Lessons About God from Jonah (Part 2)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, "...but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.".

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Critique of Heaven Is for Real and the Need for Biblical Truth

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Avendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Avendroth, and today we're going to do part two as we discuss the book of Jonah. The book of Jonah. Before I do, I just noticed in Christianity Today that Michael Hyatt stepped down as Thomas Nelson, a Christian publisher.

He steps down as the CEO, and I thought it was interesting that it says in here that they've got good money, that they've been making a lot of money, Heaven is for Real is about a boy who says he died and went to heaven, a book that sold quite well for Thomas Nelson.

Let's see, this guy said, Hyatt wrote on his blog, "...I feel this is the perfect time for me to make the transition. We finished our fiscal year on March 31st with very strong momentum. We currently have several books on the bestseller list, including Heaven is for Real, which has been number one on the New York Times list for 10 straight weeks.".

Sadly, that book is being sold by Thomas Nelson. That book is a crock. That book is false. That book is trying to prove to you that heaven is real through the experience of a three or four-year-old boy named Mr. Burpo, Master Burpo.

I've done two shows on that, and I'm just sad that if you put your faith and trust in Heaven is for Real, based on the account of a three or four-year-old who uses basically his dad's vocabulary, then you've got a real problem.

Paul said in 2 Corinthians chapter 12, he really went to heaven, and he wasn't allowed to talk about it. You have the apostle who really does go, and he can't talk about it, and he's given a thorn in the flesh, so he's not prideful.

And then you get the Burpos who said their son did go, and then they talk about it and make millions. It's just a sad, sad thing. If you say, well, have you read the book, have you called the Burpos, the lists go on and on and on and on.

Here's the real question. Does this teach biblical truth, or does it not? And if it doesn't, then let's jettison it and quit trying to revert back to, I had an experience, therefore it's real. So would you like me to use the same approach with you then?

I haven't had the experience, therefore it's not real. So I haven't been to heaven, so I don't have that experience, and I can't say it's not real. That is just totally a farce. And so you, the evangelical listener, you don't need to buy this book by the case and hand it out to your friends to evangelize them.

You say, well, how does that guy see what was going on in the other room? That little boy knew what was going on, his dad was in the other room praying, etc. Well that can happen anyway. The Father can plant the memories.

There are such things as demons. He can make it up. There's a lot of different explanations for that, but none of those prove anything. We have the more sure word, 2 Peter 1, verses 16 -21, and we don't need the Burpo book.

We need books that teach us really about heaven. Read Johnny Erickson Tata's book about heaven. Read MacArthur's book about heaven. Read Richard Baxter's book about the saints' everlasting rest. Every so often the 90 minutes in heaven or 23 minutes in purgatory comes along, just like this book, and it sells like mad.

And I say shame on Thomas Nelson. And I don't know if this guy's stepping down for that reason or not, but when you continue to put out books like that, there's a major, major problem with Christianity.

Probably the bad news is they know people like these kind of books, and they know the customer that is mom and pop Christian are so experientially based, so psychologically based that this is what they want, so this is what they get.

It's like Johnny Rotten saying, this is what you want, this is what you get. And so it's just very disheartening to me that people will go ape over all this talk about the Burpo book when it is complete farce.

It's made up. It didn't happen. He never went to heaven and came back, and if he did, he wouldn't be writing a book about it. And I feel sorry for that young man. What are we going to do one day? I hope he does follow Christ with his life, and I really want that, sincerely.

But what would people do if they found out this young Burpo boy grows up to be 30 years old and doesn't follow Christ? Then would that have any effect? But by then the millions of dollars will be cashed, and no one will care, because the next 92 minutes in heaven will be out.

Well, I'm digressing, but it's my show, and it's just very disheartening as a pastor when people abandon the Word. If you want to know what heaven and the eternal state is like, well, how about reading Revelation chapter 21 and 22.

If you'd like to know how great heaven is and how great Jesus is, you don't need to know about some big horse that he's riding up there, or that people have bodies, that nobody has a body in heaven now, no matter what Burpo says, except Jesus has a body.

That's it. No one else. The bodies are in the ground and scattered elsewhere across the world, and they will be resurrected, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. But when a boy says, I went to heaven and saw bodies there besides Jesus, he is a liar.

And so let's just call for what it is. This is false teaching, it's ungodly, it's unbiblical, and we're a no-compromise radio. Positive, encouraging, no compromise. Back to Jonah. How do we get to this with Jonah?

I don't know. This is just a piece of paper sitting on my desk that's just bugging me, and I've got to get rid of it. And this is my outlet, this is how I keep myself from psychiatric medicine. Jonah.

Jonah as a Literal Historical Account and a Sign from Jesus

Here's what we did last time. I read the book of Jonah, chapter 1, 2, 3, and 4, it only took about seven or eight minutes to read, and then we wanted to bring some truths out of that book, to pull out some gospel truths, biblical truths.

So when you read a book, any book of the Bible, especially the Old Testament, you ought to say to yourself, what does this book teach me about God? Is there a trajectory in this book that makes me say, I need a Messiah, or the Messiah is going to come, I need a sin bearer?

How does this book show God dealing, this great holy God, yet loving and compassionate, dealing with sinful humanity? Is there a promise of God in this covenant that He's working on here and is going to keep it in spite of what the people do?

Some unilateral covenant like the Abrahamic covenant? So there's a lot of questions you could ask, but basically what I want you to do is say to yourself, what can I learn about God and Christ Jesus as I read these Old Testament books?

And not finding Jesus under every word or hyper-Lutheranism when it comes to that, but making sure you ask the question, especially if you're teaching the Bible or preaching the Bible, what about Jesus?

And this book is very easy because Jesus says in Matthew chapter 12 that though you want to sign evil and adulterous generation of Israelites that are before Him, the only sign I'm going to give you is not one in the sun and the moon and the stars.

I'm not going to give you any kind of spectacular display of comets and such. I'll give you a sign in the Bible, and that is Jonah. And so Jonah was affirmed by Jesus to be a literal historical account.

2 Kings does the same thing, Jonah the son of Amittai. And so the first lesson we learned last week when it comes to the book of Jonah is that you need to take this as Jesus does, as a literal historical account.

It's not an allegory, it's a literal account. And so we have the second truth that we can pull out of the book of Jonah. By the way, this is something good to do with your family. Read the book of the Bible and then ask yourself and ask the kids, ask your wife, ask the other folks that are visiting, what can we learn about God in the book of Jonah?

What can we learn about mankind? The second truth that I pulled out here in no particular order is to show that God has a concern, God has a love, God has a grace that extends to all mankind. It is not just for the Israelites.

As a matter of fact, in Matthew 12, Jesus was spanking the Israelites and He was saying, you're hard-hearted, but the Ninevites, those wicked, horrible, awful people who would flay people alive and take the skin of the people that they cut off while the people were alive and put it down by the sea docks to intimidate people, those ruthless people, they had softer hearts than you do, Israel.

And so here we have this great, compassionate God who's gracious and generous, not just to the Israelites, but to Gentiles as well. Did you know some people call Jonah the John 3 .16 of the Old Testament?

Did you get that? Some people call Jonah the John 3 .16 of the Old Testament, for God loved the world in this way, that He gave His only begotten Son, that those believing in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

The book of Jonah shows that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Israel, the God of the Hebrews, has concern for the whole world. When I say the whole world, I'm not saying the earth as in carbon, the earth as in Earth Day, I'm not saying the evil world system, I'm saying not just Jews but also Gentiles, the whole world.

And so when you look at this theme that the God of the Bible has compassion for Gentiles, most of you listening today should be very, very happy. Why is that? Because most of you listening today probably are not Jewish, and if you are not Jewish and you have been born again, you can thank God and His wonderful love because you weren't part of the chosen ones, you weren't of Israel.

Ephesians chapter 2 even talks about that with a command, remember, don't ever forget that you were a goyim, that you were Gentile, that you weren't a Jew. Here we have this great God who's the God of Israel and He still saves Gentiles.

I find that very interesting. If you look back to Jonah chapter 1, that God would love Ninevites. Now He didn't love them because of who they are, He loved them in spite of who they were. He loved them because He loved them.

That's Deuteronomy chapter 7. How do you understand God loving the Hebrews? Well, it's just because God wanted to love the Hebrews. And similarly, how does God love the Ninevites? These haters, these horrible people, the wickedness has come up before me.

It says in chapter 1, God needed to be, God's wrath was aroused, I'm sure, yet He's not just wrathful, He is kind, He's compassionate, He's loving. And here you have Nineveh, the center of idolatry, the center of the worship of Asher, the false god, and Ishtar, his maiden.

These proud people, these arrogant people, these people who would worship Nashi, the daughter of Ea, the goddess of fresh water, the people who would worship not only that fish goddess, but Dagon, the fish god, half man, half fish.

These idolatrous people who are cruel to prisoners, these people were the object of God's compassion and mercy. And you know that God is compassionate and merciful when He sends preachers of the good news that God saves sinners.

Do you know when I was doing my study, if you don't know that you'll know right now, No Compromise Radio, info at nocompromiseradio .com, the Assyrian armies were so cruel. Some say unparalleled in ancient history.

Listen to this. Some of the victims were held down while one of the band of torturers who were portrayed upon the monuments gloating fiendishly over their fearful work, inserts his hand into the victim's mouth, grips his tongue and wrenches it out by the roots.

In another spot, pegs are driven into the ground. To these and other victims, wrists are fixed with cords. His ankles are similarly made fast and the man is stretched out, unable to move a muscle. The executioner then applies himself to his task and beginning at the accustomed spot, the sharp knife makes its incision.

By the way, this is the time where you turn down the radio if you've got little tiny kids in the car and you can turn it on in about 15 seconds. The beginning of the accustomed spot, the sharp knife makes its incision.

The skin is raised inch by inch till the man is flayed alive. These skins are stretched out on the city walls or otherwise disposed of so as to terrify the people and leave behind long enduring impressions of Assyrian vengeance.

For others, long sharp poles are prepared. The sufferer, taken like all the rest from the leading men of the city, is laid down. The sharpened end of the pole is driven in through the lower part of the chest.

The pole is then raised, burying the writhing victim aloft. It is planted in the hole, dug for it, and the man is left to die.". End quote. That's a group of people who have no regard and no respect for men and women as image bearers.

Remember when there's punishment, remember when there's torture, when there's cruelty to other people, as people disobey the second great commandment, love your neighbor as yourself. That is really an attack against God.

Murder is an attack against God because these people are image bearers and so since people's arms aren't long enough to go up into heaven and kill God and they're not powerful enough to do that, then they take out their anger and their hatred of God on other people.

Wilmington said, Pyramids of human heads marked the path of the conqueror. Boys and girls were burnt alive or reserved for a worse fate. Men were impaled, flayed alive, blinded or deprived of their hands and feet or of their ears and noses while the women and children were carried into slavery.

Now, what kind of a God rescues those kind of people? That's really what I'm after today. By the way, it's easy now to say in your heart, you're that same kind of person. If you've hated, you've committed murder.

If you've lusted, you've committed adultery. We are no better than the Ninevites. I'm no better than the Ninevites and I know you're not either. And what kind of God rescues people like Ninevites? What kind of God sends preachers to Ninevites?

Because this God knows through the ordained means of the preached word, people respond to the message. And there was, in fact, that message. Jonah rose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord.

He went there and preached the message. And what did they do? They believed God. In spite of the sinful, frail messenger, they believed God. The word of the Lord even reached the king of Nineveh. How about that?

What's the lesson of the book? This great, compassionate God. This great, compassionate God who saves Gentiles. He saves sinners. If you think of the Old Testament God, you ought not to think wrath only.

Exodus 34, the Lord passed in front of him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in loving kindness and truth. Who keeps loving kindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin.

Yet he will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generation. God is gracious. He favors other people.

And only God is called gracious with this word gracious in Exodus chapter 34 when Moses said, I want to see you, God. God passes before Moses and he shows him that he's gracious. He shows him that he's compassionate, that he sees people who are helpless and he has pity on them and he's slow to anger.

God is not amused and nor does he get delight in punishing wicked people. He's abounding in loyal love, steadfast love, faithfulness to this covenant kind of love. God, true or false, would just as soon forgive as he would destroy.

The answer is yes. You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work, for which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight. You, that word compassion in Jonah 4 .10, is to act with tears in one's eyes, Ockmeyer said.

Can you imagine? Jonah, why don't you care for the heathen? I think of Jonathan Swift's line, Jonathan Swift's line, we are God's chosen few. All others will be damned. There is no place in heaven for you.

We can't have heaven crammed. Wow. That was what Jonah was thinking. Jonah knew that God was compassionate. He knew that he was gracious. He knew that he saved people through the preached word. He knew that he saved even heathens, pagans, Ninevites.

So if I go to preach to those people, Jonah reckoned, then God will save them and we can't have God saving those kind of people now, can we? That's not going to be good. Jonah, you pity a plant which cost you nothing, was short-lived, valueless, temporary, and yet there are hundreds of thousands of people there, people that will live forever, that God has made.

That is an amazing thing. So we have a book called Jonah, and Jonah talks about, yes, the real fish, and it also talks about the compassionate grace of God to save sinners. And we now, as Christians, know that the compassion and grace of God embodied is found in Christ Jesus, the incarnate God.

And Jesus did, in fact, love sinners as well. And he loved centurions, and he loved Gentiles, and he loved in a wonderful way, God's compassion. You think of James and John, the sons of thunder, Luke 9, and when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?

And then God got a hold of Jonah's heart, and then what happened? John becomes the apostle of love. Number three, what's the third lesson? This is not in my notes, but it's so good I better just say it.

Here's the third lesson when I read the book of Jonah, that you can have a peace about something and be out of the will of God, that because you have a peace about something that does not mean you should go forward.

Jonah had a peaceful, easy feeling when he was in the bottom of the boat, disobeying God. And on the flip side, when he was walking into Nineveh, I'm sure his heart was not feeling wonderful. When I go door to door to evangelize, or at least in school, or sometimes here at the church, or if I have to do church discipline, or I have to confront someone, I don't have a peace about it.

But I know it's biblical, so therefore I do it. Jonah wanted to go to Tarshish. It's the exact opposite way. And what was Jonah doing? He was sleeping. Jonah had gone down in the inner part of the ship and had laid down and was fast asleep.

Verse 5 of chapter 1. He had an easy, peaceful feeling. He had a peace about it. There was an open door, a matter of fact. The open door was, wow, I went down to the boat yards and there was only one boat there and that one boat was going to Tarshish.

Wow, just my luck. It's away from Nineveh. I'll take it. Open doors mean go through it, or it could mean be careful, don't go through it, use wisdom, don't be presumptuous. Closed doors might mean don't go through it, and closed door could mean maybe you should bash that down, keep trying, don't let it stop you.

So don't be a mystic. Don't be a Quaker. I think I did have some Quaker oats this morning, though. My typical morning is besides coffee, Peet's coffee, if I am in a bind, Starbucks coffee. And if I'm, you know, begging, maybe it will be a Dunkin' Donuts coffee someplace.

And then I have some oatmeal with some walnuts and some blueberries. And some Stevia, some Truvia Splenda. By the way, 60 days, 60 some days now, 63 days, no aspartame. How about that? No Diet Cokes, no Diet Mountain Dews.

Man, I long to have one of those. I did have, sorry, I did have a Diet Hansen's the other day, and it has something in it. I think maybe it's Splenda, not sure, but it doesn't have aspartame. So Hansen's is kind of cool with the in crowd, the organic kind of dreadlock crowd.

So we're fine on that. It's hip to be square. Back to Jonah. Jonah, think about it. The third truth that we learn from the book of Jonah in no particular order is don't be a mystic. Dare to be a Daniel.

Dare to be, I dare you not to be a Jonah. Don't run your life on open doors, closed doors. I had a piece about it. I hear it all the time. This is probably the number one drum that I've hit since I've been on No Compromise Radio.

I don't know how many shows we are in, into 250 shows now, 400 shows, 500 shows. I guess you do 250 a year. Let's see, 52 weeks times five. What does that yield you? 260 shows a year. We almost got two years done.

Here's the drum that I'm banging. The revelation that's fixed and unalterable from God found in scripture is your only trustworthy hope. Don't trust in yourself. Don't trust in princes. Don't trust in your brains.

Don't trust in your brawn. Don't trust in your bucks. Don't trust in anything like Jeremiah 9 says not to trust in. You have to go outside yourself because you're sinful. And if you listen to your heart and trust your heart and look inside of yourself, you've a wrong view of remaining sin and a believer.

Don't do that. So the third lesson when it comes to the book of Jonah, number one, it was real story. Jesus talked about it and it typified his death, burial, and resurrection. Number two, shows the great compassion of God.

Number three, don't forget to not be like Jonah. There's a truth of what not to do. Truth number four, it teaches us that salvation is from God and God alone. Salvation is from and of God. Man does not contribute anything to his salvation.

And here we see a perfect picture of the great salvation from God. Jonah didn't help himself get out. So too in the spiritual realm, you can't help yourself get out of your sins. Colossians 2 says, he made you alive together with him.

That's what happened. Salvation is all of God. Spurgeon said, it was the same love that spread the feast that sweetly forced me in. Else I had still refused to taste and perished in my sin. Charles Wesley, he knew it too.

He was a Calvinist. He didn't even know it. Long my imprisoned spirit lay fast bound in sin and nature's night. Thine eyes diffused a quickening ray. I woke the dungeon flame with light. My chains fell off.

My heart was free. I rose, went forth and followed thee. God alone is the author of regeneration. You are a monergist if you believe the Bible. God alone working. Mono erg. Mono energy. God alone working.

We are passive in redemption. We are passive in regeneration. We contribute nothing. Our response to that great work of Christ, the great work of the father, the great work of the spirit. The response is faith.

But faith is a channel. Faith is an instrument. Faith does not cause any salvation. Dead men do not cooperate with God's grace. They are unable to. That is why Jesus had to come. You were dead in your transgressions.

Colossians chapter 2 says, hopeless, impotent spiritually, and you couldn't even grab the antidote. The antidote had to be given to you. Well, I hope you read the book of Jonah, and I hope you realize that in the book of Jonah, we don't see the star of the story as the fish, or Jonah, or the Ninevites, or anyone else.

The star of the story is Jesus Christ, the Messiah, Yahweh. He's the star of the story. And so when you read Jonah, there's all kinds of truths that you can dig out. You can write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com.

Lots of people do. Send us your questions. God bless you. Or by phone at 508 -835 -3400. The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.