Dare to Stand | Michael Ramsden

it's absolutely wonderful to be here with you and for those of you who were here to hear the announcement that this event this event is going to double in size for next year and you were excited I've got even better news I've doubled in size also over the last few years and I'm just as excited about that as about everything else and as we draw this session and our time here to a close that we're going to go on a very slightly different angle here and we're gonna look at a bigger question about our culture because we're wrestling with so many things in our culture right now it is very very difficult you may even have gathered from the QA that sometimes we ask questions which themselves are very hard to deal with especially briefly because some questions just are I can remember someone once saying to me Michael I was listening you know to some of what RZ I am does online and it's amazing I'm I'm still very confused but at a much higher level than I was before so we are trying here also to deal with very big issues but deal them in a way which we hope is meaningful and do get online and there are some very big issues we didn't even come close to for example I noticed that question about depression um and is it can you be a Christian and be depressed and how should we think about depression and indeed as you listen to me right now you may find yourself sinking into an ever deepening depression as a ministry we actually have a few clinical psychologists on staff with us because these questions come up so often and they're so common and I would urge you if you are in that position where either you're close to someone who's wrestling with forms of clinical depression or maybe it's something a battle that you're involved in yourself if you do drop a line to the office we can point you to various things at the very least you could listen to online looking about how we think about that kind of issue from a Christian perspective - these are huge issues now what I want to do in our last session together is I want to speak to you out of the book of johna some of you will be familiar with it some of you won't I'm gonna have to give you a little synopsis of the story but I really want to look at the first five verses together with you if I may so this is from the Book of Jonah and this is starting from chapter 1 be reading and right at the very very beginning and this is how it starts the word of the lord came to jonah son of amat i go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it because it's wickedness has come up before me but Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish he went down to Joppa where he found a ship bound for that port and after paying the fare he went aboard and sailed for Tosh's to flee from the Lord then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea and such a violent storm arose that the shrimp threatened to break up all the sailors were afraid and cried out to their own gods and they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship but Jonah had gone below deck where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep well what enough does the story of Jonah have to say to us today why is it relevant what can we do now feel familiar of the story of Jonah you'll be aware that this storm gets so big so huge the sailors on the boat come to Jonah and they say what is happening and Jonah says well I'm running away from God and the only way to get rid of the storm is you need to pick me up and throw me into the sea and eventually trying to avoid that they do pick him up and throw him into the sea he gets swallowed by a giant fish and then vomited up onto a beach which changes Jonah's mind about whether it's a good idea to go or not and after Jonah then goes to the place he was told to go everybody in the city he went to go and speak to changes their minds and they all turn to God every man woman and child everyone turns to God and Jonah is angry where Tommy gets chapter 4 he is angry with God and twice God asked him a question he says Jonah is it right for you to be so angry and the second time Jonah's asked that question says it is right as a matter of fact I'm so angry I wish I were dead so Jonah points his finger into God's face as he's talking with him face to face almost as if there were two armchairs and says God you are wrong and I am angry with you and yes my anger is right I should feel this way because of how you have acted how do we understand this now of course when you talk about a book like Jonah you have that question coming up about where he's swallowed by a giant fish and then thrown up onto a beach and people some people think that bit of the stories a bit fishy and they will say something like this well up there you go again that's the trouble with you Christians you believe these impossible stories how can you believe in a book that's filled with so many miracles but we have two distinct this through just very very briefly and carefully because I meet people all the time who say to me how can I believe in this book which is filled with miracle it's totally unbelievable and then in the next breath they'll say unless God does a miracle right now in front of me I'll never believe in him now you can't have both you can't say I won't believe because he does miracles and at the same time say unless he does miracles I won't believe in him you need to make at least a choice between those two as a minimum to help answer that question now of course what is happening here is in this story this is very very beautifully put together if you do like poetry and praying for my friend Simon who seems to have a problem with English there is a beautiful symmetry so if you do have this book at home go and have a look at it but if you read Jonah chapter 1 verse 1 you will read about the word of the Lord coming to Jonah if you read Jonah chapter 3 verse 1 you will read about the word of the Lord coming to Jonah then in the very next verse and sorry two verses later in Jonah chapter 1 verse 3 you mean about Jonah's response he runs away in Jonah chapter 3 verse 3 you read about Jonah's response he decides to go in Jonah 2020 chapter 1 verse 5 you hear how non-christians respond to this message and then in Jonah chapter 3 verse 5 you see how non-christians respond to this message and during the chapter 1 verse 6 you see the act'n of the leader of the boat the captain in Jonah chapter 3 verse 6 you see the reaction of the ruler of this great city the king and you see how he responds and there's this beautiful way it's constructed and built it's a really fascinating piece of literature for no other reason and Jonah prays twice in this story he prays once from the depth of the sea and then he prays again when from the depth of his own anger and what is going on with Jonah is that the big storm in the Book of Jonah is not about the sea the big storm is about Jonah's own heart and life because Jonah is angry about something as a matter of fact Jonah is so angry he runs away from God now in the Bible there are lots of stories who run away from God and hide but most of those stories are along the line of Adam and Eve Adam and Eve ran away from God and hid because they knew they'd done something wrong and they didn't want to be find out but Jonah runs away from God and tries to hide not because he thinks he's done something wrong Jonah runs away from God because he thinks God has done something wrong he actually thinks go has failed and the reason he thinks God has failed as something terrible has happened to him and something terrible has happened to his country Jonah's country has been oppressed by the Assyrian Empire one of the most evil empires that ever existed all kinds of terrible and justices have being done and Jonah has suffered under it he's seen what these terrible people have done he's seeing the terrible pain they've inflicted why as I said widely considered by most ancient historians to be the most evil empire that ever lived on the face of this earth he experiences and he sees all of this and God comes to him and says Jonah I want you to go to those people and tell them that I want to forgive them and Jonah says you must be kidding that's not what Jonah wants Jonah doesn't want them forgiving Jonah wasn't destroyed he hates them the number one question that came up on the Poland's interesting was a guy asking a question about saying how can you expect me or how can God forgive someone especially if you're close to them and you know they're lying and that question which you guys voted as being the number one question here is exactly the issue that Jonah is wrestling with Jonah looks at something wrong people who have done something wrong there's no arguing about it they are wrong they have done terrible things and Jonah wants justice he wants this wrong to be put right he wants them punished for the terrible thing they've done and they haven't God isn't going to do it God's gonna do something different now this gets very difficult when you're with family there's a story about two brothers arguing and one you know and the mother sees them arguing over the last chocolate covered biscuit that they actually have there only one left in the house and as they're fighting about it the mother gets very angry and comes to them and says you know what if Jesus were here he would say let my brother have it he would give a kind response so the older brother looked to the younger one and said okay you be Jesus so often when it comes to the kind of world in which we live we want something right if we feel it's convenient for us and when someone something's done something bad to us we want them taken out and destroyed I can remember many many years ago are going to see the opening sequence for a James Bond film now when you're watching a movie and I'm sure you watch these movies what do you want to happen to the bad person at the end of any film you watch what do you want to happen to them you want them to die how do you want them to die do you want them to trip over their shoelaces fall in front of it but a truck and get run over well some of you are saying yes but some of you understand no you don't want it to happen that way it has to happen slowly and painfully okay has to be stretched out over a long period of time they have to see death coming after appreciate death coming that's why so many bad guys die so many times have you noticed that okay one thing happens they must be dead no they're not dead then something else happens now they must be dead no they're not dead we love that because they get to get killed multiple times and so often when we're crying out for justice or were crying out for revenge it's because it's driven by hatred and we feel so offended and those three words have now become in many parts of the world the three most powerful words in the English language right now I'm offended and it has everybody running and we're debating about well how can we stop people being offended that's terrible we talk about well that's violence against me if you speak that way or if you disagree with me must because you hate me but that's simply not true you may love someone deeply and disagree with them as a matter of fact the reason you may be disagreeing with them is because you love them if you hated them you let them go ahead and do the stupid thing that they're going to do but because you love them you're going to speak up and say I don't think that's good for you that's not going to help you need to change your mind on this and you need to go a different way but Joel Jonah can see is a group of people who've done something terrible they've done something awful and it looks like they're going to get away with it so rather than go and tell them this message you need to repent and say you're sorry for what you've done and turn to God and ask him to forgive you instead of saying that he runs in the opposite direction he goes downhill he goes down from where he lives down to the he then goes down into a boat the boat then goes down into a storm he dun gets thrown headfirst down into the sea he then gets swallowed by a big fish he goes into the but the the language is very beautiful you like poetry it was down into the belly of the fish and the fish goes right down into the very very base of the earth that's like the poetical construction he gets as far down as he can possibly get angry all the time and he doesn't ask for a fish he doesn't ask for rescue he's so angry with God but God at the end of chapter two he sends a fish anyway the end of chapter only sends a fish to rescue him and then once he's being rescued Jonah says worse the effect okay it's not nice down here and it's a little bit smelly and I'd love to see my home city and I'd love to see its beauty and actually I'll tell you what I'll go and do what you want me to do and then he heads off to go and say give this message and the message is one that is incredible but why is Jonah so angry and I'm going to unpack that just a little bit for most parts of the world for hundreds and hundreds of years more than that actually we've talked about cultures that understand honor as being something very important sometimes we see movies like that today where the hero acts with honor they defend their honor they conduct themselves with honor and for a very very long time around the world to be a leader you had to act with honor that's what we esteemed the most that's what gave you status that's what gave you standing people admired you have you had an honorable life and we would contrast those societies with societies that talked about dignity in a dignity Society you don't have to earn status by defending your honor and their dignity culture someone may insult you you may say nothing back you may quietly talk to them rather than publicly replying on Twitter and that will be seen as being dignified and if you conducted your life with dignity that's what gave you standing and status now the two common things between these two cultures is in an honor based culture and in a dignity based culture is you don't go crying off to someone else to sort out your own problems you deal with your own problems it's not honorable to go crying to Daddy every time you have a problem it's not honorable it's not dignified to respond to every criticism made of you you there may be times when you decide to say nothing but in a victim cult which is what we seem to be living and now we all get our status our standing because of the terrible things which have happened to us and the more terrible things which have happened to you the more status you have and in a victim culture the narrative very quickly becomes everything I do because I've been so hurt in the past is only motivated by love but everything you do if you disagree with me is only explicable through hate and very quickly it means then to disagree with anyone is to hate them which is now why we talk about hate speech so much hate speech truly understood is a terrible thing but if you think someone hates you just because they disagree with you you've totally misunderstood the nature of love because love and affirmation aren't the same things you can love someone and disagree with them that may be the basis of the disagreement but this narrative is very quickly taking over everything everywhere and some of you feel the pressure of it in your schools you know that to stand up and say well I think this or what about that even to question something could actually put you in the firing line it could actually have people coming same well in which case you're you're filled with hate or you're this or that or whatever and it silences the voice the danger of a victim culture is it says you're not allowed to think certain things and you can't say certain things and therefore a victim culture will always destroy freedom of thought and freedom of speech you can only speak and you can only think if you agree with everyone around you you can't learn that way in the school you can't learn that way in a university and you can't live that way as a society someone somewhere then will then have to decide and enforce by law what you're allowed to think and what you're allowed to say and ladies and gentlemen we have lived that in Europe before during the time of the Soviet empire every thought every word written every word sung was judged by the government about whether we were allowed to think it allowed to say it and allow to sing it and if you deviated from what what the government said that you were allowed to say I think he was sent to the gulag to be re-educated you were imprisoned and we had to fight hard in previous generations to win the freedom to be able to say things like well I disagree or while you think that's right but I think it's wrong and millions of people literally millions of people laid down their lives to usher in a different type of view a view which is far more compatible with Scripture because when the first human beings disagreed with God there were consequences but notice he didn't just simply destroy them straight away there were consequences to their disagreement but they continued to exist because God was holding out the possibility for them to change their minds and we and you and I you are part of a generation which is going to have battles on its hands as almost never before we are literally fighting in our continent right now for the ability to think and speak freely and when we have lost it then everything has gone and Jonah is so bought into this victim idea he understands them all these terrible things ever happened to him and they have happened to him he's not making them up he's Terence suffered these terrible things he wants these people destroyed and that's the trouble with the victim cultures once you see yourself as a victim you feel justified in doing terrible things to other people and the victim very quickly becomes a victimizer which is why in today's culture you can get so angry with people and enjoy it because they deserve it they deserve all those terrible things you're saying about them and the way that you're trashing them online and then accusing them of and making stories up about honor they deserve it they deserve more than that and the danger about living in that kind of culture is what after you express your anger and hatred instead of waking up the next morning and going oh boy why did I say that you wake up the next morning you think I feel good about that they deserve even worse and you create this downward viral vortex of grievance and hatred that just has people pitched against each other more and more and more and we see it in political leadership civil leadership public leadership we see it on Twitter and everything else that's one of the reasons you may notice if you follow me I don't do that much on on the on all these new medias it's not simply because I don't have a body for Instagram I've always been nervous about all of these things I'm still convinced that eventually Twitter YouTube and Facebook are going to merge into one giant company with a new web address wwu Twitter face calm so much of what is set out there is just inspired with so much hatred it is not good for anybody so the huge question in the book of johna is not is God forgiving the question in the Book of Jonah if it is Jonah able to forgive that's the question the question the Book of Jonah is not is the God of the Bible forgiving the question of the Book of Jonah is is jonah the prophet of God able to forgive all of the terrible things have suffered to him so reluctantly he sets off and he delivers a message and the message he delivers is one of the most incredible messages you can he comes to Jonah it comes to the great city and he says guys you need to repent or in 40 days you'll be judged now sometimes it says destroyed sometimes it says overturned but that message is ambiguous what do I mean by that an ambiguous message is one that is capable of several shades of interpretation and Jonah knows it that's the trouble the power of Jonah's message when he goes to Nineveh is not that he has a great testimony when he's vomited up onto the beach he's 600 miles away from the city has to go to so by the time he gets to the city which obvious would be quite a long time later I think we can safely assume you know that he's washed himself off from the vomit and he's no longer covered in seaweed and when he goes to the great city he doesn't say to the great city of Nineveh have I got a testimony for you yeah you won't believe what just happened to me okay there was a fish there was a storm the power of Jonah's message doesn't come from his personal testimony the power of Jonah's message comes from the word of the god word of God given to him and that's where the true transforming power that's is incredible because all of us have been given that word and it's been placed into our hands the question is do we know how to use it properly but Jonah doesn't like the word he has because the message is actually capable of being understood in several ways when he says 40 days and you will be judged destroyed whatever that word in the Hebrew literally means to turn upside down it means you take whatever is there and you flip it around that means if everything's going good and you turn it upside down it's bad but if everything is bad and you turn it upside down it's good so matter of fact in a book of the Bible called Deuteronomy in 22 23 verse 5 you'll find these words the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you because the Lord your God loves you and that phrase there the Lord your God turned this curse into a blessing is the same word that Jonah uses 40 days and you'll be overturned it's exactly the same word so Jonah knew when he got this word it could mean one of two things he could either mean number one that they would be destroyed for the terrible things they were doing or it could mean number two that literally their whole society will be turned upside down and the curse would become a blessing now we know what Jonah wants after Jonah delivers the message in chapter 4 he sits up on the hill and he looks to see what will happen he wants them to be wiped off the face of the earth but that doesn't happen the people listen to that message and they say you know what maybe maybe if we turn to this God maybe if we acknowledge the wrong we've done maybe if we say we're sorry maybe this God will hear us and he will forgive us and they get down on their knees and they say God we have wronged and we have done think terrible things please forgive us and heed God forgives them and Jonah gets so angry how can this neighboring group of people now be forgiven I'm wondering if that's why so many of us in the room identified with that question how can God or how can even we forgive a brother when they're doing something wrong and we know it's wrong it's a hard dynamic to deal with we feel justified in our anger and our bitterness but if you hold on to that anger and that bitterness it will just simply destroy you that's why Jesus said you have to forgive 70 times 7 that's a lot and by the way he's not giving you a mathematical problem so mathematical problem to multiply 70 times 7 what Jesus is basically saying is you have to just keep on forgiving and it's a hard thing to do it is the hardest and so God comes and he says if you say sorry I'll turn this upside down but now we're left with Jonah which is very interesting because Jonah is the prophet in the Book of Jonah everybody is listening to God apart from Jonah the waves obey what God has to say the wind obeys what God has to say the giant fish obeys what God has to say the people on the boat eventually obey what God has to say at the end of chapter 1 they sacrifice to the god of Jonah and they start worshipping and following him the people of Nineveh hear the word of God they obey what God has to say the king has to obey what God has to say in chapter 4 God makes a plant grow up over Jonah's head to give him some shade the sea debates what Jonah has to say God then sends a worm to eat the bottom of the plant and the plant dies the worm obeys what God has to say everybody in the Book of Jonah is listening to God and doing what he says apart from Jonah and Joan has meant to be the Prophet if you're a Christian and you're sitting here today are you listening to what God has to say to you with all of the challenge all of the encouragement all of the teaching he's given to you are you truly listening to him are you doing what he would have you do it's entirely possible to know him follow him and even be greatly used by him but so set your heart against him that you go in completely the wrong direction and maybe some of you are sitting here as Christians today and you're caught up in huge storms in your life and the storm you're caught up and is a bit like the storm Jonah's caught up in the storm that Jonah was caught up was one of his own making because he said his heart against God and ran away from him he found himself caught up in this huge storm in this giant mess the incredible thing about the Book of Jonah however it is so hopeful the way the Book of Jonah ends in chapter 4 is God comes to Jonah and Jonah says it is right for me to be angry how could you possibly do this and how does God respond well I have to say this is where you should be very glad I'm not God because I think at this point I'm rather fed up with Jonah and I would go like this and squish him like that and then cuz I'm God I could raise him back to life and then I could squish him again and I'll just keep squishing him until eventually he got the message but how does God respond to Jonah he responds so graciously he says Jonah should I not be care about this city there are so many people in it and they're lost they don't know the difference between their left hand and their right there are so many animals there should I not care about them as well and that's how the story ends it ends on that note and the question is well what did Jonah say to that now I'm an optimist I love happy endings I have to read books that sometimes have sad endings but I like happy endings that they're the kinds of movie there are kinds of things I like so my happy ending is Jonah says to God Wow the same mercy the same love the same grace you extended to my enemies you're also extending to me and even though I set my heart against you in the same way they set your heart against you you love to us all and God I'm sorry for what I've done and Jonah gets right with God and it's a great story everybody's happy at the end that's preferred ending number one but there's a second possible ending and we don't know which it is Jonah maintains his anger against God his self-righteous anger he says God you are wrong you are morally wrong I can prove you're wrong and I sustain my anger against you you are so wrong I hate you and I want to die and when he does die that's when he finds out he was wrong it's a bit late then I don't like that ending that's the French ending I like the Hollywood ending I like I like the Hollywood ending where it's all sugary and actually everything's really beautiful and both are possible in this particular story how will it end in your life some of you have come here you've come from all over some of you even watching online some of you have come a bit simply because you wanted to learn you wanted to find out others of you came because you heard that there might be free sweets and food and other stuff and then you came for that some of you came because you're struggling and you're thinking what does this make sense and can I know it's true and I'm really glad you're here and that's why stay in touch with us we're here to help you we really really are we would love to do anything we can to help answer all the honest questions that you have but it's entirely some possible that some of you have come here and you're either running away from God and you're angry with him or maybe you've never even truly known him but you're angry with him it's very hard to maintain that position Terry Pratchett was a guy who wrote an awful lot of these books called the Discworld novels I don't know how many of you know of him have read the Discworld at one point he described himself as an atheist who was angry at God for not not existing and if you knew Harry right should understand those those words and when a theistic God who's angry with him for not not existing just think about that the word to be bold in the bible Tomeo means to have a daring courage in order to make a valid risk it means you don't dread something because of fear and we need people of correct boldness right now if you're a Christian Here I am my challenge to you is really very simple will you be bold will you dare to stand will you take a kind considerate and an increasingly forgiving approach to all of the hatred anger prejudice whether it's directed against you or against someone else we have to model something different will you be bold will you dare to take a stand we cannot be silenced because we dread or fear we have to find a way to speak and recover our public voice otherwise we're very literally in danger of losing something all very precious altogether but if you don't know him and you've been listening to this and during the course of this day you've come to the conclusion that God is real he is here you beyond to understand something of his gospel actually that he actually loves you you may have hated him but he loved you and you'll begin to understand that God Himself came into this world he allowed himself to be insulted beaten imprisoned and crucified falsely that he took all of that anger and hatred and sin and he took all of the consequences that flow from that and all of the penalty in the judgment it deserves he took all of that onto himself and through his death and resurrection he paid a price to make it possible to forgive you if you're coming to realize that actually God is real and you need to turn to him then I really want to be able to pray for you it's a very big deal now some of you may be hearing you're thinking I'm not really sure what I think about this yet I'm still confused at a higher level as like you said in which case that's fine that's we'll explain to you in a little bit what you can do about that we would love to find a way to help you but for those of you who are here and at the end of this day you realize one thing that maybe you've allowed some own anger and hatred to come into your own heart and you need to receive a forgiveness from the only one who is able to forgive you because he's the own one who's been through what needs to happen in order to forgive you then I'd love to be able to offer a brief prayer and the prayer is really very simple it simply says God you know all the terrible things which have happened in my life and you also know the way in which I've responded to all of that too and although many things have been done wrong against me I've also know I've done a lot wrong against others and even you and I am sorry and I just thank you that you forgive me through the to Jesus Christ and through his death in his resurrection if that makes sense to you if you know what that means then I have to offer that prayer for you and we'll offer something different for everyone else so I'm gonna be just take a moment and if that's where you are then please do pray this with me dear father thank you that you know me you love me and you see me Lord thank you that he even know there is so much which has gone wrong in my life and even though there's so many things which I know I've done wrong against others but primarily against you that you loved me and you do love me not I thank you that you love me so much you stepped into this world on a great rescue mission and extended your hand of love and grace and forgiveness and I want to put my hand in yours and receive what you want for me through the cross well may I know that forgiveness and the freedom it brings as I let go Lord of whatever anger and hatred I feel against myself against others against you and Lord may I know not the power of your presence in my life or teach me what it is not only to love you but also to love my enemies and to live in a way different in the world which seems a time so bent to go against you and far the most of all we pray that we may become increasing like you that the light that you give us know what may become evident to all and that when people look at the transformation and the change you bring into my life may they recognize it wasn't me but it was actually you work in my life with the power of your son and we pray this in your son Jesus is precious name [Music]

Channel: REBOOT

Views: 819

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Ravi Zacharias, Amy Orr-Ewing, Michael Ramsden, Prof John Lennox, RZIM, Zacharias Trust, Tanya Walker, Simon Edwards, evangelism, apologetics, Jesus, God, Suffering, Science, truth, Sex, Bible, Nathan Betts, questions, faith, holy spirit, youth, church, christian, christianity, the cross, resurrection

Id: qSM9srgJ5E4

Length: 32min 4sec (1924 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 05 2018