Please Leave A Message, No One Is Available To Receive Your Call Series

I believe the scenario went something like this:

Use a skit to the theme of Mission Impossible with Jonah smashing the message device instead of accepting the Mission.

Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me."

A Principle

Num 32:23

23"But if you fail to do this, you will be sinning against the LORD; and you may be sure that your sin will find you out. NIV

An Application

Go to Nineveh and cry out against it – go there with the Godly purpose of rebuking them for their sin and call them to repentance. The city of Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire and was a large and prominent city in its day. It was not a city of Israel at all; God called Jonah to go to a dangerously pagan, Gentile city and call them to repentance.

i. Ancient historians say that Nineveh was the largest city in the world at that time. It was the large important capital of a dominating empire – without a doubt an intimidating place to go.

For their wickedness has come up before Me: Why did God want Jonah to go? God was watching their wicked behavior. None of man’s wickedness is hidden before God - He sees it all, and it will come to a point where sin demands the specific warning and judgment of God.

If you are presently sinning against the Lord, there is a season of time in which it appears you might get away with it. However, that season of time, allowed by God, is your opportunity to repent. Should you ignore this time of grace, rest assured and be warned this day, your sin will be exposed.

An Illustration

A drunk husband snuck up the stairs quietly. He looked in the bathroom mirror and bandaged the bumps and bruises he’d received in a fight earlier that night. He then proceeded to climb into bed, smiling at the thought that he’d pulled one over on his wife. When morning came, he opened his eyes and there stood his wife. "You were drunk last night weren’t you!" "No, honey." "Well, if you weren’t, then who put all the band-aids on the bathroom mirror?"

3. The Messenger Retreats

3But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish. 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.

A Principle

Well here we are, Jonah had receive a message & mission from the Lord, he rejected it and is now in full retreat. Tarshish was approximately 2,000 miles in the opposite direction to which God was sending him.

Allow me to give you a Word of Wisdom this morning. I promise you this, you may be willing to invest your time, talent and money in running away from the Lord, but you will ultimately be disappointed.

An Application

Why didn’t Jonah want to go to Nineveh and do what the LORD told him to do?

i. It may have been because he was given an extremely difficult job to do. Nahum 3:1-4 gives us insight into just how wicked the people of Nineveh were.

Woe to the city of blood (Ninevah), full of lies, full of plunder, never without victims! 2The crack of whips, the clatter of wheels, galloping horses and jolting chariots! 3Charging cavalry, flashing swords and glittering spears! Many casualties, piles of dead, bodies without number, people stumbling over the corpses- 4all because of the wanton lust of a harlot, alluring, the mistress of sorceries, who enslaved nations by her prostitution and peoples by her witchcraft.