Latest / INSIGHT FOR LIVING: Biblical Wisdom For Everyday Living / Resistance of a Racist Rebel │ Msg 29

Transcript

Resistance of a Racist Rebel │ Msg 29 · INSIGHT FOR LIVING: Biblical Wisdom For Everyday Living

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Please turn in your Bibles to the book of Jonah.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Way back in the Old Testament, among the minor prophets,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: minor only in the sense that they are, for the
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: most part, smaller, shorter than the major prophets. These minor
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: prophets often have a major message for all of us,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: and this one perhaps more than most, speaks to us
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: in our times. Jonah chapter 1, I'll be reading verses
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: 1 through 12 in the New Living Translation. As we
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: follow along in our Bibles, please stand for the reading
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: of God's word. The Lord gave this message to Jonah,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: son of Amittai, Get up and go to the great
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: city of Nineveh. Announce my judgment against it, because I've
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: seen how wicked its people are. But Jonah got up
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: and went in the opposite direction to get away from
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: the Lord. He went down to the port of Joppa,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: where he found a ship leaving for Tarshish. He bought
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: a ticket. and went on board, hoping to escape from
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: the Lord by sailing to Tarshish. But the Lord hurled
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: a powerful wind over the sea, causing a violent storm
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: that threatened to break the ship apart. Fearing for their lives,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: the desperate sailors shouted to their gods for help. and
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: threw the cargo overboard to lighten the ship. But all
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: this time, Jonah was sound asleep, down in the hold.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: So the captain went down after him.' How can you
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: sleep at a time like this?' he shouted.' Get up
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: and pray to your God.' Maybe he will pay attention
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: to us and spare our lives.' Then the crew cast
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: lots to see which of them had offended the gods
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: and caused the terrible storm. When they did this, the
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: lots identified Jonah as the culprit. Why has this awful
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: storm come down on us? They demanded. Who are you?
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: What is your line of work? What country are you from?
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: What is your nationality? Jonah answered, I am a Hebrew,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: made the sea and the land. The sailors were terrified
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: when they heard this, for he had already told them
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: he was running away from the Lord. Oh, why did
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: you do it? They groaned. And since the storm was
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: getting worse all the time, They asked him, what should
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: we do to you to stop this storm? Throw me
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: into the sea, Jonah said, and it will become calm again.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: I know that this terrible storm is all my fault. Lord,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: our God, who made the sea and the land and
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: all things pertaining to it, we need your help this day.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: These friends in our country, most of whom we've never
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: met and may never know, are in desperate straits. Some
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: have lost their homes. Many of them have lost some
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: of their possessions. perhaps all of them. And today they
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: look to you for the help that they must find,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: for relief, for encouragement, for a reason to go on,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: how we pray for them, for your compassion to have
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: mercy upon them, for you to bring a cessation to
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: the rain and the flooding, and relief for these who suffer.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Protect those, Father, who are in a vulnerable place, on
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: hospital beds, the infirmed, the aged, those who are defenseless,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: cannot take care of themselves. Give extra strength and courage
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: to those who bring rescue, both on land and at sea. Provide,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: we pray, in ways that only you can meet these needs.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: We trust you for this. Surely, goodness and mercy will
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: follow those who walk with you. So bring those reliefs
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: to these today. We commit them to you, just as
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: we commit our offerings, which we bring to you now.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: trusting you to use them for your greater glory and
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: in your own divine purposes. In the name of Christ,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: we pray and we give. And all God's people said, Amen.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Please be seated. Jonah was a prophet called of God.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: Make no mistake about it. But to complicate things, Jonah
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: was a rebel prophet. That doesn't mean he hated God,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: but it does mean that he hated where God was
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: sending him to go. Because, frankly, he hated the people
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: who lived at that place. So let me say it straight.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Jonah was a racist rebel. Instead of being wide open
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: and willing to go wherever God told him, he was
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: a prejudiced, narrow-minded Jewish prophet who wanted nothing to do
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: with those Gentiles living in Assyria, especially the Ninevites. George Matheson,
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: who lived back in the 19th century, was a Scottish
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: pastor and preacher. Became blind early in life and left
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: in his legacy not only great sermons, but also a
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: number of books that he wrote. Among them, a series
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: of four volumes on portraits of Bible men and women.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: Three of the volumes, Bible men and one of them
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Bible women. The second in the series includes 25 pages
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: on the prophet Jonah. I found it interesting what he
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: titled that particular chapter. He called him Jonah the Narrow.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Jonah the Narrow. I suppose back in the 19th century,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: narrow was more appropriate than the word prejudiced or even
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: a sharper term, racist. Let me unpack that for all
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: of us. What is racism? Racism is prejudiced. Discrimination or
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: antagonism directed against someone of a different race. It is
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: based on the belief that one's own race is superior.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: One can be a white racist, a black racist, a
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: Mexican racist, an Asian racist. or one of those can
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: be a racist toward one of those races. You know
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: in your heart if there is racism. If there is,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: you were not born with it, you were taught it.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: It is a learned sin. Tragically, it still exists. You
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: can be a Jewish racist. You can be a Gentile racist.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: Jonah was the former. He hated those Gentiles who lived
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: in Nineveh, mainly because he did not want to see
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: them hear of the God of compassion lest they repent
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: and God forgive them and in Jonah's thoughts let them
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: off light and while they deserved great judgment for their wickedness.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: But back to the term itself. Philip Yancey, back in 1997,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: wrote a splendid book you should read. It's titled, What's
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: So Amazing About Grace? In it, Philip is vulnerable as
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: he writes of his own life years and years earlier.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Listen to his testimony as it appears in that book.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: I grew up a racist, writes Yancey. Although I am
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: not yet 50 years old, I remember well when the
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: South practiced a perfectly legal form of apartheid. Stores in
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: downtown Atlanta had three restrooms, white men, white women, and colored.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Gas stations had two drinking fountains, one for whites, the
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: other for coloreds. Motels and restaurants served white patrons only.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: And when the Civil Rights Act made such discrimination illegal,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: many owners shuttered their establishment. Lester Maddox, later elected governor
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: of Georgia, was one of the protesting restaurateurs. After closing
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: his fried chicken outlets, he opened a memorial to the
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: death of freedom, as he called it, featuring a copy
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: of the Bill of Rights resting in a black-draped coffin.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: To support himself, he sold clubs and axe handles in
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: three different sizes, Daddy, Mama, and Junior, replicas of the
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: clubs used to beat black civil rights demonstrators. Yancey continues.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: In the 1960s, the church I was a part of,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: the deacon board mobilized lookout squads. And on Sundays, these
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: took turns patrolling the entrances, lest any black troublemakers try
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: to integrate us. I still have one of the cards
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: the deacons printed up to give to any civil rights
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: demonstrators who might appear. When Congress passed the Civil Rights Act,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: our church founded a private school as a haven for
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: whites only, expressly barring all black students. A few, quote,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: liberal members, quote, left the church in protest when the
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: kindergarten turned down the daughter of a black Bible professor.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: But most of us approved of the decision. A year later,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: the church board rejected a Carver Bible Institute student for membership.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Yancey then adds something I would call shocking. I'd never
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: read this anywhere before. He writes, I visited the Holocaust
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Museum in Washington, D.C. and was deeply moved by its
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: depiction of Nazi atrocities against the Jews. What struck me
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: most personally was a section early in the exhibit that
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: demonstrated how the early discrimination laws set up by the
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Nazis against the Jews, the Jew-only shops, the Jew-only park benches,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: the Jew-only restrooms and drinking fountains were explicitly modeled on
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: segregation laws. in the United States. These are uneasy words
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: for you to hear. Trust me, they're difficult words for
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: me to speak. Yancey's childhood and mine are similar in
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: the sense of age. I'm a little older than Philip,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: but I remember similar scenes. that disturbed me then and
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: break my heart today. They arouse emotions within us, but
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: I decided to take time for that so we could
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: all understand that Jonah wasn't simply stubborn. He wasn't just carnal.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Jonah was a racist rebel. Jonah's resistance was based on
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: that racism. He wasn't about to go to Nineveh. He
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: wasn't about to give those people any sense of hope,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: lest his God of compassion change their hearts and relieve
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: them of the judgment they deserve in his mind. For
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: they were a despised enemy to the Jews, brutal and vicious,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: deserving of nothing but the worst kind of future. The
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: last thing Jonah wanted them to hear was of God's forgiveness.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: That is at the basis of Jonah's going in the
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: opposite direction. The Lord's commission to Jonah was clear. We
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: see it in the first two verses of the first chapter.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: It wasn't uncommon for the Lord to speak to prophets.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: He does it here. Before the Bible was complete, God
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: spoke to prophets audibly and sometimes through circumstances different. How
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: he reached Jonah's ears, we're not told. We're only told
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: that the Lord gave this message to Jonah, son of Amittai,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: get up. That's not a new message for Jonah. He's
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: a prophet. He lived with a pack on his back
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: and shallow tent pegs. Prophets were often on the move,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: moving here, moving there to deliver God's message, whether it
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: be warning, or a disturbing word of conviction. One wag
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: has put it that it was the prophet's job to
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: afflict the comfortable and to comfort the afflicted. And Jonah
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: had no doubt done both, but he wanted nothing to
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: do with this calling because when God finished the sentence,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: get up and go to the great city of Nineveh,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: everything in Jonah's mind a screech to a halt. He
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: got up all right, and he went all right, but
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: he did not go toward Nineveh, which was 500 miles
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: to the east from where Jonah lived. He first went
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: to the port city of Joppa. If you ever have
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: the privilege of traveling to the land of Israel, you
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: will land in Tel Aviv, most likely. Just a bit
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: south of Tel Aviv, there still exists the ancient port
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: town of Joppa. He goes to this port town and
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: he finds a ship, buys a ticket, gets on board
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: the ship that is leaving for Tarshish that is 2,500
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: miles to the west. That's the full length of the
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Mediterranean Sea from Israel shores to the tip of Gibraltar
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: at the southern end of Spain, just west of the
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Rock of Gibraltar, is the ancient city of Tarshish. It's
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: as far as you could go in the civilized world.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: He wanted to go there. Why? He tells us, verse 3,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: to get away from the Lord. Did he understand the call? Absolutely.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: Did he realize he was going in the opposite direction?
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Of course he did. He bought the ticket, took the ship,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: got on board, And soon found his way to the
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: hold of the ship where he curled up in his
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: prophet's mantle and went fast asleep. He hoped to escape
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: from the Lord. I underscore that because it is mentioned
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: twice in verse 3. He got on board to get
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: away from the Lord and he hoped to escape from
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: the Lord. I never know those who hear what I
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: have to say when I stand to speak, but I
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: am convinced that some who are listening right now are
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: running away from the Lord, which is an impossibility, not
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: just for prophets. It's an impossibility for anyone. The Lord
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: our God is everywhere at once. The Lord who made
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: each one of us knows everything about us. From the
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: moment we rise up until we go to bed at night,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: he knows every movement of the day. He knows our
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: every thought, even before we have it, every word, even
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: before we speak it. God is ever aware of each
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: one of our lives at all times. Jonah knew better.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: But when you are in this state of affairs mentally,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: You block out what you know to be the better
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: judgment and you go with your gut. In this case,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: he was going away from Nineveh. God told him, by
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: the way, to announce his judgment against it. No one
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: knew his God. Once that judgment was announced, no one
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: knew it would be enough for them to hear it
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: to be terrified with the message and to repent, and
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: then God would move in with compassion and bring his
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: gracious forgiveness. He knew his God's heart, which was a
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: heart of compassion. Nevertheless, he's on board the ship bound
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: for Tarshish. Isn't it interesting that the beginning of verse
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: 4 begins with, but the Lord. It isn't surprising, it
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: is interesting. But Jonah, verse 3, followed by, but the Lord.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: I've titled this section, The Lord's Hounds of Heaven. in
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: my outline that I gave you in your worship folder.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: That needs a little explanation if you don't remember your
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: English literature class from years gone by. Francis Thompson, back
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: in 1893, wrote a haunting poem titled The Hound of Heaven.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: Strange title, startling at first, until you realize what he
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: has on his mind. And written in beautiful poetry, he
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: describes one who is running from God. Listen to the
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: opening lines. I fled him down the nights and down
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: the days. I fled him down the labyrinthine ways of
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: my own mind. And in the midst of tears, I
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: hid from him. And on and on he goes through
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: 182 lines in this poem, describing what it would be
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: like for hounds chasing a hare with relentless, constant pursuit, unperturbed,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: as a soul flees, attempting to flee from divine grace.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: And the writer writes this so that you will see
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: there is an unwearing process of God's constancy as he
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: comes after us, stays with us, does not get us
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: out of his sight. This poem led to an old
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Scottish proverb, the Lord God lives. sets the hounds of
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: heaven after the souls of men. That is exactly what
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: is occurring in the life of Jonah. The hounds of heaven.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: I laugh because I imagine when I was preparing this
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: that the storm may have barked. Not really. Not really.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: You look at me like I'm losing it. Really, I
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: may be, but a little imagination keeps it alive. And
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: here's this storm. By the way, get it straight. It
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: wasn't the result of Mother Nature. Mother Nature has never existed.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: It wasn't the result of global warming. I'll leave the
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: rest with you. It wasn't the rest. It wasn't the
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: result of a freakish weather pattern over the Mediterranean. No,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: the one who is the God of the sea set
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: the hounds of heaven in the form of a storm.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: Do we have a biblical basis for that? Check out
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: another minor prophet named Nahum, N-A-H-U-M, chapter 1, verse 3. Listen,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: the Lord has his way in the whirlwind and the
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: storm and the billowing clouds of are but the dust
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: of his feet. Check it out. Nahum 1.3. The Lord
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: has his way in the storm that struck the ship
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: on the Mediterranean. The Lord was going after Jonah, who
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: is in this ship that is on this sea. And
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: the Lord's hounds of heaven are after him. No one
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: knew it better than Jonah. He may have been a racist,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: but he was no atheist. He knew it was his
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: God coming after him. He's no novice. He's a mature
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: adult prophet. He knows what he's doing. But even though
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: he's adult, even though he is old enough to know better,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: He has the audacity to test his God. Now watch
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: what happened. Verse 5, fearing for their lives, the desperate
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: sailors shouted to their gods for help and threw the
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: cargo overboard to lighten the ship. We're sitting in this
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: calm place. There's no water around. There's no storm going
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: on here anyway. And so it's easy for us to
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: sort of yawn our way through verses like this. This
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: is one frightening place. When our troop ship left San Diego,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: bound for Yokohama and ultimately Southeast Asia, in my particular case,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: it was the island of Okinawa, there were 3,500 Marines
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: on board that were being taken overseas and would be
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: spending months, in my case, 16 months on foreign soil,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: we would call it back then. in Southeast Asia. Four
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: days at sea, we hit a storm. This is a
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: troop ship that is massive. It is 3,500 people are
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: birthed on this ship. Not born, but sleep on this ship.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: And these sleep seven deep. How do I know it?
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: My birth was the top seventh cot or hammock. The
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: good thing about it is, when everybody got sick, nobody
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: vomited on you. You could vomit on everybody else. And
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: we hit this storm at sea, and it was so rugged,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: so rough, that our skipper said later, after some calm returned,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: except for the North Atlantic, I've never been on a
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: sea that rough. The bow of our ship drove into
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: the wave and I understand 50, 60 foot waves crashed
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: across the ship. It creaked, it groaned, even though it
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: was mainly steel. This ship is a wooden ship. It's
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: a small sailing vessel, and it's breaking apart, and they're
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: throwing the cargo over to make it lighter so that
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: it could perhaps stay on top of the water rather
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: than go into it. They're scared spitless, and so they
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: scream out to their god and nothing happens, and so
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: they run down below. Why would they do that? Why
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: would they go talk to an unknown passenger on board
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: the ship? Let me jump ahead and show you verse 10,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: and you'll understand why. The sailors were terrified when they
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: heard this, for he had already told them he was
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: running away from the Lord. Maybe you never saw that
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: before in reading through the story of Jonah. But when
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: he got on board ship, he told somebody, Maybe several
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: of them standing along there. Maybe somebody who took his ticket. Hey,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: I'm running from the Lord. Give me a place to hide.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: Give me a place to sleep. And they remembered that.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: And when all hell breaks loose on the sea, they
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: remember somebody running from somebody's God. And since their God
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: doesn't answer, they thought they would try his. So they
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: come to him and they said to him, verse 6,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: How can you sleep at a time like this? Get
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: up and pray to your God. Maybe he will pay
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: attention to us and spare our lives. Come on, man,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: give us a hand here. If you know anything about prayer,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: then pray. And so they pelt him with questions. Look
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: at the questions. Why has this awful storm come down
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: on us? And again, in verse eight, who are you?
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: What is your line of work? What country are you from?
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: What is your nationality? Jonah answered, listen to the honesty.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: I'm a Hebrew. Was he? Absolutely. I worship the Lord.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: He does. He did. He did. except for this interlude
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: of madness. He's a Lord worshiper. He's a God worshiper.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: I worship the Lord, the God of heaven. Notice the
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: next line. Who made the sea and the land. Ah,
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: the sailors are terrified. If he made the sea, for
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: goodness sake, get on your knees and pray to the
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: God who made the sea. Isn't this interesting? Pagan sailors
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: are telling a Jewish prophet what he ought to do. Pray. Pray.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: So Jonah hears them and realizes, and I mean this sincerely,
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: it isn't time for prayer. It's time for action. You
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: don't see Jonah praying here. You see him praying later.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: But here the sailors terrified since he had told him
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: he was running away. And since the storm is getting
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: worse all the time, they ask him, what do we
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: do with you to stop the storm? What on earth
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: do we do with someone like you running away from
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: a God who made the sea? And you've got to
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: give him high marks for his answer. He doesn't hesitate.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Throw me into the sea. Throw me into the sea,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: Jonah said. It will become calm again. I know this
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: terrible storm is all my fault. Is it ever? When
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: you run from the Lord, others are hurt as a
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: result of your running. They suffer the consequences along with you.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: You're a family person, your family will suffer. Your friends
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: will suffer. Others who have relied on you for whatever
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: will suffer when they see your faith failing you. So
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: he says, let's just make it simple. I need to
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: get out of this ship, and I don't see any
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: other way of being rescued. And so I'm going to
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: tell you what to do. And of course, we're going
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: to see next time that this to them was anathema.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: That's murder. They've never read the Book of Jonah. They
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: don't know what's going to happen. And in fact, I
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: don't believe they ever knew he was swallowed by this
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: great fish. All of that happened in the sea. Jonah
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: didn't know that would happen either. He simply says, throw
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: me overboard. I'll take care of the storm. And I'm
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: going to trust God some way to have mercy on
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: me and his grace to take care of me. I
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: am the reason the storm is all my fault. If
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: you want calm, toss me over. You know, the message
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: so far, it's not complicated. You can run, but you
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: cannot hide. We say that glibly, but here's a perfect example.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: There's not a place on the planet you can hide
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: from the one who made you. Jonah's wide awake. Jonah's
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: not insane. He is probably now closer than he has
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: been before to his God when he says, It's all
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: my fault. Blame me. Throw me into the sea. It's
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: as far as I want to go this time, but
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: I don't want to leave it without a couple or
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: three lingering lessons that go along with what we have
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: just been seeing in the passage. Here's the first one.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: Grace allows us complete freedom to disobey. That may make
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: you uncomfortable to hear that because you have always linked
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: grace with only good things. Grace provides you with all
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: the room you can imagine to obey or disobey. I mean,
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: you think there wasn't grace at work in his disobeying? Why,
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: think about it. He wasn't stopped in his tracks when
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: he made his way to Joppa. He wasn't suddenly paralyzed
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: and unable to walk. He wasn't struck down or struck dead.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: God didn't stop all the ships from coming into port.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: God didn't stop the ships from leaving the port. God
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: didn't even keep him from going to sleep. He sound
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: asleep in the hold of the ship. Why? The grace
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: of God. God didn't even disturb his sleep for a while.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: You can be lulled into believing that all is well
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: in your running from the hounds of heaven because of
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: the grace of God that doesn't strike you down. Grace
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: allows us complete freedom to disobey. But let me add
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: quickly the second lesson that goes with the first. When
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: we disobey, grace does not cancel the consequences. God doesn't
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: pat Jonah on the head and say, sleep well, my son.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: It's okay. You'll learn someday the importance. No, he doesn't
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: do that. He brings the storms. He causes that storm
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: to break that ship down. He terrifies the sailors. He
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: gets our attention. He shows where the fault lies. This
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: terrible storm is my fault. The hounds have caught him.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: He cannot hide. Neither can you. Neither can I. When
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: we disobey, grace does not cancel the consequences. Here's the
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: third lesson. Not until we face and accept reality will
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: grace bring the calm. Not until we face and accept
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: reality will grace bring back the calm. Jonah actually makes
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: a prophecy here. He says, you throw me into the
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: sea and it will become calm. That's a prophecy. That's
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: a promise. And it's true. As a matter of fact,
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: the very first thing we read after throwing him in
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: is that the the sea became instantly slick and calm.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: Jonah reassured them after he had admitted his own guilt.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: He didn't know what the future held, but he knew
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: for them there would be a calm sea, and he'd
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: be out of the picture, off the ship, in the drink,
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: at the mercy of his God. Can you hear the
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: barking of heavenly hounds in your life? They all sound
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: different to different ones, depending on you and your circumstance.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: Don't be so foolish as to think that he doesn't
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: know where you are. That's laughable. You can run, but
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: you cannot hide. How great is the grace of our
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: God giving us room to make a decision Freedom to choose.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: And when we choose what is right, how blessed we
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: are for it. How great is that calm? I'd like
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: us to bow our heads for the next few moments,
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: and I'd like you to set your notes aside, close
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: your Bible. and examine your life. Our Lord invites us
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: to come to his table, but he never wants us
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: to come with dirty hearts. He wants us to clean
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: up before we eat his meal. And that's done by
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: searching our souls to make sure we are walking in
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: the light. I can't do that for you, nor can
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: you do that for me. As you look back over
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: your days, can you track your journey to where you
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: are right now? Can you see the decisions you made
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: that led to the consequences you're enduring. It's the grace
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: of God that's kept you alive, the grace of God
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: that's brought you to this moment. And as we hold
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: in our hands a piece of bread that represents our
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: Savior's body, before we eat that bread, we need to
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: make sure that we are walking in the light. just
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: as Christ is in the light. Before you put that
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: cup to your lips to drink that juice that represents
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: the Savior's blood, make certain that your heart is clean,
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: that you're walking with the Lord. You may have to
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: admit you've never met the Lord. He's a stranger to you.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: But a perfect moment for you to trust in the
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: Lord Jesus Christ as your own Savior and Master and
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: Lord right now, right there. Dear Father, make this time
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: especially meaningful as we continue to search our hearts. Find
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: us willing to acknowledge, just as Jonah was, whatever is
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: my fault, to say so, to admit it, to bring
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: it before you and to claim the forgiveness that you
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: provide by your grace. And then as we together participate
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: in this meal, make it meaningful. For we bring before
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: you our lives. And we are to be refreshed from
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: this time around the table. So quiet us as we
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: prepare ourselves to eat the bread and drink the cup
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: in remembrance of your son, Jesus. I ask in his name. Amen.
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: The preceding message, Resistance of a Racist Rebel, was copyrighted
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: in 2018, 2019, and 2025, and the sound recording was
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: copyrighted in 2025 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: is strictly prohibited.