THE WRONG CHOICE
Intro:
1. CBS News reports that, since its inception in the 1970s, the Human Intervention Motivation Study has given second chances to thousands of men and women in danger of losing their families, careers, and even their lives.
Eighty percent of HIMS participants never relapse at all, and of the ones who do, most only relapse once. Lyle Prouse, who was able to retire honorably after a previous arrest, a stint in prison, and entry into the HIMS program, said:
"I've gotten to live out more miracles than anybody I know, I suppose without sounding preachy or evangelistic, the only thing I can attribute it to is God's grace."
2. We have looked at God giving Jonah a Chance at a wonderful opportunity, but unfortunately he makes the wrong Choice. But by God’s grace He will be given another chance.
B. The wrong Choice. 1:3
1. He fled from God’s Plan.
3 But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish – As one notes:
Tarshish is uncertain. Its association with ships (1Kg 10: 22) suggests it was near the sea. The “ships of Tarshish” used by King Jehoshaphat on the Red Sea were probably merchant ships of design similar to those used by sailors from Tarshish on the Mediterranean Sea. Tarshish has sometimes been identified with Paul’s home of Tarsus in Cilicia or the city of Tharros on the island of Sardinia west of Italy. But the most probable identification of Tarshish is the Phoenician colony of Tartessus, located on the Guadalquivir River on the southwestern coast of Spain about 2,000 miles west of Palestine. This is about as far in the opposite direction from Nineveh as Jonah could have gone.
Tarshish was in the opposite direction from Nineveh, located in the tip of Spain about 2,000 miles from Joppa. Like the prodigal son he is now headed for the “far country” of carnality.
We must all choose between Nineveh and Tarshish, between God’s plan and ours. One of the problems is we tend to live by fleshly impulses instead of the steady Word of God.
Spurgeon has a helpful comment on this:
Jonah felt it come upon him, all of a sudden, not to go to Nineveh, but to Tarshish… It came upon me that I must do so-andso.” I am afraid of these impulses— very greatly afraid of them!... Our impulses are not to be depended on… You must never obey an impulse to do wrong! Now, in Jonah’s case the impulse was, “Go to Tarshish. Go to Tarshish.”… We are no more to follow vain impulses than cunningly-devised fables. The Word of the Lord is to be our leading star in all things… God is not the Author of evil desires and suggestions! It is much more likely that these thoughts come from the devil —and most of all likely that they rise from a foolish and corrupt heart. If anything says to you, “Flee to Tarshish,” when God says, “Go to Nineveh,” shut your ears against the evil impulse and hasten to do as God bids you.
A December, 2010 article in Newsweek argues that after a brief period of cutting back Americans are starting to spend again—whether they can afford it or not. Some experts call it "frugality fatigue"—in other words, we're weary of cutting back, and we're ready to splurge again. The authors argue, "The truth is that spending may be hard to contain. Entire generations of consumers have grown up with the idea of instant gratification and the credit culture that comes with it."
These are some of the key statistics from the article:
• American households have pared their debt (from $12.5 trillion in 2008 to $11.6 trillion in September of 2010), but most of that came from home foreclosures and defaults on credit cards.
• From the start of the recession, we have continued to increase our spending in the following expense categories: Telephone equipment (up 16.6 percent), pet expenses (up 14.4 percent), and child care (up 12.8 percent).
• Although 89 percent of Americans say they're watching their expenditures, spending has increased anyway.
More tellingly, the authors include two stories that epitomize our runaway spending.
Maria Diaz, a 30-year-old waitress who was forced to move in with her mother, said, "I keep waiting for things to get better, and they just don't. After awhile I just decided, 'Screw it. I need some new clothes. I'm going to get them.' My mama's not happy, but I don't care. You stop spending, and you stop living."
Then there's the story of Harry Dugan, a 50-year-old respiratory therapist from New Jersey. Although he's "underwater" on his mortgage and he tried to curtail his expenses, he recently "had a bit of a relapse": he purchased a $900 television and a $21,000 car. "It was an impulse buy," he confessed. "If I could go back, I'd get something cheaper."
The article concludes with a warning: "Yes, spending is great fun, until the bill arrives. That's a lesson we've learned the hard way. Or maybe we haven't."
When we sin by impulse we can be sure we have are going to regret it when the bill comes due.
9 Rejoice, young man, during your childhood, and let your heart be pleasant during the days of young manhood. And follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes. Yet know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things. Ecclesiastes 11:9
2. He fled from God’s Presence.
…from the presence of the LORD – there is nothing worse than getting away from the manifested presence of God.
R. T. Kendall writes:
There is an attribute called the omnipresence of God and we learn this as well from the book of Jonah, that God is everywhere…You cannot really run from the presence of God in this sense. You can go from here to Australia and find that God is there, for God is everywhere…While it is true that Jonah could not really run from the presence of God, because God is omnipresent, I want to say this to you: there is nonetheless something precious that Jonah lost. This expression “the presence of the Lord” is used in more than one sense…Jonah did lose something. And I want you to know that when you run from God you lose something. It is that special presence of the Lord.
Truth is we can go out of God’s presence (Gen. 3:8; 4:16/2 Ki. 13:23/etc.).
It seems bizarre that one would choose to leave the joy of the Lord for the oppression and emptiness of the self-life! Reminded me of a family I read about in Houston Texas. Authorities found an abandoned house in Houston Texas. It said they found, “Recently filled prescription bottles in the bathroom cabinets, books on Marxism on the bookshelves, children’s bicycles still leaning against the garage wall.”
The people who had lived there was the Lockshin family, they left the freedom and prosperity of America to live in the Soviet Union. What a foolish choice, but choosing our way over God’s presence is a trillion times more foolish!
3. He got what seemed like Providential confirmation!
So he went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarshish, - Joppa, is modern-day Jaffa, a suburb of Tel Aviv on Israel’s Mediterranean coast. Joppa plays a role in the tribual allotments in Joshua (19:46), where it is mentioned as part of the tribal territory of Dan, and in the post exilic narratives of Chronicles and Ezra, where it functions as the port used to receive the cedars of Lebanon for both the first (2 Chron. 2:15) and the second temple (Ezra 3:7).
If we refuse to live according to the Word of God, we can always twists things to justify our rebellion.
John Butler says it well:
“He found a ship going to Tarshish”. That sounds like success for Jonah’s plans. In fact, everything seemed to be working out for Jonah in his plan to go to Tarshish. He had traveled to Joppa without incident; and when he got to Joppa, there was a ship going to the very place he wanted to go. How providential! But, as we know from reading the book of Jonah, this was not successful at all…When once a person determines to leave the will of God…the means to pursue it will generally be found – the devil will see to that! There are plenty of ships ready to transport the rebellious person on their evil way…Satan is doing all he can to help and encourage evil. So the person who turns away from God’s will and heads out on the road of disobedience is going to find considerable help and apparent success…The Psalmist was observing this when he spoke of “the prosperity of the wicked” (Psa. 73:3).
Spurgeon warns, “Nothing can make it right to do wrong! I pray you, never blaspheme God by laying your sins on the back of His Providence!...Providence or no Providence, the Word of the Lord is to be our guide.”… Look at David, too. He is brought out by Abishai upon the field at night. There lies king Saul, sound asleep, and Abishai says to David, “God has delivered your enemy into your hands this day: now therefore let me smite him, I pray you, with the spear even to the earth at once, and I will not smite him the second time!” What a Providence, was it not?... Yet David never said a word as to Providence, but replied, “Destroy him not: for who can stretch forth his hand against the Lord’s Anointed and be guiltless?”…Many have erred through looking at circumstances rather than at commands.
See I Sam. 26:7-9.
4. Disobedience always comes with a Price.
paid the fare – disobedience always comes with a price tag.
Disobedience cost, I use, MR. PALMER to remind me of the cost of sin:
• M = Misery. A believer can sin but cannot not enjoy it (Psa. 32:3; 38:4; 51:8, 12/2 Pet. 2:7-8).
• R = Responsibility to glorify God. Sin dishonors God, and the goal of our life is to glorify God (1 Cor. 10:31/Rev. 4:11).
• P = It means a loss of Power (Judges 16:20), of the manifested presence of God (Hos. 5:6), of answered Prayer (Psa. 66:18/Isa. 59:2/Jam. 4:3), and Purity (Isa. 5:18/Prov. 5:22), sin always enslaves.
• A = Agape. It is a sin against God’s love (Rev. 2:4).
• L = Loyalty to Satan and Self is what sin really is! We are the Bride of Christ, to sin is to be unfaithful to that union (1 Cor. 6:17).
• M = Ministry is always effected by our persistent sin. And yet we have to be careful here because one can exercise their gift even in the flesh (1 Cor. 13:1-3). Jonah was clearly out of God’s will but God still used him to save those sailors.
• E = Eternity. Sin means a loss of rewards (1 Cor. 9:24-27).
• R = Reality is that God’s way is always best.
Russ Reaves give us insight:
In verse 3, we read that Jonah went down to Joppa and found a ship that was going to Tarshish, and he paid the fare. You better believe he paid the fare! There are no free rides. We must remember that in the ancient world, as in many parts of the world today, money is something of a sophisticated innovation. I’ve visited villages in Africa where no one had any money, and no one needed money. If they had money, there was nothing around to spend it on. In the world in which Jonah lived, the economy operated largely without an exchange of currency. And a journey of this distance would have been costly. It likely cost more than Jonah could afford to pay. Some have speculated that Jonah may have had to sell his home and possessions to afford the price of this journey… There was only one problem with his plan. God knew something Jonah didn’t know. He always does. God knew that Jonah wouldn’t make it to Tarshish. Somewhere in the depths of the Mediterranean Sea, Jonah will be thrown overboard, and there will be no refund on the cost of his ticket. He will be back where he started from, with nothing to his name but a tragic story to tell.
We like to watch Cash Cab, it is a TV game show. I have seen people get $3,000 dollars and lose it all by going for the double bonus video question. Ben Bailey the host usually says, “At least you have a good story to tell.” I think, Ben if I just lost $3,000 that is not what I call a good story to tell! When we willfully sin against God’s plan we never leave with a good story to tell.
5. Our plan is always downward Progression.
and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD – disobedience never causes us to go up but down. Jonah went down to Joppa, down into the ship, down into the deep, down into the fishes belly.
This reminded me of when I was in Austria at a Navigators retreat and we went skiing. I am not very coordinated and they were trying to teach us how to stop, which requires strong ankles. The instructor knew me by name! As he was talking to us, I would begin to go down the hill, and could not stop! I keep going down, further and faster until I crashed! That is the way sin is, it always take us downward, farther and farther from God until we crash.
O. S. Hawkins notes:
Once we step on the pathway of disobedience, the road keeps spiraling downward. David started going down when he watched Bathseba bathing. He went down farther when he called for her. He went down farther into adultery. He went down farther when he had her husband Uriah killed. He went down farther when he tried to cover over his sin…This is the way it is in leaving the will of God…If we could only learn this simple lesson: No one ever goes up while in rebellion against God. A lot of people today are fooling themselves. A fall is just what it says it is. People never fall up; they fall down. There is no standing still on the way to Tarshish.
I visited the Grand Canyon when I was a kid. When you stand atop the South Rim, the temperature may be a comfortable 75 degrees, and the journey below looks adventurous. But if you start down, every step farther down the temperature goes up. By the time you reach the floor of the canyon, it’s 105 degrees. You are dehydrated and fatigued, tired and have a 6 mile trek ahead of you to get back where you started. Every year, many people are pulled out of the canyon by rescuers, and some do not make it at all! That is the way the path of disobedience takes us.
Con:
1. Jonah was given a wonderful Chance to serve the Lord but made the wrong Choice.
2. But I want to keep before us the theme of this book, that God will still give Jonah a Second Chance.
3. SpaceX, the California space technology company that has pioneered the science of safely returning used rocket boosters to earth in recent years, recently uploaded a YouTube video showing some of the most dramatic times that it did not succeed.
The two minute video, titled "How Not to Land an Orbital Rocket Booster," is set to the song "The Liberty Bell" by John Philip Sousa and includes humorous captions for each clip of impressive rocket explosions.
In one segment that shows SpaceX CEO Elon Musk observing a smoldering rocket, the caption reads "It's just a scratch."
Another chimes in, "Well, technically, it did land … just not in one piece."
The video even pokes fun at the phrase "rapid unscheduled disassembly," a phrase Musk has made famous to describe untimely and expensive explosions of impressive size.
The video ends, however, with triumphant footage of its first two successful landings, one on land and one on sea. The company's success rate continues to rise, and it has successfully landed 16 additional rocket boosters to earth (apparently making it acceptable for the company to publish the footage).
Like Jonah we all fail many times, but it is encouraging to know in the end we will enter eternity successfully.
Johnny A Palmer Jr.
