Jonah Fleeing from the Presence of God
Text: Jonah 1:1-17
(Note to pastors, powerpoint with images available, contact me ikings1844@yahoo.com)
The book of Jonah has a lot of unexpected twists in it.
Last week we talked about how Jonah fled from the call of God, for among other reasons the difficulty of what God was asking. He was called to go to a nation that was a sworn enemy of his own, tell them they were about to be destroyed, and the journey alone would have taken more than a month through some of the harshest wilderness on earth. Reminds me of a popular song with this line in it:
Nobody said it would be easy,
Nobody said it would be so hard.
The challenge of the message last week is the question of whether or not we only follow God when it is convenient, or do we simply excuse ourselves from the will of God when the request is demanding of a pound of flesh.
Often parents will send a note to school Please excuse...
God never accepts notes of this sort, because He knew everything about your life when He sent the summons for you to show up.
Jesus tells a parable of an invitation to a feast and how people made excuse to not show up. Most of us don’t use excuses for the feasts but the excuses really start to fly when God asks us to show up at an event we don’t like. Too often we are more like Jonah than we care to admit, and that is probably why this book is in the bible. To speak to the rebellious side of His servants.
Today we are going to talk about Jonah fleeing from the presence of the Lord again, this time we will be honing in on
The Cost to Jonah and
The Counterinsurgency by God
First lets talk about what it cost Jonah to flee from the presence of God
First it cost him:
(PPT of face with tear)
1. The smile on God’s face
We hardly ever think of sin in the terms of its effect on God as our Father. What parent has not known the anxiety of pacing the floor when a child is out of contact for even a short while. How much more is a parents agony if a child is not serving the Lord. Sleep flees from our eyes, gut wrenching sobs are poured out before the Lord. We all can relate to the agony of youth, she loves me, she loves me not, it is the same and even worse when a parent struggles with their child’s walk with God. Every whisper in that direction is a "he loves God petal," every indiscretion is a "he loves him not." The lot of a parent of a wayfaring child is a tortured lot. We can all relate to Job, the greatest of all human sufferers:
Job 1:5 And it came about, when the days of feasting had completed their cycle, that Job would send and consecrate them, rising up early in the morning and offering burnt offerings [according to] the number of them all; for Job said, "Perhaps my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts." Thus Job did continually.
When we flee from the presence of God, one of the things we cause to be lost, is the smile on God’s face. That thought alone should cut a backslider to the heart.
The second thing Jonah’s sin cost him was:
2. The Peace in his own heart
(PPT image: broken heart)
Joh 14:27 "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.
The bible talks about a peace that passes all understanding, it is a peace, a rest if you will that comes from God. Only the redeemed know it. It is a sense of right standing before God, no it is more than that, it is an inner sensation that God is pleased with you.
Jonah lost that, and instead he traded for a spirit of conviction. A conscience that hounded him every chance he got. That is why Jonah rose to flee from the presence of the Lord. He could deal with the sin he was happy to commit, but he could not deal with the voice that nagged him, and told him of the wrongness of what he was doing.
When a person succeeds in shutting off his conscience there is no telling the horrors of what he is capable of.
Your conscience is a precious gift from God. The first casualty you will meet if you fail to listen to it, is the peace in your own heart.
3. The Third thing Jonah’s sin cost him:
(PPT image: Jonah in fishes belly)
The Worst Adventure in his life.
In Ephesians 6 we read:
Eph 6:13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.
There is one day that will be the worst day of your life. For that day, the bible admonishes us to put on the whole armor of God. The worst day of your life will not be the day that something evil happened when you had your armor on, but when something evil happens and you have voluntarily taken it off to run from God.
You don’t get to pick the days that tragedy will strike, woe be unto you if it happens in a season of backsliding.
Obedience attracts blessings
Disobedience attracts burdens
Jonah’s sin cost him the worst adventure of his life, because it happened while he was running from God.
4. The fourth thing Jonah’s sin cost him was insensitivity.
(PPT image: sleeping during a storm)
Jonah 1:5 ... But Jonah had gone below into the hold of the ship, lain down, and fallen sound asleep.
He was asleep to the danger he was facing.
He was asleep to the danger he was causing others.
He was asleep to the voice of God.
Backsliding will numb you. It is a cost that has dangerous consequences, it makes you ignore alarm bells, and those that ignore alarm bells bring destruction to themselves and others.
5. The fifth thing Jonah’s sin cost him to go further than he expected.
(PPT image: Jonah being swallowed)
He expected to go to Tarshish, he wound up three days in the belly of a great fish.
No light, no bed, attacked by stomach acids. Jonah may have in fact died and went to hell during those three days. If not a literal hell, he sure spent time in a physical hell.
Sin will always take you farther than you want to go, hold you longer than you want to be held, and make you pay more than you expected.
The ticket away from God is the most expensive ticket you will ever pay.
6. The last thing we want to talk about that Jonah’s sin cost him was the endangering of others.
(PPT image: ship in danger in a storm)
Something worse than going to hell, is going to hell and taking someone with you.
Now I want to spend of few moments talking about God’s counterinsurgency.
A counterinsurgency is the political and military actions a ruling government takes to suppress a rebellion in its borders.
I have a title for this section of the message:
"He who laughs last, laughs best."
1. Before we sin, He responds
(PPT image: of the earth)
Before the first thing was ever created God knew how it would all work out.
His response to our rebellion was prepared long before we were born.
The bible says God prepared a great fish.
10 generations of mutations so that one freak was born that could house a backslid preacher.
2. There is no escaping his agents
(PPT image: Navy seals with guns in the water)
Look what was waiting Jonah where he ran. The angels of God on a cease and desist mission.
You men think you enjoy hunting. The angels enjoy bagging and tagging backsliders. These are not ordinary angels they are SWAT angels. Special Weapons and Tactics. They are allowed to do things that normally they can’t do to us. Better to lose your hand than to go to hell with two hands.
3. He starts setting off alarm bells.
(PPT image: alarm clock ringing)
When your conscience is troubled you tend to keep looking over your shoulder for the other shoe to fall.
4. He Hurls a storm.
(PPT image: storm at sea)
You don’t want God hurling storms at you.
It was so bad the fishermen were in fear for their lives
God knows what storm will most affect you
Financial storm, physical storm, relational storm, work storm.
There is no one better at God at hurling them.
He can hurl a storm so bad that you will wish you could die, and then he can see to it that you can’t die. In fact that is exactly what He is going to do one day.
In Rev. 9 we read of locusts that come up out of the bottomless pit whose sting is so horrible men wish to die but cannot.
You don’t want God hurling storms at you.
The good news is that if you stop doing what has angered God He will stop the storm.
5. God will make things more difficult for you
(PPT image: Navy divers training with hands tied behind their backs)
Jon 1:13 However, the men rowed [desperately] to return to land but they could not, for the sea was becoming [even] stormier against them.
Ho 2:6 ¶ "Therefore, behold, I will hedge up her way with thorns, And I will build a wall against her so that she cannot find her paths.
Thorns will hedge you in and God will frustrate you so that you can’t go where you want to.
6. Catastrophe touches someone near you.
(PPT image: battle scene, soldiers carrying wounded)
The mariners are made to suffer.
Letter sent in the 1800’s by a brother to his parents. I have occasioned the death of my sister. I am sorry that I caused this problem. God had to use her death to break my stubborn obdurate heart. Please forgive me.
7. Lastly God will touch you physically.
(PPT image: man walking the plank)
They physically throw Jonah overboard, and he struggles with drowning, and then the worst part of his physical and psychological suffering is just ahead. He will spend three days in the dark, in the deep, not knowing if he is alive and in trouble or in hell in punishment.
God does all these things to Jonah not to destroy him but to save him.
Close:
Sometime ago, newspapers carried the story of a young fellow named William, who was a fugitive from the police. The teenager had run away with his girlfriend because the parents had been trying to break them up. What William didn’t know was that an ailment he had been seeing the doctor about was diagnosed, just after his disappearance, as cancer.
"Now, here was William, doing his best to elude the police, lest he lose his love, while they were doing their best to find him, lest he lose his life. He thought they were after him to punish him; they were really after him to save him.
Prayer for any Jonah’s that might be running from God.
