The Message (Part 1)

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

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

The Gospel Is Too Good to Be True

It's too good to be true. When things are too good to be true, you better watch out. When Mrs. Nairobi dies and she says, her husband says in this email that if you just send your banking information and routing information to Nigeria, you'll get a lot of money.

Online pop-up, just register for this free iPad. Send in your information. Walking downtown Boston with the Johansons and there's a little sign on a bicycle, a nice carbon fiber bicycle, a Greg Lamond bicycle, $80, call this number.

It's just too good to be true. Almost everything that comes across like that seems to be too good to be true. Just pay $20 for this scratcher and get $80 gazillion. Just too good to be true. I like to teach my kids that.

You know, immaturity and naivete doesn't understand that not everybody in this world is out to help them. Some things are just too good to be true. But you know, there's an exception. The gospel isn't too good to be true.

I mean, out of anything, if it's too good to be true, this should be too good to be true because can you imagine? The God who made every one of you and expects perfect obedience, expects reverence, thanksgiving, praise.

This God who made us knows we've sinned, knows every one of our sins. Every time we've failed, he knows our shortcomings. He knows our transgressions. He knows our trespasses. He knows our iniquities.

He knows every one of those. We try to hide them in the closet. We try to hide the skeletons and bury them deeply, but he knows every one of them like we committed them right before his face. And he's just, he has to punish every sin that's ever been committed.

Do you know there will be no sin unpunished. Jesus will have to pay for them. Our people will have to pay for them in hell. But even though we're corrupt and fallen and foolish, Jesus is righteous. Jesus is a reconciler.

Jesus is a redeemer. Jesus is a representative. He's a substitute and he's been raised from the dead. And for those that put down their weapons of warfare and repent and trust, can you imagine? Every sin forgiven.

Aren't you glad you're forgiven? Wouldn't you like to be forgiven? It's too good to be true that there's a God who should discipline us and chasten us and punish us, yet he loves us and he's demonstrated that and continues to demonstrate that toward us that while you were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

It seems to be too good to be true that God can save wicked people, that God justifies the wicked. It's too good to be true. You mean I can have all my sins forgiven? All those sins in the past, sins now and in the future forgiven?

Yes, because Jesus is a great Savior. It's not too good to be true. Let's turn our Bibles to Jonah chapter 1, 2, 3, and 4 today. Why did I say that? Well, I was going to say chapter 3, but we're going to read some in chapter 1 and 2 as well.

Today I'd like to talk to you about the God who saves sinners and evangelism. The God that can save sinners and evangelism. I think there are many things Bethlehem Bible Church does by the grace of God that could be commended.

If Jesus were to write a letter to our church like in Revelation, you know, the seven letters, there might be some chastening, but there would probably be a few things that we would do well by his Spirit's power.

But I'm positive that we could be better evangelists. I'm positive that we could more regularly tell people about Jesus and forgiveness. My old pastor once said he'd fly around the world and people would sit next to him and they'd say, what do you do for a living?

And he'd say, well, I fly all around the world and tell people that you could have your sins forgiven, all of them in Christ Jesus. Are you interested to talk about it? Can you imagine forgiveness? When's the last time, I'll ask you the question, when's the last time you told someone about Jesus and how they could be forgiven?

Now there's a great commission. God the Father sends the Son into the world to rescue his bride. But there's a lesser great commission, small g, and that's the great commission, go make disciples, right?

Lo, I'm with you always. If this is the great commission, that it'd be a great sin not to do it, when's the last time you said to someone, in spite of all your sins, you could be forgiven? By the way, when you do talk to people about forgiveness, it's one of the most exciting, thrilling things that could ever happen to you.

Now Jonah was a preacher. Jonah got to evangelize, and that's what we're going to look at today. But to catch us up to chapter 3, what's happened so far in the story of Jonah? Well, chapter 1, Jonah, go preach for me.

He's a prophet, he's been redeemed, he's been commissioned, he's been given a message, he's been given a duty, and all of a sudden it's, no, I'm not going to go. And so he tries to run away the wrong way, he goes down to Tarshish, he finds a ship going in the opposite direction, and he tries to get on it, he does get on it, everything just works out seemingly perfectly.

There's the big issue with the sailors and the storm, and the sailors throw him out of the boat, out of the ship, and it says in verse 17 of chapter 1, the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

Then, chapter 2, verse 1, Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish saying, if you move down to verse 9 of this psalm of Jonah, in Jonah 2, he now does what the pagans did at the end of chapter 1, how do you worship God with a voice of thanksgiving?

I will sacrifice to you what I have vowed I will pay. The theme of Jonah, the theme of the Bible, the theme of the universe, in Christ Jesus salvation belongs to the Lord. And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon dry land.

The Second Call to Jonah and the Lesson of 1 Kings 13

Then chapter 3, the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time. Now what would you do if you were God? What has God often done to prophets who would say, no way, stiff farm, I don't care what you say to me, I'm not going to do it.

I don't care that they're going to go to hell, let them go to hell. Now I think my dad might say something like, Mike, I've had it up to here with you. It's amazing, while we regularly say God's the God of the second chance, God's the God of the third chance, the hundredth chance.

When a prophet goes before God and says no, what happens? Well, turn your Bibles to 1 Kings chapter 13, and let me just give you an illustration. Here's what's happening in the book of Jonah. Jonah knows if he goes to the Ninevites, it's 1 Kings 13, Jonah knows if he goes to the Ninevites, God's patient and kind and gracious and slow to anger, and he'll save those wicked people.

Now Jonah deserves to die for saying no to God. And other prophets have died for saying no to God, but God is teaching Jonah the lesson that he's patient, that he's gracious, that he's slow to anger, and he's kind.

But take a look at 1 Kings chapter 13, we'll pick it up in verse 11. If you don't regularly read the Old Testament, may I encourage you to do that for lots of reasons. Here's one today. Now an old prophet lived in Bethel, 1 Kings 13, 11.

And his sons came and told them all that the man of God had done that day in Bethel. You're going to regularly see in this passage, man of God, man of God, man of God, man of God. That's a title really for preacher, for proclaimer, for prophet.

No wonder Paul writes in 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17, that all scriptures God breathed. It's profitable for all kinds of things that the man of God is adequate, thoroughly equipped for every good work. That's for preachers.

They also told to their father the words that he had spoken to the king. Verse 12, their father said to them, which way did he go? Son showed him in the way that the man of God who came from Judah had gone.

He said to his sons, saddle the donkey for me. So they saddled the donkey for him and he mounted it. And he went after the man of God and found him sitting under an oak. He said to him, are you the man of God who came from Judah?

You're the preacher, you're the prophet. Yes, I am. Come home with me and eat bread. I may not return with you or go in with you. Neither will I eat bread nor drink water with you in this place. For it was said to me by the word of the Lord, you shall neither eat bread nor drink water there, nor return by the way that you came.

I also am a prophet as you are. And an angel spoke to me by the word of the Lord saying, bring him back with you into the house that he may eat bread and drink water. The word of the Lord said, don't do it.

Yeah, angel told me to do it. The end of verse 18, but he lied to him. So he went back with him and he ate bread in his house and drank water. As they sat at the table, the word of the Lord came to the prophet who had brought him back and he cried to the man of God who came from Judah.

Thus says the Lord, because you've disobeyed the word of the Lord, prophet, and have not kept the command that the Lord, your God commanded you, man of God, prophet, but have come back and have eaten bread, drunk water in the place of which he said to you, eat no bread and drink no water.

Your body shall not come to the tomb of your fathers. And after he had eaten the bread and drunk, he saddled the donkey for the prophet for whom he had brought back. Verse 24. And as he went away, a lion met him on the road and killed him.

And it wasn't because he was hungry and his body was thrown into the road and the donkey said, stood beside it. The lion also stood beside the body and behold, men passed by and saw the body thrown in the road and the lion standing by the body.

And they came and told it in the city where the old prophet lived. And when the prophet who had brought him back from the way heard of it, he said, it's the man of God who disobeyed the word of the Lord.

Therefore, the Lord has given to him the lion which has torn him and killed him according to the word that the Lord spoke to him. See what's going on here? I saved you, I redeemed you, I commissioned you, I give you the mantle of prophet, you do what I say.

Yes, sir. He didn't do what he said and the lion eats him. But for Jonah, because God is gracious and long-suffering and kind and he's going to exhibit that in the life of the Ninevites. No lion swallows Jonah, but a fish does instead to rescue him.

Jonah's Recommissioning and the Prophet's Message

Let's go back to Jonah chapter 3. We always think God is the God of second chances and many times he is. But Jonah, in spite of himself, saying, I'd rather die than go preach and have these people get saved, doesn't get his wish.

And the word of the Lord, Jonah 3, 1, came to Jonah the second time. Amazing. Amazing in this passage, this book about love and sovereign grace and redemption and salvation and the character of God, grace towards sinners.

We get a little resolution in these verses 1 through 10 in chapter 3. Let's pick it up and look closely at chapter 3, verse 1. Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah. What do you mean then? What was the previous verse?

What's the connection? The Lord spoke to the fish, chapter 2, verse 10. It vomited Jonah out upon the dry land. What was the timeframe between getting spit out and regurgitated by a fish to off to preach?

One month journey to get over to Nineveh. What's the timeframe? The point is we don't really care about the timeframe. It's that the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time. We don't really know when.

It's important that he got the call, not how long did it take. Yeah, but did he have to have physical recuperation? What about all that gastric juice of the fish that's on his face and he's going to have a bleached out face look, some kind of weird look and he wants to look better.

What's the point? Because of disobedience of Jonah, God's will is not going to change. I want these Ninevites saved and they're going to be saved and he could have picked a different prophet, but he's going to use Jonah as a great illustration for Jonah, for the Ninevites, and for us to see.

Verse 2. It's going to be kind of deja vu, by the way. It's going to sound exactly like chapter 1, verse 2. Arise. One, two, arise. Go to Nineveh. One, two, go to Nineveh. That great city. One, two. That great city.

And call out against it. One, two, and call out against it. And now it changes the message that I tell you. You're going to preach my message. And so you failed ordination number one, ordination number two.

Here's the recommissioning. I want you to rise. I want you to go and I want you to preach. And I'll tell you the message. You preach my message. The message that I give you. Go herald. That's the job of a prophet.

That's the job of a preacher. I was looking at some want ads quite a while ago. I think I've shared these in the past. Want ads for pastors. Now, one day, I'm going to die. You're going to have to promote within or hire from without.

Let's say Steve and I and Harry and Pradeep and everybody dies altogether so we don't have to worry about who's on first because we'll all be in the grave. And you have to hire a new pastor. What would you look for?

Well, lots of churches, they do this. Well, what Mike was good at, he had some weaknesses, and so let's hire somebody who was strong to complement Mike's weaknesses. And so how do we hire a new pastor?

And you can pay a lot of money to research firms to figure out how to hire a new pastor. Michael Horton got some want ads for pastor. I don't know if this was from monster .com or where this was from, but these are some things that you should look for in a pastor.

He's a people developer. We want someone who is a team builder. We want someone who is innovative, progressive, change initiating. We want somebody who is a problem solver. We want a good administrator.

These are all want ads for pastors. We want someone who is approachable, who is dynamic, who is catalytic. This is a true one. We want someone able to lead worship through drama, audiovisual technology, banners, and dance.

I thought I was good at that. What's the most important thing for a prophet, for a proclaimer, for a preacher, even for an evangelist? Most telling, one ad, degrees in music are business required. A degree in theology, preferred.

Jonah, you have one job in your life, one privilege, and it's to proclaim the message. You can hear almost echoes a thousand years later when Paul writes to Timothy, I solemnly charge you in the presence of God, even of Christ Jesus, who is going to judge the living and the dead, preach the word.

That's your job is to preach, a formal proclamation. And that's what the word is in Jonah chapter 3 verse 2, to go proclaim. There's an announcement, I have talked to the king, received his message, and now I proclaim the message of good news to you as an ambassador.

I speak for the king. That's why you proclaim, by the way. I don't proclaim to you because I'm better, because I'm worse. But I have a message from the king. If it's my own message, then I'm going to share it with you.

If it's my own message, we'll have a nice talk. But I have a message from the king. It's like Ehud coming to Eglon. I have a message for you, O king. And so Jonah is going to go into the city and he's going to preach.

Chapter 3 verse 3, heralds must preach, prophets must preach, evangelists must preach. So Jonah arose. Wow, it's so different now than chapter 1. It's different. He's not disobeying this time. He arose and went to Nineveh.

If you go by camel, if you go by donkey, if you go by caravan, it's going to take a month to get there. It's going to take longer if you walk. And now he's going to do the right thing, according to the word of the Lord.

Yes. Now, Nineveh was an exceedingly great city. The way the Hebrew is, it's a God-sized city. It's a city of God. Yes, even this Ninevite city, it's a city of God. There are people there who are the image bearers of God.

They're eternal souls in Nineveh. It's a God-sized city. It's three days journey in breadth. Now, there's all kinds of inks filled about what's that mean. It takes you three days to walk across the city.

And, you know, if you stopped in the middle and preached some, we could see that. It takes three days to walk around the outside of the walls. It takes three days to walk around the outside kind of the environment.

It's almost like saying, go to Worcester and preach, but he walks around Princeton and he walks over to where... Who else needs preaching? Holden. You people who live in Holden need preaching. Fitchburg especially.

And so, it doesn't really matter how big the city is. Nineveh was bigger than Jerusalem. And there's some Old Testament illustrations of, say, go to some city. It means the environment around it as well.

The neat thing is Jonah went to preach according to the word of the Lord. Verse 4, Jonah began to go into the city. Going a day's journey. What was his message? He called out. He preached. He proclaimed.

He has a message from the Lord. He called out. Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. Five simple Hebrew words and the original 40 days of purpose right here. In case you missed it before. Forty days over and over and over and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

Not three points in a poem. Judgment. Now, you say, wait a second. Is it all judgment? Yet 40 days Nineveh will be sacked. The word is to decimate, to destroy. Total destruction. It shows the thoroughness of the destruction.

It's the word used in Genesis 19 .25 with Sodom and Gomorrah. It was totally destroyed. Same word here. Forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. There's not grace in the words, but there's grace in the time period.

You've got 40 days to repent. Lot had a few hours to get out of Dodge. And then the city is destroyed. You've got 40 days. That is gracious. That is slow to anger. That is kind of the Lord. That is gracious of the Lord.

This city, Nineveh. This, as one man said, this Sodom of a city. Gets a message. Repent. Now, I don't know how much time took place between the vomiting and the preaching. That's kind of a funny thing to say, isn't it?

I never thought I'd say that publicly in my life. What's the time period between the vomiting and the preaching? I don't know, but I bet you his face still looks bleached out. I bet you he still looks pretty funky.

And now he's coming preaching. And now you've got the seaweed, turban-headed, bleached-out face prophet. And he walks in. Forty days, your city is going to be overthrown. Can you imagine getting the marching orders?

Here's your marching orders. Go to Baghdad before the Americans took over. And just start walking around telling everybody, Jesus is the Savior and Muhammad is a false prophet. And by the way, make sure you get some of that kind of whitening stuff on your face.

I know you're thinking about Michael Jackson. Stop it. I know you are. Stop it. Sin is serious. Judgment is on its way. Repent now. Consider your soul. Finally, by the way, the mariners are obedient to God.

The winds are obedient to God. The whale, the fish, in other words, rather, is obedient to God. And now we have Jonah who's going to do the right thing. Forty days and then judgment. Now let's talk about something for a minute.

The world is saying this to Christians. You better shut your mouths. Idaho, there's that marriage place where a pastor and a pastorette marry folks, some kind of marriage chapel. You better marry homosexuals or else.

Military, I thought about being a military chaplain years ago, but decided not to do it for a lot of reasons. If I was in there now, it's you better shut your mouth. The world, you can just see it. I used to think to myself, well, you know, by the time they're going to throw me in jail for saying Jesus is the only Savior and even died for the sins of homosexuality and all kinds of other sins, by the time they do that to me, I'll be retired.

I'm going to make it. I'll let my kids go to jail, but I'm going to make it. It is coming so fast and furious. The world is saying you better muzzle your mouth. You better shut your mouth. And if you don't, we're going to restrict you.

We're going to jail you. You know what? It's okay. It's like China with communism. You can believe whatever you want. You can be a Christian, but you can't tell anybody. Just believe it in your minds.

Jonah was told, look at chapter 3, verse 2 again, the message that I tell you, and I want to just stop here for more than a moment. Christianity depends on a message that is proclaimed. The way people get saved is always the same.

These days, Abraham's days, and our days, there's a message that must be proclaimed. Faith comes by hearing a message about Christ Jesus. We are a proclaimer. We might not have the office of pastor or prophet or something like that, but we proclaim.

And now the world is saying, you shut your mouth, so we'll shut it for you. And so simultaneously, liberal Christianity has gotten into the door of main evangelicalism and hurting evangelicalism in a big way with things like this.

Friends, you are the message. You are the fifth gospel. Just live your life in such a way that you be the message, let people see your life changed, and then you be the fifth gospel, four gospels they've never read, but they might read you.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts. 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.

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