Book of Jonah - Ch. 1, Vs 1-17 (03/20/2022)

Park Meadows Church

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Okay, good morning. I'll tell you the subject of this morning's Bible study in just a moment.

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But first, let's pray. Most gracious Heavenly Father, we come here this morning to honor you, to praise you, and to thank you.

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To thank you for the place and time that you've given us to come together to worship you.

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We thank you for the Word of God, both the living Word, Jesus, the

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Redeemer, and the Holy Scripture, which is the revealer of your

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Holy Word. And finally, we thank you for the Holy Spirit, the illuminator of the

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Scripture, so that we, your children, might be able to receive the lessons that you have for us.

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Bless us and keep us, illuminate the lesson that we're going to have today, and illuminate the one to come.

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Bless us and keep us, in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. The first thing

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I'm going to do is go to 2 Timothy 3 .16.

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I can always remember that because it's so easy, 3 .16. All Scripture is given by the inspiration of God.

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That's the King James Version. The English Standard Version says it this way.

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All Scripture is breathed out of God. That is to say, breathed from the mouth of God.

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And that's how we get all we know of the Word of God, with only one exception.

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Anybody know the one exception that we did not get that way? Okay, I'll give you a hint.

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Moses brought it down from the mountain. And how was it?

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Was it written in the Scriptures? No, it was in tablets of stone.

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Tablets of stone that God provided, and God, with His finger, wrote on the stone.

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They were written by the finger of God and given to Moses to deliver to the children of Israel.

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That happened in Exodus 31 .18. I'm going to read a couple of sections in Revelation, just kind of get a flavor.

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And he gave unto Moses, when he had made end to commuting with him on Mount Sinai, two tablets of testimony, tables of stone written with the finger of God.

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But that table of stone was destroyed. When was it destroyed?

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When Moses got to the bottom of the mountain and got mad. We'll start at Exodus 32 .15.

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And it says, And Moses turned and went down from the mount, and the two tables of testimony were in his hand.

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And the tables were written on both their sides. On the one side and on the other were they written.

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And then it goes to talk about some of the things that Moses felt and heard as he descended down to the mountain.

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And he was discussing with Joshua what was there. And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, he saw the calf and the dancing.

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And Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his stone and break them beneath the mountain.

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So they didn't survive the trip all the way down the mountain. Well, did

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God say that's the end of it? No.

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He tells Moses a little later in chapter 34, verse 1.

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And the Lord said to Moses, Hew the two stones like unto the first.

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And I will write on these stones the words that were in the first table, which thou breakest.

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So he says, you carve the stones, make them look like the stones that I provided for you with writing on it.

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And then I will write the words on the stone. So on those tables, how was the stones written?

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By the finger of God. But the stones that Moses carved, oh, they went, the

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Jews carried them around through all the wilderness wanderings, into the promised land, into battles, into wars.

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They carried them around for a long time, and then they lost them. We don't know where they are now.

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They're apparently somewhere, but we don't know where they are. They were lost.

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So now the only thing we have remaining of the Ten Commandments is the scripture that was breathed from the mouth of God and recorded by the hand of Moses unto the

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Holy Scriptures. That's all we know of the Ten Commandments. We don't have a pillar of stones carved by the finger of God.

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We've got hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pillars of stone with the

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Ten Commandments copied on them. But they were everyone chiseled out by man. Not a single one was written with the hand of God.

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But there's one out there somewhere, we believe. Okay. So that's enough for that.

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Now back to Timothy. 2 Timothy 3 .16. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and it's profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto good works.

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So that's the purpose of the scripture. Scripture is for inspiration.

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It's for doctrine. It's for reproof. It's for correction. It's for instruction in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly furnished, so that we're able to do good works.

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Now we're going to go to Matthew. We're still not to the subject that we're going to be dealing with today.

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We're going to get there very quickly. Matthew 12 .36.

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I say unto you that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.

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For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words shall they be condemned.

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Then certain scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee.

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And he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall be no sign given it but the sign of the prophet

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Jonah. It said Jonas, but that's the Greek version of Jonah, and I will scramble around all day if I try to separate the two.

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So I'll just say Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

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The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation and shall condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, a greater than Jonah is here.

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So now we come to the title of this week's lesson.

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Is your wife with you? I'm going to wait just a couple of seconds because I told her beforehand the title of today's lesson, and I'm just now getting ready to do it.

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It's okay. You don't have to rush. And what we've done now is to hopefully generate the idea that everything that's written in the

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Scripture, everything that's written in the Scripture is there for a reason. It's therefore the reason that God gave us, including the passage that we're getting ready to explore.

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And I've titled this morning's lesson, Jonah, the Reluctant Prophet.

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But before we get to Jonah and the Reluctant Prophet, I'm going to read another passage out of Matthew and then one out of John.

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Matthew 16 .1. And the Pharisees also with the

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Sadducees came. Now, that's interesting enough by itself. Those are two sects of Judaism that absolutely despise one another.

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But now they're coming together because there's something they hate worse than each other, and that's

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Jesus. So the Pharisees also came with the

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Sadducees, tempting him, desiring that he would show them a sign from heaven.

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Same question they were just asked. And he answered this time this way, desiring that they would show him a sign from heaven.

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And he answered and said unto them, When it is evening, you say it will be fair weather, for the sky is red.

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And in the morning, it will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and lowering.

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O ye hypocrites, you can discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times.

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Now, in my opening prayer, I did it the way I did it on purpose.

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I mentioned three things. The living Word of God, the

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Son. The written Word of God, the

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Revealer. The illuminator of the Word. That's how you get it.

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And one other thing, the Holy Scripture, the illuminator of the

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Word. You see, you can read the Word, and you can study it all you want to.

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And if it's not illuminated by the Holy Spirit, you will not understand a thing. So one of the things they were dealing with is, the

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Word was revealed in the Scripture. It was there, and you'll see several places before we get through that Noah was revealed as a prophet.

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But they don't think so, because it wasn't illuminated. They couldn't understand it.

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So he goes on to say, A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign.

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There shall be no sign given it, but the sign of the prophet Jonah. And he left and departed.

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So it tells them the same thing when they came together. He tells them exactly the same thing he told them the first time.

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Now, you got a sign, you just don't understand it. They had a sign, they simply, it was simply a sign, they could not understand, even after Jesus pointed it out.

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And I got a question for you. Did you ever wonder why that particular sign was so difficult for the

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Pharisees? Why is it that they had such a hard time recognizing Jonah as a prophet and Jesus as a prophet?

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There is a logical reason why that's the case. Okay. I'm not going to ask that question now.

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I answered it in my notes, but I'm not going to answer it now. But, and one more thing that we want to deal with is, we're going, this morning we'll take a close look at the prophet

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Jonah. The prophet that the Pharisees said did not exist. John 7 31.

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Now, John is talking about Jesus and all the miracles that he's performing.

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And in chapter 7 verse 31, he says, and many people believed on him, that's on Jesus, and said, when

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Christ cometh. Now, they haven't recognized Jesus as the

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Messiah. They've got two things in mind. And many people believed on him, Jesus, and said, when

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Christ cometh, will he do more miracles than this man has done?

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So some people are saying, wait a minute. This may be the Christ because he's doing all these miracles.

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When the Messiah comes, will he do more than this guy's done? And the

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Pharisees heard that the people murmured such things concerning him.

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And the Pharisees and the chief priest sent officers to take him.

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So they said to their officers, go find Jesus dragging back here, and we're going to interrogate him.

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Now, we're going to come down to verse 50. All the way down to verse 50. Chapter 7 verse 50.

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The officers have now returned, but they've returned empty handed. When they thought about laying their hands on Jesus, they kind of chickened out because the crowd was mixed, and there were many people in support of Jesus and many not.

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And so they just said, we'll go back and report to the chief priest and the

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Pharisees that this is harder than you think. Never a man spoke such as this one did.

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We were afraid to take him. And so now they're discussing it. And Nicodemus was one of them.

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Nicodemus said unto them, Nicodemus, he that came to Jesus by night, being one of them, he was a

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Pharisee. Doth our law judge any man before it hear him and know what he doeth?

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You've judged Jesus and you haven't met him, you haven't talked to him, you haven't seen him, you haven't heard what he has to say?

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And they answered him and said, Art thou also of Galilee? Search the

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Scriptures and look, for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet.

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Well, were they right or were they wrong? They were wrong, at least two.

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What are the two? Jonah and Jesus. Now, what did they say?

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They said, Search the Scriptures. Let me tell you a Scripture they did not search. They didn't search the

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Scripture of Jonah. That was there for them to read. They didn't read it.

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Or if they read it, they dismissed it. Because they, like Nicodemus, didn't like what Nicodemus did.

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Did I say Nicodemus? Jonah. They, like Jonah, didn't like what

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Jesus asked them to do. 2 Kings 14 .25.

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2 Kings 14 .25 declares that Jonah was a recognized prophet from Gath -Hoper.

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Now, that's a village in Galilee about two miles from Nazareth.

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That would be like being on Midtown Corsicana from here.

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That's about two miles to the courthouse. Maybe a mile and a half. Maybe down to, not

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Walmart. That's too far. It's really close. Apparently, the

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Pharisees had not searched the Scripture for themselves or else they were purposely misleading.

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Here's what the Scripture says in 2 Kings. Now, I'm going to read all this, and there's two

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Jeroboams, and I get them confused, so I'm going to label them Jeroboam II and Jeroboam I, just so we know that there's two different ones.

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In the 15th year of Amazigh, the son of Joash, king of Judah, Jeroboam, the son of Joash, this is a different Joash, king of Israel, began to reign.

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That's Jeroboam II. The king of Israel began to reign in Samaria and reigned 41 years and did that which was evil in the sight of the

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Lord. He departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebob, that's

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Jeroboam I, who made Israel to sin, and yet he restored the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath to the sea of the plain according to the word of God, the

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Lord God of Israel, which spake by the hand of his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, no doubt, the prophet, which was of Japhel.

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So in Kings, there was a passage that says Jonah, and it described

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Jonah, the son of Amittai, the same Jonah that wrote the book of Jonah, the prophet, it identifies him as a prophet, and told where he is from,

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Gath -helper, a town in Galilee about two miles away from Nazareth.

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So now we are to Jonah, verse 1, chapter 1.

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And this is in Jonah too. This is in the Old Testament too. This was available to the

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Pharisees. Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying,

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Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it, for their wickedness is come up before me.

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Now, Jonah was told three things. He was told to arise, get up. He was told to go to Nineveh.

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And he was told to cry out against Nineveh. Now we're not told here what he was told to say.

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All we're told is get up, go to Nineveh and cry out against it. You might note that God did not tell

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Jonah to call on them to repent. He didn't say go to Nineveh and tell the

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Ninevites to repent, else bad things will happen. He said, go to Nineveh and cry out against it.

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He sent Jonah to Nineveh because he saw their wickedness had risen to the point that it deserved a specific warning and a judgment.

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And as we will, I was going to say soon see, but I'm not going to say that. I'm just going to say, as we will see, they get the warning, but not the judgment, at least not yet.

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While other prophets prophesied against Gentile nations, this is the only case of a prophet actually being sent to a foreign nation to deliver

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God's message against them. There was another prophet sent later to the same city.

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Nahum? No, he wasn't sent to the same city. He was asked to prophesy against the same city, but he was not sent there.

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And you'll see the difference and see why there was that difference later.

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One of the reasons that God sent Jonah to Nineveh was for the salvation of Nineveh.

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How do I know that? How do I know that one of the reasons that God sent

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Jonah to Nineveh was to save Nineveh? Because they repented and they were saved and God knew they were going to be.

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As we will see, so did Jonah. At least Jonah was afraid that that might happen.

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And that explains why Jonah did what he did. But also for shame and the jealousy of Israel, but primarily it was a rebuke against the reluctance of the

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Jews to bring Gentiles to Christ. That was the crux of the whole matter. That's why

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Jonah did what he did. That's why the Pharisees did what they did. They could not accept the fact that Jesus might want to save a few

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Gentiles. And it offended them. They knew more than Jesus. They knew more than God.

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They knew that there was no way that a real God could save a dog like a

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Gentile. Well, let's take a quick look at Nineveh and see how much and how well and if they deserved judgment.

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And you'll see very quickly that they did. Nineveh dates all the way back to Nimrod.

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In Genesis 10 verse 9, it talks about Nineveh.

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And it describes him as a mighty hunter before God. But what it didn't spell out there, at least clearly, that he was not just a hunter of antelopes and deer and lions.

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He was a hunter of men. It was through Nimrod that slavery came into being when man first began to enslave other men to do their work.

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I'll read the passage. Genesis 10, 9. He was a mighty hunter. This is

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Nimrod. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. Wherefore, it is said, even as Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the

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Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel and Erech and Akedah and Cali in the land of Shinar.

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Now, the one name I recognize there is Babel. And what is Babel? That's what came to be called

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Babylon. And out of that land went forth

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Azur. That's the Assyrian. And he built

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Nineveh, the city of Rehoboth and Cali. Okay, so Nimrod was in Babel and Azur was in Nineveh.

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Nineveh was located on the banks of the Tigris River, about 500 miles northeast of Israel.

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It was always one of Assyria's royal cities and for many years served as its capital.

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Now, there's a debate as to what the word Nineveh came from.

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Some people say it can be from the word Ninus, which means the residence of Nimrod.

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And others say it's from Nunu, the Akkadian word for fish.

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The people there worship the fish goddess and Dagon, the fish god, who was represented as half man, half fish.

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And the problem with that is, the problem making the distinction is Hebrew contains no vowels.

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So what you have in both cases is NN. And you've got to infer what is meant.

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So they don't know what it means, residence of Nimrod or land of the fish god.

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I think it's land of the fish god. I think the Nimrod is still down in Babylon. But that's my thought.

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That's not anything that other than what I personally believe.

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And I've already done that. Why aren't you moving? Oh, there it is.

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Nineveh was great in both size and power. It exerted significant influence over the entire

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Middle East until her destruction by Nebuchadnezzar in 612 BC.

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It was possibly the largest city in the world at this time, Nineveh. According to historians, walls almost eight miles long enveloped the entire city.

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It enveloped the inner city with the entire city occupying an area with their circumference of about 60 miles.

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It would take three days to walk around Nineveh.

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And its population was more than a half a million. We get that from the number of children that specified in Jonah.

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Okay. I'm going to go back and look at what God told

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Jonah to do. Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying,

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Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it, for the wickedness is come up before me.

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However, that's not what Jonah did. Instead, Jonah rose up to flee unto

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Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish.

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So he paid the fare thereof and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the

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Lord. So Jonah is doing what? Jonah is running away.

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So off they go. He's gone down. He's bought his ticket. He's in the boat. And off they go with Jonah below decks, hiding, as it were, from God.

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Charles Spurgeon said this. All the while, the ship sailed smoothly over the sea.

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Jonah forgot his God. You could not have distinguished him from the various teether on board.

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He was just as bad as they were. Something to note, when you run away from God, you never get where you need to go.

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And you always pay your own fare. When you go the

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Lord's way, you not only get to where you need to be, but he pays the fare.

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And one other thing to note, who can escape the presence of the

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Lord? Anybody got an answer? Who can escape the presence of the Lord? I see some heads shaking, and they're shaking sideways, like,

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I know I can't. I don't think anybody can. None of us.

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Jonah couldn't. I couldn't. David couldn't. You know, the

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Psalms were available for Jonah to have read. Maybe he should have read this

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Psalm of David. Whither shall

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I go from thy spirit? This is Psalm 39, verse 7.

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Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Oh, whither shall I flee from thy presence?

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If I ascend unto heaven, thou art there. If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.

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If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there thy hand shall lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.

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If I say surely darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be white about me.

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Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee, but the night shineth as the day.

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The darkness and the light are both alike to thee.

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So here's what we know about Jonah. Nineveh was east of him.

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So what does he do? He goes west. He really didn't want to go to Nineveh.

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But there's no getting away from the presence of the Lord. Verse 4.

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The Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken.

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Now, that word sent is a stronger word than you might think. It really means literally hurled, like thrown out.

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God sent, threw out, hurled a great wind into the sea.

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This is a God -stoked wind. This is not one stoked by unequal heating.

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This is God sending the wind. Sailors who were accustomed to storms were afraid of this one.

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I mean, they'd been in storms before, but never one like this. They were afraid, as we'll see in a couple of verses.

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And it's a fear that served God's purpose. Now, back to Charles Spurgeon and one other thing that he said.

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Jonah may have wondered, I can go to Tarshish if I wish. I paid the fare.

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I am no stowaway. Yet apologies for disobedience are mere refuges of lies.

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If you do the wrong thing in the rightest way in which it can be done, it does not make it right.

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You can go contrary to the Lord's will, even though you do it with the most decent and perhaps even the most devout manner, it is nevertheless sinful and will bring you to utter condemnation.

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That was Charles Spurgeon. Even if you do the wrong thing for a good reason, it doesn't make it a good thing.

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Verse 5. Then the mariners were afraid, and I boldfaced that because I want to say something later in a minute, but listen to what he said.

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Then the mariners were afraid, and they cried out every man to his God and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea to lighten it of them.

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But Jonah was down in the sides of the ship, and he lay and was fast asleep.

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Now, when they threw the cargo overboard, that was a big thing.

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They have given up hope of everything except being alive. They're not going to make any profit because their chance for the profit is floating in the sea.

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Their shipmasters, the owners of the ship, are probably going to fire them when they get back for losing the cargo and not going down with the ship.

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All they're concerned now is their life. And so what did they do? Every man cried out to his

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God. Now, what a curious and tragic scene.

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All of these sailors were religious men, not godly men, religious men, devout in their prayers to their gods, and yet their gods were really nothing and could do nothing.

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There was only one man on board who had a relationship with a true

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God, one who knew God's word, one who worshiped him, and where was that man?

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Down in the ship, sleeping, sound asleep.

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What should he have been doing? He should have been a couple of days on his journey to Nineveh, but instead he's a couple of days out to sea.

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And I just tagged this along. This was for the benefit of my little niece. If you know what is right and you fail to do it, to you it is a sin.

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If you know what is right to do and you fail to do it, then to you it is a sin.

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She had an instance in her life recently where something came to her attention that she felt like she needed to do, and she needed encouragement, and I gave her this.

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If you know what is right and you fail to do it, to you it's a sin. So she did it, and it created some issues, but God never promised us a rose garden in this world, only a better than a rose garden in the next one.

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Charles Spurgeon said this, Jonah was asleep amid all the confusion and noise, and, oh,

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Christian man, for you to be indifferent to all that is going on in such a world as this, for you to be negligent of God's work at such a time as this is just as strange.

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So he's agreeing. It is just as strange. It's just as bad for you to know what is right to do and not do it.

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That is just as bad as what Jonah did when he knew what was right to do and didn't do it. The devil alone is making enough noise to wake up all the

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Jonas, if only they want to be awakened. All around us there is turmoil and storm, yet some professing

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Christians are able, like Jonah, to go to sleep in the sides of the ship.

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And so Spurgeon then poses this question, how can you know that you're not asleep?

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And then what do you mean by man's truly being awake? And he answers it and says,

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I mean two or three things. I mean, first, he is having a thorough consciousness of the reality of spiritual things.

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When I speak of a wakeful man, I mean one that does not take the soul to be a fancy, nor heaven a fiction, nor hell a tale, but who acts among the sons of men as though these were the only substances and all other things but shadows.

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I want men of stern resolution, for no Christian is awake, unless he is steadfastly determined to serve his

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God, come fair or foul, not just the good times, bad times too.

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So the shipmaster came to him and said unto him, what meanest thou, O sleeper, arise and call upon thy

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God, if so be that God will think on us that we perish not.

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They might've been wondering how it is that Jonah could be sound asleep comfortably in this storm, which is about to break the boat up.

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Maybe he knew something they didn't know. Maybe his God knew something their God didn't know. So they go and ask him, what meanest thou,

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O sleeper, arise, call on thy God, if so be

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God will think upon us that we perish not. Now it must've seemed ironic, at least to Jonah.

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The sailors demanded that he call on his God. What was his reason for being on the boat?

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To get away from his God, to escape his God. He wants nothing to do right now with his God. Verse seven, and they said, everyone to his fellows, come, let us cast lots that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us.

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And they cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. Well, do you think that was an accident?

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Do you think it was an accident that the lot fell on Jonah? That's a no.

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Of course not. Of course not. In fact, we have in Proverbs 16, 33, this passage, the lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the

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Lord. The lot fell on Jonah because God wanted the lot to fall on Jonah.

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Because he's not through with Jonah. Even though Jonah is clearly rejecting God's call, at least right now.

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God's not through with him. Back to Jonah.

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Then said they unto him, tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us.

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What is thine occupation? Whence comest thou? What is thy country? And of what people art thou?

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They want a whole history of Jonah. They want to know all about Jonah. They want to know why Jonah could be asleep in the middle of this boat, in the middle of the storm, knowing that the boat's about to sink.

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They want to know all that. You might imagine that by now,

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Jonah is having a second thought. Now, the scripture does not explicitly say so, but I think we can infer from the context that Jonah, when asked, what is your occupation?

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Probably said, prophet. Prophet of the real God. And if that's the case, then it would be no surprise that the sailors would be even more terrified now than they were before they asked.

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And he said unto them, I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the

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God of heaven, which hath created, which hath made the sea and the dry land.

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Now, verse 10, then the men were exceedingly afraid and said unto him, why hast thou done this?

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For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord because he had told them.

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So the men were not just afraid, as we saw in verse 5, when he says the mariners were afraid.

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In verse 10, they were exceedingly afraid. Then they said unto him, what shall we do unto thee that the sea may be calm unto us?

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For the sea is wrought and tempestuous. Tempestuous. So the sailors are now looking for advice.

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Okay, Jonah, what are we going to do? Jonah may have had a change of heart by now.

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I don't know. And he said unto them, take me up. Cast me forth into the sea.

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So shall the sea be calm unto you. For I know that for my sake, this great tempest is upon you.

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Unwilling to go to Nineveh and probably feeling guilty, Jonah was willing to sacrifice himself in an attempt to save the lives of others.

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But apparently, given the choice, he'd rather die than go to Nineveh.

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He could have said turn around. He should have said turn around and go back to shore. I've got a mission to accomplish in Nineveh.

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He didn't say that. He said cast me into the sea and I will die and the sea will be calm because I know that the sea is wrought because of me.

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Nevertheless, the men rode hard to bring it to land, but they could not.

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For the sea was wrought and tempestuous against them. Wherefore, they cried unto the Lord and said, we beseech you,

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O Lord. Now, they're calling on Noah's Lord now. We beseech thee,

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O Lord. We beseech thee, let us not perish for this man's life and lay not upon us innocent blood, for thou,

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O Lord, hast done as it pleased thee. One thing to notice, these heathen sailors had more concern for one man in their boat than Jonah had for hundreds of thousands of men in Nineveh.

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They did not want to throw Jonah into the sea because they believed his God was real.

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And they dreaded the consequences of throwing a prophet, even a disobedient prophet, into the sea.

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Still, when all hope seemed to be lost, they took precautions.

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We pray thee, O Lord, please do not let us perish for this man's life and do not charge us with innocent blood.

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And they threw Jonah into the sea. So they took up Jonah and cast him forth into the sea and the sea ceased from her raging.

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It doesn't say immediately ceased, but I know that's what it meant. It stopped right then, calm.

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What caused the sea to cease from its raging? The same thing that caused it to rage in the first place,

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God. God said, start, it started. God said, stop, it stopped.

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There's another time when God told the sea to stop and it stopped. Anybody remember that?

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That's in Matthew 8, verse 23. And when he had entered the ship, his disciples followed him.

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And behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, and so much that the sea was covered with waves, but he,

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Jesus, was asleep. He had nothing to worry about. He was in control of the sea.

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And his disciples came to him and awoke him and saying, Lord, save us, we perish.

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And he said unto them, why are you so fearful? Oh, ye of little faith.

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Then he arose, rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. And the men marveled, saying, what manner of man is this that even the winds and the sea obey him?

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What manner of man is this? He was God. Verse 16, then the men feared the

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Lord exceedingly and offered a sacrifice unto the Lord and made vows. What men?

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The sailors. It doesn't say Jonah. Some commentators

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I read seem to think that Jonah was among the men that offered sacrifices and made vows.

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Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't, I don't know. But here's what

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I do know. The storm, Jonah's word, the cast slots, all indicated to the sailors that the

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Lord was involved. Thus they offered sacrifices to him and made vows.

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It's instructive to note that God is not finished with Jonah. God was no more surprised when

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Jonah disobeyed than he is when we disobey. Have any of you,

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I know I have, felt that the Lord wanted us to do something and we said, not now,

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Lord, or maybe later, or I'm not able to.

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That's what Moses said. God said, lead my people out of Israel. He said, I'm not able to.

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So we'll take Aaron with you and let him speak for you. But even though I'm really speaking for you, we find ways to hedge and say, not now,

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Lord. But God was not finished with Jonah. He was no more surprised when

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Jonah disobeyed than when we disobey. After all, he created us all. And he, for his own reasons, created us with whatever frailties we have.

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Second Corinthians 4, 7 says this. We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us.

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God didn't want perfect men serving him. If he did, he'd have one perfect man serving him.

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And that's all there would be if he wanted perfect men, because there are no perfect men.

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Verse 17. Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah.

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And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. No, the

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Lord is not finished with Jonah. He has just begun. And Philippians tells us this.

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Being confident of this very thing, he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.

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Well, that's chapter 1 of Jonah. Jonah, the reluctant prophet.

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He hasn't prophesied yet, but he will in chapter 2. Let us pray.

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Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for bringing us into this world. Thank you for giving us your salvation.

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And even thank you for putting it in a frail vessel, in an earthen vessel, so that any good that we do, anything that we may accomplish through our works will be attributed not to us, but to you.

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Thank you. Go through all the services today. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Okay, any comments or questions?

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Or if not,