Why Would God Stoop To Reveal His Will Through Dice Tossed By Pagan Sailors Series

REALLY, GOD? Why would God stoop to reveal His will through dice tossed by pagan sailors?

- Jonah 1:7.

- When you think about this situation, it just all seems so undignified. We’ve got these sailors (whom we can safely presume were not having Sunday School on the ship) rolling dice and God controls the dice to point them in the right direction on whom to blame.

- Why would God stoop that low? Why would He do something so undignified?

WHY GOD DOES THINGS LIKE THAT: God will meet people where they are and speak in a way they’ll understand.

- Sometimes in churches we basically say, “If you want to come into our sanctuary and listen to the Word the way that we like to hear it preached, then you’re welcome to listen for God.” In other words, you have to come to where we are and you have to listen to it the way we like it.

- God is willing to go to where people are and He’s willing to speak in a way that they’ll understand.

- God is not just the God of Sunday mornings and church sanctuaries. He’s God of every day and all times. He’s the God of everywhere on the earth.

- God doesn’t just speak through Bibles and preachers, although He does speak through those. He’s much broader with His voice.

- We might be inclined to say that it’s beneath God to speak like that. God speaking through the roll of the dice by a bunch of pagan sailors? It’s undignified!

- But consider some of the ways that God has spoken:

a. A burning bush.

b. A talking donkey.

c. Casting lots.

- God has spoken through some strange means.

- God will do what it takes to get the message to you.

- Given that often people are deep in sin, it may take some effort to get the message across in a way that’s understandable. But God loves those people and He desires that they would understand His warning. That may require sharing the message in a way that we might find undignified.

- Sometimes we’re more concerned with decorum and dignity than we are with reaching the lost.

- The sailors were, however imperfectly, seeking God’s will. They wanted to know why this storm had been sent their way. They believed the storm to be of supernatural origin.

- When someone is trying to find God, He is willing to reach out to them and communicate in ways that we might not find in keeping with the way we’d prefer He’d do things.

Some Examples:

a. Sometimes God speaks through the sage’s voice; sometimes He speaks through the annoying person’s voice.

- There are times when a wise friend may provide the word we need to get to where God wants us to be. At other times, God might put us near someone we find annoying. They bring out impatience and anger in us, but God wants to show us how we really are so we can work on it.

b. Spoken through a secular song.

- As I was preparing this message, there was a Jewel song that came on Pandora that made a reference to a “burning bush.” That gave me a thought on some of the unusual ways that God spoke in the Bible.

c. Circumstances/timing.

- As we’re somewhere, God may use our circumstances or the timing of things to put us in a position where a message or situation is laid before us.

d. Nature.

- It says in Romans that God’s eternal nature and His power are clearly discernible from nature.

e. A comment from a non-Christian.

- Becky Tirabassi tells of a time in her life when she was facing charges. She offered to take the stand and her lawyer told her, “You’d be crucified.” That reference started a chain of events in her heart that led her back toward the Lord.

MORE OF THIS IN YOUR LIFE: If something strikes you, ask if it’s God.

- When a phrase or situation jumps out to you, stop to ask if it’s from God. When something gets your attention, stop to ask if it’s from God.

- It might be a word spoken. It might be an unusual circumstance. It might be an annoyance.

- In all those (or whatever), when we find ourselves really hit by something, stop to ask if that might be from God.

- Now, I don’t mean every little thing. And even when something does hit us, not all of those are of divine origin. But we’ve all experienced having a moment when a word or song just seems to bring together all that we’ve been thinking about or an issue that’s been lingering in the back of our mind.