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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.
Some of my best opportunities for evangelism are found in planes. Reminds me of the story of the Christian man. He loved to travel in airplanes and he would have his Bible right there and sit it on the little table, little pull-down shelf, tray table.
Started reading his Bible and the guy next to him said, you don't believe all that stuff in the Bible now, do you? Well, yes, a matter of fact, I do believe it. Yeah, but what about that guy that was swallowed by that great big fish?
Well, I believe that. It's in the Bible. His name's Jonah. Well, how do you suppose he survived those three days in the fish? How did he live? Well, the Christian man said, I don't really know. I guess when I get to heaven, I'll ask him.
Well, what if he's not in heaven? Christian man said, well, I guess then you can ask him. Turn your Bible to the book of Jonah, please. If you can't find it, it's right after Obadiah, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah.
So you can find the big prophets, the major prophets, you can get here. I always think H-J-A, Hosea, Joel, Amos, and then O-J, Obadiah, Jonah. Today we start our series in the book of Jonah, and I have to tell you, I've been amped up all week to teach it because this book is a great book.
You think you know it, and then you dive down deeply, and you just think the riches of God, the goodness of God, you get some of the nuggets, you see it in context, and you start saying after a while, God sovereignly saves people.
God sovereignly saves sinful people, wicked people like the Ninevites. God loves Gentiles. God saves through preaching. God saves through preaching a message about judgment. God's sovereign over everything, gourds, fish, human souls, eternal salvation.
You start diving into the book of Jonah, no pun intended, and you say to yourself, how great is our God? You're going to say the Lord is great. Only God could do these kind of things. God is a great God.
Now most prophecies, most prophetic books, both major prophets, the Jeremiah's and the Daniel's and the Ezekiel's and the Isaiah's, those as well as the minor prophets, and they're not minor in message, just they don't have as many chapters and verses, mostly they're talking about not the men, the prophet Isaiah, but about his message.
Jeremiah's more about the message of Jeremiah, not Jeremiah. Yet here it's an odd one because this really tells us about the life of the prophet more than what he says. More than his prophecies, it's the message about this man.
But he's not really the focus. The fish isn't the focus. It's who the Lord is, and that's what we're going to see over the next seven, eight weeks or so, translation, 14 weeks, seven or eight weeks. J. Vernon McGee, the fish here is not the hero of the story, neither is it its villain.
The book isn't even about a fish. The fish is among the props and does not occupy the star's dressing room. Let us distinguish between the essentials and the incidentals. The incidentals are the fish, gourd, east wind, boat, and Nineveh.
The essentials are Yahweh and Jonah. How does God deal with men? How does he save? Is he willing to save? Does he have compassion to save? So what I love about Jonah, it's not just for kids. We default to, well, the Noah's Ark stories, that's for kids.
That's for murals above the little crib. Jonah, too, is for kids. Did you know even the Muslims believe Jonah? He's called in Arabic, the one of the whale. The Koran says, so also was Jonah among those sent by us when he ran away like a slave from captivity to the ship fully laden.
He agreed to cast lots and he was condemned. Then the big fish did swallow him and he had done acts worthy of blame. Had it not been that he repented and glorified Allah, he would certainly have remained inside the fish till the day of resurrection.
It's not just for children. It's certainly not for Muslims. Oh, by the way, on a side note, we don't really think he was buried there, but what we thought was at least by tradition Jonah's tomb on July 24th of this year, ISIS did what to it?
Put a bunch of explosives in the tomb and blew the whole thing up because they didn't want any kind of idolatry going on there. The Jews read Jonah every year in Hebrew on Yom Kippur. But Jonah's for Christians.
Jonah's for you. God changes people as you read the word. God changes people amazingly as it's preached to you. First Thessalonians 2 .13 says God's word performs its work in those who, what, believe.
As you study the character of God and how he deals with people, you will be changed. So I am thankful we're into Jonah. And one of the main reasons I've picked this book is because I know we need a good lesson, a reminder on the sovereignty of God, the sovereignty of God and salvation, the saving nature of God.
And it will all lead us into a regular diet of pulpit exhortation on evangelism. God loves to save sinners, and that's what we're going to talk about very often. So let's go to chapter one. And we're only going to get through the first few verses today because of some setup and setting and stuff like that.
But let me give you two outlines for chapter one, both stolen from other expositors. First one, Weirsbe came up with, the second one Lewis Johnson came up with. But I like both of them so much that I'll just tell you these outlines, and then we'll go into the first three verses.
The command of God, go. This is Weirsbe. The action of the minister, know. The hand of God, blow. And the action of the mariners, throw. That's a good chapter one outline, go, know, blow, throw. Just like preaching class, S. Lewis Johnson's is much more serious.
Three points, Jonah chickens out, Jonah sacks out, Jonah bails out. Let's take a look at the command of God, go, found in verses one and two. Before I even read anything, I want you to know ahead of time, this book is full of surprises.
You might have read it so often, you'd forget these surprises, but it's just laden with surprises to get your attention, to get you to lock in and then to pull you in. There's something about surprises that get your adrenaline up and going and connected.
Yesterday, I'm sitting outside on a chair, getting some sun and have my laptop in my lap, my dogs in front of me, laying on the on the lawn. And all of a sudden I see her out of the corner of my eye and she gets up and she's pointing and she's slowly doing this.
I'm going to go kill a chipmunk or a rabbit or a squirrel or something. And then out of nowhere, she tears off. But it's not a chipmunk. It's not a rabbit and it's not a squirrel. It's some kind of demonic.
I don't know what it was. It was like a beaver, but maybe without a tail. So it's a muskrat, a coypoo, a nutria, something. But it was demonically going after my dog. And now the scurrying, the fighting, the biting, the blood's flying everywhere.
I run over to try to extract my dog, but I don't want to get bit by the rabidly demon possessed beaver teeth thing. And I'm like over there. I see all going on and my heart is pumping and it just caught me by surprise.
But I thought what the surprise does, it gets me all in. I'm all in. I'm all ready to go. Thinking clearly, ready to go. And that's what happens with this book. What happened with the dog? I don't know.
I think she's still fighting. Not sure. Now, the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city. Call it against it, for their evil has come up before me.
I mean, don't you think it'd be kind of like a character analysis once upon a time? Let's develop the character. Let's develop Jonah. Let's talk about Nineveh a little bit. And in the climate, I mean, you just get pushed right in.
Other prophetic books don't really do this. First Samuel does this. Ruth does this. Judges does this. But the prophets don't really do this. You are just immediately locked in where you go, OK, if I sit and think for a second, it's just coming at me.
Now it came to pass. What do you mean now it came to pass? What happened before this? What do you mean now? If this is later and this is now, what do you mean? The word of the Lord came to Jonah. The word of Yahweh, see all the capitals?
The word of the covenant-keeping God of Israel came to Jonah. Eighty-five times that exact phrase is used in the Bible. Eighty-five times. It's a precise designation, always introducing the reader to the divine word and presenting the author as historical, presenting the author, the recipient of these words as historical and the author.
So God is historical. Jonah is historical. And that's important because most people, when they go to Jonah, especially in our day and age, they say, you know what? This isn't like a real fish. Let's see.
It's a myth. And, you know, have you ever heard of Robinson Crusoe? Ever heard of Gulliver? I think he traveled a lot. Andromeda, he was rescued by a sea monster. It's kind of that, you know, story. Did you know Arian, the musician, was thrown into the sea by sailors and some dolphins came and took him to the shore?
It's just one more story like that. It's just a fable. Hercules, according to Homer in the Iliad, sprang into the jaws of a sea monster, was in its belly for three days while he was off to try to save the heroine.
It's just kind of a made up myth. That's all. And this book is ridiculed. It is lambasted. It is attacked. Why? Because it talks about the saving nature of God. It talks about supernatural things. It talks about salvation and sin and judgment.
And when you read this in the text, the word of the Lord came to Jonah, you can know it's from God. It's to a man. It's historical. Now, some try to water it down, not so much as the liberals, but they try to say, hey, it's an allegory.
Jonah equals Israel. The sea, Gentiles. The fish, Babylonian captivity, keeping Jonah there, captive. But then you have to make up what the regurgitation is. Oh, that's the return during Ezra's time. It's an allegory, trying to make things up.
One man said, it shocks me, a liberal scholar, we sin against the intention of the author and the Holy Spirit when we willfully interpret the book as real history. Come on. Jonah means dove. Amitai, son of Amitai, means truth, where we get the word, amen.
He's the dove of truth. And the dove of truth comes in and kind of teaches us a lesson. But when you read this normally, plainly, you would say, seems to me that it's a story about God and a man. So much so that the account says, presents itself as history.
Did you know in 2 Kings chapter 14, it says this of Jonah, first talking about a king, then discussing Jonah. He restored the border of Israel from the entrance of Hamath, as far as the Sea of Arabah.
According to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he spoke through his servant, Jonah, the son of Amitai, the prophet who was of Gath -Hephir. There's a real Jonah, who's the son of a real man, who lived up by Nazareth, north of Nazareth by the Sea of Galilee.
He's a real guy. That's how scripture portrays him. But keeping your finger in Jonah, please go to Matthew chapter 12. And we're just not quite into the message that Jonah has yet, but I want to make sure you understand what kind of book this is.
And let's make sure we understand Jonah as Jesus would. That is a literal story about a real fish, a real land, a real group of Ninevites, etc. Jonah is talked about by Jesus. Now I have a little rule in my mind.
Here's my rule in my mind that I'd like you to have as well. Mike, make sure you have the same view of the Old Testament that Jesus does. The Lord of the Church looks at the Old Testament a certain way.
I want to look at it that way as well. And when Jesus thinks something's true, I want to think it's true because I'm a follower of Christ. I'm a Christian. And here Jesus affirms the literal Jonah. Matthew 12, 38.
Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, Teacher, we want to see a sign from you. I mean, they've already seen plenty of signs. You want to see something in the stars or the moon or the sun or what?
Let me show you a sign. I'll show you a sign from Scripture. Here's the sign, the Bible. But he answered and said to them, Matthew 12, 39, an evil, adulterous generation craves for a sign. And yet no sign shall be given to it but the sign of Jonah, the prophet.
For just as for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the mythical sea monster, wait a second, sorry, of the sea monster. So shall the son of man be three days and nights in the heart of the earth.
You false teachers aren't repenting. But verse 41, the men of Nineveh shall stand up to this generation at the judgment and shall condemn it because they repented. You guys aren't. They repented at the preaching of Jonah and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.
Friends, if you have an allegorical Jonah, you have an allegorical Jesus and you have an allegorical solution to your real problem and that is sin and judgment day. Isn't it amazing that when Jesus talked about the Old Testament, he picked the things that were the most supernaturally outrageous.
Adam, Eve, Noah, Lot, Sodom, Gomorrah. He put the most supernatural and here mark it well. It should be your prayer and as you read the Old Testament, Lord, my view of the Old Testament should be Jesus's view.
It's inerrant. It's infallible. It's God breathed. It's good for me. It represents God rightly. What could have Jesus have said in Matthew chapter 12? By the way, you know what? This kind of Maccabean deal got away from me, an intertestamental period between Malachi and Matthew and all kinds of stories, fish stories started going, all kinds of around and it just kept getting bigger and bigger and pretty soon now people think really it's Jonah was swallowed by a real fish.
Let me just correct that and tell you the real story. And Jesus had to have done that if this was really anything but what it said it was. In other words, Jesus didn't do it, so he affirmed it. All right, let's go back to Jonah.
So what we're doing here is we're going through the book of Jonah. We're going to take it as it is. I think it takes more faith to make up what Jonah is than just take it in a normal, natural, plain way.
And isn't that the way it works with supernatural events? You can read William Barclay and how did everybody drowned when they were going across the Red Sea? Well, it was only six inches of water deep and they just walked across on a sandbar.
It takes more faith to believe that and it takes more faith to believe, bad faith, to believe this is just some kind of myth. Back to the verse one, the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, and now God begins to reveal himself.
We're not told if it's a dream, it's a vision, it's an inner voice, it's just assumed. Here comes the word of God and God of the universe speaks. Isn't that amazing? Stop there for a second. Psalm 19, what does nature do?
It reveals, it pours forth, it shows, it proclaims that God is a great creating God. He shows himself, but also God shows himself specifically by speaking through his word. Now, what's one of my fun things to do in life?
I collect idols from across the world, little wooden idols, stone idols. When I can't afford many shekels or something, I buy the plastic ones. But anyway, they're all at my house and they're all laying face down.
That's a different narrative we'll go through another time. You know, there's something, there's a common denominator to all these fake gods. Somebody made them, I can touch them, I can see them, some of them are from funky places, I can smell them, but they don't talk.
The idols, the false gods, you can see them, taste them, touch them, they don't talk. And on the other side, there's a God that's showing himself to be the real God on top of Sinai. There's a God who you can't see, but he talks.
The God who reveals himself talks. Condescending love, God speaks. This invisible God and this word comes to Jonah. What's he say? Arise, three commands here, can you find them? Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, call out against it.
Arise, go preach, for their evil has come up before me. It's gotten so bad now up in Nineveh, I've got to step in. It's like, God, as I've finally had enough, there's an urgency, there's an authority, and now it's time to deal with it.
Jonah, go to Nineveh. If you traveled 15 miles a day, it'd take you about a month. And if this is Israel right here, you'd have to go up there to Iraq, cross the Euphrates, up towards the Tigris, and there's a city there called Nineveh.
Jonah, go that way, it'll take you about a month. And I want you to go up and I want you to preach to that great city. These people there are wicked, they're superstitious, they worship false gods, they are prideful, you can read Isaiah 10, we'll do it another day.
They are so arrogant, so full of idolatry, it's time to call them to repent. So here's what I want you to do, I want you to go up there and tell them, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.
It's a message of love. Now here, it's interesting. What's the message? It's of repentance. Do you see where the message is? Look at chapter 3, verse 1. Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city.
Call it against the message I tell you. It's just almost exactly the same as our verse. So Jonah arose, went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Nineveh was an exceedingly great city. And he called out in verse 4, yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
That's the message. You've got 40 days before this house of card crumbles spiritually. 40 days. That's your message. 40 days or you'll perish. And you'll perish. I've got a question. A very practical question.
When you preach the gospel to people, when you have a desire for them to have their sins forgiven and be in a right relationship with their creator and judge, and you want them to have Christ as Savior, is it uncouth?
Is it boorish? Is it wrong to talk about judgment? Is it wrong to talk about hell? Is it wrong to talk about repentance? Should we talk about love? I'm not saying we shouldn't. God shows his love in a conspicuous manner, Romans 5.
And for God so loved the world. We're going to look at that verse in a second. But is it ever okay to preach about sin and judgment and consider your soul? Would you ever say to anyone, have you ever said to anyone, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God?
Or is that just kind of the way we don't want to evangelize? Did you know that the first lie in all the Bible, the first lie in all history, was a lie about judgment? You're not going to die. You will surely not die.
You're not going to be judged. 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. 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? 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.
There are a lot of Bible verses that go along with those four spiritual laws. And guess what? 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.
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. And these are the four spiritual laws.
God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life. Two, man is sinful and separated from God. Three, Jesus Christ is God's only provision for man's sin. Four, you must individually receive Jesus as Savior and Lord.
But the most fascinating thing about all this is, did you know when Bill Bright first wrote the four spiritual laws, he put number two as number one. That is, he put man's sinfulness and the separation from God as number one.
Bill Bright's book says, so in account, originally our first law emphasized man's sin, but the Lord impressed me to emphasize God's love. This change was made just before we went to press. I had done my final editing, and I left my wife, Vanette, and the girls, my daughters, to finish the typing.
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.
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. 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 so the first law would be God loves you.
Instead of, you're a sinner. Thus the four spiritual laws started on a positive note. Some time later, though, one of his daughters said to him, 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 Lord because you placed such strong emphasis on the love of God rather than on man's sin. And she went on to say in retrospect, I don't think I was right.
But friends, what's my point? I hear a lot of bad press from the world and some evangelical churches and liberal churches, no hellfire, no brimstone, keep it positive, don't preach like that. But I have really yet to come across outside of some Westboro crazy Baptist people where are the hellfire preachers today?
Where are the judgment preachers today?
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