In the Felly of a Bish Part 2: Nineveh or Tarshish? Up or Down?

Father in heaven today has already been a high day and the baptism of Peter this morning at the river and then now the baptism of Brian in the church service these are things that thrill our hearts father we've seen a lot of baptisms over the last month and we hope and anticipate and believe that you're going to give us more baptisms in the weeks and months to come father we don't want to just be a social club of cultural generational seventh-day Adventist year we want to be an evangelistic fervent community a movement here in the Tweed we want to be seeing people brought to Christ come to faith surrender to Him and to know you through the word and so father today it just feels like yet another opportunity to rejoice with the angels of heaven that you are bringing people to this church family into Christ father now as we open scripture I want to pray that you'll be with us in our ongoing study of the Book of Jonah really looking forward to what you have in store for us today follow me with those young ones that are going to be listening in for the answers to the questions that I sent earlier to Inge and may we have a great time of worship and of study come into this room father and not just into the room but into the hearts of the people that are in this room and convict us in our innermost CIL's and help us to see not an antiquated dusty old story but a modern story a story that speaks profoundly and persuasively to us here today this is our prayer in Jesus name let everyone say Amen all right we continue our series on the book of what book are we in the Book of Jonah this is our second of seven does anybody remember what's that what's the sermon series title in the Feli of a I was so happy to hear one of the young people say when when Angela asked the question what are we studying through they didn't just say Jonah they said in the belly of a fish and so the fact that it's that it's lodging in your mind and we're going to tease out exactly the meaning of that as we go through the series not so much today there will be a little bit of it today last Sabbath we opened up with a quotation from a well-known rapper from the United States of America named McLemore a challenging quotation and a quotation that I took significant issue with today I want to open with another quotation this time not from a rapper but from Steve Jobs one of the founders of Apple and of course famous for not only founding Apple but taking it to the next level today it's one of the most successful companies in the world largely under the leadership of Steve Jobs and listen to this quotation area he says remembering that I'll be dead soon it's a bit of a morbid quotation a bit of a dark and almost gloomy quotation but listen to what he says remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life because almost everything all external expectations all pride all fear of embarrassment or failure these things just fall away in the face of death leaving only what is truly important a fascinating insight into the mind of one of the the great minds of the modern era he says one of the things that that drove me on and made me become what I have become is a continual conscious awareness of my own mortality of my own death he didn't have these sort of visions of invincibility and of grandeur that everything was going to be fine he was so far as I'm aware not a believer of any stripe a bit of an agnostic maybe even an atheist and he says look knowing that one day I would be dead made all the small things seem really small and it helped me to concentrate on the what he calls the big choices in life the big choices well sometimes the big choices actually are the big choices but I'm going to suggest today that often the big choices are the small ones the small choices that we make every day that don't seem like big choices at all but in fact turn out to be some of the biggest decisions we'll ever make today is our second sermon in a seven part series on the book of johna titled in the belly of a fish and today we're in part 2 scene 1 in our sermon title today is nineveh or Tarshish up or down nineveh or Tarshish up or down let's review a little bit of what we talked about last week we spent time sort of setting the table last week about the who and the what and the when and the where and the why of the book of johna and it was basically just a general introductory message and I'll just review for you that at the end of that we talked about the structure of Jonah okay there are four chapters in the Book of Jonah that are divided into basically two halves to almost equal halves two main parts part 1 and part 2 okay and really conveniently for us the first part is chapters 1 & 2 and the second part is chapters 3 & 4 now each of those parts has 3 scenes and we'll get to those in just a moment these scenes are remarkably similar and one of the things that's fascinating about the structure of Jonah we noted this last week is that it ends in a very unexpected and almost pregnant way it ends with God asking a perturbed Jonah a very specific question a loaded question a pregnant question and Jonah never answers it ends a cliffhanger of a book that feels in some sense like it was ended before it should have been we'll talk about that as we make our way eventually to chapter 4 so here they are the two parts and the three scenes we've already noted part one or section one is the first two chapters section 2 is the second two chapters and each of these scenes as I've mentioned is remarkably similar okay each of the two parts have the three scenes and those three scenes are very similar between both the first two and the second two chapters the language that I've used here to describe these scenes are the set up the build-up and the speak up to set up the build up in the speak up so we'll have six episodes of which today will be the first okay six episodes of which today will be the first JD focal Men in his book reading biblical narrative and introductory guide says this about biblical repetition for those of you that are students of scripture that have spent any time reading scripture especially some of the Old Testament prophetic books even the Psalms you will notice that the Hebrews appear to be fond very fond of repetition we sometimes talk about this in our prophecy seminars repeat and enlarge repeat and enlarge and here JP Bachman puts a sort of scholarly perspective on why the Hebrews used that repetition okay he said Hebrew prose writers as well as poets like to use the device of what's the device every one repetition and they use it systematically and deliberately at the same time they know very well that repetition for the sake of it soon degenerates into monotony this is why they developed a sophisticated technique of varied repetition with the primary purpose of expanding the richness of meanings and keeping all sorts of surprises in store for the reader I love this idea that right at the center of the Hebrew way of communicating is not to say something just once these are really important things and they're said then they're said again but with variants with just enough variants to keep things interesting and a technique that we might talk about a little bit later called information gapping where suspense is built and and a sense of expectancy and apprehension is built and nowhere is that truer than in the Book of Jonah now I made the statement last week that some of you might have found to be a little bit surprising and that is of all of the books of the bottle that I am personally familiar with in terms of a studied familiarity The Book of Jonah might be the most well organized book in the whole Bible right up there with books like the book of Revelation fantastically well organized clearly put together with intention clearly put together with intelligence okay let's just sort of unpack what we mean by these two parts three scenes and even a little more detailed I've given you this this kind of simple a little bit busy slide but it was the simplest I could make it and still communicated it communicate everything that I wanted up there so on the left side you have part 1 2 3 right those are the three scenes in the first half of Jonah think of it as a play right so you have three scenes before the intermission then you have three scenes after the intermission now you'll notice that the the first scene is what I'm calling to set up and that's what we're going to spend time on today in fact roughly what we'll be doing over the next 6 week is looking at episode 1 of part 1 episode 2 of part 1 episode 3 of part 1 and then we'll go to these scenes of part 2 so most of our time today will be spent on just chapter 1 verses 1 to 3 just three verses okay and this is what I'm calling the setup okay now in the setup we're going to see that there's just two characters there Jonah and Yahweh in fact as we noted last week the only two people that are named the only two persons I should say that are named in the whole Book of Jonah are Yahweh and Jonah that's it right the book has this and we talked about this there's almost sort of unusual unexpected feel about it there's no historical moorings there's there's no real sense of where you are or who's around it's just like this interrelationship between Jonah and God and God and Jonah okay so scene 1 today will be the setup God's call of Jonah then we'll deal next week with the build up which would be Jonah's interaction with the Gentiles on the ship and then finally the speak up which is the language I'm using for the points the points of part 1 and that's when Jonah then calls on God now this is the remarkable point notice then the episodes in the second half of the book they are basically the same okay in the setup God calls Jonah and I want you to see this if you've got the Book of Jonah open there hopefully you do it's right toward the end of the Old Testament just take a look at the first three verses of Jonah chapter 1 we're going to go back through them a little more slowly here in a moment but let me just read through them so you get a feel for their basic shape so Jonah chapter 1 first three verses it says now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amitai saying arise go to Nineveh that great city and cry against it for their wickedness has come up before me but Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord he went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish so he paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord those are the verses that we're going to spend our time on now before we get into parsing those verses just take a quick look at chapter 3 verses 1 2 3 ok chapter 3 verses 1 2 3 and notice the unmistakable similarities chapter 3 verse 1 now the word of the lord came to jonah the second time saying arise go to Nineveh that great city and preach to it the message that I tell you so Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city a three-day journey in extense do you see how the verses are almost identical episode 1 in part 1 and episode 1 in part 2 are basically identical the word of the Lord comes to Jonah the word of Lord comes to Jonah a second time the word is a rising go to Nineveh in both episodes in both episodes Jonah arises in the first episode as we're going to see today he arises to flee in the second episode he arises to go to Nineveh okay so these are sort of the two pillars the set up that are going to orient us toward the big story that the Book of Jonah is telling then we have the build-up Jonah and the Gentiles there in the city of Nineveh and then finally the speak up where once again Jonah calls on God this time not for mercy but out of frustration out of frustration and anger he calls and God says God why has this happened in the way it has happened now one of the things that's kind of interesting and this was a bit new to me I guess it was new to me in the Book of Jonah I was generally aware of it this might be fresh to you as well is that the Book of Jonah follows a really remarkable and consistent biblical template for the what we might call the prophetic call or a call of commissioning okay what we find are several instances in scripture where God makes a call on a prophet and the prophets response to God's call follows a very fascinating template okay now as we read through this template here points one to five I want you to think about for example the call of Moses or the call of Jeremiah or the call of Gideon or the call of Jonah there are others but these are the ones that really fit the template nicely at least the ones that came to my mind notice them here in the prophetic call we see that it opens with the divine Commission I need you to do something in the case of this go tell Pharaoh to let my people go in the case of Jonah go to Nineveh and tell them that their evil has come up before me okay you have this divine call but then you have an objection on the part of the prospective prophet to the Commission no I can't for some reason right in the case of Moses I can't go because I don't know the language I can't go because Pharaoh won't listen to me fascinatingly and in a slight break from this basic pattern Jonah gives no reason for his objection there is no verbiage all it says is that Jonah arose and this almost sort of leaves the reader to believe that he's going to arise to go to Nineveh because that's the very thing that God has said arise and go to Nineveh and then it says so Jonah arose but he doesn't arise to go to Nineveh he arise to flee and there's no you we never are told in chapters 1 2 or 3 why he objects to going to Nineveh it's left to the reader to sort of put himself or herself into the story and say well why not why didn't he go in fact it's all the way until chapter 4 before we are told this is what I was talking about a moment ago called information gapping we're where we're not told something that we feel like we should know that central and essential to the story so Tony doesn't object-- phurba Lee but he objects physically he he objects by way of flight ok so you have the objection to Commission then you have a divine rebuke and reassurance God responds to the prospective prophet everything will be fine with a little bit of a rebuke we see this with Gideon we see this with Moses we see this with Jeremiah and we see it with Jonah then there's some sort of a symbolic act or miracle in the case of Gideon it was the fleece in a case of Moses it was the lepers hand or the staff that turned into the snake and in the case of Jonah it's being swallowed by a great fish and then released alive and then finally there is the Commission being clarified and carried out and so in a really purposeful and intentional way what's happening in the Book of Jonah is that the author of the Book of Jonah again who we don't know who the author is we know we're not given any sense of time or place or a place we certainly are but I'm or historical moorings to the Book of Jonah we're simply introduced to Jonah or introduced to the Commission in an almost startling way Jonah's objection by way of flight is consistent with the basic way that prophetic calls happen regularly in Scripture now let's go back to these verses more carefully and let's see if we can spend the next 30 to 40 minutes in just three verses is there enough depth here to plumb in just three verses in a seemingly easy book a children's story of a book in fact there is so much information floating around in my head right now that that it's impossible that I'm not going to forget several things that I really want to say to you there's that much depth there's that much density here so let's go chapter 1 verse 1 now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amitai saying pause right there already this is unique among every other prophetic book for several reasons Jonah is unique on several accounts but one of the reasons that it's unique is that no other prophetic book opens exactly this way where we're usually oriented to who was the king under what circumstances they were king the son of somebody the son of somebody the son of somebody and then we're told there's the call there is no orientation to context there is no orientation to history there is no situational orientation here it simply says the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amitai and some scholars believe that this is purposeful I agree that it's designed to create a sort of startling sense of surprise like what where are we what's happening under what circumstances does the call come simply the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amitai saying and the word in my Bible is arise anybody else here have that arise arise anybody have anything else other than arise the word literally is up in the Hebrew it's up a rise in English has that same sort of up scent arise up now this is kind of interesting God's call to Jonah is directional and urgent up up now I don't think this is anything I've ever shared before publicly but but I've known this for several years and you might find this kind of interesting as an aside it's a bit of a fascinating point I don't think I've ever shared it probably six or seven years ago I was sitting with good friends of mine gerrae Girard and marigold are drawn sitting in their home there in Sonora California and marigold is Egyptian and her father was there and her father said to me hey you want to hear something very interesting and I said yeah what is it he said your name ash Rick sounds very much like an Arabic word and I said oh what's the word and he said the word is a schnook a schmuck and so I said Oh what does it mean and he said it means arise so I was I was actually not sure about that so I looked it up in Google and Sam you're probably the only person in here that I know of it could potentially read that can you read that Sam oh you can read it he says it okay there's my name but it's actually not of course my name the word is actually and it means arise shown brighten radiates I actually typed it into Google Translate this morning just to be sure I put in a rise in Arabic there's about 42 different words ways to say arise in Arabic it's a very you know lots of words in Arabic similar to English in that regard and I went down and I was listening to all of them - any of them sound like a Sharik and none of them did and then all the sudden the little google translator it says asuric quite fascinating right so so of course the language that God is speaking to Jonah here is not Arabic but the idea is up all right right if you had been speaking Arabic he would have said extra dick I love that absolutely love it I didn't know that by the way when we called the school arrived some 17 or 18 years ago I just think it's a happy little serendipitous moment where God is saying you're doing what I want you to be doing God's call not only to Jonah was directional and urgent we are the reader is supposed to be placing himself or herself into the story so that we feel in some senses up up now the use of this word up is purposeful because it's directional up but we're going to find that as the story of Jonah unfolds he will in fact move directionally but he will not move in the direction that God has commanded and invited him to move up look at verse 2 up go to Nineveh that great city and cry out against it for their wickedness has come up before me this must have sounded totally patently and utterly absurd to Jonah arise and go to Nineveh this is unique in Hebrew prophecy there is no other Hebrew prophet or prophecy where the Prophet was called exclusively and singularly to go to a foreign nation to prophesy against it all of the prophets are speaking either to Judah or to Israel or to both and so there are several really strong senses in which Jonah is unique among the prophets he's unique and that there's no strong historical moorings for the story also unique in the sense that that that he is told simply go to Nineveh and preach again neva maybe Jerusalem but not Nineveh maybe to Judea but not Nineveh maybe to Israel so at some level the reader should feel confronted and startled by this invitation up Jonah go to Nineveh now Nineveh was probably not at this time but would soon after be the capital of the Assyrian Empire and the Assyrian Empire in the sort of 6th 7th and 8th centuries BC was the closest thing that we would have today to like a superpower ok this is the very power by the way Assyria that in the middle of the seventh century will take Israel captive and and basically duo Israel will be gone from the face of the earth because of Assyrian cruelty in captivity so so the invitation about a hundred years earlier for Jonah to go to Nineveh what will become was one of the most significant cities and will become the capital city in Assyria would have sounded totally insane and absurd it would have sounded dangerous it would have sounded confronting it was exactly the kind of thing that you would expect not expect to hear ok his call is directional come up now I've just given you a little map here to sort of orient you this is Joppa this is where Jonah is going to board the ship ok this is where Jonah is going to board the ship take a look at verse 3 but Jonah arose same word as up Jonah did get up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord he went down to Joppa he went down to Joppa he descended is the word and found a ship going to Tarshish so he paid the fare and went down into it to go with him to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord these are the three verses we're going to spend the rest of our time on today so here's Joplin right near Jerusalem basically the equivalent of modern-day Tel Aviv in Israel modern Israel now you'll notice where Nineveh is that is to the north and the east and that is about 900 kilometers away roughly the same distance from use an Australian example roughly the same distance from Gold Coast to Canberra okay an American example Seattle to San Francisco okay arise and go no small distance and not just a reasonably large distance but a reasonably large distance into what could only be regarded as enemy territory and not just any ordinary place in enemy territory not some hideaway not some secluded you know desert hideaway but to Nineveh that great city now this is quite interesting what do you think Tarshish might be on the map yeah very good very good I heard somebody say Spain this is probably where Tarshish was we can't be absolutely certain but most scholars believe the Tarshish was located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula now let me give you a feel for how far that is a way that's like 3800 kilometers to use another Australian analogy that's gold coast to Perce okay and in American analogy that's Seattle to bogota-colombia okay that's that's all the way through Mexico all the way through Central America through North America into this the northernmost part of South America this is a long distance okay now you'll notice that it is due west God's call is to the north end of the East and Jonah seeks to flee and this is key it says it twice from the presence of Yahweh from the presence of Yahweh all the way to Tarshish now why is this significant for Jonah why is Jonah call to go on such a seemingly absurd mission well you will recall from last week the only other mention that we have in the Old Testament of Jonah is from 2nd Kings chapter 14 which is the only way that we can sort of vaguely or generally date when Jonah would have been around and when he would have carried out this mission to Nineveh 2nd Kings chapter 14 verse 25 he restored the territory of what's the word there Israel now you know the story because we've been through the Old Testament the story of Israel and Judah is fragmentation first of all into the ten tribes of Israel the two tribes of Judah okay this is somewhere in about the eighth century BC so there's massive fragmentation borders are being compromised the the story of the Old Testament is basically the ongoing encroachment of the Amalekites the amorite the Hittites the Philistines so so the borders are being compromised again and again and again but but in the time of the fourteenth king of Israel Jeroboam the second the Solomonic borders were restored it was really good news it was a sense of security it was a sense of safety it was a sense of solidification in our national boundaries and thus our national identity he restored the territory of Israel from the entrance of hamath to the sea of Erica according to the word of Yahweh God of Israel who gave this amazing word that the territory of Israel would be restored which he had spoken through his servant what's his name Jonah which Jonah oh the son of Amitai where is he from he's the prophet that was from Gath heifer so in a really ironic way we mentioned last week that they're set tire there's parity there's irony wrapped up in the story of Jonah the prophet who was responsible for the announcement of the good news under the wicked King Jeroboam the second that the borders would be secure the borders would be solidified and the original Solomonic borders would be reestablished Israel will have its borders secure and safe and we will be here and they will be there us and them it's more than a little ironic that the call to go outside of those newly established borders would come - Jonah - Jonah God's plan in the call of Abraham was always universal and never parochial I'm going to spend some time on this when God had originally called Abraham as the father of Israel and of Judah when God had called Abraham what was the divine intent to what end was Abraham called to preserve his DNA was it because there was something particularly special or righteous about Abraham why the call of Abraham well I'm suggesting here that the intent was universal and never parochial or provincial here is the original call Genesis chapter 12 this is the passage that we have reflected on many times and my three-year pastor it here so far we'll do it again and probably we'll do it again and again and again Genesis chapter 12 verse 1 to 3 let me just quickly remind you of what's happened we have raced through Genesis chapter 1 to 11 some 2,000 years of human history and five events creation fall murder flood tower let's Genesis 1 to 11 as soon as we get to Genesis 12 on to the end of Genesis chapter 50 that hole all those thirty nine chapters cover some almost maybe not more than 300 to 400 years of human history and the whole thing is the story of Abraham and his family so as we've noted before Moses races through some almost 2,000 years of human history in five events just to get to the story of Abraham and no sooner nothing into the story of Abraham then he slams on the brakes and slows down and starts telling very specific intimate details about Abraham and his family this is how that story begins the Abrahamic story to put it in very simple language Moses in writing Genesis was not setting out to write and Encyclopedia Brittanica of the early anthropology of of earth no he was just racing to get through the details that he had to get through to get to the Abrahamic story because for Moses and for all Bible writers the Abrahamic story is the central story of Scripture and listen carefully what's taking place in the Book of Jonah is symbolically a reversal of the call of Abraham and this is why God meets it with such force and such such passion and see that in just a second so here it is now the Lord had said to Abram get out of your country from your family and from your father's house to a land that I will show you I will make you a from a great nation I will bless you and make your name great and you shall be a blessing and right up to this point it feels kind of elitist it feels kind of favoritism it kind of feels like God like Abraham more than everybody else but what we find is that God was not giving something to Abraham so much as through Abraham notice the final bit here I will bless those who bless you and I will curse him who curses you and here's the punchline and in you and your descendants Abram later to the Abraham all of the families or the nation's many translations say of the earth will be blessed so the point of the call of Abraham is not about Abraham it's about what Abraham has been called to do and what Abraham was called to do was not parochial or provincial or regional what Abraham was called to do was to bless all the families of the earth including the Ninevites we can begin to see why the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 is so significant because at the Tower of Babel all the families of the earth were distributed to their geographical and linguistic areas and their different places now there was them and them and them and them and them and them and them and them and we were just one us was one of them and immediately after the dispersion and Babel is the call of Abraham where God says I don't like this fragmentation I don't want them to be us in them I only want there to be us and Abraham in you all the families and nations of the earth will be blessed I'll put this thing back together through my call of you now I love the way the contemporary English version says this everyone on earth will be blessed because of you here we see that Abram in the call of Abraham was not an end in himself but a means to an end again not that the truth was given primarily to Abraham but through Abraham he was a conduit of vehicle a channel for the whole world to receive the blessings of Yahweh now we've studied through the Old Testament here and we've learned that that ambitious original call and intent was largely forwarded by both Israel and Judah and in the case of Jonah it's being ported by Jonah but in a way that strikes at the very heart of God's intention for Israel notice why I say then here's the call of Abraham and five simple points he was called out of herb Mesopotamia he was called away from what is known as secure from your land from your father's house he was called beyond his borders to other nations nations that would bring him sometimes for situations that would bring him sometimes to dangerous locations and situations we see this in the book of Genesis where his nephew lot is kidnapped it is a dangerous situation and he has to rally a bunch of people from within his own home to go recover lot dangerous hostile situations and finally number five to be a blessing to the whole world now this is quite interesting here's our map that we looked at earlier and notice where er is this whole area here is what's called Mesopotamia it means the land between the two rivers the Tigris and the Euphrates Jonah's call was go to Mesopotamia Abraham's call was come out of Mesopotamia come out the call of Abram this is why when we come to New Testament passages like Galatians 3 we read passages like this that just jump off of the page if we're reading scripture contextually if we're reading the narrative of Scripture Galatians chapter 3 the Apostle Paul writes there is neither Jew nor Greek there is neither us nor them there is neither slave nor free the first is a national distinction in a theological distinction and a religious distinction the second is a social and a socio-economic distinction rich and poor slave and free and the third is a biological distinction there is either male nor female for you are all what is that you are all one in Jesus now notice what he says in this in the remainder of that verse of the very next verse actually he says and if you are Christ then you are Abraham's descendants and you are heirs you are inheritors according to the promise what promise well the original promise the promise found embryonic Lee back in Genesis where God said to Abraham Abraham in you all the earth will be blessed and so Paul he sees what Christ has done Christ has not only brought recovery vertically crisis brought recovery horizontally so that there's no longer black and white and you and me and us and them now there's just us if you're all one as Paul says no national distinctions no racial distinctions no socio-economic distinctions no gender-based distinctions if we are all one then there's naught of them there is enough love this the call of Abraham now notice this notice this next slide I'm going to give you here I'm going to quickly make the shift to the call of Jonah and you'll notice very few words will change on the screen very few words here's the call of Abraham as I've already presented it and then I'll quickly shift it to the call of Jonah and notice that almost nothing changed Jonah is called to Assyria or Mesopotamia same area he has called away from the known in the secure beyond his borders to another nation to a dangerous location and situation to be a blessing to his wider world so if Jonah had understood what was happening when he heard up up go to Nineveh he would have readily enthusiastically received the baton knowing Wow under my prophetic call in ministry it was not only the establishment and securing of our borders but now it's time to do what Israel was always supposed to do to go beyond our borders but Jonah like his contemporaries had lost sight of the Abrahamic mission and call they had thought that what was really taking place with something parochial and provincial and and it's about the Jews it's about us and we need to be afraid of those people and afraid of those people and afraid of those people one of the things that's going to happen in the Book of Jonah is you're going to find yourself experiencing a kind of parody a reversal of fortunes we talked about this last week with the parallels between Genesis and Jonah and how in the in the flood the wicked world was under the water and the the righteous were in a bow safe the reversal of that takes place in the story of Jonah the wicked prophet is under the water and the wicked Gentile seemingly wicked but actually repenting and rejoicing Gentiles are safe in the boat so you're designed to experience if you're reading the Book of Jonah right you should find yourself chuckling at certain occasions and saying why what in response to the call to go to Nineveh the very prophet who had prophesized the establishment of Israel's borders is now seemingly the one that God says and you will take the message you will be the front-runner you will be on the cutting edge the avant-garde of bringing the Abrahamic call to full fruition bring the message to the Ninevites and so Jonah arose and Flynn he arose and fled friends there's a few lessons here that are already staring us square in the face and one of them is on the screen here and that is the danger with God is safer than safety without him danger with God is safer than safety without him when Nineveh see when Jonah thinks of the best possible location to flee from the presence of Yahweh he thinks how far west can I go I'll go to Tarshish another way to say that is this Nineveh with God is better than Tarshish without him can somebody say Amen Nineveh was got danger with God awkwardness with God discomfort with God difficulty with God is always better than every other possibly good conceivable situation without God Nineveh whistle with Yahweh is far preferable I mean the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula if you've been to Spain or Portugal is a fantastically beautiful semi-tropical area I mean who wouldn't want to go to Tarshish but Tarshish without Yahweh is a dangerous terrible place and Nineveh with Yahweh is where you want to take your vacation that's where you want to be I believe that God is calling our church away from safety and toward godly risk do you believe that when I look out there I want to I want to see by faith a bunch of risk takers and when I say our church I don't just mean the global seventh-day Adventist Church I mean our local kingscliff Church we're a little too comfortable a little too secure it's a little too easy these chairs are maybe not as comfortable as our last year Scotty but still sufficiently comfortable love the new facilities that looks great I'm excited to broadcasting all over the world shortly but the point is this this is a really safe really secure location many of you have been going to this church for decades right and you went to the church before this church was ever planted there's a sort of parochial safety and security here you know the people you know their families in fact half of this church is related more than half a full 2/3 right thanks to Milton and Betty God rest his soul so there's there's a familial feel here there's a there's a parochial provincial and there's nothing wrong with that in fact there's a lot right with it it's what makes this church the happy buzzing familial place that it is but maybe it's a little too comfortable and what I would love to see with this medium industry and with the life groups and the serve Ellucian is that we orient ourselves away from safety away from comfort away from security to godly risk and that was a great opportunity to say Amen if you've been in America you would've said Amen you would have said a loud Amen right then to orient ourselves away from safety and security and comfort and get uncomfortable nineveh was not only outside of the borders of Israel it was outside of Jonah's comfort zone and it as a church we are doing things that are mostly comfortable we are not doing the right things if as a church we are doing things that are mostly not risky and I'm talking financially risky socially risky if we're not engaged in some level of risk are we fulfilling the abrahamic call are we fulfilling the call that God has to the church look at this God his amazing promise that Isaiah 66 that he would convert even Tarshish God's call God loves the people in Tarshish as well but Jonah's call wasn't to Tarshish and here's this pregnant little promise in Isaiah 66 right at the close of the great gospel prophet look at this it shall be that I will gather all nations and tongues as Yahweh they will come and see my glory I will send them to the nation's to Tarshish presence furthest that was as far west as you can go because in the Hebrew mindset in the Semitic mindset the Atlantic Ocean is an unknown unnavigable body of water I mean Tarshish is just about as far west as you can get in their world and here you always says I'm going to bring people even from Tarshish and pull and Lud who draw the bow and tubal in Javanese our exotic locations to the coast lands afar off who have not heard my fame nor seen my glory and they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles then shall they bring all your brethren for an offering to the Lord out of all nations and I will take some of them for priests and Levites says the Lord some of those people from Tarshish some of those people from Poland wood will become like priests in my temple this is not a parochial Jewish genetic Abrahamic thing that's happening this is the thing that's happening for the world another good opportunity to say Amen that you missed for as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remain before me says the Lord so shall your descendants in your name remain right there in Scripture is a promise gods like you I'm going to take care of Tarshish but that's not where I called you Jonah I called you to Nineveh and then you got out your travelogue you got on orbitz.com and he said how far away can I get from God's call oh look at this Jonah's flight represents all that was wrong with Israel parochial provincial safe and secure it was a revolt a river of God's original intent and calling Abraham and his descendants back for those of you that are paying attention you will remember that when we looked at those parallels with Genesis last week I said as the story of Jonah moves forward 1 2 3 4 the story of Genesis 1 2 12 moves backward there are all these signal indicators that in a brilliant technically precise and sophisticated way the story that the author of Jonah wants you to hear is this is a reversal of God's intent you should be alarmed at this you should you should find yourself angry and as the story turns out Jonah will be angry but for all the wrong reasons and we'll get there God's call of Israel wasn't about borders it was about blessings can somebody say Amen you God's call of our church isn't about keeping people out but getting them in can somebody say Amen lord have mercy this last big camp I've said this before but I wanted to show you the webpage just to encourage you once again this last big camp we just had a good friend of mine Pastor Steven Merkel come to the connections tent many of you were there and he preached a series on our theme was Church and the messages were so good and so challenging that my my associate there in the tent dr. Glenn Hughes from Alston ville he put up a website a Facebook page where you could get all of the messages and this is the way I said I want to encourage you all to go listen to those seven sermons I've shown you here how you do it you just go you just type in connections 10 2017 into Facebook connections 10th 2017 listen to those seven sermons they are profoundly challenging as to what God is calling the church to be in this day and age I have tempted just to preach his sermons but I'm not going to do it if you drag down just a little bit on that Facebook page you'll come to this one right here April 21 and you just open up this link right here and all of the sermons are in a Dropbox file you just downloaded all the sermons are there so are all the testimonies the sermon that I preached on Sabbath morning a sermon that Kim preached all everything there went really well but I want you to hear Stephen murca vicious sermons if I could somehow magically or by some technology transmitted those sermons and the knowledge of the sermons into your head right now I would do it you need to hear them man they're just right at the core of what's happening here with Jonah now let's go to our last verse verse 3 verse 3 is so technically precise I want to say this again the Book of Jonah was written by a very intelligent sophisticated person to what he assumed would be a sufficiently intelligent and sophisticated audience to hear what he was saying and this is a classic case in point look at this look at this look at the precision in verse 3 but Jonah arose to flee from Tarshish from the presence of the Lord he went down to Joppa and found a ship to go to Tarshish so we paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord this verse is a classic Hebrew chiasm which you have here out which I've here outlined for you a BCBA and in a chiastic structure apparel is a classic parallelism you have a corresponding with a B corresponding with B and C as the main point so take a look a Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of Yahweh a at the bottom to go with them to Tarshish from Yahweh's presence B he went down to Joppa B the second B he went down into the ship and here's the point right at the center in a marvelous lapidary use of chiasm he found a ship bound for Tarshish and he hired it this is really interesting in the Hebrew he hired it has as the the object of the verb of the subject of the verb the feminine the ship now this is fascinating because the ship in Hebrew is feminine and this has led many Jewish expositors to suggest and even Christian expositors to suggest that Jonah hired the whole ship he didn't just buy a fare on an existing ship there's a desperation here he is fleeing hastily trying to get away from you always presence and what have you taken anybody going to Tarshish nobody's going anybody to Tarsus I need to get away from the presence of Yahweh and finally he spends money to hire the whole ship to go on a journey that's the equivalent of Gold Coast to purse that dist he hires the whole ship and friends the takeaway here is unmistakable disobedience is costly in more ways than one a vacation to Tarshish without God will cost you far more than a few shekels it could cost you a tour of the subterranean sub aquatic deaths in the belly of a great fish disobedience is costly in more ways than one now look at this this is almost unbelievable Psalm 103 I'm going to I'm going to read you Psalm 103 the verb is the same Sun went down it's the verb descend Jonah descended to Joppa he descended into the ship by the way his his descent is not done we'll be descending next week as well and the week after but look at this it's almost unbelievable this Psalm that the connectivity and the beauty of Scripture the internal connectivity and beauty of Scripture is phenomenal look at this Psalm 103 they should jump off the page of you listen to the story of Jonah in this and County if you don't just see him you have to see it's just so obvious some went down into the sea in ships doing business on great waters they saw the deeds of Yahweh his wondrous works in the deep the psalmist continues for he commanded and raised the stormy winds which lifted up the waves of the sea this is the story of Jonah they mounted up to heaven they went down to the depths their courage melted away in their evil plights they reeled and staggered like drunken men and they were at their wit's end remember when the sailors tried to rowed ashore then they cried to Yahweh in their trouble and he delivered them from their distress he made the storm be still and the waves of the sea were hushed then they were glad that the waters were quiet and he brought them to their desired haven let them thank y'all way for his steadfast love for his wondrous works to the children of man it is an almost perfect recapitulation of the Jonas story it sounds like the Jonas story and the point here we made it last week we'll make it again here is because the Jonah story is not an isolated historical incident that Jonah's story is your story the Jonah's story is your story you may have never been in the belly of a fish but you made today be in the Feli of a and we'll continue to unpack the meaning of that as the series continues jonah saw his plight primarily on the horizontal plane oh I'm in Joppa Nineveh is to the north and the east I will go west this is the punchline of the whole message so I hope you get this jonah saw what he was doing on the horizontal plane but God saw what Jonah was doing on the vertical plane up but Jonah went down to Joppa then he went down into the ship and this is just the beginning of his descent sometimes we think we're moving horizontally we are merely making horizontal decisions I want to tell you something our horizontal decisions are not seen by God only in the horizontal realm even if blinded to us even if if unnoticed to us we are moving in the vertical realm with our horizontal decisions we are either up Jonah or we are descending into the ship and to Joppa the only alternative to living in God's presence says Kevin Jay Youngblood and embracing the challenge of Yahweh's call is to descend into chaos and death those are options you go with God or you go into chaos and death he may think that he has headed for distant and exotic places when he flees from Yahweh but in reality is headed only to the grave disobedience is costly and the rejection of Yahweh's presence necessarily means the forfeiture of his benefits look at this CS Lewis one of my all-time favorite CS Lewis quotations Lewis says God cannot give us happiness or peace apart from himself because it is not there there is no such thing that's not an option available to God to give you happiness apart from him if you go to Tarshish without Yahweh there's no happiness there it doesn't matter how white the fans are or how warm the water is or how good the snorkelling is there is no happiness apart from Yahweh meaning and transcendence and beauty and the real substance of life is found in God happiness is found in God because he has himself the source of happiness this is why we say Nineveh with Yahweh is better than Tarshish without him Psalm 139 the psalmist years before had asked this very same question where shall I go from your spirit or where shall I flee from your presence Jonas thought to flee from the presence of Yahweh some of us try to flee from the presence of God you say well I never did that I never got on a ship bound for Tarshish no but you watched that movie you watch that ungodly escape because life was just a little too hard a little too difficult and you just think you just needed to unwind and you knew you knew that it was the kind of movie that you wouldn't invite Jesus to come watch with you or the angels to come watch with you or if your children had walked in you'd be embarrassed you were watching it but you just needed an escape you thought you were moving in the horizontal plane and God saw it in the vertical it's not limited of course to movies it's any number of escapism that we have we are the generation that is married to escape because reality is so apparently boring or painful that we have to be in a continual state a catatonic hypnotic state of staring at these stupid little rectangles the world would be infinitely better if they could be uninvented you don't need to go to cartridge you don't need to pick up your phone if I ascend to heaven you are there if I make my bed in hell you are there God knows the websites that we go to God knows the thoughts that we think God knows the movies that we watch God knows the things that we think about the way that we see our mother you can't sleep from the presence of Yahweh if I take the wings of the morning since the psalmist and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea maybe Tarshish even there you'll hand shall leave you and your right hand shall hold me if I say surely the darkness will cover me in the light about me will be night not even the darkness is not dark to you Yahweh the night is as bright as the day for darkness is like the light to you and then this how precious are your thoughts of God God's posture toward you if you look at that pornographic website or you watch that ridiculous violent movie or if you speak about that person in that unkind gossip and hateful way God's posture to you is not a posture of condemnation in fact that's the big stories of Book of Jonah we're going to see it again and again God's mercy toward those who are undeserving God's posture toward you even when you're fleeing to Tarshish is not a posture of context animation or content and certainly not a posture of hate in the posture of love and a paternal care the psalmist says man I was trying to flee from your presence I ended up in Hell itself and then when I thought about it Jonah remembered Yahweh how precious are your thoughts to me O God all friends there's nothing that will dissolve the stain and the guilt of sin away as a strong sense of God's tremendous love and compassion for you even when you're in the midst of sin in fact when you were in your greatest need his love is totally and infinitely available how precious are your thoughts to me O God how fast is the sum of them if I could count how good your positive thoughts are toward me ah they'd be more than the sands of the sea when I awake I am still with you friends are you with God it's better to be with him in Nineveh than away from him in Tarshish it's better to have cancer with Yahweh than to have health without it it's better to have trial with Yahweh than to have ease without him it's better to have social awkwardness and difficulty as a teenager when you stand up for what's right then to have the acceptance of your peers without him it's better to have I know this is going to be a big one it would be better to have Oh smartphones with Yahweh than to have smartphones without him it's a big one huge friends God is not someone to flee from say it with me he is someone to flee to you don't believe me look at this Colossians chapter 3 verses 1 to 4 if then you were raised with Christ seek the things that are above not just the horizontal but the vertical where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God set your mind on things above vertical none of the things of the earth horizontal for you died and your life is hidden with Christ in God this is the central mistake that Adam and Eve made they tried to hide from God and Paul says God is not someone you hide from they should have been running to him father we made a big mistake you hide in God not from him he's that kind of a God when you're at your lowest when you're worse when you're at your most cruel or unkind or debauched or lustful God is so available to you and his positive thoughts are so big toward you that if you could count them there would be more than the sands of the sea your life is hidden with Christ in God when Christ who is your life appears you will be with him and glorious Paul so landing this plane seemed to land the plane Jonah saw his flight horizontally God saw it vertically I want to challenge you today but very few decisions that you make horizontally do not orient you vertically one way or the other I said very few things that you might take to be innocuous or small Steve Jobs said the big decisions I kept in a continual sense of my mortality in front of me so when I made the big decisions friends not just when you make the big choices but the little ones like Jonah we tend to see life horizontally but God sees our lives and he sees our choices vertically and again I just have to say this because you probably don't believe it some of you even I'm going to say it again God's posture toward you when you make a horrific ly bad choice like to flee from his presence it's not a posture of condemnation but of compassion in Christ his posture toward you is one of compassion one of acceptance his positive thoughts toward you are so big so grand so amazing that they outnumber the very sands of the sea believe that because the thing that keeps you away many of you away from Christ is a sense that that your shame your internal sense of guilt is actually a reflection of God's thoughts toward you no that's just something that's happening in your body and in your brain God's thoughts toward you are positive and and salvific and reconciliatory he longs to receive you as the prodigal son was received by his father he ran to receive him when you're in the lowest depths when you've done it again and again and again and again and again and again God's posture toward you has not changed he longs to have you turn to him he might have to put you in the belly of a bish to do it or in the case of Jonah in the belly of a fish but when you remember Yahweh and you turn to him he receives you with open arms with love with mercy forgiveness compassion and fatherly paternal care remembering that I'll be dead soon as that job's is the most important tool I ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life I'd like to suggest here today it's not just the big choices that are vertical in their basic orientation it's the little choices sometimes the big choices actually are big choices but often the big choices are the small choices like who to follow on Instagram for those of you that are under the age of 40 sorry if you're over 40 and have an Instagram account that's a small choice but I found in my own experience I've implemented a basic policy I don't mind telling you the policy because I'm a red-blooded man and I have a beautiful wife but I find other women attractive here's my policy if a site that I'm following puts up a picture of herself or of somebody else of a woman that is dressed less than desirably they're unfollowed on the first time I don't need I just found that as I was following this surfer or that surfer sometimes even this church member or that church member I would see think about how can i unsee that these are just small choices but you know what it's amazing when I can now go to my Instagram feed or to my to my web browser and know that there's a safety there there's a security there I don't I don't have to be on the lookout for what I might see because I can't unsee stuff I made what looked like a really small horizontal step that actually had vertical implications in my life it made it easier for me to be a godly man made it easy for me to turn away from things that were already trying to draw me in I told you last week that I'm taking the no sugar challenge and I'm still going strong Ruben you want strong Eli going strong ish you're strong strong Jabil how you doing good Landon there's five of us in the no sugar challenge anybody else welcome to join the no sugar challenge till January you think oh I don't eat that much sugar try not eating it see I've just made a little decision and don't get me wrong I don't think for a moment that my eating a little bit of sugar jeopardize my salvation but you know what I think it did do it's making me a better person not everything has to be salvation 'el to be beneficial that's the question that Christians so often ask this is not a Salvation issue this is not who cares if it's a Salvation issue is it a beneficial issue now lusting after women and doing that that's absolutely heads hands off you can't do that what I'm saying here friends is that you start making little choices and those little choices have vertical implications of course the big choices have vertical implications what we sometimes say well the big choices I'll make the right decision but on all these little choices whether or not to be kind to somebody to speak ill of somebody to not tell the full story when I know good and well that I'm purposely withholding details that incriminate the other person to be Moody and just sort of annoying and obnoxious just because you feel like it why not be pleasant and kind and you get the point friends the question is up or down suffer down nineveh or Tarshish which will it be God's call to Nineveh ah and Jonah's response was to go down down and we have only begun the depths of Jonah's descent I want to close by making an appeal how many of you want to say with me Jesus and the big choices and even in the seemingly little choices by your grace by your spirit and with a continual sense of your compassionate caring and accepting posture toward me I want to make choices that will orient me up not down anybody want to resonate with that today I want to make the up choices not the down choices because the down choices are not the big ones always that give me those little ones those little choices friends were only three verses in and already we've got a lot to chew on can you say Amen already we've got a lot to chew on next week we're going to be in if you want to read ahead so that you're ready to go next week we'll be in verses 4 to about the end of the chapter let's pray together father in heaven today we are all like Jonah or have been like Jonah some of us are in a state right now of Jonah Ness and others have come out of Jonah's and father I suppose others could not even yet beat Jonah have not even yet heard the call up father I just pray for the teens I pray for the 20s and the 30s and the 40s and everything above I pray for all the members of this church at whatever situation that they find themselves that in life right now are they early life or they teen or they preteen or they midlife are they in the twilight years of their life at whatever stage we are Father what a testimony to see Brian at the young age of 80 climb into that Baptist tree and say I'm so happy I found this now father wherever we are whatever the horizon the Vista is that we are at the place that we are at in our life father the prayer of my heart for this church is that we wouldn't take it easy and that we wouldn't be safe and secure and comfortable that we would begin to engage in godly risk not the worldly risk of fleeing to Tarshish not the worldly risk of putting things into our brains that are compromising us vertically but that we would take the godly risk of saying you know whatts financial risk a social risk a personal risk a career risk that puts Yahweh at the center that's not risky at all there is no risk when we put God first but there is infinite risk when we turn so father give us a strong sense not only of the horizontal which so occupies our thoughts and attention we live in the horizontal world the Father give us an increasingly strong sense of the vertical world father help us to have a strong sense of your presence and to not an our folly try to flee from the presence of Yahweh father we all have our escape isms we all have our little devices by which we flee I pray that you would under your mighty hand and your tremendous overflowing grace crush our escape isms so that we will stay with the psalmist I just have one thing that I desire and that is to dwell in the house of Yahweh all the days of my life father may we live in a continual state of a sense of your presence and may we think that to flee your presence would be the worst possible situation because we find here our home our happiness our salvation and our Father and our elder brother Jesus in whose name we pray let all of the former and present Jonah's say Amen god bless you all happy seven

Channel: Kingscliff Church

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Length: 69min 1sec (4141 seconds)

Published: Wed May 31 2017