Repeated Phrases in Jonah:
1. Jonah Ran away from God
3 But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the LORD. . . (after the storm almost destroyed the ship) 10 This terrified them and they asked, “What have you done?” (They knew he was running away from the LORD, because he had already told them so.)
God’s Question for Jonah:
is it right for you to be angry?
You can run away from God’s will, you can be angry about His will, like Jonah, but you can’t escape. It doesn’t work. As the Spirit said through David,
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
"God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there."
CS Lewis, Mere Christianity
You can run away from God’s will, you can be angry about His will, but it won’t work, because He has a plan.
2. The Lord provided . . . (He Had a Plan)
4 Then the LORD sent a great wind on the sea,
17 Now the LORD provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Jonah 4:6 Then the LORD God provided a leafy plant . . . God provided a worm
God provided a scorching east wind
God has a plan, a calling, for each one of us.
D L Moody
Henry Varley, a British pastor relates . . .
During the afternoon of the day of conference Mr. Moody asked me to join him in the vestry of the Baptist Church. We were alone, and he recalled the night’s meeting at Willow Park and our converse the following morning. “Do you remember your words?” he said. I replied, “I well remember our interview, but I do not recall any special utterance.” “Don’t you remember saying, ‘Moody, the world has yet to see what God will do with a man fully consecrated to him?’ ”“Not the actual sentence,” I replied.
“Ah,” said Mr. Moody, “those were the words sent to my soul, through you, from the Living God. As I crossed the wide Atlantic, the boards of the deck of the vessel were engraved with them, and when I reached Chicago, the very paving stones seemed marked with ‘Moody, the world has yet to see what God will do with a man fully consecrated to him.’ Under the power of those words I have come back to England, and I felt that I must not let more time pass until I let you know how God had used your words to my inmost soul.” Paul Gericke’s Crucial Experiences in the Life of D.L. Moody
Jonah ran away from God, but he had no right to be angry, because God had a plan
And
Jesus spoke about these events with Jonah, and He called Jonah a sign
3. Signs of the Times
Jonah hated the Assyrians. They were a brutal people. Ninevah was their capitol city. That’s why he wanted to escape.
But God had a plan.
When Jonah was spit from the whale’s balene beak, he would have been blue and hairless from the acids of the whale’s stomach.
You know what the ninevites worshiped? Dagon, the fish God!
Jonah himself was the sign to the Assyrians.
[Matthew 12:38 Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.” 39 He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41 The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now something greater than Jonah is here. . .
16 The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven. 2 He replied, “When evening comes, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,’ 3 and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.
Jonah Jesus
Ran Away from God Came from the Father, and was returning to the Father
The crowd he tried to escape with tried to save him The crowd He came to save cried “Crucify Him”
Gave a message his audience received with repentance Gave a message that was rejected, and He was crucified
Was angry that his message was received & that God forgave For the joy that was set before Him endured the cross.
Wanted the Ninevites to die. Gave His life so we could live
Was a sign to a city Was a sign to the World
Luke 2:12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” 34 Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, 35 so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.
Signs of the Times
As of Thursday January 25, 2018, the time on The Doomsday Clock stands at two minutes to midnight, 30 seconds closer to armageddon than its previous setting of two and a half minutes to in January 2017. In fact, this is the nearest the clock has predicted that the world is to nuclear war since 1953, when it was set to 11.58pm in light of the US pursuit of the hydrogen bomb.
The decision to change the clock’s time follows an extremely unsettling year in global politics. Obscene threats of nuclear annihilation pass on a seemingly monthly basis, between Trump and Kim-Jong Un. The climate crisis accelerates further beyond our effective control. In the past week alone, Western generals have warned of looming war with Russia.
In such a climate, the clock, which was first set in 1947 is an ominous reminder of the global threat of nuclear war. It is a symbol of humanity’s proximity to global catastrophe—represented by midnight on the analogue face. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-doomsday-clock-could-help-trigger-the-armageddon-it-warns-of/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-digest&utm_content=link&utm_term=2018-01-26_top-stories
“Day Zero”—when Cape Town becomes the first major city in the world to run out of water, as reservoirs dip too low to deliver a potable supply—will come on April 12. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/as-cape-town-water-crisis-deepens-scientists-prepare-for-ldquo-day-zero-rdquo/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-digest&utm_content=link&utm_term=2018-01-26_more-stories
This week there was an earthquake near Alaska, 7.9 on the Richtor Scale.
We see many such signs these days. But I suggest to you, as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, and Jesus was a sign to the world,
WE ARE THE SIGN to OUR GENERATION.
For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life. And who is equal to such a task? 2 Corinthians 2:15-16
Jesus said “as the Father has sent me, so I am sending you” (John 20:21)
So
1. Jonah tried to run away from God, but he had no right to be angry because
2. God had a Plan
And
3. We must see the Signs of the Times.
We Are His Plan Today-We are the Signs of our Time.
Will you be like Jonah, and try to escape your destiny? Or will you be like Jesus, take up your cross, and follow today?
