The NXR Podcast - SUNDAY SERMON - Jonah & The American Evangelical Church

00:00:00.000 Amen. So for those of you who are joining us for the first time right now, we're in between

00:00:06.820 books of the Bible. The plan is, Lord willing, to begin a series through the book of Ezra. We

00:00:12.000 have completed a series through the book of Joshua. And during this interim period of time,

00:00:17.220 we're taking an assortment of various texts, each Lord's Day having a primary text of Scripture,

00:00:23.740 but focusing on the grace of God and focusing on the gospel, that we're saved by grace

00:00:28.780 through faith in Christ alone. We finished our series through Joshua focusing on what it looks

00:00:36.300 like to conquer the land as the people of God. Ezra will focus on what it looks like to rebuild

00:00:42.420 the ruins of a land that had been conquered previously by God's people, but because of

00:00:48.120 faithlessness to the covenant, a land that God's people had eventually been rejected from because

00:00:55.000 of their failure and so those are the focuses with Joshua and Ezra but in the meantime in between

00:01:01.340 we're focusing again primarily on the gospel of grace our text for today is going to be Jonah

00:01:06.940 chapter one if you would please join me now in standing for the reading of God's word I'll read

00:01:13.200 the text for us in its entirety when I finish reading the text I'm going to say this is the

00:01:18.020 word of the Lord at which point I would appreciate very much if you would respond by saying thanks

00:01:24.560 be to God. One final time, our text for this morning is Jonah chapter 1. The Bible says this,

00:01:32.720 Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great

00:01:38.640 city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me. But Jonah rose to flee to 0.80

00:01:45.900 Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish.

00:01:51.720 so he paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish away from the presence of

00:01:58.400 the Lord but the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea and there was a mighty tempest on the sea

00:02:05.120 so the ship threatened to break up then the mariners were afraid and each cried out to his

00:02:11.460 God and they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them but Jonah had

00:02:18.000 gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep. So the captain came

00:02:24.100 and said to him, what do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call out to your God. Perhaps the God will

00:02:31.120 give a thought to us that we may not perish. And they said to one another, come, let us cast lots

00:02:38.040 that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us. So they cast lots and the lot fell

00:02:46.040 on Jonah. Then they said to him, Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your

00:02:53.860 occupation, and where do you come from? What is your country, and of what people are you? And he

00:03:00.740 said to them, I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry

00:03:06.840 land. Then the men were exceedingly afraid, and said to him, What is this that you have done? For

00:03:13.840 the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them. Then they

00:03:19.660 said to him, What shall we do to you that the sea might quiet down for us? For the sea grew more and

00:03:26.520 more tempestuous. He said to them, Pick me up and hurl me into the sea, then the sea will quiet down

00:03:33.440 for you. For I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you. Nevertheless,

00:03:39.180 the men rode hard to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more

00:03:45.440 tempestuous against them. Therefore they called out to the Lord, O Lord, let us not perish for

00:03:51.900 this man's life, and lay not on us innocent blood, for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you. So

00:03:59.280 they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. Then the men

00:04:05.980 feared the Lord exceedingly and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows and the Lord

00:04:12.180 appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days

00:04:18.300 and three nights this is the word of the Lord all right please be seated let's go ahead and dive in

00:04:25.400 by way of introduction just for those of you who probably everyone is familiar with the story of

00:04:30.940 Jonah at least in a general sense but for those of you who don't know some of the context and

00:04:35.420 background hopefully you'll find this helpful in your notes I've written the following scripture

00:04:39.960 informs us that Jonah served as God's prophet during the days of King Jeroboam II. King Jeroboam

00:04:47.260 II was an idolatrous and immoral king however God in his mercy told Jonah to prophesy to the nation

00:04:55.460 that the territorial boundaries of Israel were going to be expanded. God was going to give

00:05:01.840 territory back that had been taken generations earlier by the syrians so jonah prophesied an 0.85

00:05:09.580 expansion and it came to pass in light of this jonah experienced great public success in the

00:05:16.180 economic and military glory days of the northern kingdom he was one of the very few popular

00:05:23.100 prophets how do we know this second kings chapter 14 verse 25 tells us he restored that is god

00:05:30.680 restored the border of Israel from Labo Hamath as far as the sea of the Erebon according to the

00:05:37.120 word of the Lord the God of Israel which he spoke by his servant Jonah the son of Amittai the prophet

00:05:44.380 who was from Gath Hefer so Jonah was one of the few popular prophets ever in the history of Israel

00:05:52.580 why was he popular it's very likely that Israel actually liked this particular prophet why because

00:06:00.160 he prophesied success. He prophesied increase. He prophesied wealth and prosperity, that the

00:06:12.700 borders of Israel would be expanded. Most of the prophets, Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, Ezekiel,

00:06:20.280 Isaiah, many of these prophets, most of the prophetic message that the Lord gave them to

00:06:26.620 delivered to Israel was a message of conviction. It was a message of calling out the sin in Israel. 0.68

00:06:35.380 Correction. But in the case of Jonah, at least the first half of his prophetic tenure, the Lord was

00:06:43.080 speaking through Jonah to the nation of Israel, and the message was a message of blessing. It was

00:06:49.440 a message of increase. And so Jonah was likely one of the very few prophets that Israel actually

00:06:55.400 liked. And Jonah probably enjoyed being appreciated. I'm sure any prophet would like

00:07:04.460 that. You know, the people that the Lord sends him to to carry out and speak to them a particular

00:07:09.820 message that the people actually appreciate the prophet giving that message. And this was Jonah's

00:07:16.380 experience as prophet for a time. But the problem is that eventually things began to change. So in

00:07:24.500 the early years of Jonah, he's prophesying expansion. Now notice, there's a few things,

00:07:28.860 a few parallels that you could think of with our culture and our, you know, political climate today.

00:07:35.480 Jonah is prophesying blessing from the Lord. But during a time where there's actually a wicked and

00:07:40.460 idolatrous king in Israel, right? So the king in Israel at this time is not a good king. This is

00:07:46.560 not blessing that is coming directly as a one-to-one ratio for the immediate current

00:07:52.620 righteousness and faithfulness of Israel. That's not happening. This is a blessing that God

00:07:57.760 prophesies and God brings it to pass through Jonah at a time when Israel is being faithless,

00:08:04.180 not faithful. So Israel is actually in disobedience to the Lord underneath the leadership of their 0.53

00:08:10.560 disobedient and idolatrous king. And yet because of God's mercy, not as a reward for Israel's 0.76

00:08:17.880 faithfulness, but God's mercy, despite Israel's faithlessness, God still prophesies instead of

00:08:25.300 judgment, increase and blessing. And it does, in fact, come to pass. I think of, you know, just in

00:08:33.340 my lifetime, seasons in our nation, such as the 80s and the 90s, right? That, hey, the Lord's

00:08:41.740 blessing us, right? The economy is doing pretty well. Things are ramping up. The borders seem to

00:08:49.500 be increasing. We've got free trade across the globe. We can make gidgets and gadgets

00:08:56.540 for pennies on the dollar. Now, granted, nobody's going to have jobs 20 years later, but we can do

00:09:04.600 but now the Lord's blessing us.

00:09:08.380 And the blessings that we experienced in the 80s and 90s

00:09:11.860 in these United States of America,

00:09:14.120 certainly like the blessings of Israel in the time of Jonah,

00:09:16.940 were not coming because of our faithfulness.

00:09:20.540 The 80s and 90s, the decisions that were being made,

00:09:24.700 the things that we were doing is exactly what brought us here.

00:09:28.300 But God was merciful.

00:09:30.340 And temporally, God continued to bless us in some tangible ways,

00:09:34.120 even as we were choosing to be rebellious and disobedient against the Lord and now we're all

00:09:40.520 having to pay the piper our children will have to pay the piper and we'll see if God would be

00:09:46.640 merciful enough for our grandchildren to even have a country you've heard me say it before and I'll

00:09:50.980 say it again when it comes to certain investments I'm not qualified or willing or courageous enough

00:09:58.140 to give you any kind of opinion as a pastor.

00:10:01.720 You can go seek some financial professional,

00:10:04.840 you know, consulting in that regard.

00:10:07.120 But I will give you this little piece of advice.

00:10:09.880 When it comes to the grandkids,

00:10:11.300 it might be worth, you know,

00:10:12.940 beginning to save up for the Zambia Fund

00:10:15.240 or the Uganda Fund.

00:10:17.140 That's not where I would want to live today.

00:10:19.480 Don't misunderstand.

00:10:20.220 The heritage of a Christian foundation

00:10:23.260 currently, as it rests today, 0.85

00:10:25.720 is much more potent than the beginning little seedlings or sproutlings of a future Christian

00:10:32.720 nation. But if we continue in our rebellion and continue to erode that foundation, that Christian 0.78

00:10:39.740 heritage, and there continues to be faithfulness in other parts of the world, and those little

00:10:46.480 seedlings and sprouts are watered and tended, then eventually there will be orchards somewhere else,

00:10:52.180 and here we will only have a desolate wasteland. We are not promised indefinite blessing. Blessing

00:11:01.640 comes ultimately through obedience. Temporal blessing in this life is the fruit of obedience.

00:11:08.200 Eternal blessing, speaking of salvation, also comes through obedience, but in that case it

00:11:14.040 comes through the perfect finished obedience of Christ, which is received by grace through faith

00:11:18.840 in him alone. But when it comes to earthly temporal blessing, that does come about as obedience.

00:11:26.960 God is clear that he will not be mocked. A man will reap what he sows. If we sow good things,

00:11:32.980 faithful things, obedient things, then our children will experience and reap a temporal blessing

00:11:38.560 in this life. We see that even in the case of children and their own actions. The fifth

00:11:44.760 commandment is the first commandment that comes with a promise. Children, honor your father and

00:11:49.740 mother that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. And we see this

00:11:55.820 not just in Exodus chapter 20 as some kind of Old Testament, no longer relevant commandment and

00:12:02.820 promise. That's not how we read the Bible. The Old Testament is just as real today as it was in the

00:12:08.300 days it was written. But if there was any question regarding that, well, we can look at Ephesians

00:12:12.880 chapter 6, where the apostle Paul cites the commandment, and without equivocation, he also

00:12:18.400 cites the promise, as though the commandment is still in full effect, and as though the promise

00:12:23.660 is just as good in this New Testament time as it was under the old covenant with Israel.

00:12:29.700 The apostle Paul doesn't say, hey, children, obey your parents, for it is right, and at the end of

00:12:34.420 the day, it really doesn't matter what you do, because everything is eternal, and temporal things

00:12:38.740 don't matter at all, and you know, if I said that you would be blessed in this life because of your

00:12:42.860 obedience, that would be the prosperity gospel, and John Piper would get on to me. Says the Bible

00:12:47.600 never. That's not what the Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 6. Instead, he says, hey, this is the

00:12:54.220 first commandment with the promise. Commandment's still in effect. The promise is still good.

00:12:58.520 You want to be blessed temporally in this life? Well, be faithful. Be obedient. Now, again, we

00:13:04.280 have to be able to speak in theological categories as Christians. That's part of the problem is that

00:13:09.740 everything has been conflated. And this is due to theological, what I would call theological

00:13:13.820 minimalism. Most of the problems that we're dealing with today, as they stem from the church,

00:13:19.800 and they do, it's due to the church's laziness, theological laziness. What we determined was this,

00:13:28.200 we determined that doctrine divides. That became the mantra. And we didn't want to be divided.

00:13:34.060 And so what we thought was, well, what if we could just somehow limit and narrow the doctrines that

00:13:39.040 actually matter enough to hold. And we'll do all this in the name of the Great Commission,

00:13:45.160 right? Because dispensationalism and premillennialism have done a great number on

00:13:49.620 the church over these past 150 years. And so in light of that, we began thinking, well,

00:13:55.160 we're really just working towards the imminent and relatively soon return of Christ. And if

00:14:01.400 there's anything that we can do as it pertains to us as Christ's people to speed up the clock,

00:14:07.700 as it were, it would be to evangelize the nations, that we would go to the four corners of the earth,

00:14:13.200 that all would hear the preaching of the gospel, and that that would usher in the return

00:14:17.120 of Christ. And one of the great inhibitors to evangelizing the nations, fulfilling this

00:14:22.820 mandate to global missions, is the fact that the church is so divided. And one of the main reasons

00:14:28.940 that we're so divided is because we can't agree on doctrine. You got some guys wanting to dunk

00:14:34.400 babies. You got other guys who don't want to dunk babies. They do the same thing in their baby

00:14:39.620 dedications. They just remove the water. It's really kind of semantics, but still it's a big

00:14:45.000 deal, you know, and then you've got some people that are holding to the sign gifts of the Holy

00:14:48.900 Spirit being active today and others who are cessationists and they don't believe in the Holy

00:14:54.000 Spirit at all, right? That would be the way to straw man it. You know, they believe in God,

00:14:58.040 the father, God, the son, and God, the Holy Bible. They've replaced the spirit, you know, 0.92

00:15:03.160 That would be kind of the rhetoric that's used.

00:15:05.800 And so you're divided on all these different issues,

00:15:08.920 and we could list doctrine after doctrine after doctrine after doctrine

00:15:12.380 where Christians fall in different places.

00:15:14.620 So how do we speed up the return of Christ if you're a dispensational,

00:15:18.320 and hear me, I'm not speaking of the historic premillennial position,

00:15:21.740 but a relatively novel dispensational premillennialism,

00:15:26.000 then you typically believe that Christ's return will be relatively soon

00:15:29.380 and that it is destined by God and his sovereignty

00:15:32.280 that things will get progressively worse

00:15:34.120 until Christ returns.

00:15:35.700 And there's really nothing that you can do about that.

00:15:38.200 That is God's design.

00:15:39.820 It is his will.

00:15:40.820 Things will get worse.

00:15:42.500 In fact, at some level,

00:15:44.080 to work towards things improving

00:15:45.540 is to work against God himself.

00:15:49.060 And so if you think things are going to get worse and worse,

00:15:51.480 then really the best thing you can do for your children

00:15:54.140 and your children's children

00:15:55.280 is to make sure that they don't have to be here.

00:15:58.800 And sadly, many dispensational premillennials,

00:16:01.080 they did precisely that. They forewent having children. They read things like Matthew 24 and

00:16:07.420 the Olivet Discourse and thought that that wasn't something that Jesus was speaking that would be

00:16:12.420 actually fulfilled in AD 70. This generation will not pass away. But instead of taking Jesus in a

00:16:19.160 literal sense, this actual generation within 40 years, these things will come to pass. They took

00:16:24.040 it as more of an analytical and metaphorical sense that this type of generation, there will always be

00:16:30.600 these kinds of people. And so what Jesus is saying will take place within a span of 40 years

00:16:35.820 actually might take place within a span of 2000 years. And what is one of the things that Jesus

00:16:40.580 warns of? Woe to those women who are with child in those days, right? Things will be terrible. 0.75

00:16:49.020 And they were, they were in 80, 70, quite terrible. But if your perspective is that this is still the

00:16:55.680 times that we live in, then it's just a small hip jump and a skip over to, hey, it might be best for

00:17:03.080 us not to have children at all. And especially if you begin to shift your hermeneutics even more

00:17:08.180 and think that the Great Commission has somehow not come alongside the cultural mandate, but rather

00:17:13.720 replaced the cultural mandate. Well, we're not going to have children. We'll have spiritual

00:17:18.360 children by doing the work of an evangelist. And I could go on and on and on and on and on to talk

00:17:26.140 about how we arrived in our current cultural moment. But this is, make no mistake, how we

00:17:31.860 arrived. The theology of the church does actually impact culture and politics. This is undeniable.

00:17:42.560 but in all of this the point the main point that i want to make is theological minimalism

00:17:48.720 if you have a great goal and you think things are going to get worse the best thing that we

00:17:52.720 can do is either forego having children or make sure the children we do have don't have to live

00:17:57.300 through this great tribulation that's coming and well the only thing that we can do towards that

00:18:02.080 end is speed up the clock as much as it depends on us ensure that jesus returns more quickly that

00:18:09.060 he doesn't tarry any longer and as far as we can tell from the scripture the best way the only way

00:18:14.940 that we can speed up the clock is making sure the gospel gets out and it'd be a lot easier for us to

00:18:20.560 finance and resource the global mission mandate preaching the gospel around the world if we didn't

00:18:27.760 disagree so much and how can we stop disagreeing well instead of having 200 different doctrines

00:18:33.800 what if we narrowed it down to four or five?

00:18:37.420 This is Billy Graham.

00:18:40.480 This is his entire ministry, summed up in a nutshell.

00:18:45.320 And then what happens because of theological minimalism

00:18:48.500 is we begin to believe that the Bible is inerrant.

00:18:51.660 We don't begin, we continue to believe.

00:18:53.880 And the inerrancy, that is the authority of Scripture.

00:18:56.600 And to be fair, we also believe

00:18:58.600 not only the authority of Scripture,

00:19:00.040 but the sufficiency of Scripture.

00:19:01.540 but it begins to beg this implicit question, what precisely is the scripture sufficient for?

00:19:07.880 And the answer becomes salvation and salvation only. So the Bible is still authoritative. The

00:19:15.400 Bible is also still sufficient, but the Bible is no longer sufficient for life and godliness,

00:19:20.360 but it is only sufficient for those things which are eternal. The Bible is not sufficient. It's not

00:19:27.660 that is not authoritative. It just doesn't address. It's not relevant. It's not sufficient

00:19:32.360 for economics or for politics or for culture or for science or for medicine or any of these things.

00:19:38.500 These are things that God has left as a blank canvas. And there is an implicit neutrality when

00:19:44.200 it comes to these things. They're not inherently righteous or inherently wicked. And we just use

00:19:49.280 the reason of man and common sense. And the best that we can do, preach the scripture for salvation,

00:19:54.440 pastor, but stay out of everything else. Don't let these other things come into the pulpit.

00:20:00.420 Don't address these things in your preaching because the Bible doesn't speak to them.

00:20:04.760 These are things that people need to make those decisions on their own.

00:20:09.960 And so then we begin making those decisions on their own. And now we don't know the difference

00:20:14.600 between a boy and a girl. That's how it works. Theological minimalism. Now, none of that is to 0.96

00:20:23.940 negate another concept, which is entirely true, that is theological triage. There are priorities

00:20:30.860 when it comes to doctrines. Justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone

00:20:36.740 is a doctrine of more importance than, for instance,

00:20:42.220 mode of baptism, head coverings, sign gifts of the Holy Spirit, whether or not they're still

00:20:54.120 in operation today. Those doctrines matter, but not at the degree, not the level of justification

00:21:00.660 by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. So you don't have to be a theological

00:21:07.500 minimalist to still do theological triage. So I'm not saying that all doctrines matter equally,

00:21:16.140 but I am saying that all doctrines matter. And so I believe that in many ways, you could make

00:21:23.640 this argument not just with our country, but with other countries and not just the time period of

00:21:27.680 the 80s and 90s. That's how I began this particular rant in the sermon. But not just that time period

00:21:33.240 and not just this place, this particular country,

00:21:35.560 but you can make this argument of Jonah-type prophets

00:21:39.580 in multiple different places

00:21:41.500 in multiple different periods of time.

00:21:44.200 What's the headline of the story?

00:21:46.660 What's the big idea?

00:21:48.120 You have a prophet who's saying blessing instead of curses,

00:21:52.740 increase instead of judgment,

00:21:55.680 and he's preaching these things,

00:21:57.600 and not as a prosperity gospel preacher would,

00:22:00.160 not in a heretical sense.

00:22:01.740 He's not preaching these things as lies.

00:22:04.980 He's preaching these things, and they are, in fact, for that particular place and time, true.

00:22:11.060 They're true.

00:22:12.980 Notice, Jonah is not a false prophet.

00:22:16.740 Jonah is not liked by his contemporaries and accepted by them

00:22:20.480 because he's preaching positive things in a deceitful manner.

00:22:26.220 The positive predictions that he's making, notice, they come to pass.

00:22:30.800 He is not a false prophet.

00:22:32.080 He is a true prophet.

00:22:33.360 He's just an unusual rare prophet.

00:22:35.580 And the fact that he actually gets to make predictions 0.97

00:22:38.100 that are positive for Israel 0.78

00:22:39.940 when pretty much every other prophet

00:22:41.740 makes predictions that are negative.

00:22:43.880 And both prophets are true prophets.

00:22:46.200 They're simply saying what the Lord is saying.

00:22:48.320 And they're saying these things, speaking for God faithfully.

00:22:52.380 But Jonah lived at a very unique time

00:22:54.440 where God actually had blessing

00:22:56.420 that he intended to do to Israel.

00:22:58.680 and he intended to do this blessing to expand their borders to to enrich Israel in many temporal

00:23:04.660 ways despite again not because of any goodness in Israel but actually precisely despite the fact

00:23:11.680 that Israel's king at the time was wicked and the people of Israel were following in the likeness

00:23:17.940 of their king rebelling against the Lord so this is the setting the backdrop for the story of Jonah

00:23:25.300 that many people don't know. Let's continue now. In your notes, I've written the following.

00:23:31.720 Jonah's death wish. Isaiah had previously prophesied that one day the Assyrians would 0.89

00:23:38.460 successfully invade Israel. Jonah would have been familiar with this prophecy. As a prophet himself,

00:23:45.060 he knew the prophecies that had come before. He had seen the scrolls. He had read them,

00:23:50.240 committed these things to his heart and his memory. In Jonah's day, the Assyrians were just 1.00

00:23:56.300 beginning to make their pre-invasion attacks into the northern kingdom of Israel. And as God's 0.91

00:24:03.700 sovereignty would have it, Jonah lived in a northern town. So it is entirely possible that he

00:24:10.200 had personally witnessed some of these attacks. He may have even seen the Assyrians brutally kill

00:24:16.280 members of his own family. And of course, here's the hook, the capital city of Assyria was Nineveh.

00:24:24.600 Jonah was not afraid of Nineveh's potential rejection of his message if he obeyed the Lord

00:24:31.280 and went to Nineveh and preached as he was called to. But rather, on the contrary, precisely opposite,

00:24:38.420 Jonah was afraid of Nineveh's potential repentance to his message. Let me say that once more.

00:24:46.220 Jonah's reluctance, or we might call it downright refusal,

00:24:51.120 to obey the Lord and go to Nineveh and preach the message that God had assigned to him.

00:24:56.340 Jonah's refusal to go to Nineveh was not out of a fear that his message would be rejected by the Assyrians, 0.81

00:25:04.160 but a fear that his message would actually result in the repentance of these Ninevites. 0.95

00:25:13.540 What I'm saying is this. 0.73

00:25:15.580 Jonah didn't want to go to Nineveh because he wanted them to perish under the judgment of God.

00:25:23.820 Because he hated them.

00:25:26.840 And he hated them because in his lifetime.

00:25:30.660 So you have two big periods of Jonah's prophetic tenure.

00:25:35.960 His career as a prophet in Israel.

00:25:39.460 The first half is going really well.

00:25:42.980 You could argue it's going better than any prophet in Israel has ever experienced.

00:25:47.620 I mean, all the prophets in Israel ultimately are put to death.

00:25:52.060 And most of their prophecies are going around saying, hey, all these other guys are false prophets.

00:25:56.800 They're saying, peace, peace, when there is no peace.

00:25:58.920 I've got a true sermon. I've got a real message from the Lord.

00:26:01.920 He's going to destroy all of you, right?

00:26:03.880 I mean, that's a hard sermon to preach. 0.97

00:26:05.800 especially in israel a place that was known as a rich lineage a rich heritage of killing prophets

00:26:15.340 but jonah the first half of his ministry is saying hey guys i've got a prophetic word

00:26:21.420 it's peace peace and i'm actually a true prophet and he was right he wasn't lying

00:26:28.200 god's going to actually increase our borders israel's going to expand we're actually going

00:26:34.360 to benefit we're going to be blessed by God right hip hip hooray three cheers for Jonah

00:26:40.040 I have no doubt Israel probably appreciated him but then as we get into the second half of his

00:26:46.840 ministry the pre-invasion attacks from Assyria directly to the north begin to ramp up and Jonah

00:26:53.240 lives in the northern tribes in the northern kingdom of Israel and so he begins to experience

00:27:00.900 firsthand. Some of the first pre-invasion attacks of the Assyrians, a barbaric people who are known 0.96

00:27:08.920 even by archaeologists. They've confirmed this, as well as, of course, biblical scholars and 0.60

00:27:14.640 theologians, that the Assyrians, one of their habits, traditions, if you will, was to fillet 0.89

00:27:20.840 the victims, their war victims, with other tribes that they went to war against, fillet them alive

00:27:26.220 and take their skin and hang it on the outside of the walls surrounding their cities. 0.99

00:27:31.740 The Assyrians were a barbaric people. 0.98

00:27:34.840 And what you find later on in the book of Jonah, 1.00

00:27:37.180 a short book that if you haven't read it recently,

00:27:39.460 I strongly commend it to you, only four chapters in length.

00:27:42.780 But one of the things that you'll find is that

00:27:44.660 the king of Nineveh calls his whole city,

00:27:48.260 all his countrymen to repentance. 0.99

00:27:50.840 They do, in fact, listen to the message

00:27:53.000 that Jonah eventually preaches to them

00:27:55.100 once he eventually arrives in the providence of God.

00:27:58.620 and when the king of Nineveh calls his men his nation to repentance the specific sin that he

00:28:06.460 mentions by name he says let everyone turn from their wicked deeds and the violence which is in

00:28:13.860 his hand the only sin mentioned specifically is the sin of physical violence and that is to say

00:28:23.240 again that the Assyrians, Nineveh being one of the capital cities of the Assyrians, they were 0.71

00:28:29.080 specifically known for all kinds of treacherous evil and wickedness, but especially the evil of

00:28:37.260 physical violence. Not merely because they made war on other nations. There are conditions that

00:28:45.900 would set the stage for something such as just war theory. But these guys aren't fighting necessary

00:28:52.380 wars and wars that must be fought because all diplomatic attempts have failed. But these guys

00:28:59.720 are torturing the people that they conquer just for the fun of it. They are violent.

00:29:08.440 And so Jonah knows this. And if we're not careful, it's easy for us to enter into

00:29:12.320 the story of Jonah thinking Jonah didn't want to go to Nineveh because Nineveh might kill the prophet.

00:29:19.280 it. Here's the irony. If Jonah was afraid of being killed as a prophet, going to Nineveh is actually

00:29:27.360 a pretty good gig. Because if you're a prophet trying to avoid death, the one place you don't

00:29:32.620 want to go to, it's not Nineveh, it's Israel. The best bet you have of getting killed as a prophet 0.91

00:29:38.040 is going to the people of God. They'll kill you. Killed Jesus and killed all the prophets before 1.00

00:29:47.580 him. So Jonah actually has a better chance if that's his only concern. If his concern is just 0.70

00:29:55.900 saving his own physical life, if it's merely physical self-preservation, 0.88

00:30:02.220 well then go to Nineveh. I mean, even guys who hang the skins of their victims on their walls,

00:30:08.780 statistically, have a less chance of turning on a prophet of God and killing him than the people

00:30:14.980 of Israel. I mean, the people of Israel have made a profession out of killing prophets. 0.74

00:30:20.900 No one does it more often or better, more consistently than them.

00:30:28.220 Now, Jonah was not hesitant or refusing, rebelling against God to go to Nineveh to preach this

00:30:34.620 message of repentance because he was afraid that his message would be rejected by the Ninevites, 0.64

00:30:40.700 and therefore they would reject his message and turn on him and kill him.

00:30:45.220 No, he was afraid that they would actually accept his message,

00:30:49.760 that they would, in fact, repent.

00:30:52.280 And then Jonah knew this about the character of God. 0.95

00:30:55.740 He knew that God is a sucker for repentance.

00:31:02.200 That God, who is thrice holy,

00:31:05.300 and as the scripture testifies, by no means will pardon the wicked,

00:31:08.760 is quick, not slow, slow to his anger, but quick in his mercy, in his kindness, in his forgiveness,

00:31:20.760 relenting and sending disaster quickly for those who repent. Jonah knows this about the Lord.

00:31:30.240 How do we know that Jonah knows? Well, because he tells us, he tells specifically God himself

00:31:38.140 in his prayer. He says this, and he prayed to the Lord and said, oh Lord, is this not what I said

00:31:46.460 when I was yet in my country? This is why. Jonah's going to tell us exactly why he chose to go to

00:31:53.120 Tarshish, the opposite direction from Nineveh. This is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish,

00:31:59.240 for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love

00:32:06.580 and relenting, here's the key, from sending disaster.

00:32:13.000 Therefore, he follows it up,

00:32:14.580 and he says this at least three times throughout the narrative.

00:32:17.460 Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me,

00:32:20.880 for it is better for me to die than to live.

00:32:25.000 What Jonah is essentially saying, and I'm smiling because I just...

00:32:29.880 I can identify with Jonah.

00:32:35.180 Jonah is petty.

00:32:36.580 let the listener understand i can identify with jonah like there were i mean there's just moments

00:32:43.860 where i i look back and i'm like man i was kind of being a drama queen like i was pretty petty

00:32:52.560 right i should have just let that one go like is there any hope for me and i okay there is jonah

00:33:00.200 he was a prophet he was a preacher okay all right well i'll look at charles spurgeon right

00:33:05.680 Charles Spurgeon, I mean, he struggled with just

00:33:08.100 de-habilitating anxiety and especially depression

00:33:12.840 for large swaths of his ministry, large seasons.

00:33:18.440 There was a moment in Charles Spurgeon,

00:33:20.060 the Prince of Preachers is what he was known as.

00:33:22.940 A moment in his ministry where, I mean,

00:33:24.760 he was one of the only guys who was a pastor

00:33:26.920 of a mega church in his time.

00:33:29.780 I mean, most churches were smaller,

00:33:31.420 even just at a physical level.

00:33:32.960 This is before you have audio and microphones and amplification and these kinds of things.

00:33:39.140 And so churches tended to be smaller, maybe a couple hundred people.

00:33:42.960 Many churches may have been even smaller than that, 50 people or so.

00:33:46.740 But Charles Spurgeon, he was the pastor, senior pastor of the London Metropolitan Tabernacle, his church.

00:33:55.200 And it was a little bit over a thousand people is what most of historians say.

00:34:01.360 And he personally, he had it as his habit that for anyone to enter into membership at his church, he had other elders and ministers that would serve alongside him, but he would meet personally when it came to membership for anyone in the church.

00:34:15.980 So he sat down personally, each family, as new people would come to the church and would interview them and preach to them the gospel, make sure they had an understanding of justification by grace alone, through faith alone and Christ alone.

00:34:27.480 asked them about their marriage, all these things, catechizing the children, and then welcomed them

00:34:31.820 into membership. And he did this with a congregation of over a thousand people. But there was one

00:34:36.660 particular Lord's Day where as he was preaching in a stadium-style facility, one of the

00:34:47.180 seatings, the balconies collapsed, and dozens of people died. And it haunted him the rest of his

00:34:55.740 life. And there were many other things that happened in his life as well, but that was a big

00:35:00.300 one where he could hardly preach anymore. He was so devastated by that. And then also contemplating

00:35:06.140 warring within his own soul. Am I in sin? Is this a judgment from the Lord? What's going on?

00:35:13.640 Should I stop preaching? I mean, if you preach and as you're preaching, you know,

00:35:18.440 15% of the congregation dies, you know, you start to think maybe, maybe this isn't the career for me.

00:35:24.640 You know, I mean, I want to save people's souls and here I am killing people, you know, and so

00:35:29.900 Charles Spurgeon was struggling and Charles, you know, Charles Spurgeon was a bit of a drama queen.

00:35:37.100 Most guys who've written, you know, biographies on him, he was deeply and profoundly emotional.

00:35:43.420 Some of the best preachers throughout history were deeply emotional, deeply. Jonah was probably

00:35:50.000 a great preacher is what i'm saying but he was also a bit of a pill great preacher

00:35:57.120 but really testing the lord's patience i'm by god's grace i am not trying to brag i think

00:36:05.620 i'm a great preacher and if you want someone who's sanctified

00:36:10.500 to disciple you and patience and you're a woman talk to my wife

00:36:16.160 great preacher great saint yes we have you know we both bring things to the table we both have our

00:36:24.580 gifts jonah was a bit of a drama queen three times kill me better for me to die than to live

00:36:33.680 now let's hone in a little bit more here though what is he actually saying he's saying this is

00:36:40.640 why I refuse to obey you. You told me to go to Nineveh to preach repentance. I did not. I went

00:36:46.780 the opposite direction. And what I'm quoting here is Jonah chapter four, verses two and three. So

00:36:50.780 this is toward the very end of the story after Jonah witnesses the repentance of Nineveh. And

00:36:56.040 Jonah is now saying to God, right, this is bold. This is where Jonah is like, okay, I, by God's

00:37:02.080 grace, it's not nothing in Joel, you know, but by God's grace and sanctification, I think I might

00:37:05.760 be a little bit better than Jonah. Jonah's saying this to God in a prayer. He's saying, this is why

00:37:11.160 I didn't want to obey you and go to Nineveh and preach a message of repentance because I knew

00:37:15.240 they'd repent and I knew you would fall for it. I knew that you would save them. I wanted to see

00:37:23.720 the fire and brimstone. I wanted to see Nineveh destroyed. I mean, Jonah literally pitches a tent 0.96

00:37:31.800 up on a hillside, sticking around after his mission is already completed. He's already

00:37:36.780 obeyed the Lord. He's free at this point to go back to Israel, his home country. But he sticks 0.96

00:37:41.740 around just in case he might get to watch this city get wiped off the face of the map. And he's

00:37:49.640 rooting for it. He's rooting for it. And when God doesn't do it, when God chooses to relent

00:37:58.060 in sending disaster and show mercy instead, because of Nineveh's repentance, Jonah literally

00:38:04.700 says, this is what I told you. I told you this all the way back in my own country. This is why

00:38:11.340 I made haste to flee for Tarshish instead of obeying you and going to Nineveh, because I know 1.00

00:38:16.400 your character. Imagine this dialogue with the Lord. This is what I knew was wrong with you, God. 0.92

00:38:22.380 You've got a lot of great qualities, but let me list a few of your weaknesses. Merciful, slow to

00:38:27.360 anger, abounding in steadfast love. Not a good look, Jonah. That's just not a great prayer.

00:38:36.380 But that's where he's at. That's how petty he is. And as Connor was leading us through

00:38:42.700 the liturgy just a moment ago, that's how bitter he is. That's how bitter he is. Now

00:38:49.320 notice one thing that's important for us to recognize when it comes to that particular

00:38:53.180 the sin of bitterness? A few things, I might say. One, bitterness has the potential, as the author

00:38:59.360 to the Hebrews instructs us, to defile many. So bitterness is not a sin that will simply

00:39:06.840 affect yourself, but it will affect others. It is an infectious sin. It is a sin that will quickly

00:39:15.820 spread and disease a whole crop. A whole congregation can ultimately be destroyed

00:39:22.720 by one root of bitterness. That's one aspect of the sin of bitterness. But another is this,

00:39:30.320 often we attempt to assuage our own consciences by justifying our bitterness, saying the reason

00:39:39.840 I'm bitter is because of the great atrocities that have been committed against me by others.

00:39:45.820 and there's a partial truth in that most people who are bitter it is in part due because of the

00:39:56.200 sins of others committed against them but others sinning against you in and of itself alone if

00:40:04.160 that's all that takes place it is not enough to produce bitterness bitterness does not come

00:40:12.200 merely by being sinned against by others. It is always a mixture of being sinned against by others

00:40:20.840 coupled with pride. Hot spirits, I believe it was Matthew Henry who once said this,

00:40:29.520 hot spirits come by high spirits. And what he's saying is that to be angry, right? And that's

00:40:37.460 the question that the Lord asked Jonah. Do you do well to be angry? Pro tip, almost always the

00:40:44.100 answer is no. Do you do well to be angry? And what Matthew Henry in his commentary on the book of

00:40:52.760 Jonah is getting at is that high spirits are what lead towards hot spirits. Hot spirits speaking to

00:40:59.620 anger. To be hot in your anger, the opposite of the character of God. Not slow to anger, but quick

00:41:05.900 in your retaliation, quick in your indignation. And what Matthew Henry is saying is that in the

00:41:12.800 case of Jonah, hot spirits are not merely produced by others harming you, but others harming you

00:41:19.380 coupled with your own high spirits, that is lofty pride, arrogance. There are people who can be

00:41:27.920 sinned against in terrible ways and yet not grow bitter because although they were wronged terribly

00:41:37.720 they are people who do not think highly of themselves not more highly than they are

00:41:44.840 they are people who do not possess these hot spirits because they possess by the grace of God

00:41:51.200 low spirits. It's not just being sinned against. It's being sinned against with pride. It is the

00:41:59.140 prideful man who, when sinned against, will quickly ignite in anger towards those who sinned against

00:42:07.000 him. This is Jonah. And Jonah had, make no mistake, he had, in fact, been sinned against.

00:42:14.260 And not just that someone didn't invite his kid to their birthday party. 0.96

00:42:18.120 no he had been sent against by the assyrians ramping up their pre-invasion attacks into the

00:42:26.380 northern tribes of israel and likely if not family members at least acquaintances or friends that he

00:42:33.080 knew had been taken captive or even harmed or brutally murdered by the assyrians not to mention

00:42:40.940 the Assyrians, they also ruined Jonah's perfect prophetic record. His whole profession, his whole 1.00

00:42:49.180 career had been flawless. God's going to expand this border, right? God's going to give you a

00:42:54.580 house. He's going to give you a car. And it's actually true, right? This is a prosperity

00:43:00.020 preacher's dream, right? Benny Hinn would kill for this. You know what I mean? This is like,

00:43:04.980 I'm going to tell people that if they do this, they'll be rich. And for the first time, I won't

00:43:09.500 be lying. Right? This is a nice gig. And then all of a sudden, oh, but that other prophet that came

00:43:18.880 before me, he prophesied some bad things, like Assyria taking over us things, and that's now 0.95

00:43:26.620 coming to pass. Oh, man. The Assyrians are hurting people that I love. This golden age of the 80s 0.97

00:43:37.060 and the 90s, right?

00:43:39.860 We're all making just tons of money

00:43:41.960 selling our kids and grandchildren,

00:43:44.480 you know, their future, you know,

00:43:45.460 on a raft down a river.

00:43:46.580 But, and now we're going to have to pay the piper.

00:43:49.700 Isaiah's prophecies are now coming to pass. 1.00

00:43:53.040 Ah, those Assyrians. 1.00

00:43:56.620 Can't stand them. 1.00

00:43:57.560 I had a good thing going.

00:43:58.520 They ruined it.

00:44:00.700 Jonah was sinned against,

00:44:02.620 but he wasn't only sinned against.

00:44:04.560 he was arrogant he was prideful he was petty he probably like many of us had an idol of comfort

00:44:15.960 and personal pleasure all these things are going on behind the scenes continuing your notes now 0.87

00:44:24.140 I've written this the sailors on this Tarshish bound ship were most likely Phoenicians a people

00:44:32.440 who are notorious for their sailing experience and capabilities. These men were well acquainted

00:44:38.600 with storms at sea and recognized that this was no ordinary storm. Verse 5 of our text says that

00:44:46.120 the men were afraid and each cried out to his own God. And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship

00:44:55.880 into the sea to lighten it for them. However, the ship was not lightened. The whole weight

00:45:01.760 still remained. The body of the prophet continued to weigh down the ship, not from the physical

00:45:08.280 weight, but from the burden of sin, for nothing is so heavy as sin.

00:45:17.680 These Phoenician sailors are crying out to their gods. Now, it's not like they've never sailed

00:45:23.920 rough waters before. And we always read, you know, biblical literature and think that everyone who's

00:45:30.700 come before us was some Neanderthal primitive person that doesn't know anything. And that's 0.92

00:45:36.560 simply not true. They understood storms. They understood the seas. They understood navigation

00:45:43.380 and all these different things. And they knew that something here was going on that was

00:45:48.220 above their pay grade. This was no mere storm. This was supernatural. That's why they began

00:45:54.980 crying out to their deities, but none of their deities answered, for they are all false gods.

00:46:04.480 And so they turned to one extra guy who's on the ship that they have yet to consult because

00:46:10.180 he's sleeping, they turn to Jonah. Continue in your notes. I've written this in verses 7 through

00:46:18.500 10 of our text. The sailors cry out, come let us cast lots that we may know on whose account this

00:46:25.320 evil has come upon us. So they cast lots and it did no good because it's random. No, it helped.

00:46:33.460 it worked because God's sovereign even over the dice. They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah.

00:46:41.280 Then they said to him, tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation

00:46:47.660 and where do you come from? What is your country and of what people are you? And he said to them,

00:46:53.220 I am a Hebrew and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven who made the sea, right? It's a little

00:46:59.160 bit relevant, who made the sea and the dry land. Then the men were exceedingly afraid. Now notice

00:47:08.000 verse 5, what we saw earlier with the storm itself, before this encounter with Jonah and finding out 0.56

00:47:15.280 that he's a Hebrew, a servant of Yahweh on the run in disobedience and rebellion, before all that

00:47:22.020 context with just the storm itself, the men were afraid. Verse 5 said, we were afraid and each 0.67

00:47:28.780 cried out to his God. But now in verses seven through 10, the text says, then the men were

00:47:35.340 exceedingly afraid. The fear has increased. At first, the sailors had feared the storm and the

00:47:43.300 potential loss of their lives. Now they feared the judgment of God. They feared no longer the

00:47:49.120 power of creation, but the wrath of the creator himself. These men felt how fearful a thing it is

00:47:55.740 to fall into the hands of the living god a brief word about sigmund freud

00:48:03.820 who is in hell to the praise of god's glorious justice a wicked man a terrible man

00:48:14.480 and a man along with darwin and others who sought to disprove god these individuals carl marx would

00:48:22.680 be another. They recognized that the greatest strength and fabric of society was Christianity.

00:48:31.500 That had to be taken out if they were going to be able to control society. Sigmund Freud, one of his 1.00

00:48:38.840 arguments for atheism, one of his arguments against Christianity, and against any religion for that

00:48:44.740 matter, was this. He said that believing in a deity, a God, was just a result of primitive people

00:48:53.160 that couldn't understand, but not just that they couldn't understand. It's not just in regards to

00:48:58.540 their knowledge, but primitive people who were powerless. And so what do you do if there's a 0.86

00:49:04.680 threat, right? Pestilence, a disease, a plague, or a storm, and you're powerless, and you don't have

00:49:14.540 the technology that we have today, right? You're living in the kind of house that can just be blown

00:49:19.280 over, right? These kinds of natural disasters, when they occur, you don't have modern medicine. You

00:49:25.060 don't have, you know, all this different technology that would work as a bulwark to protect you from

00:49:31.360 the disaster. And whenever a disaster does take place, your life is threatened. You've seen

00:49:38.080 disasters in the past, and many people that you love have been casualties. Well, what do you do

00:49:43.380 in a time period like that, where you have few defenses against nature, natural disasters.

00:49:51.580 Well, if the threat that you're experiencing is a person, a person can be appeased. Not always.

00:50:00.220 The person can be cruel. They could be someone who refuses to engage in dialogue and diplomatic,

00:50:06.300 you know, attempts. But an army has a general. You can speak to him. There can be conditions

00:50:12.540 for surrender right even an individual person you know who's trying to mug you in a back alley

00:50:18.180 god forbid you can still say please don't hurt me i'll give you what whatever you want

00:50:23.480 you can you can appeal to some kind of as wicked as they might be some kind of human nature

00:50:31.100 underneath you can reach for some level of compassion but how do you plead with a storm

00:50:39.580 how do you plead with the bubonic plague 0.93

00:50:43.660 well you don't you can't and so what people did in manufacturing religion 0.94

00:50:54.660 out of nothing according to Sigmund Freud was they tried to take nature's greatest disasters

00:51:02.560 and personify them by placing within them a deity, right?

00:51:08.720 Especially when it comes to Norse mythology or Roman Greco mythology,

00:51:14.120 these kinds of things.

00:51:14.680 You have different gods for different, you know, the ocean, Poseidon, you know,

00:51:21.480 or a god of this storm over here, Thor, with lightning.

00:51:27.060 And now we have a god.

00:51:28.640 now the storm, just like an army or a mugger, we can cry out to someone. We're not stronger than

00:51:35.980 the storm, but maybe we can satiate the personified storm, the deity within the storm. We can make

00:51:42.740 some kind of sacrifice, some kind of plea bargain, so that the storm would relent and not destroy

00:51:49.320 us. Now, the reason why Sigmund Freud fails in this argumentation is because it does not account

00:51:57.580 for the triune God. And the reason it doesn't account for the one God who truly exists is

00:52:04.440 because what we see throughout scripture time and time again, is that when people encounter

00:52:10.140 some kind of judgment of the Lord, like a storm, and then realize that Yahweh is the God behind it,

00:52:17.600 they don't go from being afraid to being calmed, but from being afraid to being even more afraid.

00:52:24.820 see if that was the psychology if that was the goal was put a god within the storm so that we

00:52:33.260 don't have to be as afraid of the storm well then what you would want to do is put a god within the

00:52:38.940 storm that's not scary but the christian god is the lord is to be feared and even jesus says do

00:52:49.660 Do not fear those who can harm the body, kill, destroy the body, but after doing so can do nothing more.

00:52:55.200 But rather, fear God in heaven, who after destroying the body also has the power to condemn your soul to hell.

00:53:04.560 He is a fearful God.

00:53:06.780 He is the living God.

00:53:08.940 Terrible in his judgments.

00:53:12.540 And this is precisely what the Phoenician sailors experience.

00:53:16.100 it's indicative it relates to what the disciples with jesus experienced jonah is sleeping on the

00:53:21.640 bottom of the ship jesus likewise is asleep on the boat the disciples wake him up and say do you not

00:53:27.220 care that we are perishing they are afraid but in that gospel narrative when jesus speaks and

00:53:33.120 stills the storm even with the disciples the same concept is there it says that the disciples go

00:53:39.500 from being afraid of the storm to being exceedingly afraid of the one who has authority over the

00:53:46.020 wind and waves. Jesus scares them more than the storm does. So too Yahweh scares these Phoenician

00:53:53.900 sailors more than the storm does. So it's a common or classic L for Sigmund Freud, right? That just 0.93

00:54:02.360 shouldn't come as a surprise. He's always wrong. Continuing in verses 15 through 16 of our text,

00:54:09.380 we see that the sailors picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea and the sea ceased from

00:54:15.820 it's raging. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly and they offered a sacrifice to the

00:54:21.620 Lord and made vows. This is significant. The last thing we'll focus on. The men actually feared the

00:54:29.320 calming of the sea the most. So they fear the storm. Then they fear the God in the storm or

00:54:37.620 over the storm with authority, Jonah's God, the triune God. And then the storm ceases. And this 0.88

00:54:44.200 would be the moment for the fear to cease along with it. Typically, once the threat has been

00:54:49.500 neutralized, then the terror would go away along with it. But here in Jonah chapter 1 is where we

00:54:58.320 find these sailors most afraid, not least afraid. The men actually fear the calming of the sea and

00:55:05.840 the ceasing of the tempest most of all because it proved that Jonah's words were true. There is a

00:55:13.720 God who created all things and will hold each man accountable for his sin. Now, since the ship was a

00:55:21.360 large vessel and bound on a long voyage, the men had livestock on board, which they offered as a

00:55:27.640 sacrifice. And in order to further display their gratitude, the sailors made vows before the Lord.

00:55:34.840 Now notice this. They're afraid of the storm. They're extra afraid when they realize that the

00:55:41.180 storm actually has a deity behind it controlling the storm. And then they're even more afraid when

00:55:46.800 that is confirmed by the storm ceasing. Because now they no longer have the storm as an immediate

00:55:53.820 threat to their physical bodies, but they know that everything Jonah's just said about this God

00:55:58.480 is true. And although this immediate storm in the physical sense has ceased, there is another storm

00:56:05.280 a brewing. There's a storm of judgment. And that one day they're going to have to stand before this

00:56:11.480 God who causes storms and has authority to cease and still the storms. And they've been pagans

00:56:18.440 their whole life, worshiping false gods instead of the true God. So the fear doesn't go away when

00:56:25.560 the storm ceases. If anything, it increases. And so what do they do? They make vows and sacrifices

00:56:34.380 to the Lord after the threat has been neutralized.

00:56:37.280 Now think about this in terms of genuine repentance.

00:56:41.760 It's one thing when you're sick

00:56:43.560 to cry out to the Lord for healing and mercy.

00:56:47.160 And let's say, as a specific example,

00:56:50.380 let's say you're sick in a particular kind of way.

00:56:52.740 It's the kind of sickness you brought upon yourself.

00:56:56.240 Right, maybe in a past life,

00:56:58.980 in rebellion, in sin,

00:57:01.280 and you are kneeling, calling upon the gods,

00:57:05.560 kneeling before the porcelain throne.

00:57:08.900 I'll never do it again, making vows.

00:57:12.620 Right?

00:57:13.240 But it's one thing to cry out and make vows

00:57:15.700 and ask for mercy in the midst of a storm,

00:57:19.760 in the midst of pain, in the midst of fear.

00:57:22.320 It's another though, when everything's all done,

00:57:26.080 when your pleas for help have actually been granted

00:57:28.720 and answered to then turn to God and say, I make a vow. Not I'm making a vow in this moment. If you

00:57:36.700 help me, I'll never do this again. But no, you have helped me and I'm going to live another life.

00:57:42.780 You have helped me and I'm going to be faithful to you. That's what's happening with these sailors.

00:57:50.960 These pagan sailors, they get it. They're making vows. And I think there's no other way to read 0.96

00:57:57.040 this, but bona fide, genuine salvation. They fear the Lord. They now make vows to the Lord, not just

00:58:04.900 to get out of the immediate threat. They've already gotten out of that. They're making vows for the

00:58:09.780 future, for the rest of their lives to live in fidelity to the Lord. They make sacrifice to the

00:58:15.560 Lord, knowing that's an implicit acknowledgement that they know they're sinners, that they've

00:58:20.820 sinned against the Lord in a host of ways, but if nothing else, in their idolatry. The fact that,

00:58:25.600 you know, five minutes ago, they were calling out to pagan gods. So they're making sacrifices,

00:58:31.460 seeking atonement, making vows, renewing commitments. Meanwhile, the Hebrew prophet 0.95

00:58:39.900 is still in rebellion. Still. Jonah chapter two is the only portion in all four chapters

00:58:48.380 where he appears to repent. And I would argue that even then he doesn't. Jonah chapter two is

00:58:54.700 Jonah's prayer. He cries out to the Lord, but I don't believe it's actually the prayer from the

00:58:58.900 belly of the fish. He talks about the waters going over his head. I think that it's actually the

00:59:04.880 prayer that Jonah prays in the ocean or the sea as he's sinking in the waters. And even that is a

00:59:12.400 kind of prayer that's precisely the opposite of what the pagan Phoenicians pray. See, Jonah prays 1.00

00:59:18.560 as he's drowning, that God would save him.

00:59:21.260 And once God does, we pick back up with Jonah 3 and 4,

00:59:25.880 and he's got the same bad attitude again.

00:59:29.080 Doesn't want to obey, wants Nineveh to be destroyed.

00:59:32.780 He's complaining about a plant.

00:59:35.820 God's like, you care about the plant?

00:59:37.580 Really, Jonah, the plant?

00:59:39.080 If you care about the plant, what about 120,000 souls

00:59:42.860 that don't know the difference between the right and left hand?

00:59:45.720 And I don't think that's moral ignorance.

00:59:47.620 I think God is literally speaking that in Nineveh, there's 120,000 children so young

00:59:52.940 that even if you're mad at their moms and dads for the violence in their hands,

00:59:56.940 their children haven't committed any violence towards Israel.

00:59:59.820 And there's also much cattle.

01:00:01.240 The cows didn't do anything wrong.

01:00:02.720 This is how the story of Jonah ends, right?

01:00:04.920 If you care about the plant that I sent a worm to destroy,

01:00:08.660 and it's not really just your own comfort, your own idolatry.

01:00:11.440 You just care for innocent living things.

01:00:13.460 well, you should probably care for the innocent living 120,000 kids in Nineveh or care about the

01:00:20.240 cattle in Nineveh, but you don't. Because at the end of the day, you're not concerned about justice.

01:00:27.320 You're not mad because I'm not being just and punishing Nineveh because of their crimes. 0.98

01:00:32.260 You're just, you're angry for yourself. This has all been about your comfort, whether it's the 1.00

01:00:37.500 plant causing shade, whether it's you getting to make positive prophecies and them actually coming

01:00:42.420 to pass and being liked by your contemporaries, whether it's you having to travel to Nineveh,

01:00:47.840 whether it's you in the belly of the fish, at every level, Jonah, the only thing you care about

01:00:52.260 is not my glory, it's not my justice, and it's not about innocent living creatures like plants

01:00:57.600 or cattles or kids. What you care about is you. Do you do well to be angry, Jonah?

01:01:03.960 and the rhetorical implicit answer is no now i do believe that jonah is in heaven and that he did

01:01:15.020 in fact repent because somebody had to write the book and it's not contained in the book his

01:01:20.920 repentance but what is contained is remarkable everyone in the story of jonah repents except

01:01:28.760 Jonah. The Phoenician sailors repent. And I think it's real repentance. Nineveh repents. We know

01:01:38.500 that's real repentance because Jesus even says the men of Nineveh on that day will rise up and judge 0.59

01:01:43.600 you, speaking to Israel. Ninevites will be your judges, Israel. Everyone repents in the story of 0.93

01:01:50.940 Jonah except for Jonah. And Jonah, in many ways, we could say as a prophet, an Israelite prophet,

01:01:58.260 he represents the church and more particularly not just the church that would be like Israel

01:02:03.740 but Jonah being a prophet of Israel pastors and that's the last relevant overlap that I see in

01:02:12.940 our day and age that right now by the grace of God because of judgment being poured out

01:02:20.360 there are a lot of people and a lot of them unsuspected some surprise conversion stories

01:02:27.140 you might say there are a lot of people repenting

01:02:30.260 there are a lot of people i believe by the grace of god who are being converted and born again

01:02:36.960 they're seeing god's judgment they're seeing the error of our ways they're seeing the wickedness

01:02:43.480 behind the veil is being revealed and there are people who are waking up and coming to christ

01:02:50.400 recognizing we just said we've got to repent we've got to call upon the lord

01:02:54.580 But there's one character in our current story, like the story of Jonah, who still doesn't seem to get it.

01:03:03.680 Evangelical pastors.

01:03:06.840 Just like the prophet of Israel.

01:03:10.840 Still just doesn't know what time it is.

01:03:16.500 I mean, you've got bona fide racist repenting and coming into the kingdom of heaven before evangelical pastors.

01:03:24.580 and then you've got a bunch of other people who were called racist but actually aren't

01:03:31.920 aka pretty much everyone in america

01:03:34.100 but the one group of people who seem to be so stubborn and will not relent

01:03:40.820 sadly are the prophets the people who should know exactly what time it is

01:03:47.720 they've been given a message namely this book to preach and to preach faithfully

01:03:52.360 you don't get to ad-lib and yet continually and consistently there's a refusal

01:03:58.600 god says go to Nineveh they'll go to Tarshish

01:04:02.560 god says hey i'm doing a work of revival repentance among people on the right

01:04:09.420 go to Nineveh go to the right we'll be friends with the left we want the high seats

01:04:15.620 right go go over there there's a bunch of people in flyover country you know the country bumpkins

01:04:24.300 you've made fun of for the last 30 years they're getting saved go over there but why do that when

01:04:30.860 Russell Moore and David French go hang out with the Atlantic in the New York Times

01:04:34.840 now that's the moment that we're in

01:04:38.960 jonah's the one guy who doesn't get it and notice the biggest way to miss the story

01:04:48.440 is that jonah doesn't get it not because he's afraid for his life jonah refuses deliberately

01:04:56.200 will not allow himself to get it because he's afraid of god's mercy saving the kinds of people

01:05:03.540 he spent his whole career despising.

01:05:07.760 When you're a minister, a prophet of the Lord,

01:05:10.680 who spent your whole life, your whole preaching career, 1.00

01:05:13.820 hating on the Assyrians as those bad, dirty people. 1.00

01:05:19.920 Right? Fly over country, blue collar, country bumpkins, white people. 1.00

01:05:27.100 Rural people, uneducated people. 0.84

01:05:30.460 You spent your whole career talking down, punching down on that type of person. 1.00

01:05:37.360 And then God says, I want you to go and preach to that city, to that people.

01:05:43.140 I actually plan to save them.

01:05:45.440 And yeah, there are sins that they've committed.

01:05:47.600 But I'm going to relent in sending disaster and send mercy instead. 1.00

01:05:51.520 And you're like, the Phoenicians, though, I think that's a better crop right there. 1.00

01:05:56.060 I think there's more potential for revival among the Phoenicians. 0.69

01:05:58.900 and God just laughs, I'll save them too. 0.98

01:06:03.760 But the one person you should probably be worried about,

01:06:06.860 evangelical pastor, Jonah of our generation,

01:06:09.860 the one person you should be concerned about God saving is you.

01:06:14.240 You.

01:06:16.040 As Nathan said to David, you are the man.

01:06:21.100 And judgment is here.

01:06:23.480 And it begins with the house of God.

01:06:26.260 And it begins, first and foremost, within the house of God with ministers of God.

01:06:33.240 There are people we've despised, we've looked down on.

01:06:36.940 Like the priest who would walk by somebody who's laying in the street,

01:06:41.300 who's been mugged by robbers, but it's the Samaritan that actually stops and helps.

01:06:46.700 The fact that God's been using Jordan Peterson is an indictment to the church.

01:06:55.300 no more jonah pastors no more jonah prophets we need men who will preach god's word faithfully

01:07:05.440 and that will know the times like the sons of issachar and be willing to go to whatever people 0.54

01:07:11.400 the lord sends them to whether they're the assyrians or the racist nazis aka

01:07:18.320 people were probably not racist or nazis

01:07:21.420 that's what God is doing in our moment the borders have been increased peace peace was a genuine

01:07:31.480 message but now it is no longer that message won't work anymore not because it's positive

01:07:38.300 but because it's no longer true the hens have come home to roost it's time to pay the piper

01:07:45.360 and God is raising up an army but he's raising it up with a bunch of people

01:07:49.660 that some of us have despised

01:07:52.980 and thought that we were superior to for decades.

01:07:57.460 So will we repent?

01:07:59.280 Will we do what Jonah doesn't do?

01:08:01.760 Will we join Nineveh? 0.90

01:08:04.360 And will we call Israel to follow suit? 0.71

01:08:09.120 Or will we remain bitter? 0.84

01:08:12.700 But know that as much as you may try

01:08:15.360 to justify your bitterness,

01:08:16.720 and I know because I have myself,

01:08:18.900 Your bitterness is not the mere result

01:08:20.640 of being wronged by others.

01:08:21.980 Your bitterness is being hurt,

01:08:23.880 but coupled with pride.

01:08:26.420 If you were humble, you wouldn't be bitter.

01:08:29.760 Nobody sinned against anybody

01:08:31.760 as much as they did against Jesus.

01:08:35.080 But Jesus was never bitter.

01:08:38.200 All right, let's pray.

01:08:40.460 Father God, we thank you for your word.

01:08:41.740 Bless it to your people

01:08:42.680 and bring great glory to yourself.

01:08:45.280 In Jesus' name, amen.

The NXR Podcast - October 01, 2023

SUNDAY SERMON - Jonah & The American Evangelical Church

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