John 3:16 in the OT (Part 2)

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Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio, with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Abendroth.

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Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

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Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the scriptures, verse by verse, with No Compromise.

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Friends, when we preach the gospel, there should be everything in us that wants to tell us about the good news of God's reconciliation.

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But friends, you've got to talk about the bad news, don't you? Why do you need a savior if there's no bad news?

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Divine judgment. Give them the message of divine judgment. Now I did some research about the four spiritual laws, because I often refer to them, and I'll say this at the very beginning.

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There are a lot of Bible verses that go along with those four spiritual laws, and guess what?

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Aren't you glad God blesses His Word? People get saved through the scriptures, and God has used these four spiritual laws because there's a lot of Bible in them.

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And so Bill Bright, Campus Crusade, said, you know, there are laws in the universe, gravity, and there are spiritual laws as well, let's go for some of these spiritual laws.

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And these are the four spiritual laws. God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life.

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Two, man is sinful and separated from God. Three, Jesus Christ is

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God's only provision for man's sin. Four, you must individually receive

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Jesus as Savior and Lord. But the most fascinating thing about all this is, did you know, when

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Bill Bright first wrote the four spiritual laws, he put number two as number one. That is, he put man's sinfulness in the separation from God as number one.

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Bill Bright's book says, so in account, originally our first law emphasized man's sin.

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But the Lord impressed me to emphasize God's love. This change was made just before we went to press.

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I had done my final editing and I left my wife, Vanette, and the girls, my daughters, to finish the typing.

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As I had been traveling a great deal, it was quite late. I went upstairs to bed. In fact, I was just at the point of going to sleep when suddenly there came to me as clear as a bell to my conscience that, in fact, there was something wrong about starting the four spiritual laws on a negative note of man's sinfulness.

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I felt that few people would say no to Christ if they truly understood how much he loves them and how great is his concern for them.

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Bill said, so I got out of bed, went to the head of the stairs and called down to Vanette and the girls to revise the presentation.

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So the first law would be God loves you. Instead of you're a sinner.

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Thus, the four spiritual laws started on a positive note. Sometime later, though, one of his daughters said to him, quote,

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I was so distressed over your change in the presentation that I wept last night. I was afraid that you were beginning to dilute the gospel and that you were no longer faithful to the

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Lord because you place such strong emphasis on the love of God rather than on man's sin.

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And she went on to say, in retrospect, I don't think I was right, but friends, what's my point?

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I hear a lot of bad press from the world and some evangelical churches and liberal churches. No hellfire, no brimstone.

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Keep it positive. Don't preach like that. But I have really yet to come across outside of some

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Westboro crazy Baptist people. Where are the hellfire preachers today?

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Where are the judgment preachers today? I think we've listened to that cacophony for so long, down with judgment, just affirm the love of God.

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Friends, we're going to look at it just a second. I want to affirm the love of God. Matter of fact, that's one of the stories of Jonah, that God does love

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Ninevites, that God is patient, that God is gracious. Notice that. Do you see it in verse two of chapter four?

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He prayed to the Lord and said, Jonah, for two, and he's displeased exceedingly. Lord, I said this.

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I told you this when I was in my own country. That's why I may haste to flee to Tarshish, for I knew God. I knew that you're a gracious,

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God, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster.

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God, you send me over here to preach and I knew you were going to save him. How could you? Because you're so gracious and merciful.

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Friends, I'm not saying don't ever talk about grace and don't ever talk about love because you've got to talk about him.

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But is there a way you can preach the gospel without talking about sin and death and hell and consider your soul?

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Does God save through a negative message? What's the answer? I hope you say yes, if that's part of the message, because Nineveh repented,

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Nineveh repented. Would you ever say this if you had an evangelistic crusade and everybody drove a long way to get to the place and you said to the people, you brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

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Would you ever say that they all went out to John the Baptist? That was the message. How does

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James talk to unbelievers? Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double minded, be wretched and mourn and weep.

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Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. How does

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James talk to rich people who aren't saved and they're trusting in their riches? Come now, you rich weep and howl for the menace, miseries that are coming upon you.

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Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth eaten. You've lived on the earth in luxury and self indulgence.

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You have fattened your hearts in the day of slaughter. What I want, as we see the book of Jonah stemming from a compassionate, gracious God who loves sinners from the same

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God who sends his son to seek and save those that are lost. The message from the loving

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God must include, if in fact it doesn't start off with the bad news of sin, because otherwise you don't know you need a savior.

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May it never be when we evangelize BBC. How'd you like to have your marriage fixed? Let me tell you about Jesus.

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How'd you like to make more money? Let me tell you about Jesus. How'd you like to have family relationships that are better?

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Let me tell you about Jesus. Friends, what do you do when you meet somebody who's an unbeliever and they have a good marriage and they have good health and they have good relationships and their kids are nice and they are involved in social activities and civil activities and they're not crooks according to law?

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What do you tell them? For Jonah, what did he have to tell Nineveh? Chapter one, verse two, go preach to them.

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God saves through preaching. Did you know Jonah is called the John 3, 16 of the

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Old Testament? Why? Why would Jonah be called the John 3, 16 of the

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Testament? So far, all this kind of judgment and sin and hell stuff's kind of made me not think about it like that so much.

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Well, let's turn our Bibles to John, chapter three for a second, find out. And the answer is going to be that God loves to save people and he loves to save people who aren't

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Israelites. God loves Gentiles. Anybody here a Gentile? Anybody here have a background?

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Somebody raise their hand. Anybody here ungodly, sinful, vile, not part of the of the of the people of God?

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And the answer is yes. And so what Jonah does is he goes, I know I'm going to go preach this message to them.

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God saves through preaching. But there are a bunch of pagan Gentiles. By the way, if I go when

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God uses Nineveh and the Assyrians to chase in Israel, I'd rather have them be not strong through repentance.

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I'd rather have them be weak through punishment. If I go there, I know God is just like you,

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Lord, to save these kind of people. And I don't want them saved. I I don't like that. They're they're not like me.

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They're not like us. And they're they're these other people. And look at what John 3, 16 says.

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It is often taken, John 3, 16, as some kind of verse for God loving each and every person.

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It's often used for Earth Day people, God loving the world Earth Day, not, you know,

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Santa Cruz, crunchy, nutty people, Santa Cruz slugs. By the way, if you ever name your university the slugs, something's wrong.

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University of California at Santa Cruz. What's your nickname? I mean, we think Redskins has some bad connotations.

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How about slugs? That's not just politically incorrect, that's just incorrect. That's really bad slugs.

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Remember, here comes Jesus and way back in Abraham's day, in chapter 12 of Genesis 15, 17, 21, 22, the plan to save wasn't just for Israelites.

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Matter of fact, Abraham wasn't even a Jew when he got saved. He was a moon worshiping pagan and he gets saved and the plan has always been a wide plan, a plan not just for the

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Israelites, a plan where Jesus would come and he'd save centurions.

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He'd save people that weren't part of the Jewish culture or race. It's like Psalm 117, let the nations praise

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God. And here, John 3, 16, let's go back up to verse 14.

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And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so the son of man must be lifted up. Verse 15, that everyone believing is the

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Greek, that everyone believing in him may have eternal life. Verse 16,

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I'll read it to you in the original. For God loved in this manner, for God loved the world in this manner, that he gave his only begotten son, that everyone believing in him should not perish but have life eternal.

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How does God love the world? What is the world? Is it the globe? Is it the evil world system? It's God loves people that aren't just Jews.

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Aren't you glad? That's why it's called the John 3, 16 of the Bible. That is Jonah, because let's go save sinners like the

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Assyrian Ninevites. Let's go rescue them. Isn't that so unlike me, if there was a bunch of people who were my enemies nationally and they were all after me,

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I'd say, God, judge them. God, get them. God, smash them.

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I might even pray in a precatory song, Psalm, smash their teeth. The next generation of children, don't let them come to bear because we want them weak.

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And here God does not leave the fallen human race to perish alone without a remedy.

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He saves sinners. And by the way, if you go to John chapter four, who does this woman, what does she think the word world means?

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Who is the world? If God so loves the world, he gives a son.

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What does it mean? What do you mean world? Our default is to each and every person who was ever born.

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That has nothing to do with it. Verse 16 of John 4. I'm going to call

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John 3 and 4 the equivalent to Jonah.

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Verse 16 of John 4, Jesus said to her, go call your husband and come here.

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The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said, you're right in saying I have no husband for you've had five husbands and the one you're with now isn't your husband.

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What you said is true. Maybe the most understated line in all the

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Bible. The woman said to him, sir, I perceive you are a prophet. Verse 25.

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The woman said to him, I know the Messiah is coming back who is called Christ. When he comes, he will tell us all these things.

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And Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am. Verse 39.

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Many Samaritans. Oh, yeah. Samaritans. They're worse than the Assyrians. Samaritans half breed, not just a non

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Jew, a Syrian Ninevite. These people are like mingled with their blood.

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These people are just, you know, many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony.

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He told me all that I ever did. So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them and he stayed there two days and many more believed his word or because of his word, they said to the woman, it's no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard ourselves and we know this is indeed the savior of the what world, the savior of the globe, the savior of each and every person.

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No, not just Jews, but Gentiles. The message back in Jonah is God's love for his people that he's created includes

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Israelites and Gentiles. I could put it to you this way.

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If you want a preaching application. When was the last time you obeyed Ephesians chapter two, verse 11, the first command in all of Ephesians in light of who

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Jesus is, in light of the father's election, the son's redemption, the spirit ceiling, in light of the praise that goes to this great

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God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in light of who you are in Christ. Here's the first thing that you want to do that you must do in light of all that.

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And what's the first thing and what was the last time you did it? Here's the imperative

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Ephesians to 11. I'll use the Abendroth amplified translation.

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See, if you don't have to write this down, it's not inerrant. Never, ever forget that you used to be a

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Gentile. But God saved you anyway because of who he is. That's Ephesians to 11, the first imperative, remember that you were a

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Gentile, that you used to be a pagan. If it wasn't for God, I would be in England worshiping a tree.

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You'd be in India worshiping a stone or you would worship something else, some kind of, you know, money, music, sex.

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It doesn't matter. It's just worship. I'll never forget the time I came home from India and I was over to India for a while and I remember getting off the plane.

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I get off the plane and I just felt weird. I felt like this, like I'm oppressed. There's like so many false gods everywhere.

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I just I couldn't tell you any other way except the subjective feel. It was just like, this is weird.

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And by the way, I'm not talking about being in Bombay. I'm talking about when I stepped off the plane at Logan. Because what we do with our idols here is a little more sophisticated than what they do there.

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But here we're idol worshiping people. We used to be Gentiles and God said, you're my child anyway. That's the book of Jonah.

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Well, let's turn back to Jonah. I guess we got to finish. I don't really want to finish, so I'm not.

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Sunday first service, you have to finish when you're done. Now, I have to I have to go through a little bit more. Jonah.

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Maybe one of my all time favorite things is when I'm hearing preaching and it's from the text and out of the text,

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I think, man, that time went by so fast, just went by fast because you're engaged and you see what's going on and it just flows.

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It says in chapter one, go preach to these Ninevites in verse two. I would be remiss if I didn't tell you that the

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Assyrian people were some of the most wicked people you could ever come up with. And you should think of Nazis on steroids.

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You should think this way, when you go into a city, just like the Nazis did in Poland, kill all the clergy, kill all the educators, kill all the people at the top.

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And then they would bring in the Nazi troops. Here's what the Assyrians did. Kill all the clergy, kill all the educators, kill all the people at the top.

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And by the way, we can't leave our forces there in the city that we've taken over. So what we can do is leave our mark.

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So let's fillet the people, flay them alive. Let's let's take their skin off while they're still alive.

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Let's pull out all the leaders tongues that we didn't kill. Let's put people up on.

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Sticks impale them. One man said pyramids of human heads mark the path of the conqueror, children burnt alive and reserved for a worse fate, men impaled, flayed alive, blinded, deprived of hands and feet, ears and noses, women and children carried into slavery.

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The city plundered. Those kind of people, God says to Jonah, I want you to go preach a message to them.

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Go preach a message to them and they're going to get saved. It's amazing that God justifies the ungodly.

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Verse three, we've got to finish here. Verse three. Okay. Before I read verse three, is there anybody in your life who you think is past saving?

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Who's too wicked? Is there anybody in your family that seems to be too much of a black sheep and they could never be saved?

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They're too far gone. They're too far long gone. I think you should think of the

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Assyrians. Here, Jonah one, three, Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish.

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There's a lot of verbs in the original Hebrew that make you just feel like it's going fast. It says in chapter four,

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I made haste to flee and it just got, he's got this feeling of running downhill, running downhill,

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Pelmel from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa, 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

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Lord. What Jonah is the prophet. I want you to go preach.

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No, I'm out of here. See you later. You want me to go that direction? I'm going this direction. No, I won't.

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I mean, I kind of get the Moses deal. God goes to Moses. I want you to preach to Pharaoh.

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Be my spokesperson. You know, I can't really talk so well. I'm not really that eloquent. I can't talk so good.

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You know, please no. Send someone else. But this isn't that this is not

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Moses saying to the Lord, could you please send someone else? This is the prophet saying, I won't go.

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No, I'm not going. And you say, this is a dumb prophet. This is a stupid prophet.

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This is the wrong way. Prophet. Doesn't he know you can't escape from the presence of the Lord? Doesn't it say two times presence of the

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Lord, presence of the Lord? He did not take Pradeep's IBS class on systematic theology. Omni all present everywhere.

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God's present everywhere. He's forgotten that. Of course, a northern prophet would do that. I'd expect that out of all the northern prophets as a prophet come out of Galilee.

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No, friends, Jonah knew about the omnipresence of God.

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It says in verse nine, doesn't it, that God who made the sea and the dry land, if you make it, you control it.

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Jonah knows the Psalms. He knows Psalm 139. He wrote a psalm. Jonah did in Psalm two.

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I mean, Jonah chapter two. This is technical language. Elisha, come to my presence and stand, the

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Lord says, and I'm going to give you a task. OK, here's the task. Go do it. Elisha, come into my presence and stand.

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I give you a task. You go do it. This is technical language where the minister says the prophet says the man acting as priest liaison says,

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I don't want to do it. I'm fleeing from my charge. I'm fleeing from my duty. You give me the baton.

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Here's the minister's job. And I say I quit. I say I'm like a pastor. Every pastor, every decent pastor, at least every

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Monday morning does the same thing. I quit. I should count up all the times I quit on Monday.

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I quit. Every pastor quits on Monday. That's why you shouldn't call pastors on Monday unless there's emergency and they want to quit.

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Even all the more. I want to quit on Mondays because I think I'm not only dealing with sinful people.

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I'm not doing a Herculean task that I can't do. I'm not inadequate for these things, but I'm also sinful, too. It's just like,

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Lord, I quit. But here's the prophet. This is what he's doing. I resign. He's not saying

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God's not in Spain. He's not way there. I'm not going to go that direction.

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I'm going to go that direction. Two thousand miles away. And God's not there. Jonah is not saying that.

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Jonah saying, you know what, Lord, I know if I go there, you're going to save those people. And when I have an altar call, every head bowed, every eye closed, no one looking around, they're all going to raise their hand.

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Every one of them is going to raise their hand. They're all going to come to the front. Every single one of them. I don't want to do that.

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Down to Joppa, he goes down to Tarshish, down into the boat, down, down, down, down. I got to run.

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Isaiah sees God. Holy, holy, holy lifted up and he is undone and he gets the message.

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Go preach. People won't listen. Aye, aye, sir. Jonah gets the message. There's a bunch of people going to get saved.

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A bunch of people, you know, my character, you know, my nature, you know, I like to save people. Go preach so they will be saved.

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I'm out of here. I quit. I quit. Quit ministry. I'm running the wrong way.

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Should look on a map. Nineveh, Tarsus. When I was a kid,

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I loved the Green Bay Packers and I hated the Detroit Lions. I hated the Chicago Bears and I ultimately hated the

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Minnesota Vikings. Those purple people eat or eaters. I hated the fearsome foursome because they were fearsome.

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I'll never forget that account where October 25th, 1964, San Francisco 49ers are playing the

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Minnesota Vikings and Jim Marshall, the defensive lineman, recovers a fumble and he picks it up and he runs 66 yards the opposite way, throws the ball in celebration only to give the

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Niners a two point safety. The wrong way. Jonah, go preach.

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And Jonah knew God saves through preaching. And if you want to have them safe, you pick somebody else.

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Jonah knows the sovereignty of God. He knows all those appointed to eternal life will believe. He he would know the fact of Acts 13, 48.

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And so he's like, but I'm not going to be the vehicle for you, God. You pick somebody else. And God doesn't need

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Jonah and God doesn't need people in ministry. He's happy to do it on his own or he's happy to do to someone else.

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But I have to say publicly before you, and I want you to get it as well. It is a wonderful thing to be used of God in gospel ministry.

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God's going to do what he wants, but to be used by God, even as frail and sinful,

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God uses sinful, frail people as his messengers, as his vessels. But what do we do instead?

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We buy into satanic providence. Hey, I went down to Tarshish, I mean,

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I went down to to the ocean. Where are you going? The opposite way.

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Hey, that's an open door. God just gave me an open door to go. How much is it? That's exactly how much

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I got in my pocket. One said, when a person decides to run from the Lord, Satan always provides complete transportation.

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But God had already said, go that way. Paul was discouraged and Jesus shows up and says, do not be afraid any longer.

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Acts 18, but go on speaking and do not be silent for I'm with you. No one will attack you in order to harm you.

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I have many people in this city. I've got a bunch of people who aren't believers yet, but they're elect. Preach to them and I'll save them.

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And can you imagine the Ninevites of all people? There's a lot of elect people there.

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They might all be elect. Go preach so God's fame can be shown forth. Jonah. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

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Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 8 30 and 11 a .m. And Sunday evenings at 6 p .m.

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We're located on route 110 in West Boylston, Massachusetts. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org

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or by phone at 508 -835 -3400. The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.