1:1 Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil1 has come up before me.” 3 But Jonah rose 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, away from the presence of the LORD.
4 But the LORD hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up. 5 Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his god. And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep. 6 So the captain came and said to him, “What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call out to your god! Perhaps the god will give a thought to us, that we may not perish.”
Jonah Is Thrown into the Sea
7 And they said to one another, “Come, let us cast lots, that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. 8 Then they said to him, “Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?” 9 And he said to them, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” 10 Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, “What is this that you have done!” For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them.
11 Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?” For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. 12 He said to them, “Pick me up and hurl me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.” 13 Nevertheless, the men rowed hard2 to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them. 14 Therefore they called out to the LORD, “O LORD, let us not perish for this man’s life, and lay not on us innocent blood, for you, O LORD, have done as it pleased you.” 15 So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. 16 Then the men feared the LORD exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows.
A Great Fish Swallows Jonah
17 3 And the LORD appointed4 a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Footnotes
[1]1:2The same Hebrew word can mean evil or disaster, depending on the context; so throughout Jonah [2]1:13Hebrew the men dug in [their oars] [3]1:17Ch 2:1 in Hebrew [4]1:17Or had appointed
1:1 Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil1 has come up before me.” 3 But Jonah rose 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, away from the presence of the LORD.
4 But the LORD hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up. 5 Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his god. And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep. 6 So the captain came and said to him, “What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call out to your god! Perhaps the god will give a thought to us, that we may not perish.”
Jonah Is Thrown into the Sea
7 And they said to one another, “Come, let us cast lots, that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. 8 Then they said to him, “Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?” 9 And he said to them, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” 10 Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, “What is this that you have done!” For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them.
11 Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?” For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. 12 He said to them, “Pick me up and hurl me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.” 13 Nevertheless, the men rowed hard2 to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them. 14 Therefore they called out to the LORD, “O LORD, let us not perish for this man’s life, and lay not on us innocent blood, for you, O LORD, have done as it pleased you.” 15 So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. 16 Then the men feared the LORD exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows.
A Great Fish Swallows Jonah
17 3 And the LORD appointed4 a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Footnotes
[1]1:2The same Hebrew word can mean evil or disaster, depending on the context; so throughout Jonah [2]1:13Hebrew the men dug in [their oars] [3]1:17Ch 2:1 in Hebrew [4]1:17Or had appointed
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Joel Brooks:
If you would, open your bibles to the book of Jonah. Feel free to use concordance. It's a very small book. It's right after Obadiah, which doesn't help you because Obadiah is 1 page. It's one of the minor prophets.
Joel Brooks:
You have a 1 in 12 chance. And I'm gonna read all of chapter 1. Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it. For their evil has come up before me. But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.
Joel Brooks:
He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went on board to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord. But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea so that the ship threatened to break up. Then the mariners were afraid and each cried out to his god, and they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep.
Joel Brooks:
So the captain came and said to him, what do you mean, you sleeper? Arise. Call out to your god. Perhaps the god will give a thought to us that we may not perish. And they said to one another, come, let us cast lots that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us.
Joel Brooks:
So they cast lots and the lots fell on Jonah. Then they said to him, tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country?
Joel Brooks:
And what people are you? And he said to them, I am a Hebrew and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, what is this that you have done? For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord because he had told them. Then they said to him, what shall we do to you that the sea may quiet down for us?
Joel Brooks:
For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. He said to them, pick me up and hurl me into the sea, and then the sea will quiet down for you. For I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you. Nevertheless, the men rode hard to get back to land, but they cannot for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them. Therefore, they called out to the lord.
Joel Brooks:
Oh lord, let us not perish for this man's life and lay not on us innocent blood for you. Oh lord, have done it as as it pleased you. So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea and the sea ceased from its raging. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish 3 days 3 nights.
Joel Brooks:
Pray with me. Lord, I ask that through your spirit you would give us an understanding of your gospel in this place tonight. As we see the gospel here on paper, may you write it on our hearts through your spirit. We need to hear from you, Lord. Each person here is prone to build on sand instead of digging down into the rock.
Joel Brooks:
I pray that we would listen to your words for this for us in this place and we would build on the rock, and that rock is Jesus. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, but, Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. And I pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. We've been going strong in Luke now for about 16 weeks, and so I thought we would take a brief break for 3, maybe 4 weeks to look at the book of Jonah.
Joel Brooks:
I know that I said in just last that we're gonna be looking at the book of Jonah as a way of kind of fleeing away from Jesus's teachings that have been so hard, but that's not why we're studying it because you're certainly not gonna flee from that by reading Jonah. In many ways, the book of Jonah is actually the Sermon on the Mount or the Sermon on the Plain in story form. That's what you see here because in Jonah, we find a man who's called by God to love his enemies, to not judge his enemies, to bless those who were persecuting him, and he resist. He did more than resist. He got up and ran, and he's a very religious man, but he's a very religious man who didn't understand the gospel.
Joel Brooks:
He's someone who spent his entire life building on sand instead of digging down and building on the rock, and God exposes that. And so he's good for us to study, good for us to read because I think in the book of Jonah, we perhaps have the best picture of the gospel of anywhere in the Old Testament right here. The best picture. We need to constantly be reminding ourselves of the gospel. As we look last week, the understanding the gospel, a lot of times it takes hard work.
Joel Brooks:
You to dig and you have to dig and before you ever find that rock, this story helps us dig. I think it helps us dig because it gives us this concrete picture, a very vivid picture of the gospel. You know, we use words all the times like sin. We use words like grace, but here you get a picture of sin. Sin is running away from God.
Joel Brooks:
Grace is God running after you, and you get this very vivid picture. And that's what this book is about. It's about sin. It's about grace. It's only 48 verses.
Joel Brooks:
You can read it in about 10 minutes. But here, we get this picture of the gospel. Now, there's a lot of other themes besides just sin and grace, but I think that's the thrust of the book. I I went through this this week, and I I studied a whole lot of different commentaries, because Jonah's always intrigued me. At the University of Georgia, freshman English class, we study the book of Jonah.
Joel Brooks:
Because they said it was an outstanding example of, ancient prose and ancient poetry, and they were right. It's a it's a story that captures your imagination. It kinda draws you in. Whether you're out in the Christian faith or whether you're outside the Christian faith, you've heard of Jonah. You've heard it.
Joel Brooks:
There's a lot of commentaries. I I read one called Jonah, a model of faith in film in Hollywood. Pretty interesting. Another commentary was, Jonah, the honeymoon is over. Another commentary was, Jonah, a psycho religious approach, which had such stimulating chapters as this.
Joel Brooks:
This is the chapter title, A Socio Rhetorical criticism as methodology in its relation to interdisciplinary models. That's what I'm gonna preach on tonight. There's a lot of different ways you can look at Jonah, but don't forget that the basic thrust is the gospel. Sin, running away from God. Grace, God not letting you.
Joel Brooks:
If I had to write a commentary, I'd call it God and His grace will hunt you down. He will hunt you down. Now outside of this book, we don't know much about the prophet Jonah. We've got an obscure reference to him in 2nd Kings chapter 14. It says that he was the prophet to King Jeroboam, and this was a very prosperous period in Israel's time, and so being a a prophet during this time, you would have had a lot of respect.
Joel Brooks:
You would have been well known. And here the word of the Lord comes to him, and it tells him to rise, get up, go to the great city of Nineveh, some about like 500 miles this way to the east, and preach against it. And so, Jonah rises and he goes 500 miles the opposite direction to what is now Spain, what they would have considered the ends of the earth. And and when you see this here, you gotta realize this is not just disobedience. This is so much more than disobedience, and disobedience would have said told God when God said, I want you to rise.
Joel Brooks:
I want you to go to Nineveh. Disobedience would have said no, and he would have just kept on doing what you were doing. This is outright defiance. This is rebellion. This is not only no, it's I'm gonna go the exact opposite direction.
Joel Brooks:
I need to get away from your presence. The phrase in the word of the lord came. This is a very common phrase that you find in a prophetic call. In the word of the lord came to Elijah or the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah. It's when a person receives their call.
Joel Brooks:
They receive their purpose in life through this call. And so, when Jonah flees from this, he's not just disobeying. It's what he's saying is, Lord, I reject your purpose for my life. I reject your will for my life. Here's god say, Jonah, I've created you for this purpose, and Jonah responds, I reject that purpose.
Joel Brooks:
I'm gonna be my own god, alright? I'm not gonna build my life on your words. And this is different than kinda the initial hesitation to accept the call that you find in people like Moses or Gideon or Jeremiah. You know, when they when the word of the lord came to them and god visited them, they put up excuses. You know, Moses said, well, Lord, bad idea.
Joel Brooks:
I can't really speak. Jeremiah said, I don't know. I'm just a young boy. Get somebody else. But you have in those stories, they're at least dialoguing with the Lord.
Joel Brooks:
They're praying with the Lord, and they later accept the call. Here, Jonah doesn't dialogue. God tells him, this is what I want you to do, and he goes, opposite direction. No. Just runs away.
Joel Brooks:
And when one turns away from God, you're fall apart. And so no matter how scary god's word is, you know, you're gonna fall apart. And so no matter how scary God's words are to you when they come to you, no no matter how unnecessary his words seem to you when they come to you, how unnatural they unnatural they are when they come to you, you've gotta hold on to them because if you ignore them, if you rebel against them, your life falls apart. And Jonah is a very vivid example of how this happens. So on Kierkegaard, I love his definition of sin.
Joel Brooks:
I only use it here about every other week, but he he said that sin is simply building your identity on anything other than God. Building your identity on anything other than God. And here we see Jonah. He's built his identity on being a Israelite, a well respected and success successful prophet. He's built his identity on being very moral and religious.
Joel Brooks:
He has not built his identity on God's call for his life, on God's Word. And so when God calls him to leave this very prominent, prophetic position in Israel and go to the pagan heathen Ninevites. He says, I'm not gonna build my identity on that. God, you will not be the center of my life. I don't know if you can identify with that.
Joel Brooks:
I I can identify with many times God not being the center of my life. You know, what I found is often what you you most hate in another person or you most despise is the very thing that you've built your life on. And I've shared this before, but you know, if you're at, you know, you're at Walmart or or Kmart or someplace and and the people are so slow, so unhelpful there, and you despise them for that. You just drives me crazy. It's because you value, I'm a really good hard worker.
Joel Brooks:
That's what I am. I I work really hard. And you've kinda built your identity on that. And when you're trying to help the poor and and there's some poor that are just you're like, you're poor because you're lazy. That's what you are.
Joel Brooks:
You don't work at all, and it kinda makes you angry as you're helping the poor. Why? Because you pride yourself on the fact that you're not lazy. I've made the most of my opportunities. And you built your identity on that.
Joel Brooks:
And here at Jonah, he's asked to go to some people who aren't moral, who deserve god's wrath, and he's saying you need to give it to them. I'm not gonna go there because I know they're gonna repent. I'm not gonna go there because I built my life for my own self righteousness. That's his god. Verse 3 says that he flees from the presence of the lord, and we just read in our responsive reading that you cannot flee from the presence of the Lord.
Joel Brooks:
Jonah would have known that. That song was written before he even lived. He knows you can't run away from god. I mean, after all, if god's gonna be with him as he goes to Nineveh, certainly knows god's gonna be with him as he goes off to Tarshish. And even when the the sailors confront him, he says, alright.
Joel Brooks:
I worship the god who made the land and the sea. Translation, I worship the god who's everywhere. He knows he can't outrun god. And to flee from the presence of god, and the word presence in Hebrew is literally face. He is fleeing from the face of the lord.
Joel Brooks:
Means he's trying to break his relationship with God. He doesn't think that by going 500 miles in opposite direction, he's literally gonna outrun him. He just thinks, no. When I get to Tarshish though, they're the people, they don't read the Hebrew Bible. They don't go to synagogue.
Joel Brooks:
They're not gonna look down at me for my disobedience. Nobody's gonna confront me about that. I'm not even gonna hear the name of the Lord, and so I'm gonna flee from His presence. I I kinda think of this as, you know, if you have a breakup between a guy and a girl, we'll just say the girl breaks up with the guy. The first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go back to their home or their apartment.
Joel Brooks:
They're gonna get rid of all the pictures of them together. You know, forget pictures. They're gonna change their Facebook status. Single, you know. Take take take their man out of their fab 5 in their phone or something like that.
Joel Brooks:
They're gonna they're gonna return any gifts that they might have gotten or at least give them to other people. They don't want anything that reminds them of the person they were once so attached to. That's what Jonah is doing. It's like, I don't I don't wanna be around anything. I don't wanna be around the temple, other Israelites, the Hebrew scripture.
Joel Brooks:
I don't wanna be around anything that will remind me of my relationship with you, God. I'm going to Tarshish where they know nothing and live among them. He is breaking up with the Lord, fleeing from that relationship, fleeing from His face. Now we all do this. All of us are runners.
Joel Brooks:
I was thinking my life, I think probably the most common way I run away from God is I run away from prayer. You know, when I pray, I become painfully aware of who I am. I become painfully aware of God's call in my life, which a lot of times I don't want. And so, I just try to avoid prayer a lot of times. You know, turn on the music in the car instead of be silent before the Lord.
Joel Brooks:
Go home, turn on the TV instead of be silent before the Lord. I try to make myself too busy to where I can really pray, to where I can really just hone in on the Lord. And and for me, a lot of times, my busyness looks really good. I can prepare sermons, just really tear into different commentaries. I could go to the homeless shelter.
Joel Brooks:
I can serve the poor. I could go speak at school chapels. I could do different things like that, really good things, and I could be utterly devoid of any kind of prayer life. That can happen. A lot of times, we actually flee from the presence of god by becoming very religious, And all we're doing is running.
Joel Brooks:
Jonah is a religious man. Some of you flee by avoiding certain people you know the Lord wants you to talk to. Maybe a person you sinned against, You're just like, well, I'm just I'm gonna avoid wherever they are. They call, no way, screening it. You're fleeing.
Joel Brooks:
Let's look at why He fled. You know, your first temptation is to think that he fled because of fear. I mean, he's being asked to leave this great prominent position and go to Nineveh, which was a pretty dangerous place. It's the soon to be capital of Assyria. It's a very large city.
Joel Brooks:
Most people think it's about 2,000,000 people at this time. It had a a 60 mile circumference, a wall 60 miles in circumference. At about a 100 feet high. Some of the towers, there were over 1500 towers on this wall, 200 feet high. It took a 1000000 people 8 years just to build the walls of this city.
Joel Brooks:
And so it was a very imposing city. And it was full of pagan evil people. Israel knew even though they were being very prosperous right now, they could see the writing on the wall as dominant Assyria is rising to power, and they knew what the Assyrians would do to them. And here, Jonah's being asked to go to his enemies, These very powerful enemies. I I kind of have this mental picture and it'll show my little nerdy side, but I picture a little Frodo Baggins and I picture him going to like the gates of of Sauron.
Joel Brooks:
It's like and he's supposed to go in there and say, you know, you've all been so bad, you know. It's a death wish. That's suicide to do that. But that's not why he runs. He might have been a little scared.
Joel Brooks:
Probably was, but that's not why he runs. We find out later, but I'm gonna go ahead and give you a hint. It's not like you haven't read this book before. Probably a lot of you have. He actually says, well, god, the reason I'm running is because I know if I go there, they'll repent.
Joel Brooks:
I know if I go there, you will be merciful. You will be kind. You're gonna be gracious to them. You're not gonna destroy them. You're gonna turn all their hearts towards you.
Joel Brooks:
That's gonna happen, and I will not have it. I will not have it. You know, Joseph is a self righteous, self centered bigot. It's probably a good description of him. That's who he is.
Joel Brooks:
I mean he might have been a prophet, but he has absolutely no understanding of the love of God. He's hypocritical. He's full of hatred. And get this, I think that's exactly why God chose him to go and to do this. You would think, you know, I'm sure there's other options there.
Joel Brooks:
I'm sure there's some pretty missional minded people, some people are very kind and gracious. But no, he picks the one who will judge. He picks the one who has hatred. He says, now, I want you to go to them. And he does that because he doesn't only wanna change the Ninevites, he wants to change Jonah.
Joel Brooks:
He's gonna use Jonah's enemies as a way of teaching him the gospel. Jonah seemed like a good moral person on the outside, but inside he is absolutely full of hatred, and God says, we need to deal with this. I don't care if you've been to church your whole life. I don't care if you're an amazing preacher. You are filled with hatred.
Joel Brooks:
And I think God still works this way. You know, he's gonna call you to go and love that one person. You know, if I said everybody close your eyes and think of that one person, all of you instantly have this one person who comes to your mind that you really can't stand, God's gonna use that person to work the gospel in your life. He wants you to go to that person. That that neighbor, you know, who has all the parties, plays the loud music, refuses to ever cut their lawn, who you just really don't get along with at all, god wants you to love that person.
Joel Brooks:
A matter of fact, God wants you to to go and talk to that person and they are gonna teach you the gospel. They're gonna drive you to the gospel. It's what we looked at last week. If you if you have had if you weren't here last week, go back and listen to the podcast. So much of the sermon is built on that because this is what we saw in Luke on the sermon on the plane in which God gives you a command and you can't obey it.
Joel Brooks:
I can't I can't obey that. You know you're gonna fail because your heart is rotten, and so it drives you to the gospel. And when it drives you to the gospel, you you find the resources that you need to then turn around and obey the command. And that's what's happening here. Jonah receives a command by God.
Joel Brooks:
Go to the Ninevites. And he says, I can't do it because I want them destroyed. I don't want you to be compassion for. I can't do it. And this is gonna drive him back to the gospel because god's gonna show him by putting him on a boat and the way he behaves and all that he does that he is just as wicked as the people he was sent to preach.
Joel Brooks:
There is no us and them. There's simply Jonah sinner, Ninevites sinner and I'm gonna pursue both. So Joseph, I mean Jonah, he runs, but God runs after him. God does this by sending a storm, and this is not just any storm, this is a pretty huge storm, and you need to see this storm not as God's wrath, but actually as an act of mercy. It's a big act of mercy.
Joel Brooks:
This isn't God's wrath being poured out on Jonah and just punish him. No. God's wrath would have actually been this. Okay, Jonah. Go.
Joel Brooks:
Go. I'll find somebody else. That's that's fine. Do what you want. But god loves Jonah too much.
Joel Brooks:
For Jonah, he he thought he thought that going to Nineveh would be hell, and his mind is like, that is hell, absolute hell. But that's not hell, and he's gonna start to realize it. Hell is actually when you flee God's presence. Hell is when you say, God, I don't want you in my life. Hell is actually when God says, okay.
Joel Brooks:
I won't be a part of your life. I'll forsake you. I'll let you go, And God will not let Jonah go to hell. And so he pursues him by sending this storm, and I love this, the way the storm is described. The NIV is somewhat misleading.
Joel Brooks:
If you have it, just just just throw the NIV away on your way out. No, it's it's a good translation, but it's it's sometimes it's misleading. And one of the things that it does is it makes it seem like there's Jonah goes down into the boat and then there's a storm. And actually, the Hebrew, it's the opposite. There's this great storm that comes.
Joel Brooks:
And Jonah, he sees the storm, and he knows what's coming. While everybody else is running into action, Jonah actually begins shutting down. Doesn't do a thing, and he just slowly walks down into the depths of the ship. He knows what is gonna happen, and he just goes and he falls asleep. It's really interesting the word for for laying down in Hebrew when he when he laid down to sleep there is actually used for when a person is laid down prostrate by a blow.
Joel Brooks:
Picture somebody coming up behind somebody and just knocking them down to their knees or down on their face. That is the word that's used for it right there. Now I'm not saying that that happened to Jonah, but but he's being forced down. It's like the weight of everything. The consequences of everything are just driving him down to his knees, and the word for sleep there is only used 4 times in the Bible.
Joel Brooks:
It's the same word that's used for when God puts Adam to sleep and takes out a rib. God does surgery to him. It's the same word you find in Genesis 15 when Abraham goes into that deep sleep and has the vision of the melting pot of God coming to him between the the animal halves when God's making his covenant with Abram. It's the same word that's used when Daniel falls into his stupor and has has his visions. You can actually translate this a sleep unto death.
Joel Brooks:
He is knocked out, and what I think is happening here is that Jonah, he's he's giving up. He sees the storm coming. He knows he's run. He knows his life is falling apart. He knows he's disobeyed God, and he just doesn't care anymore.
Joel Brooks:
And so, while everybody else is trying to do all these little things, he he just goes down and he just surrenders and he falls asleep. I can identify with this. I don't know if you can, but there's been times in my life, times when there's just been so much going on. I feel like I got so many people angry with me. I got way too much on my plate, way too much to do.
Joel Brooks:
I'm I'm doing nothing well at all. I feel like I've somehow just kinda missed God's calling in my life. I don't I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just so frustrated and all I wanna do is sleep. If you ever feel that way, you just wanna sleep.
Joel Brooks:
That's Jonah here. So he wants to go into a deep deep sleep. Some of you, I think you're so deep into sin. You're so deep into it. You just don't care about fighting anymore.
Joel Brooks:
You just you know, there was a time you cared, there was a time you tried, but you're so far gone from the Lord's will right now, you just don't care. You just wanna go to sleep. God won't let you. For for those of you who think you could just do that, God is not going to let you. He's gonna He's gonna pursue you.
Joel Brooks:
He's gonna keep sending storm after storm after storm in your life. He's gonna make you wake up and deal with this, but God's gonna keep pursuing you. The captain of the ship, he comes down, he says, What are you doing? How can you sleep? Arise, get up, call out.
Joel Brooks:
And Joanie kinda get this picture. He's being woken from this this deep, deep stupor, and he hears the same words, the same verbs that the Lord had called to him earlier. Arise. Call out. And it's like he's waking up from a nightmare.
Joel Brooks:
And he looks and and sure enough, the the boat is just being seized on by wave after wave. And and the sailors, they get them up and they're like, somebody's done something. This is not a normal storm. Somebody's done something. The gods are sending this, and so they they cast lots.
Joel Brooks:
I mean, do you really think Jonah was surprised? You know, as they're kind of maybe they're drawing straws or something and he gets the short straw. I mean, it's like, oh, wow. I mean, he knows it's coming. He knows it's coming.
Joel Brooks:
So they all look at me like, what have you done? What have you done? He's busted. Let me tell you what, that's mercy. You're gonna run away from God.
Joel Brooks:
God's gonna send storms into your life. He's gonna totally disrupt your life. That's mercy. He's gonna slow you down, and you're just gonna say, I just wanna sleep. I just wanna put it all aside.
Joel Brooks:
He's gonna go, no. You're gonna get up, and I'm gonna bust you in your sin. If you're out there and you've got anger issues, I'm gonna bust you. You got pride issues, I'm gonna bust you. If you're sleeping around, I'm gonna bust you.
Joel Brooks:
I'm gonna bring it all to light, and that is mercy. That's absolute mercy because hell would be to let you keep going on with your life like that. Hell would be to let a person just sleep it off. He's not gonna do it. He's not gonna allow you to keep that sin in the dark where it has power over you.
Joel Brooks:
He's gonna bring it to the light. I have never met anyone who was busted in some sin, and was not thankful for. Now, I've met a lot of people who, you know, maybe they were, you know, addicted to to pornography or they were sleeping around or they're on drugs or something like that or having an affair, and they were initially extremely angry, extremely embarrassed. But then later, they became so thankful that God busted them. And then they listen to the call of God and you in their life because when it says the word of the Lord came, you have to realize that when the word of the Lord comes, just like the word of the Lord came in creation, when he speaks, he creates.
Joel Brooks:
He gives life. And when people stop and they repent and they hear the word of the Lord come into them, again, once again, there's life. There's joy. And then instead of fleeing from the presence of God, they start realizing that, you know what? In the presence of God there is joy.
Joel Brooks:
In His right hand there's pleasures forevermore, and they're thankful for being busted. God needs to bust some of us in this room. If you're tired and you just wanna go to sleep and you're sick of struggling, know God won't let you. If you wanna keep running, know that God won't let you. He's too good of a God to do that.
Joel Brooks:
Too gracious. Pray with me. Lord, I thank You for Your Word. May it bear fruit in our heart. Remind us of Jesus as we come to this table.