Running Away from God

Today on Renewing Your Mind... Well, at least that's what most of us took away from Sunday school class when we were children. But as we're going to see today, there's far more to Jonah than that. This prophet has so much to tell us about God's providence, His sovereignty and salvation, and what happens when we disobey. Let's join Dr. R.C.

Sproul now as he revisits the story of The Reluctant Prophet. When I was a little boy, my mother made me sing in the children's choir in the church, and how they would laugh and fuss when on Sunday mornings I had to dress up for the occasion with the black cassock and the white surplus and this big black satin bow tie, this huge big tie and the starch collar. And my uncle would look at me and say, oh, there's little Lord Fauntleroy.

And I was so embarrassed to have to go outside wearing this outfit. And we sang in the children's choir. And once a year we would sing the same anthem called, Seek Ye the Lord While He May Be Found. And the highlight of our experience as choir boys was the singing of that anthem because the solo was sung by the lead soloist of the adult choir who had a magnificent tenor voice. And he would sing the lead in Seek Ye the Lord While He May Be Found, and we would sing the background to it.

And even though I was not a believer and this was just a rote exercise that I engaged in because my parents forced me, there was something about that song that captured me. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. Call ye upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, for he will have mercy and abundantly pardon.

I never tried to memorize the words to that anthem, which are taken directly from the Scriptures as you well know, and yet I can't tell you how many times in my life the words of that anthem have come back into my consciousness. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. And when I think of that verse, I don't hear the words in my mind as if someone were reading them from the written page.

I hear the voice of Dick Dodds, the tenor from our adult choir, singing those words. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. And I think how often the Scripture calls upon us to come near to the living God, to seek his face, to search out his presence. And yet I realize now that the Bible says that by nature no one seeks after God, that the seeking after God, as Jonathan Edwards taught, is the business of the Christian. We don't begin to seek God until God has first converted our hearts.

The seeking of God is the lifelong pursuit of the believer, because by nature we are not seekers of God, but we are fugitives from God. Ever since Adam and Eve fled from the presence of God, you recall that in paradise, that when God would walk in the cool of the garden, his creatures would be filled with delight and a joyous sense of anticipation to have fellowship with their Maker until they sinned. And the first reaction to their sin was a reaction of flight. They fled from the presence of God. They fled from the open spaces of Eden and sought refuge in the trees.

They became denizens of the forest. They became people in hiding, fugitives from the face of God. That's our nature, to flee from his presence. And yet the psalmist declares, where can we flee from his presence? If we ascend into heaven, he is there. If we make our bed in Sheol, behold, he is there.

And I say this for this reason. We're about to take a brief look at one of the smallest prophetic books in the Old Testament, which gives us the story of the ultimate fugitive, a man who fled from the presence of God, not because he was a pagan, but rather he was a believer who was fleeing from the presence of God. And so our message today is not directed to the unbeliever who is a fugitive and is involved in a relentless attempt at escape from God. I'm talking to the Christian who must understand who must understand that that propensity to flee from God does not end at our conversion. How many times in your life have you had a sense of vocation, a sense of God's calling you to do something, and you ignored it, or you neglected it, or you denied it, or you put it off, or in some way or another you sought to find a way to avoid your vocation, to flee from doing that which God called you to do?

Isn't that common to us? Don't we all struggle with that problem? That's why it is of great importance and benefit to us from time to time to come back and read the little book that is called the book of Jonah, because Jonah is the story not of a man who diligently pursued the presence of God, but the story of a man who took flight from his duty, from his calling, from his responsibility, and even thought to escape from the very presence of God. Let's look now at the beginning of this little book of Jonah. We read in the first chapter of the book of Jonah these words, Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it, for their wickedness has come up before me. How many times have you wished that you could hear the audible voice of God? How many times have you said, My faith would be enormous if God would somehow communicate with me directly?

Would it? Perhaps it might depend on what He said when He spoke to you, because here we have an occasion where the word of the Lord came to a man, and the word of the Lord that came to this man was a word of commandment by which God gave a mission to Jonah. Jonah, arise and go to Bermuda and be a missionary.

No, he didn't call him to go to Bermuda. He said, Arise and go to Nineveh, that great city. Where was Nineveh? Nineveh was the last capital city of the Assyrian empire, located in that part of the world which today is the nation of Iraq, not the most popular tourist destination of modern Americans to go to Iraq.

Well, it wasn't all that popular of a destination. It wasn't a resort city in the sight of Jonah either. God said, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it. Do you hear what God is calling Jonah to do? Jonah, I've called you to preach My Word, not to Israel, but to one of the most pagan people on the face of the globe, to a nation that is mighty, to a nation that is the historic enemy of the Jewish people here in the eighth century B.C.

I want you to go to the very heart of the Assyrian empire, and I want you to preach My Word to that city and call that city to repentance. Hardly an enviable task that God has given to Jonah. Well, Jonah obeyed the first part of the call. The first part of the command that God had given him was to arise, and so Jonah arose, we read in verse 3. But he did not arise to go to Nineveh, but rather he rose up to run away from his duty. The Bible says this in verse 3, that Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. And so he went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.

This is a willful, premeditated act of disobedience. God said, Jonah, arise, go to Nineveh. Jonah says, I will rise, and I will flee from the presence of God, and I will go to Tarshish.

Now we don't know for sure where ancient Tarshish was, but the best guesstimate of the scholars is that Tarshish was in what now would be called Spain, which in terms of the known world at that time and one's ability to travel by ship, was virtually the furthest port to which Jonah could sail away from Nineveh. He made an effort to get as far away from his destiny as he possibly could. Like the prodigal son of whom Jesus spoke, he went to a far country, thinking that there he could escape the presence of God. How like Jonah we are, thinking that we can find some remote place in this world where God's presence is not there. How foolish was Jonah to think for a second that there was any corner of this globe where God's presence did not extend, to think that he could escape the all-present, all-seeing eye of the God who had commanded him to do something. But all Jonah wanted to do was to get as far away far away from his mission as he possibly could. And so he paid the fare and went down into the ship to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. And then in verse 4 of chapter 1 of the book of Jonah we read this, "'But the Lord sent out a great wind on the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship was about to be broken up.'"

Now listen to this. There's something that I find fascinating in this little narrative. So often the people of Israel are compared, or I should say, contrasted to the animal kingdom or the kingdom of flowers or nature, where the stars obey the course in which they were sent by God, and the eagle flies in the direction that God sends the eagle, and the plants go through their seasons and their cycles as they have been ordained by their Creator. And so often God says to the people to consider the rest of my creation, everything else in creation obeys my voice, but you, O man, and you alone, are in rebellion and in defiance to my commands.

Now notice this. In the very first few verses of the first chapter of Jonah, God sends two things. First, He sends a man. Does the man go?

No. The man does not go where God sends him. But then in verse 4 we read, "'And the Lord sent out a great wind of the sea.'" The man doesn't go where God tells him to go, but the wind does go where God tells the wind to go. And the wind does exactly what God commands the wind to do, and the wind is chasing after Jonah. And so the wind goes out to sea. And there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship was about to be broken up. And the mariners were afraid, says the Scriptures, and every man cried out to his God.

You have not foxhole theists here, but pagans who are crying out to their pagan deities because they're about to perish in the sea. And they threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten the load. But Jonah had gone down into the lowest parts of the ship, had lain down, and was fast asleep. Just as Nero fiddled while Rome was burning, so Jonah slept while his shipmates were about to perish. Deep in the bowels of the ship, he was impervious to the storm that was brewing and the threat that had arisen. How often, like Jonah, when the judgment of God comes, it finds us asleep, completely unconscious to what's going on.

And so the captain came to him and said to him, What do you mean, sleeper? Arise, call on your God. Perhaps your God will consider us so that we may not perish. And so they said to one another, Come on, let's cast lots that we may know for whose cause this trouble has come upon us. So they cast lots. And the lot fell upon Jonah.

And they said to him, Please tell us, for whose cause is this trouble upon us? What is your occupation? Where do you come from?

What's your country? What people are you? You see what's going on here? These pagans, they all believe that the world is somehow controlled by the gods. And when adversity comes and tragedy comes, they have a strong view of providence, even if it's a misguided, poor theological understanding.

At least they have some understanding of providence, and they realize that these kinds of events do not happen by chance. So they cast lots to find out whose sin has provoked the wrath of the gods, and the lot falls upon Jonah. And so they say to him, Who are you? And so he said to them, I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.

Wow! Whoever these mariners were from whatever country they sailed, everybody in the ancient world had heard the stories and the tales of the dreadful power and omnipotence of Yahweh, the Lord God of Israel. And now when Jonah reveals his identity saying, I am a Hebrew. Do you see what this does to the rest of the sailors? Well, if we don't appease this God who's brought this storm, we're going to die. But if we harm this man who's a child of Yahweh, that may make him even more angry and so they're between a rock and a hard place.

But they make up their mind, and they make up their mind pretty quickly. They're going to risk Jonah rather than the storm. And they said, Then the men were exceedingly afraid. And they said to him, Why have you done this?

For the men knew that he fled from the presence of God because he told them. And so they asked him, What shall we do that the sea may be calm for us? For the sea was growing more and more tempestuous. And he said to them, Pick me up and throw me into the sea, and the sea will become calm for you. For I know that this great tempest is because of me. We have the expression ever since that episode, when things go bad, perhaps there's a Jonah in our midst. Perhaps there is one among us who has so provoked the anger of God that all of us are being exposed to danger and to his fury. It is to Jonah's credit that he acknowledges his guilt before these pagan people, and he says to them, I am the man. This, I believe, is the first instance that we read in Scripture of God's calming and angry sea. In the New Testament, it's accomplished by the command of Christ, peace be still on the Sea of Galilee.

But here, the Mediterranean is a cauldron that can only be calmed by a human sacrifice. And Jonah says, Throw me into the sea. Nevertheless, the men rode hard to return to land, but they could not. They didn't want to sacrifice one of them. They were sailors. They didn't throw people overboard, but they couldn't, for the sea continued to grow more tempestuous against them. Therefore, they cried out to the Lord, and they said, Please, O Lord, do not let us perish for this man's life, and do not charge us with innocent blood.

For you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you. And so they picked up Jonah and threw him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. And the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice to the Lord, and took vows. They offered two sacrifices. One was Jonah, and then their own sacrifices.

And they took vows to be obedient to this God who can bring the sea into such trouble. But that's not the end of the story. That's the end of our time. And so, like the old perils of Pauline and the serial stories of the movies and the television, we have to ask the wait for you to tune in to the next time to see what happens. Now, at least, the immediate danger has passed.

The sea is calm. We see the rescue of the sailors. But what of Jonah, who has been hurled into the sea? And we'll look at that in our next session. We hope you'll be with us over the next few days here on Renewing Your Mind for Dr. R.C. Sproul's series on Jonah.

And R.C. will be back shortly with some closing thoughts on today's lesson. Even though Jonah is one of the shortest books in the Bible, it has major lessons for us.

For example, it helps us see the height and breadth of God's mercy, along with God's compassion for sinners, just like you and me. It's all there in Dr. R.C. Sproul's five-part audio series on Jonah, and we'd be glad to send you an MP3 CD copy for your donation of any amount. Call us today at 1-800-435-4343, or go online to make your request at renewingyourmind.org. It's your gifts that help us continue this vital teaching ministry, so in advance, let me thank you. And when you contact us today, be sure to ask about our monthly magazine, Table Talk. Each month has a different theme, and it features daily devotionals and articles from today's finest Reformed thinkers. We'd be happy to start your free three-month trial subscription to Table Talk when you contact us today.

Again, our phone number is 800-435-4343, or you can go to tritabletalk.com. And before we go, here's Dr. Sproul with a final word on today's lesson. I asked today how many of us have had the occasion in our lives of fleeing from the call of God. It's not all that uncommon, and there's a reason why we receive this story of Jonah from the mouth of God. It is a sober warning to every believer to be diligent in one's openness and obedience to the call of God upon our lives. God does not always call us to glory, and He does not always call us to comfort.

He calls us at times to go to uncomfortable places at inconvenient times at great worldly cost. And yet there is no higher privilege than to be called of God, to be a minister in His name, to be an agent of reconciliation to a dying world, and to fulfill that destiny may be extremely painful at times. But yet when God places His hand upon us and His call upon our lives, beloved, we really don't have a choice. I mean, we have the choice in the sense that we can kick against it and we can stumble and we can flee, but we can't escape our vocation. And so when God calls you and puts a task upon you, consider His servant Jonah and be wise. Don't wait until He throws you in to the midst of the sea before you awaken to your responsibility. Thank you again for joining us today, and I hope you'll make plans to listen tomorrow. You'll hear R.C. weave a passage from his favorite novel into Jonah's remarkable story. That's Tuesday on Renewing Your Mind.