not time to remind people of their past. You see, the past is what you were. The present is what you are, and will be, and no life was meant to be lived in the worst. And I might want to point this out to you, anybody who's had their past mistakes thrown up in their face, you realize that is probably the bottom, the bottom, the least of any motivator to do right. All right. Do you feel like going along and do the right thing after someone brings up your failures to get you motivated to do the right thing? You see, I want us to understand that when God meets our failure and we meet with him. It's done, it's over with, it’s finished its past, and that book is closed. That's the whole issue of "how many times do I forgive, 70 times 7. " What does that mean? It’s gone. It's history, History, which should not be revisited. So when we think of this, here is Jonah's God and Jonah's God says. "Jonah I've got a job for you. You need to go to Nineveh, and you need to preach ". No mention of the past, no mention of what he went through, no mention of what God had to do to get his attention. None. Its past. I think that’s a huge, huge statement of what forgiveness means. It's gone.

Second thing, " but Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very important city, a visit required three days. On the first day Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed: "40 more days, and Nineveh will be overturned". The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest of the least, put on sackcloth." Jonah obeyed. This is about our God. This wasn't a foxhole decision. Jonah didn't promise God something, in order to get out of the belly of the fish, so he could go do his own thing again. You say "wasn't that about Jonah?" No that was about God. I had this conversation with one of the school counselors, who no longer works on our site, unfortunately, but worked through the alternate Ed., where there is a lot of counseling needed. Her children are just getting to the age where they are getting independent, namely, drivers licenses and car keys. I said. " You know it is apparent that you go through this transitional period, because all of a sudden you realize that they are beyond the reach of your control when they get into that vehicle and drive away. You can’t even get them on a cell phone, if they don't answer. And you have this wonderful sense of pride that they are independent and this horrible emptiness, like, Oh my goodness, they could make a choice like I made when I was a young kid. And it could have disastrous results, more than it did for me. And you start going to all these thoughts in your mind." And I said, you know it's a normal natural thing, (and she's a believer), and I said, you go from the stage of saying its vain to stay up late and rise early to build your house. You have to trust God, till all of a sudden you come to the place of realizing; I'm totally trying to control this thing, and I want it to be within the grip of my control. So I said that prayer changes to, instead of OK Lord. You are in charge, to Lord what ever you need to do in my child's life, so that when they are full-fledged adults, they will love you and serve you. Give me the wisdom and grace to be there for them. What ever you need to do in their life, what ever for them, give me the wisdom and grace to be there for them.

I had a professor, Dr. Curl, and he was Irish, born and raised in Ireland. He was a pastor for 37 years and semi professor overlapping for 20 years, and one of his sons was a Christian but just, did the Jonah thing. Did the Jonah thing. He was in town on a weekend night, and the police would call him and say we're bringing him home. They had too much respect for him put the son. They would just bring the car up, and dump the son on the front lawn. He in jail would be so drunk that he couldn't see himself, just to stand up. Wrapped two of the family cars, which he managed to get ahold of without permission, around trees. And he told us; we went through this whole process, we have no control here, as much control as we want, we don't have any control. He finally said, we came do the place where we said Lord; we want you to do what you need to do for this child. What you need to do please do, and give us the wisdom and grace to handle it. And the Lord did. He just kept getting drunk, and he kept hurting himself, hurting the family. And he said to us, I want you to understand this. What that prayer did it was let God have control. What that prayer did was give God, that willingness on our part, to be used in our child's life, no matter what it was. He said, I want to tell you a secret. Of my five boys (he survived five boys), This boy has a greater heart for God, and serves him more faithfully and is more influential in touching other people’s lives than all the other boys put together, and they all served God. He said, he was my baby. It took that for us to realize God was doing this for him.

I want you to understand something about God, this morning. It may be you; it may be your spouse. It may be your child. It may be your parent, maybe your friend or your loved one. God has lots of big fish out there that he prepares to swallow people who aren't responsible. He does. Because God doesn't want any foxhole decisions on the part of people to say anything to God, just get me out of here, and they go their own way. He wants people to make commitments to him and live up to the commitments. He is a gracious and loving God, who will take and do what ever is necessary to bring us to the commitment we should have. Do all people give that commitment? No, but I want you to understand that God loves us enough to make that big fish and God is serious enough to leave us in the belly long enough to make those decisions.

Now I hope you understand this, God is very serious about us taking our responsibilities seriously. That's how serious he is.

Well the last thing that happens, (No two last things) Nineveh repents. Can you believe that? A huge city, a massive city, who Believed God. Now I want you to get that phrase. This is about God, it is not about Jonah. Jonah was told, you go and I will tell you what to say. Jonah went, God told him, he said it, and the people didn't believe Jonah. No, the people did not believe Jonah. They believed God. You and I need to understand this principle about living out our responsibilities because God gave them. The principle is; it is not what we are or what people do or say in relationship to us, it's what we do in service to God that points them back to God. Didn't Jesus say something about, " let your light so shine so people can see your good works." what will happen, they will glorify who, your God who is in heaven. Carrying out your responsibilities for God's gifts, God's Way, the result is that people look back to God. Oh they may see you and thank you, in everything else, but don't be shocked if they look back to God and forgot the messenger. It is possible that you can be very responsible, and very ignored. It is possible that you can be very responsible, and profoundly influential and be very significantly forgotten. It's possible; and I want you to know that. Let's not kid ourselves about that. Let's don't play some game like everything we do gets us a little pat on the back. I want to understand that when we live out our responsibilities, what it does it turns people’s heart and intentions back to the God who gave his those gifts. What is this all about? It's about a loving and gracious and merciful God, wanting people to turn to him.

The last thing; in verse 10, "when God saw, what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened. What kind of God do we have? Listen folks, these people, the Scripture says right here, they put away their evil and violence. They don't have to spend very long, checking out cultures, including ours, that when sin gets to a certain place one of the telltale signs is that violence and sin, violence and pleasure, violence and enjoyment, violence and status, violence and importance all become intertwined. Violence can become a way of life that is acceptable, and that is a scary thought in relationship of tracking our culture. But I want you to understand; when a culture gets to the brink of utter destruction in God's eyes God's response was, send a preacher to tell them that they will be destroyed, don't just destroy them, give them warning, give them opportunity. These people accept the warning, accept the opportunity, and 75 years later, they were back to where they were and they were destroyed. Do you know that? 75 years later, they turned from God and God destroys them. But they did turn to God and God in his compassion forgave them and it's over with, finished, their sin is past, it's washed, its cleansed, it's gone. You see this is about God. No matter how bad they were, no matter what they did, no matter how horrible they were, God for gave, and he did not destroy them.

This morning, Jonah presents to us a God, who wants us to take our responsibilities that he has fitted us for, live them out, and carry them out, so that people will see our God in reality, and turn to him. What he wants to be able to do because of that, is to take those people who have made life ugly, and fearful, and horrible, and he wants to redeem them, so they are as good as you think you are and I am. Sometimes that is what happens; we think we are a little better, and it is not true. We are just sinners saved by Grace. But that's what our God wants to do with our world. He wants to redeem it, although it may be on the short track to his judgment. It could be on a very short track to his judgment.

Who is Jonah? He's a guy just like you or me. He is a guy who was faced with the responsibility of God and says, " who me, no thanks." He's a guy who found out that God doesn't give up on you. God loves you. God wants you to do what's right. He also wants to forgive a world that is just corrupted by sin. He wants them to turn to him. That is who his God is. And you know what, he hasn't changed. He hasn't changed.

"Jonah's Anger."

The fourth in a series of messages on the book of Jonah by Pastor F. Dwight Thompson delivered on August 24, 2003 at Atwater community Bible Church.

We have been looking at a book that usually ends up in the Sunday school, the book of Jonah. The book has the main character's name and it, Jonah. The book of Jonah is not about Jonah. The book of Jonah is not about a big fish. The book of Jonah is not really even about the city of Nineveh that Jonah went to preach to, it turns back to God, and therefore were not judged. The book of Jonah is about God. The book of Jonah is about how God deals with his people in such circumstances.

So as a bit of review; God goes to Jonah and says I want you, a Prophet, already doing the job, to pick up and do that same job at Nineveh, several hundred miles away. Now the problem is Nineveh is a Gentile city and Jonah is a Jew. It is a Gentile city that is a threat to the Jews politically. So this seems like a conflict of interest here. What he doesn't know is that 50 plus years later, is that Nineveh is going to become the capital of the ruling nation of the near East. To have them believing in God is a significant, significant point in God's plan. So you know what Jonah did. He went the opposite direction. He went down and bought a ticket, and instead of going east. He went west, kind of northwest. And God said, "I can't let you do that Jonah." You and I have to recognize that there are times in life when God has prepared us, he has a plan for us, he has everything outlined for us and our response to God is, " I just can't do that God." And our out our out, and I always like to hear this from people t is to hear the word "cannot". When God tells us to do something the Scripture says, " Faithful is he who calls you, who will also do it." God never asks us to do what his Grace will not provide. On our refrigerator where there is a myriad of things written is something like that. God never asks you to do what his Grace does not provide you with the ability to do. God will never do that. He never puts you out on a limb and he never saws you off. No matter how tough and difficult circumstances may be, no matter how hard the bumps are that you get on the way he never saws you off.

So Jonah says, "Can’t do that Lord" and he took off, you know the storm came up, he finally had to confess to the sailors, and they threw him over board. The Bible says God prepared a great fish. Now don't get all caught up and whether fish can do this. Don't get caught up in that. It is not about whether the fish can; it's whether God can create a fish to do it. The Bible says God prepared the fish so it's not about whether fish can do this, it. It's about whether God can do this. That's the issue of the book. The book is about God.

Now let's step back for a minute. Nineveh was as bad as you can get. Remember before the flood, the Bible says God looked down and said. "It is so bad. People are just constantly turning to the wrong, so much that I'm going to have to destroy them". And he found Noah and his family, and he had the Ark and he destroys everybody but Noah and his family, because Noah and his family followed God. God looked down at Nineveh and said. "They are so bad, I'm going to destroy them in 40 days. I'm going to destroy them." So they were repeating what happened on the earth in Noah's time. They were that bad. So let's talk about God now. What does God do with bad people? What is God's intent with bad people? I mean people that are culturally, socially, morally, spiritually bad, rotten to the core, horrible, awful, ugly, and disgusting. What is God's response? He sends the Gospel to them so they can believe and be saved so he can forgive them, not destroy them. This book is about God. What does God do with evil? What God does is send the Gospel. There is coming a day of judgment. The book of Romans says they have stored that all up to the Day of Judgment. That's future, but right now, Jesus was very clear that he did not come to judge the world, John chapter three. He did not do that. He came to do what? To save the world, and the only way he could do that was get up on a ugly Cross and take its sins and then come out of a cold damp tomb alive to prove that he had defeated sin, and death and Satan, all in one fell swoop. It's over with. He paid the price.

So the plan of God, when the night gets so dark and its gross and its ugly and its horrible, and it is destructive and it is unsafe and its terrible, the plan of God is not to judge it first, but to send the gospel to it, so he can forgive. Some people have the picture of God, that when it finally gets so bad that God just says “ I just can't wait to get my hands on those people." Some people think that's the heart of God. Paul writes to Timothy that it is the will of God that every man come to repentance. That's the heart of God, every man. You can do what you want with information about how bad people are. My secretary’s son-in-law just came back from Iraq. He is a medic. And so you know he had a situation where they would go in with armed vehicles, and All around the Bullets are flying everywhere and they stop and pick up all the injured, and in the middle of the whole thing fly out of there again. In the back of the vehicle they do everything the doctors would do, surgeries, everything they could to save all of these lives. He said he thought it would be exciting, but it was not exciting, it was downright frightening, he said. He said, but another thing they had to do, was to stand and be certified witnesses, when they dug up the mass graves. And at this point, they've calculated that in Iraq 1000 people a day were put to death and buried in graves 2 ft. deep, many of them with their nametags still on. Think how horrible, that's like living Hitler all over again. Then we start thinking of the nature of evil and how bad it is. God's desire for that man who ordered that is that he be saved. Now does that stretch our theology? Does that stretch our view of the world? You see God's desire is that every person hears the Gospel, repents, believes and goes to heaven. That's God's desire. Now maybe I didn't make you a believer on that one, but the thing is (I want to say this) being a sinner is being a sinner. The white lie that we tell is as reprehensible to God because it is sin, as any horrible thing we could do on earth. We have to understand that. We put gradations; we do all this fancy footwork to make ourselves feel better. God's heart is not to judge that, God's heart is to forgive.

So now here's Jonah. He's down in the belly of the whale. He's there three days. I don't know, but how long would it take you figure this out. Three minutes? I would like to be self-righteous and, say from boat to water. Before I had hit the water, I would have it figured it out and had it straightened out. I don't know if any of you have ever unexpectedly had boat flip on you and you go in to a large body of water. I did in the Chesapeake Bay. A huge catamaran flipped on us. I mean it just flew us end over end and we landed in the water and went down about 10 or 15 ft. before we even knew we were in the water. It's not a pleasant experience to realize that you have been catapulted completely out of your control. But you know what the truth of the matter is that; probably I would have been as stubborn as he was. So he finally said Lord. I'm wrong, I will do what you say, and so the Lord had the fish deposit him on land and off he went. Now what's the nature of God? The nature of God was to go to Jonah and say. " Jonah, I want you to go tell them." He did not remind him of his failure in the past, he didn't scold him for his failure in the past; he did not chew him out for his failure in the past, he just said. " Jonah, I want you to go tell them." Again we are seeing how God treats people, who first tell God, to his face "No I will not do what you ask, and then go I’m sorry, I'm wrong, yes I was." God does not chew them out, he does not belittle them, he does not use sarcasm, he just brings them to into a place where he can say just go do it.

So Jonah goes over and preaches. You realize that Jonah could have lost his life doing that. Now I do want to mention this to you. If you have the idea that when God asks you do things, he always send you to the safest place on the planet. Not so. You may be sitting in a situation right now, and you say well, I followed God and done exactly what God wants but look at the conditions of my life around me. You may be saying I have done exactly what God wanted and I'm not living in sin, and look what's happening to me. You may say they just diagnosed this, or they just said this, or this just happened, or my boss just said this, and I'm following God. Now we need to be very clear on this. God does not always send us to the most dangerous places, but never rule out the fact that God, in his wisdom, knowing that you by his Grace can, and knowing that it will glorify him and that it is good for us, that God will send us to places that are not comfortable. Now I don't mean geographical places. He may not send you to Africa he may not send you to the Yukon. It may just be to your neighbor. It just may be to work. It just may be to something you thought would be recreational that suddenly becomes serious. We must understand that God knows best. Following God is always the best course, but it's not always the most comfortable course. It is not always the nicest course, it's just not, and you have to be prepared for that. So the corollary of that is this, I know that I'm doing what God wants, because my life is easy and comfortable. True or not true? How do you know that you're doing what God wants? God is blessing me. How do you think know God's blessing you? Wow my life is a dream, no problems, no difficulties, everything is great. God is blessing you? In Proverbs, there is a prayer for parents for their children. And it says, " Lord don't give them so much that they forget you. Don't withhold from them so much that they become embittered." Too much of a good thing, you know, is too much.

So Jonah goes along, and he does his preaching. What are the people of Nineveh to do? It says that the people of Nineveh repented. Verse 10 of Chapter 3, says, "When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring up on them the destruction he had threatened." The whole city, many thousands of people, had their lives spared. Now I don't know how you spell success. But in our economy, our culture, they would say, Jonah was successful. They have a tendency to forget God. The truth of the matter is, if they had rejected the message and God had to destroy them in just 40 days; Jonah would've been successful because success is not based upon the outcome. Success is based upon obedience. Please understand the difference. The outcome is God's. The obedience is ours. The apostle said. "We go out and so some seeds, we till the ground, we water it, but it is God who gives the increase." So we look at this and if we were going to say, Jonah was successful, we would say Jonah was successful because he obeyed. You see the Scripture says about the Word of God (you see the Scripture speaks about itself), it says that the Word of God will always accomplish the purpose it is sent to do. In the New Testament, sometimes it is sent to totally turn people away. One of the Prophets, Isaiah, his sole job in life was to make sure the people rejected God. You say " whoa, what a job." Yes he was told you will go out and preach my message and they will reject it and reject it because it's the truth. And he spent his whole ministry preaching the truth so people would reject it. You see God wants people to believe his Word. But His Word always challenges us to either embrace it or reject it. We cannot sit on the fence. It always tells us, we have got to put up or shut up. Just that way. Here's an uninteresting thing. These people believed Jonah and God delays what he said he was going to do. Here's Jonah's response. Jonah Chapter four, verse one. "But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry" now I want to say this before we read this, because we have young ears here, Jonah's going to take his disagreement to God, and he's going to tell God he does not agree with what God has done. Now I want you to understand this within the realm of respect. God wants us to tell him everything that is on our heart. By the way he already knows it but he wants us to tell him. Okay, so you say, how can he do this and not get struck by lightning. You know that kind of thing. You need to understand this. Now I want to say this to you as adults, if any of you sit there smugly and think that you have walked with God, that you have not had a disagreement in your life with what God has done, you may not have taken it to God as boldly as Jonah has done and talked to God about it, but there are times that we have looked at what God is doing and we have a significant disagreement with what he is doing. And you know how we can tell? It bugs the fire right out of us. We are unhappy with it, we are fighting it, in fact God is in control. You know it's those times that, it's not the big things. It's the little things. It is going to the meeting, and you're just going to make it on time, and you have a flat tire and you have the significant argument with God about his timing of your flat tire. You say, what? Didn’t you? Were you growling inside, weren’t you arguing, weren’t you frustrated? Didn't you tighten those lug nuts so hard that they’ll never get them off? What you and I need to understand is that living with God is one of the most wonderful experiences in life because we can trust him and his judgment, and what he does is always right, is always good, is always holy, is always just, is always compassionate, gracious and merciful and that's how we want him to act towards us. But Jonah, he couldn't buy into it.

"He prayed to the Lord, O Lord is this not what I said. When I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love a God who relents from sending calamity. Now O Lord take away my life for it is better for me to die than to live."

Has anybody been so frustrated by circumstances, that God has allowed in their life that they just go. "What's the use?" What is the use?" That's all the Jonah was saying. Now let's face it. If Jonah was on Nineveh's end wouldn't he have wanted God to be compassionate, merciful and all that. Of course, but Jonah had a disagreement that God would do that, and he was afraid that when he went to the people that they would repent and God would show them his mercy. And that's exactly what happened and now he is so frustrated that it's not even worth living. Now, you and I say it differently. We don't say take my life Lord. Elijah did that by the way. He got to the place where he was so frustrated that he didn't think his life was worth the dust in a thimble. We get to that place sometimes, when we argue with what God is doing. We are reduced to the frustration of believing that our life is not worth anymore than the dust in a thimble. We are not significant; we are not important, nothing.

So this is about God, and what does God do? He asked Jonah a question. Do you have the right to be angry? Jonah never answers the question. God just says, do you really have the right to be mad, upsets, frustrated, do you. Jonah went out and sat down in a place east of the city. There he made a shelter and sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city.

The second thing God's going to do, he's going to give him a literal illustration of how to help him get out of us own anger. We're looking at God. God doesn't just go pop pop, get out of this Jonah, wake up, take a pill, and go on the Atkins diet it'll fix anything. You know, do all that kind of stuff. God helps Jonah think his way out of it. Do you know the truth? He thought his way into it. How did Jonah get into this state? He got into this state because he wasn't thinking God's thoughts. If he had been thinking God's thoughts, he would've been saying, "Oh boy. I can go preach to them. Maybe they'll believe and all of these people will be saved." That's God's thoughts. So he thought himself into this. God is going to help Jonah think his way out. You see this is about God. It's not about Jonah. What happens when we get ourselves into this kind of a death spiral? What happens to us when we start coming to God and we say, "Lord. This is so frustrating. I just can't live with this, and my life is not worth two beans anymore." None of that is true. But we thought it. We got there in our mind. And God's going to have to help us get our way back out.

So, Jonah goes out and makes himself, a little shelter, and then verse six (remember this is all about God) "then the Lord provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head" now listen; any of those guys who came back from Iraq, you know it's 130° in the shade over their. I checked it out with my secretary's son in law and he says that is mild. 130° in the shade, and he says it is hot there, unrelenting heat. " To ease his discomfort and Jonah was very happy about the vine." Well, isn't that the way we are? We are frustrated about life and we don't like what God has done, and we have an argument with God. We have an issue with God, so we find our happiness in what? Little things that come up in a day. By the way, this is a symptom, this is a symptom. If the only happiness you find is just some little thing that happens in a day, but the rest of your life is lived on a high frustration level, this is a symptom. It is a warning sign. God's people's strength comes from Joy. That's what the Scripture says. "The Joy of the Lord is our strength." That's not just a song. It’s Scripture. And Joy is the positive sense that God is in charge and doing what is best all of the time in our lives and around our lives. And we trust him. That's what Joy is. It's not happy, happy all the time. It's a deep abiding sense that we believe God does what's best.

God does something else, "but at dawn the next day (God did something else) God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered (It sounds like my garden.) when the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah's head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die and said it would be better for me to die than to live." This whole sense of devaluing self, " but God said to Jonah, "do you have a right to be angry about the vine?" But Jonah now can talk about this one. He says "I do he said. I am angry enough to die." Do you think, Jonah is anywhere close to being happy camper? No. Do you think Jonah is a contented person? No. Do you think Jonah has peace about life? No. Do you think, Jonah likes his relationship with God right now? No. By the way, you could track this whole relational thing with any person in the world you have a relationship with, your kid, your spouse, parents, anyone, the same type of thing happens.

Now here is the Lord helping Jonah think this through. "But the Lord said. You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tended or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. Okay, you have been concerned about this vine. Why? Well, because it died and now you are sitting in the sun again. You have been concerned about it, but you didn't plant it, you didn't make it grow, you are concerned about it. Right? Of course you are. Why? Because it bothers you. Jonah. That bothered him you that a vine grew up and then died. Now he's helping Jonah think this through. "But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right-hand from their left, and many cattle as well, should I not be concerned about that great city." You were concerned about this vine because it brought you some rest and some pleasure. It just came up in a day and died in a day and you didn't do anything for it. Here are the people of Nineveh. I gave them life. No one lives without me giving them life. I work with them and they rejected me, and they fought with me and everything else, and there are 120,000, (probably a great deal more, see the Old teacher’s commentary,) people who are going to die, and go to hell. I love these people and I want them to believe. Should I not be concerned about them? Oh, did it ever dawn on you those people that you look at it and say, " well, my goodness I don't want my children around them, I don't want to be there, and I don't want my kids to be like them, and they are horrible and they are ugly and they're bad and everything they're doing is just gross and disgusting and everything. Now did it ever dawn on you, that God made them, as much as he made you? He gave them life, and he sustains their life, and he's working with them right now. He's working with them right now, in the circumstances of their life's to bring them to him. He's working with them. He wants them to come to him and he wants them to believe so he can forgive them and give them new life. He's working with them right now. What he is telling Jonah is "you were so worried about this little plant, because it brought blessing to you.

Luke , chapter 15, the story of the prodigal son. Everybody remember it? You know we really talk about that story backwards. It is not given for the prodigal son. The story was actually given to the religious leaders of Israel. The story is about the prodigal son's brother. That's what the stories about. The father forgives the prodigal son. That's a given. That's the nature of God. All of a sudden, we are having this party, because he has come home and he is redeemed. He is forgiven. In the brother goes " huh you think I'm going to go in there you got to be kidding. So the father goes out and says. What's a matter with you? My son, who was dead, is now alive and we are rejoicing. He goes, dad I have always done what you have said. I have always stayed here and worked, and he's gone out and taken half of the living and just lived his life and squandered, and had a great time. You never threw a party for me and now you're throwing a party for him. The whole story of the prodigal son is about the people who don't understand the heart of God. Because in that text, the Scripture says that in Heaven there is more rejoicing over one that repents. One. One. Do you want to spice up Heaven with rejoicing and praise? You know what does it? I'm sorry it's not about the new dress you bought. Or the new tie that you bought. It's about that person, who was living in the fullness of their sin, and they turned to Jesus Christ and found him as their savior. That's what lights up Heaven, and there are 120,000 (probably a lot more) People in Nineveh that believed. Boy Heaven was shooting off fireworks, because they turned and believed. Now, this book is about God. This is what I want you to remember today about God. Had any arguments with God, fusses with God, things like that with God any of that. See how gracious God is. See how God walks you through it. See how God gives you the illustrations of life to help you understand that it's you're thinking. not his action that is on the wrong track. It is your expectation, not your experience that is on the wrong track. Its what you demand from God rather than what you graciously received from God, that's on the wrong track. And how does God deal with us? He didn't slap us upside the head. He graciously helps us think our way back out of that. Now here is something that is so curious about about the book of Jonah. We read the last verse the end. And some of you who like stories that always have a happy ending or at least come to an ending, there is no ending to this story, there is no conclusion. There is nothing. God just leaves Jonah out their thinking about the fact that God loves the Ninevites, and that's why he's doing what he's doing. And if Jonah had the heart of God, he would've seen it too. He just leaves it there. You know why? That's exactly what God does with us. I want to tell you this; it's true, you just might as well think about it. Some of you have had on going real struggles with accepting that something that God has allowed in your life and is years long. Not just days, not just hours. Its years long, and by the grace of God you are still trying get a handle on it. You are still trying to get to the place where you can say, what Jesus did in Gethsemane, "I don't want this cup. Nevertheless your will be done." We have got to the place of saying. I don't want this cup. We've been honest about it. We're just struggling to get the place " your will be done." That's not about you, I mean it is something you have got to work on, but it's about God. Do you realize what God's doing? He's waiting graciously, and patiently for you to understand, that his way, his way is always best. And you know what, he will meet you there.

I love this story. It's a true story. Remember the picture of the praying hands. How many times have you seen it? Do you know where that came from? Back when artists starved in the Middle Ages two men are in an apprenticeship, only one of them could afford to go into the apprenticeship, if the other one worked to support him. They were the best of friends. One of them worked to support them while The other person went through the whole artistic mentorship and everything else like that and became a significant artist. This person that worked went out and worked hard manual labor, and that's why if you look carefully at the original design of the hands everything is enlarged and they are obviously manual labor hands and fingers, and everything else. To honor this man, that's where those praying hands came from. That was the first significant piece of work of this artist. Your place in life may be the hands that allowed the other to mentor into the arts. The other story is a story about the footprints is really cool and has been marketed all over the place. But one of the wonderful things is that there are two sets of footprints and suddenly there is only one. And the one struggling with life says, the "see you left me right there. And what's the response? You didn't look carefully. Those are still my prints I picked you up and carried you. I picked you up and carried you. That's how you made it.

Folks, this morning, I want you to understand that Jonah is as real as we are. He struggled like we struggle. God is a gracious loving compassionate God that not only saves the lost, but also with his children and his people, gives them the time and space and encouragement to think his way. He doesn't want robots. he doesn't want automatons. He wants people who have the heart and mind of God. That's what he wants. Jonah. He's no different than you or I. We know how to wash up before we come here and don't have seaweed on our head. But we have our struggles, remember, the God that we have understands, it is he knows and he cares. And let me tell you where you end up when you get that figured out, you end up in your Gethsemane and pray. I don't want the cup, but you do your will. Now you can let go.