Craig Groeschel Botches the Story of Jonah

Fighting for the Faith

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if you have your bible flip on over to the book of jonah the book of jonah i'm going to point out the punchline of this uh great book by the way and there's a gospel punchline in here and i want to teach this text a little bit here point out the the clear symbols in the text the the illusions the types that point us to christ and his resurrection and then and then you know and then kind of point out the punchline here in preparation for our sermon review today so craig rochelle in the past i've reviewed sermons of his and what i've noticed is is that he's not particularly innovative as a as a megachurch pastor in fact the the sermons i hear him preach oftentimes are the same types of sermons that i heard when i was growing up a very legalistic almost clueless when it comes to the fact that christians need to hear the gospel and you know it just complete confusion of long gospel seems to be a standard thing with craig rochelle but uh let me let me point something out here from the book of jonah and it's going to take me a little bit to read through this so work with me here we're all familiar with the story of jonah and the whale that's what that's how it's taught to kids although the text itself says big fish now i'm not going to give you all of the background story to this i'm going to let craig rochelle do that in his sermon because he actually does a decent job of at least explaining why the israelites of jonah's day did not like in that's like like an understatement um why there was such animosity towards um the people in nineveh and so you know i'll let craig explain that to you but let me let me look at this text here jonah chapter one verse one 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 the evil that has come before me but jonah rose to flee to tarshis from the presence of the lord and he went to joppa and found a ship going to tarshis so he paid the fair and went down into it to go with them to tarshish away from the presence of the lord but the lord yahweh 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 laid down and was fast asleep so the captain came and said to him what do you mean you sleeper arise and call out to your god perhaps the god will give a thought to us that we may not perish okay pause right here okay so here's the scenario god the word of the and the question is why is jonah running okay and so the way this hand this text often gets mishandled and mangled is that jonah is somehow the reluctant prophet okay now on some level that's true but there's a very specific reason why jonah doesn't want to go to nineveh okay and the fact that the ninevites are like these cruel cruel war criminals i mean that what they're get what they're guilty of is just absolutely beyond the pale as far as i mean seriously if the ninevites were a lot around today they would be brought up on war crimes i mean that's how brutal and terrible they were in uh in in battle and the things that they did to towns and cities that conquered it's unspeakable the torture that they that they went to but see that doesn't exactly explain it either it's not just that well they're bad people that's not the issue there's a there's actually a gospel reason why jonah doesn't want to go and it's in the punchline of the story so i'm telling you that here so that you can remember this as the story unfolds now notice here that god at this point sends a tempest and the fact that jonah is asleep inside of the the ship jonah knows what's going on he knows what's going down and god at this point is you know is disciplining and you'll notice that the raging tempest and all this kind of stuff is a result of his rebellion and sin okay so in this as we read this there is actually a you know a sacrifice of atonement to calm the wrath of god theme in here that you can tie directly to christ but also when we get to the story of the big fish there is a death and resurrection type and shadow here that jesus picks up and uses for himself in his own ministry uh and so let me let me read here okay so uh verse seven so 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 a lot fell on jonah surprise surprise so then they said to him tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us what is your occupation where do you come from what is your country and of 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 so 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 he said to them pick me up and hurl me into the sea and then the sea will be quiet uh will quiet down for you for i know it it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you nevertheless the men rode hard to get back to dry land but they could not for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them therefore they called out to yahweh oh yahweh let us not perish for this man's life and lay not on us innocent blood for you oh yahweh have done as it pleased you so they picked up jonah and hurled him into the sea and the sea ceased from its raging and the men feared yahweh exceedingly and they offered a sacrifice to yahweh and made vows i'm going to stop right here amazing story and the human sacrifice elements even though the shadow here is really kind of foggy to see you can see the shadow of the of the human sacrifice of christ and in a very similar way um god's raging and wrath against our sin okay is quieted because of the sacrifice of christ for our sins you can preach the gospel from this text so clearly and the this text has a gospel punchline here so i mean this is not these types and shadows here of the of christ's crucifixion to propitiate the wrath of god notice that god's wrath is propitiated by the sacrifice of jonah by throwing him into the sea also you'll notice that their prayer that god would not hold them accountable i think i personally think that there's a tie -in that you can even pull into there regarding pilot and washing his hands of the crucifixion there i there's you can clearly preach the the crucifixion and christ's our sins from this text okay then it continues and the lord appointed a great fish to swallow up jonah and jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights um just so you know jesus uses this exact exact you know miracle if you would uh in matthew chapter 16 where he for the sign of jonah okay so jesus's own death and resurrection is likened to the sign of jonah so this idea that somehow you know this that jonah's story ties to christ that's not something i invented and it's not something the church invented that's actually jesus himself makes that point uh in matthew chapter 16 that where he considers jonah's quote death and resurrection three days in the belly of a great fish you know in a sense he was dead for three days and then rose again you see that you see the idea here that idea doesn't come from me that's jesus's own thing and he says that that is a sign so again what did jesus say an evil adulterous generation seeks for a sign but no sign will be given to it except the sign of jonah okay so jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights jonah prayed to the lord his god from the belly of the fish saying i called out to the lord out of my distress and he answered me out of the belly of shale i cried and you heard my voice for you cast me into the deep into the heart of the seas and the flood surrounded me all your waves and your billows passed over me then i said i am driven away from your sight yet i shall again look upon your holy temple the waters closed in over me to take my life the deep surrounded me weeds were wrapped about my head at the roots of the mountains i went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever yet you brought up my life from the pit oh lord my god when my life was fainting away i remembered the lord and my prayer came to you into your holy temple those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love but i with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you what i have vowed i will pay salvation belongs to the lord salvation belongs to the lord so the story of jonah is intimately wrapped up in the whole salvation propitiation of the wrath of god um a sacrifice to propitiate and salvation belongs so you got death resurrection it's all there right there in the text okay now i'm not going to tease all the elements out here but i'm just trying to point out the anchor points for it all now chapter 2 verse 10 the lord spoke to the fish and it vomited jonah out onto the dry land now this is the that's the verse that all the kids like to hear in sunday school and everyone goes okay but again the story doesn't end there and you don't stop the story here yet so many people when they teach this text they stop it right here the story continues and like i said it has a gospel punch line then the word of the lord came to jonah the second time saying arise go to nineveh that great city and call out against it the message that i tell you so jonah rose went to nineveh according to the word of the lord now nineveh was an exceedingly great city three days journey in breath jonah began to go into the city going a day's journey and he called out yet 40 days and nineveh shall be overthrown this is the message that god gave him to preach and the people of nineveh believed god that's the amazing part when you understand and i'll let like i said i'll let craig rochelle do the backstory here when you understand who these people were and what they have done jonah shows up in a foreign pagan city and he preaches really the basically the penalty for your sin yet 40 days in nineveh shall be overthrown the people of nineveh believed they believed and see this is the best part the people of nineveh believed god they believed and you know what god did he forgave them jesus himself says that the people of nineveh will rise up on the last day and they will condemn those who didn't believe jesus why because now nineveh nineveh these pagan gentile war criminals torturers they repented at the of the prophets that god sent them but nineveh did and so they like you and like me are declared righteous by faith and trust in the one true god who forgives sins because as jonah said salvation belongs to the lord so they believed they then called for a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least of them now the word reached the king of nineveh and he rose from his throne removed his robe covered himself with sackcloth and he sat in ashes and he issued a proclamation published through nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles let neither man nor beast herd nor flock taste anything let them not feed or drink water but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth and let them call out mightily to god let everyone turn from his evil ways and from the violence that is in his hands who knows god may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we may not perish when god saw what they had done how they had turned from their evil way god relented of the disaster that he had said that he would do to them and he did not do it now this is the reason chapter 4 verse 1 reveals the reason why jonah didn't want to go to nineveh but it displeased jonah exceedingly and he was angry and he prayed to the lord and said oh lord is this not what i said when i was yet in my own country that is why i made haste to flee to tarshish for i knew that you are a gracious god and you are merciful and you are slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster that's the reason why he fled you see it's not exactly that he was quote a reluctant prophet that he just had an obedience problem the reason why according to jonah from his own mouth the reason why he fled to tarshish was because he knew that god is gracious and that he's merciful and he's slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster jonah wanted nineveh to be judged and for god to destroy them he wanted them to face the wrath of god because that is exactly what they deserved and he's right that is what they deserved see the gospel hook here you and i deserve that too you and me both we have sinned grievously against god we don't deserve his good blessings we don't even deserve to be breathing his air and see this is all about salvation and grace think about it god forgave nineveh this would be like god forgiving hitler it would be like god forgiving the nazis that's how scandalous this is and that is the reason why jonah didn't want to go and if you preach this text without this punchline you miss the whole point the reason why he didn't want to go is because he didn't want them forgiven he didn't want them to repent and to be forgiven and for god to relent what good news it is that god relented what great news it is that god forgave and was merciful even to the people of nineveh because then i know he can be forgiving to a sinner the likes of me and the likes of you turn repent it is not long before god overthrows you and you face the wrath of god return repent and believe for salvation belongs to the lord he is kind merciful gracious slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and resent and relenting from disaster especially the disaster of hell that's the whole point of this text that's the punchline and when you leave that punchline out or you don't even have it in view when you preach the front part of jonah you end up turning this into a law passage and a law text and jonah is just riddled with nothing but mercy grace forgiveness of sins death and resurrection it's all right there in god's wrath being propitiated and it points us to christ all right so the reason i brought all that up well is in preparation for our sermon review today and we are up on our second break and if you'd like to email me regarding anything you've heard on this edition or any previous editions of fighting for the faith you can do so my email address talk back at fightingforthefaith .com

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forward slash cheap okay we're back our number two of fighting for the faith sermon review time like i said we're going to be listening to a craig rochelle sermon regarding jonah but let me do this the right way all right here we go the good the bad and well the ugly we review it all here at fighting for the faith we're an equal opportunity sermon reviewing service today's sermon comes to us via life church dot tv craig rochelle presiding the name of the sermon is entitled well jonah now as you listen to this sermon on jonah ask yourself a couple of questions well like this is craig rochelle rightly handling this text does he have any clue regarding what the punch line is for this um text and the reason i ask is because as you listen to this um it may become patently obvious that he's completely missed the gospel which is so clear in jonah when you just read it in context and you let the text speak for itself by the way this is the reason why exegeting passages is a wise thing to do and any pastor before launching into a sermon on a particular biblical text it behooves him to have read the whole work for instance it'd be silly to start an entire sermon series on like the book of isaiah if your pastor has never read isaiah or has only read chapter one these certain pieces kind of fit together there anyway you get what i'm saying so ask yourself is he even realize what's in chapter four because what's in chapter four makes all of chapter one make sense when you get to chapter you get what i'm saying anyway so let's kill the music and without any further ado here is craig rochelle and his sermon entitled jonah welcome today to all of our campuses we're so glad that you're with us let's pull out our bibles together open them to the book of jonah it's a bit difficult to find so if you want to go to your table of contents you can do that that's not cheating or a little hint it is between obadiah and micah or my bibles on page 901 don't know if that'll help you or not but uh anyways there how many of you basically know the story of jonah you pretty much know the story of jonah a lot of people do story of a guy who doesn't do what god wants him to do uh god puts him in the belly of a big whale he lights a candle the whale throws him up on shore and he gets to be a real boy for the rest of his life okay no that's pinocchio he's got him muddled up well what we're gonna do is we're gonna look at a story that a lot of people consider to be kind of a kid's story that you hear about in sunday school but the truth is the story of this reluctant prophet jonah really will speak into all of our lives if we listen to the spirit of god so let's start today in jonah chapter 1 verses 1 through 3 it will set the context for us here's what scripture says the bible says the word of the lord came to jonah the son of amittai and this is what god said god said go to the great city of nineveh and preach against it because its wickedness has come up before me in verse 3 though we see jonah's unfortunate response scripture says what help me out all of our campuses the bible says but jonah did what jonah ran away from the lord and he headed for tarshis he went down to joppa where he found a ship bound for the port and after paying the fare he went aboard and sailed for tarshis to do what he sailed for tarshis to to flee from the lord he was a man on the run let's look at some of the meaning behind a few of the words if you're taking notes first of all jonah he's called by many as the reluctant prophet he was a prophet of god that often did what was right but in this particular story we're going to find that he did not obey god at all his name if you're taking notes it actually means dove so he was called the dove or the peaceful one who ended up disobeying god and is now known as the reluctant prophet next word in your notes is the word amitai or amittai and that is his father he was the son of amitai amitai actually means truth which is a great name for a prophet to be the son of truth uh nineveh was the the city that he was commanded to go and preach to nineveh was the capital of assyria and nineveh was israel's absolute foremost worst enemy israel hated the ninevites and you'll see why as we go on into our study let's look at verse one again and as we do as we start to look at this story i believe that god may show you what he's shown me that i we all have a little bit of jonah in us jonah 1 1 says this help me out the bible says the what say it aloud the the word of the lord one more time all the campuses you guys can do better the what the word of the lord came to jonah the son of amitai good news is that the word of the lord will come to you today god is a god who loves to speak whenever god created he said let there be and there was he created with the spoken word john 1 1 says in the beginning was the word and the word was with god and the word was god and the word became flesh and dwelt among us god is a speaking god god created adam and eve because he wanted to love and kick now that's a weird point the word of the lord's going to come to you like it came to jonah i'm not a prophet are you a prophet something's screwy here on this god is a speaking god god created adam and eve because he wanted to love and to be loved he wanted to speak he spoke with adam and eve in the cool of the day in the garden he is a speaking god throughout history god speaks in different ways god has often spoken with the audible voice god has often spoken through his prophets god so apparently the the word of the lord came to uh jonah somehow means that the word of the lord is going to come to you and god's word can come to you in many various different ways that's not what this text is teaching on this god created adam and eve because he wanted to love and to be loved he wanted to speak he spoke with adam and eve in the cool of the day in the garden he is a speaking god throughout history god speaks in different ways god has often spoken with the audible voice god has often spoken through his prophets god has spoken through circumstances god has spoken through the voice of his holy spirit if you've never ever heard the voice of god you can and will today if you simply open up his word this is his word it's described self -described as living and active it's sharper than any two -edged sword this is his word that pierces it is truth that is living it will transform the word of the lord will come to you and god will speak to some of you a very specific word his word will be to change something to move in a new direction to be obedient to what he says to you and you'll have a choice you can do what god wants you to do and that is to be obedient to his word or you can do what jonah did and said i don't want to be obedient to you the word of the lord man talk about turning this into a moralistic teaching good night so when the word of the lord comes to you you can either be a tragedy like jonah or you can just obey that's not what this text is about notice he's basically turned this into an all -law moralistic sermon on a text that if he'd just take the time to read it he'd realize oh wow there's a ton of gospel in here makes me wonder if he knows what the gospel is we continue i want to be obedient to you the word of the lord will come to you that's the good news the challenging nude for many people is this if you're taking notes when god's word comes to you he will often ask you to do some things that you don't want to do he'll often ask you to do some things that you don't want to do and the reason we don't want to do them a lot of times is because we really like to believe that we know what's best we like to try to convince ourselves that that we really know what is better for example all of our campuses if you guys could help me out what's best chocolate or vanilla vanilla or chocolate how many of you say chocolate hands down chocolate how many say vanilla vanilla all the way some of you voted twice that is not fair at all okay what is best well strawberry is best okay you know we whatever we like to think we know what's best sometimes someone in authority or someone with more knowledge will tell us what to do and we say i don't want to do that i feel like i know what's best my family and i we were in colorado for some uh some time off and i took my three oldest girls we went on a little hike and a lady came running up to us and said you guys have to leave here now and i'm like look we came here this is a public place why and she's like you just have to leave here now get out of here now and i'm like why and she said because there is a bear up in that tree oh i see okay and there was there was a little bitty black bear a really cute little baby black bear and she just said get out of here now so guess what we did do you think we left actually no i took my phone out that had a little camera on it got as close as we could i'm taking pictures you know cute little bear look at a baby bear baby baby baby beer and all this stuff and she came up again she said get out of here now i'm like why she's an innocent little baby bear and she said whenever there's a baby bear close by there's usually a so we got out of there okay when i understood the context of the assignment i understood the reason behind it uh then we went home this is true and we got back to our little the place we were staying and guess what we saw mama believe it or not mama was in our garbage can eating our leftovers from the night before so there was big mama bear little baby bear and we were goldilocks and we got out of town i mean we just left it freaked us out bears everywhere on vacation a lot of times we feel like we know what is best and we don't want to obey when the word of the lord comes to us this was the context of jonah and we see this actually take place in uh now remember that jonah himself stated exactly why he went to tarshish okay and here's what he said again jonah 4 -1 but it displeased jonah exceedingly that is that the ninovites repented and he prayed to the lord and said oh lord is this not what i said when i was yet in my country that is why i made haste to flee to tarshish for i knew that you are a gracious god and merciful slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster so you know apparently the word of the lord is now going to come to you like it came to jonah and you just need to obey and and not end up in the belly of a fish like jonah did this is a cautionary tale now about obeying when the word of the lord comes to you unbelievable he misses the whole point the whole point is the gospel oxen we got out of town i mean we just left it freaked us out bears everywhere on vacation a lot of times we feel like we know what is best and we don't want to obey when the word of the lord comes this was the context of jonah and we see this actually take place in uh verse two here is the command god says to him go to the great city of nineveh and do what god said i want you to preach against it because this wickedness has come up before me now you might wonder well okay jonah's a prophet and that's what he does is he preaches god's word so why didn't he just obey this very simple assignment well when you understand the history of nineveh or the assyrian empire you understand a little more why he hated them now stop okay notice here he's going to explain his jonah's disobedience in light of his hatred of the ninevites that is not a sufficient answer that's partly true but the reason is is that he didn't want god to forgive him that's what jonah himself says in the history of nineveh or the assyrian empire you understand a little more why he hated them the assyrian empire of which nineveh was the capital city whenever it was rumored that the assyrians would be attacking somebody they were so brutal in the way they would handle the captives they would torture them and just be so destructive that occasionally when it was rumored that the assyrians were going to be attacking sometimes a whole town of people would just commit mass suicide because they would rather die that way than to experience what was coming that's how feared the assyrian empire was and they were hated let me tell you a little bit about you can read this in history books this is what they would do they would go in and they'd take over a city they'd kill all sorts of people then the surviving women they would rape before they would kill them they would often even rape the little girls they would torture some of the kids and then they would take the husbands who are prisoners of war the men they take them outside the city and they would skin them alive then once they were skinned they would actually bury them in the desert sand up to their necks you can imagine the pain they would be in then they would take their tongues and they would pull their tongues out and they would drive a stake through their tongues so that they would go crazy as they were dying of thirst in the middle of debt the desert and then all through the night they would make them listen to paris hilton cds just to there's a line about that last part but the rest of it is all true you can just you can you can start to imagine the horror of you're you know a stake driven through your tongue and and most people would go crazy before they died then once they were dead they would behead them and they would take the heads of all the prisoners of war and they would make a pyramid of heads outside the city to say to the rest of the world this was a city that we conquered okay when you know that maybe you have a little more mercy for john and when he said i don't want to go there i hate these people that's not what he said see jonah actually explained in chapter four why he didn't want to go you don't seem to be aware of that little fact the prisoners of war and they would make a pyramid of heads outside the city to say to the rest of the world this was a city that we conquered okay when you know that maybe you have a little more mercy for john and when he said i don't want to go there i hate these people it could have been that he had a relative or a friend or someone who actually experienced that he despised them god said i want you to do something and in his mind he had some legitimate reasons why he didn't want to obey god maybe you can relate the word of the lord will come to some of you and you will hear specifically from god this is what i should do and in your mind you may think okay i understand that's what you want me to do but i don't want to do it i don't want to have anything to do with it perhaps you can relate in different ways maybe someone has wronged you and hurt you or or hurt someone that you love and the word of the lord comes to you and the word of the lord for you is to forgive them to forgive as you have been forgiven and you look and you go i don't want to they don't deserve it i don't feel like forgiving them i know that's what god wants me to do but i don't want to do it i know a lot of you have have heard the teaching of the tithe the biblical tithe that the scripture is crystal clear his and his teaching on the tithe is not what the bible teaches by the way a lot of you have have heard the teaching of the tithe the biblical tithe that the scripture is crystal clear that god trusts us to manage his resources and and ten percent the first ten percent of what he trusts to us belongs to him we don't give the tithe we return the tithe as an act of worship and yet a lot of you have heard that and you're like i don't want to do that i know that's what god said but i don't want to because in my mind that doesn't make sense and i like my things more than i want to obey god i simply don't want to do it maybe you're dating somebody and he's just cute or she smells good i'm like your other friends you know and and you get you get close to this person and he got tingly wiggly wiggly wiggly you know you just get the tingly wiggly wiggly wiggly wiggly and so you got the tingly wiggly next thing you know you've been doing some stuff you shouldn't do you've been messing around the word of the lord will come to you that is for marriage that is not for dating you got a choice a lot of people say well i know that's what god says but i want to do this i don't care what god says i want to do this it feels good makes me feel loved i don't care what god says but jonah in all of us maybe the word of the lord has come to you and you thought okay i know what i'm supposed to do but i don't want to do that now i'll do it later i'll do it later i'll get to i'll get to it later remember this delayed obedience is really disobedience all right delayed obedience is really disobedience so now truly jonah was disobedient do you know how merciful god was towards jonah i mean even god was merciful in like the highest way to jonah okay let me read a little bit more from chapter four keep in mind here in chapter four jonah explains to god the reason why he disobeyed him okay and it was because he knew god is merciful okay and so let me finish the prayer okay verse two just a little context here okay he prayed to the lord and said oh lord is this not what i said when i was yet in my country that is why i made haste to flee to tarshish for i knew that you are a gracious god merciful slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster therefore now oh lord please take my life take it from me for it is better for me to die than to live and the lord said to him do you do well to be angry look at how merciful god is so then jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself and he sat under it in the shade until he should see what would become of the city and nothing did because god relented because they repented and believed now the lord god appointed a plant made it come up over jonah that it might be made a shade over his head to save him from discomfort look god is even being merciful to his disobedient prophet giving him a plant to give him shade to shade him from his discomfort so jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant but when dawn came up the next day god appointed a worm that attacked the plant so then it withered so when the sun rose god appointed a scorching east wind and the sun beat down on the head of jonah so that he was faint and he asked that he might die and said it is better for me than to die than to live but god said to jonah do you do well to be angry for the plant he said yes i do well to be angry enough to die is this any way to talk to god and the lord said you pity the plant for which you did not labor nor did you make it grow which came into being in a night and then perished in a night and should not i pity nineveh that great city in which there are more than 120 000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left and also much cattle this whole story is just chocked with grace and mercy and forgiveness our god who is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love this it's just rich and teeming with these beautiful themes of god's mercy and grace and the only thing that craig crochet can find in this story is well the word of the lord is going to come to you and are you better obey you had better obey that's all i'm saying you know when the word of the lord comes to you you're going to obey or not i mean you got to make the decision now you don't want to you don't want to not obey and so how what are the different ways the word of the lord is going to come you get what i'm saying here it's like he's missed the whole point delayed obedience is disobedience it's kind of like the parenting technique of teaching your kids you know do this do this come on now do this don't make me come over there do that i told you to do this i'm serious now okay i'm going to count to three okay one two two and a half okay what are we doing we're teaching delayed obedience don't run out into the street don't run out in the street one two splat delayed obedience is disobedience i like what my friend erwin mcmanus says he's an author and a pastor in california great guy he says the mark of maturity is what he calls lag time lag time you can tell the maturity of a person between the distance of the command of god and the obedience if the distance is short they are mature if the distance is long that's immaturity and i'm so afraid well there's a huge lag time between the command and scripture for pastors to rightly handle god's word rightly divide it and um craig rochelle's obedience in that matter must be a mark of his immaturity don't you think that we have a church full of people in our church that there's lag time if obedience at all command of god i don't want to i don't want to i don't want to maybe i will maybe i won't the word of the lord will come to you it'll often tell you to do some things that you don't want to do jonah said i don't want to go there i don't want to have anything to do with those people they make me angry remember this thought number two god will speak to you and he may tell you to do something you don't want to do whenever god does speak number two you can always find a boat sailing in the wrong direction and now we're going to allegorize so whenever god speaks to you you can always find a boat going in the wrong direction not exactly handling this text well is he you can always find a ship moving in the wrong way some of you know what i'm talking about you say hey i want to obey god i want to do what he's called me to do and then all of a sudden your old buddy comes up and says hey don't go that way let's go back to what we used to do hey let's go back to the old life watch how it happens here in jonah god says i want you to preach to the ninevites verse three scripture says this but jonah did what say it aloud here's what he did but jonah ran away from the lord then he headed for tarshish then he went down to joppa where he found a ship bound for that port and after paying the fare he went aboard and he sailed for tarshish why did he sail for tarshish because he wanted to what he wanted to he wanted to run from god what did god say god said basically go east to nineveh and jonah said uh -uh i'm going west to tarshish 2 ,500 miles away from the target destination that's how far it was 2 ,500 miles away one commentary said that it would take about a year to sail from where he was to where he was going that's a lot of running some of you right now you can relate you may be sitting next to someone who thinks you're absolutely on track but you know in your heart you've been running and you're a long way from god the word of the lord has come to you here's what i want you to do and somewhere along the way months or weeks or years back you said no no i know that's what you want god but i don't want to obey you you've been on the run and you think you can get away with it you need to understand you can run for a while but you can't run forever you cannot run forever because it will catch up to you maybe maybe you're not on the run as much as you're just drifting just drifting one time i took my kids to the the beach my family were there had a little lake house thing and um we're out playing in the water just playing making shark noises you see that there's a shark you know just playing then we looked up and we're like where's our house where's our house hour later we couldn't find our house we had drifted several houses down we didn't even know it until we looked back at our point of reference we hadn't realized just how far we had drifted some of you you may be able to relate because maybe months or years ago you were really close to god you you know what i'm talking about when you when you're like praying and god answers your prayers and and you're like you're going and that was a coincidence and there's another coincidence these aren't coincidences these are god things and and god would prompt you to do something or say something and so you do it or say it and then he'd bless you like whoa that's just amazing and and then his word was a a valuable part of every day and you'd open it up you're like man that was like for me and and that was for me and i was speaking and you'd go to church and it'd be like god's speaking to me it's like i'm the only one in the room and and you'd have these like divine appointments with people where you're like i think i was supposed to say that and that that really helped and then one day you skip church and the next week you skipped and i'm doing okay and so you put down his word and you stopped reading it and then you didn't pray as much and then you didn't see as much of the god activities in your life and then one day like how did i get so far from god you know what's weird is is that god never disengaged from jonah despite all of his disobedience he's slow to anger and abounding instead fast love gracious kind and merciful and it's this kindness that leads us to repentance is it not okay wasn't that you were running as much as you were drifting from him when we disobey the commands of god intentionally or even unintentionally we are drifting we're separating ourselves from him the jonah and all of us the word of the lord will come to you it may not be what you want to hear when you run you can always find a boat sailing in the wrong direction some of you are on the run right now this third thought may speak to you when you're on the run doing your own thing thought number three is this god may send a storm to grab your attention some of you might go oh i see uh -huh now i know what's going on uh yeah god may send a storm to grab your attention yeah see again notice here that everything just gets allegorized never taken literally and never understood how it points us to christ and taken out of context so badly that you completely biff the gospel in fact i don't think the gospel's on craig rochelle's radar here yet it's the very heart and center and whole point and the punchline of the book of jonah sad god might send a storm to grab your attention verse four jonah was on the run scripture says this then the lord did what say it aloud the lord he sent a great wind and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up now this was a ship full of sailors that were uh transporting cargo so this was a very strong ship this was such a great wind we're talking you can only imagine boom the boat going up and down and everybody's screaming help what are we going to do that we've never seen a storm like this so much so that the integrity of the ship was at risk they're starting to say whose fault is this what's going on and they drew straws and did a little lottery thing and they said well it's jonah's fault and they said who are you and what what did you do to bring this on verse 8 reveals the answer jonah answered them and said i am a hebrew and i what say that phrase aloud i am a hebrew and i worship the lord the god of heaven do you really jonah at this point in your life are you really worshiping the lord god of heaven he said i'm a hebrew i worship the lord the god of heaven who made the sea and the land and this terrified them and they asked what in the world have you done because they knew he was running from god storm blows up and all of a sudden he starts bringing up the god talk again maybe we do need god if you ask me uh what are the three biggest problems in the american church today what are the three biggest problems uh seeker -driven pastors seeker -driven sermons and seeker -driven multi -site churches uh where the gospel isn't preached the the um the bible is not taught correctly accurately or in depth and you know that's the thing those would be my three what are your three uh craig i'm not sure what i would say they all are but beyond a shadow of a doubt what i would say one of the problems is is that we've got a generation of people who call themselves followers of christ but do not live like it at all kind of like pastors who refuse to preach god's word and to preach the gospel and teach it accurately and teach false doctrine you know things like that is that what you mean at all at all not there's no distinction between them and someone the person that lives next to them that does not know christ at all it's a cultural christianity it's a christianity in name only it's a consumeristic religion weird that a seeker driven mega church pastor like craig groeschel is great buddies with stephen furtick and perry noble and rick warren and guys like that would have this as his complaint it's like do you not listen to yourself craig it's well you know as long as god does good things for me yeah i might go to church every now and then or something and might bless the thanksgiving meal or something like that you know hopefully i get to go to heaven and maybe i'll make give me a promotion and if i get sick i'll go to him and ask him to heal me or heal someone that i love but but there's nothing in daily life that resembles the teachings of jesus in scripture oh yeah i worship god well how are they supposed to do anything that resembles the teaching in scripture about christ when the churches they go to don't actually preach through the gospels or the full council of the word of god how they supposed to just get this via osmosis i mean what would you recommend there um craig do you do just because you're in church does not mean you worship god worshiping god is not something you do for an hour a week it's a lifestyle uh i i worship god i worship god then i go home and yell and scream at my kids and throw things at them you worship god oh yeah i worship god but i'm a pastor in a mega church and i don't actually preach his word or preach the gospel i just rip verses out of context and make up words like kaz zone and and teach bizarre teachings regarding that as if you know that's a biblical teaching and and give people five easy relevant tips to make you know to make their lives better but i i'm a christian get my point oh yeah i worship i worship god and then go play golf and take god's name in vain you you really think you worship god i mean you really think you worship god and here you're the pastor of a mega church and you totally miss the gospel here and you're twisting the story of the book of jonah i mean you do something like that and you call yourself a christian oh this is an easy game to play oh yeah yeah yeah well we're a christian couple we even have our own bible that sits on our coffee table we're a christian couple but but our marriage hadn't been going so good and i know that we don't really have biblical grounds for divorce you know but but but we're just not happy so we're gonna divorce because that'll be better for everyone i know what god says but i don't want to do what he says forgive me if this comes across harsh but it just i i believe i'll answer to god one day at some level for what goes on in our church and yeah like all the things you were told to do in god's word regarding preaching the word teaching that which is accords with sound doctrine you know things like that you're right you're gonna have to do some explaining as to why you didn't do those things and there's times when i look around and say i'm not sure what's going on here is really pleasing god this is halfway lukewarm cultural christianity thing that um yeah we know god says it but i don't want to do it you say you worship god do you really sailors are freaking out it's a big storm jonah finally realizes it's my fault some of you're going to recognize that right now you're going to think well what i was doing my private rebellion it wasn't hurting anybody oh don't kid yourself if it hadn't hurt somebody yet it's going to tomorrow you realize this is my fault i'm hurting all these innocent people by my disobedience to god he finally owns up to it you can see it in verse 12 he says okay guys i'm sorry pick me up throw me into the sea and it'll become calm this whole storm is my fault he said that this great storm has come upon you so the sailors they're going to have mercy on them because they they really cared about him even though they didn't know this we're not going to do that to you let's throw our cargo off the boat this was a thing that their livelihood okay let's throw it off the boat we're going to get rid of everything to try to save you that didn't work okay let's row back to shore row row your boat that didn't work either and finally it's like okay we're all going to die i guess we need to throw you off and so they said god forgive us we're sorry we don't want to do this to jonah jonah we're sorry and they throw him overboard and the sea goes calm then something unbelievably bad in our human mind happens to jonah if you know the story got swallowed up by a big fish then something unbelievably bad in our human mind happens to jonah if you know the story got swallowed up by a big fish people say jonah the whale was not a whale original text says it was a fish doesn't really matter it was big it was nasty okay he's in the fish for three days that's freaking me out i can't even eat fish for three days which i've eaten fish for three months after my wife read this satanic book that said meat is bad but fish is good people are saying you look like you lost weight you've been eating rabbit food and fish for three months so i'm not bitter i still love my wife and just praying for her deliverance some pastors go out of town and like they go and do wild things i go out of town i eat steak it's a great thing that's why i'm out of town a lot it's thought number four jonah's worst nightmare was exactly what he needed jonah's worst nightmare was exactly what he needed verse 15 16 and 17 tells the story jonah they took jonah they threw overboard and the raging sea grew calm at this the men greatly feared the lord and they offered a sacrifice to the lord they made vows to him verse 17 now check this out whoa slow down you just went over an important part there did you catch the part where the sailors repent and believe in the one true god and offer sacrifices to him i mean that isn't that great that jonah's sin results in their salvation it's just amazing i mean and they end up offering sacrifices to the true god and making vows to him you see isn't that isn't that just ridiculous jonah's rebellion against god results in their salvation what a great thing you missed that craig but the lord did what say that phrase aloud but the lord one more time what did the lord do the lord provided a great fish to swallow jonah and jonah was inside the fish for three days and three nights the lord provided the fish what jonah would see is the worst possible scenario god provided some of you right now you may be facing what you would consider is your is your nightmare you may financially you may be like i'm done it's over and god may say okay now do i have your attention some of you may be facing a relationship that you think it just couldn't get any worse than this and god may say okay do i have your attention now what i'm not going to say is i'm not going to tell you that everything that bad happens is god causing it in your life because i don't believe that is true but i do believe with everything in me that there are times where god may cause or god may allow what we would consider is our worst nightmare so that he can fully get our attention i'll give you an example and if you've been here for a while i've talked around this story for a couple years but i've never told the whole story until this weekend it's with the the blessings of my family that i do tell this story my wife's brother amy amy's my wife her brother is david he passed away at the age of 35 i've never told you why he grew up in a christian home and in his teens he said forget god i know what god says but i don't believe he's real i don't want to do what he what what his commands teach anyway so i'm going to do my own thing he went into a hard party life one thing led to another and he entered into a full -blown homosexual lifestyle early 20s david came to us and came to his parents and said i am hiv positive family's worst nightmare that is a death sentence on someone and so we prayed for healing and he was never healed worst thing possible not to david david told us before he died he said it's the best thing that ever happened to him because between the age of 23 or so and 35 when he died he was fully committed to christ that's what it took and when i'm telling you he was committed he was committed i know there may be some who were equal in his commitment but i don't know anyone more so and i'm not telling you it's perfect because he was and he messed up sometimes and had some struggles but i'll tell you what the dude was full -on for jesus he married a great girl who's now will be a part of our family forever she is family adopted her son coolest kid in the whole world and i count it one of my greatest honors to get to invest in his life at david's funeral at the age of 35 i'll tell you what i've been a part of probably a couple hundred funerals in ministry i've never seen one where god did more i've never seen one where god did more never ever seen one where god did more and so i asked david david's mom my mother -in -law would you change it to have david back and the mother of her this child said no no way i wouldn't trade any of it for what god has done that's intense that's intense because what we would call our worst nightmare and it was actually became one of the greatest things that i've ever seen god do the word of the lord will come to you and you have a choice obey or disobey when god speaks to you can always find a ship sailing in the wrong direction if you do not obey he may send a storm to grab your attention if that doesn't get it when you don't obey which you don't perfectly daily you sin against god and thought word indeed he sends the virgin born son of god to die on the cross for your sins because salvation belongs to the lord you see jesus christ bled and died on the cross for your sins and rose again on the third day for our justification salvation belongs to the lord as jonah rightly points out that god is gracious and merciful slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love you see he wants to forgive you that's what the obey and the solution isn't just to try harder to obey the solution is the one who obeyed for you who gives you his righteousness as a gift imputed to you into your account as a gift as an inheritance all by grace received through faith see the difference he may allow you to face your worst nightmare when he does understand this it's all because he loves you because he has something for you to do and he loves you because he has something for you to do he has a city or a group of people for you to impact really city for you to impact wow he's you sure are important you know you got a choice you can keep running or you can come back to him i pray you know you could repent and be forgiven you come back to him all of our campuses let's pray together nope done you see what i'm saying one moralizes the story the other takes the story exegetes it and preaches the gospel from the text itself which is there for us to read to hear for pastors to preach and for us for it to be proclaimed and yet craig rochelle sadly almost like a blind man leading blind people missed the entire point of the book of jonah which is that salvation belongs to the lord so we're at the end of another edition of fighting for the faith what'd you think i'd love to get your feedback if you'd like to email me regarding anything you've heard on this edition or any previous editions of fighting for the faith you can do so my email address talkbackatfightingforthefaith .com