I've just had anxiety over my whole life, and like I didn't know where I was gonna end up. I didn't know if I was gonna be alone forever. Pastor Greg Laurie helps you find the hope you're looking for at the Harvest Crusades. The Harvest Crusade, July 19th at Angel Stadium in Anaheim. Free admission.
Details at harvest.org. Hey there. Thanks for listening to the Greg Laurie Podcast, a ministry supported by Harvest Partners. I'm Greg Laurie, encouraging you. If you want to find out more about Harvest Ministries and learn more about how to become a Harvest Partner, just go to harvest.org.
Well, we are continuing in our series in the book of Jonah, which we are calling the Reluctant Evangelist. And we're gonna be in Jonah chapter 2 today, if you'd like to turn in your Bibles there. And my message title is Not Just For You. Not just for you. That's what our message title is.
And as you turn there, as I was preparing for this message this last week, I was reminded of a story that I think was kind of fitting. You can be the judge of that. But I was 20 years old, which is crazy because I realized that was also 19 years ago, and that went by really fast. But my brother took me to a church one Sunday, invited me to go to this place where his friend was the youth pastor. And it was tucked away in a warehouse in an industrial area.
area really off of the beaten path. You couldn't find it unless you knew exactly where it was. And we pulled into the parking lot and right away, this church was unlike any church I had ever been to before. There were motorcycles everywhere, motorcycles everywhere, and guys that rode motorcycles everywhere. No, not people experiencing midlife crises.
Real bikers, real bikers. These guys were like, they were wearing a lot of leather, they had a lot of tattoos, they didn't look like weekend warriors.
Some were wearing their motorcycle club colors still, but you could tell that they were not really a part of that life anymore. They were kind of transitioning out of it. And it was like primarily a biker church. It was wild. And I guess my brother's friend was leading the youth ministry at the time.
And so, as we walk up to the entrance, right away, there was a group of guys that were all standing outside that we walked by, and they were all smoking cigarettes. They're all smoking. Oh my gosh, I was clutching my pearls. And. They're all smoking and using some colorful language as well.
And so I'm kind of just thinking to myself, oh, what kind of church is this, man? You know, and then we get to the front door. And the guy that was greeting us at the front door, I kid you not, he looked more like a bouncer outside of a bar than he did a greeter at a church. He was covered in tattoos. He was probably 5'7, wearing a leather jacket and black jeans and all that.
But he had an eye patch, a black eye patch on over his face. That was distinguishing. But the main thing was that he had like a two and a half inch skull and crossbones tattoo, poorly done, probably a prison tattoo on his forehead, on his bald head, like this big. It was like, wow. And he was greeting everybody.
Hey, welcome to church, handing out the, you know, the bulletin as he walked in. And I just thought, What kind of church is this? And as we sat down, The worship team began to play songs, and you know what? They played all the same songs that we did at Harvest. Oh, wow, I know these songs.
And then the preacher got up to preach, and he preached a solid sermon. He gave a full Bible study. He talked about, I can't remember what his topic was, but he went through the scripture. And I remember looking around the room and during worship, seeing these bikers raising their hands, some of them even shedding tears. And then during the Bible study, they had their Bibles open like you do, and they're writing in the margins of their Bibles, taking notes.
And in that moment, I realized something. I judged them by their outward appearance.
Now, my outward appearance, I knew how to keep up appearances. I was a full prodigal phase at this point. You know, I had my button-up shirt, my eyes were nice and clear thanks to the Visine. I was able to play the part really well. I was an actor, I was a hypocrite.
And I looked at them and I realized. They were the real deal. Because while they were rough around the edges, while they didn't present like a nice little kid from Newport Beach did. They clearly were being transformed by Jesus Christ from the inside out. And in that moment, I was convicted.
I realized I was a hypocrite. I was what Jesus was talking about in Matthew chapter 23, when he said, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. For you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee. First, cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also.
For those of you that do dishes, that's also some good instruction right there. And then he says, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like whitewashed tombs, which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. That was me. I was the dirty cop. I was the whitewashed tomb, but I was full of dead men's bones.
I was dirty on the inside, but clean on the outside, or so I thought I was trying to look. And it was amazing. I was so thankful to get to have that experience and go and see those guys. And I even know some of them are still very much a part of the church and involved in ministry and leadership. And so, just a reminder: not to judge people by their outward appearances and by their actions and by their past.
God can do anything, can't He? He can transform anybody. Nobody is beyond the reach of God. And that's really the story of Jonah. That's really the story of our book today.
Jonah. Was guilty of the same thing. He was a prophet. He was a prophet. He knew all the right words.
He had a spiritual resume that would put us all to shame, right? But Jonah was running from what God had called him to do. If you were with us last week, or if you're familiar with the story of Jonah, you know that. The word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, and said, Rise up, go out of Jerusalem, go out of Israel, and go and preach to the Ninevites, for I'm going to bring judgment on them if they don't turn from me, basically. And Jonah said, Sounds good.
What's that direction of Nineveh?
Okay, cool. I'm going the opposite direction. I'm going to go to Tarshish, which was literally all the way on the Portuguese, the Atlantic side of Spain, is where Tarshish was. Israel is on the very eastern side of the Mediterranean, so as far in the opposite direction as he could go. He was running from God.
And so. Jonah Ran. Not for fear of the Ninevites, because the Ninevites were extremely brutalistic. They had a reputation of being torturers and really terrorists to anybody that they pointed their sword against. And so Jonah ran not for fear of the Ninevites, but for fear that God would show them mercy if they repented.
Jonah hated the Ninevites. He hated them. He wanted nothing to do with them. He was afraid God was going to show mercy to them. Jonah even says in Jonah chapter 4: just kill me now, Lord.
I'd rather be dead than alive if you spare Nineveh, if what I predicted will not happen. This was the prophet Jonah. He was a hypocrite. He was a reluctant evangelist. He was a disobedient prophet.
He was a prodigal on the run. And he was a man of a double standard. Expecting and receiving God's forgiveness for his rebellion, right? He expected God to forgive him. He asked God to forgive him.
He received that forgiveness willingly, but he rejected the idea that others, specifically the Ninevites, were worthy enough. And so again, my message title today is not just for you. And let's look together at Jonah chapter 2. I'm going to read the very last verse of chapter one. For a little bit of context.
And so it says this: Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days. and three nights. And then Jonah prayed to the Lord from his God, to the Lord his God, from the fish's belly. And he cried, Out to the Lord because of my affliction, and he answered me.
Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard. My voice. Let's stop there. That brings us to point number one. God.
appoints circumstances to bring us back. God appoints circumstances To bring us back.
Now, all of us. We all face different kinds of hardship in our lives. We all face various forms of difficulty. You could call them storms of life.
Some of these are self-inflicted, aren't they? In fact, many times these storms in life are self-inflicted. You're facing issues in your marriage, facing issues in your business. It's probably because you didn't prepare well. It's probably because you didn't treat your spouse properly.
You're having issues with your criminal record.
Well, you probably shouldn't be committing crimes, right? A lot of times, these storms we face in life are self-inflicted. And it's foolish to say that God is punishing us when we get a DUI for driving drunk for the 13th time. It's foolish of us to say, you know, I can't believe that this is happening in my marriage. Why me?
And it's like, dude, you haven't told your wife you loved her in 10 years. You haven't done anything nice to her. You, you know, verbally abused her and whatever else. Like, what do you expect? Of course, you're going to be hitting the rocks here.
Of course, you're going to be having a difficult time.
So, storms, they can be. Self-inflicted, but they can also be. afflicted by God, inflicted, self-inflicted, and afflicted by God. Ultimately, He can send storms in our life. The Lord afflicted Jonah.
He sent storms to get Jonah's attention. The Hebrew word for appoint, when it talks about the fish, the great fish, God prepared a great fish. That Hebrew word for prepared or appointed, depending on your translation, is the Hebrew word mana. And it simply just means appointed or specially prepared, divinely prepared by God. And it's used four times in the book of Jonah.
It talks about the great fish. God prepared the great fish. God prepared the gourd that grew over Jonah. We'll get to that in the later chapters. God appointed the worm to go and eat the giant gourd.
And then God appointed a great wind to go and afflict Jonah. All of these things were used by God to bring Jonah back. The fish, the gourd, the worm, and the wind weren't to pay Jonah back for his rebellion. They were to bring Jonah back. See, that's the difference with the type of storms that God uses in our life.
They're not to punish us. God's not punishing us when he sends us a storm in life, when something happens with our health or something happens with our finances, the stock market crashes. This isn't punishment from God for you because, oh, you forgot to go to church last Sunday or you forgot to tithe last month, whatever it might be. That's not how God operates. No, but he will allow things in your life.
Why? To bring you back to him. God loves his children and he chastens those whom he loves.
Sometimes we think God is punishing us. We get afflicted with a sickness or our finances, a natural disaster, unanswered prayers, maybe your mental and emotional struggles.
Now listen, again, your sin has a cost to it. And many times there are consequences that come from your sin, but God paid Jesus back for those consequences. Those consequences for your sin, he paid Jesus back for. And ultimately, if you don't receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you will personally face those consequences when you go to hell, when you reject Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. But God, in this life, He uses storms to get our attention and to bring us back to Him.
Again, why? Because he loves us, and those who he loves, he chastens. Because I love my kids, I chasten them. I discipline them, right? I get them in trouble for doing things.
I'm even introducing challenges into their lives to try and get them on the right track, to go in the right direction. If I didn't love them, I would let them do whatever they want, right? And I feel like we see that more now than ever. Kids just do whatever they want. They're the ones leading the home.
They're the ones making the decisions. Hey buddy, do you think it's a good idea to get off the iPad for the seventh hour today? No, I'm going to keep playing.
Okay, you're in charge, sweetie. That is not good parenting. And we're going to face the consequences for that in the future.
Sometimes, as a parent, we have to get creative, right, with our disciplinary measures. We tell our kids: hey, you need to have a good attitude. If you don't have a good attitude, you know, you're going to get in trouble. And then they don't have a good attitude, or they don't do their homework when you tell them to for the third time.
So we tell them: hey, we're gonna take away video games, we're gonna ground you, you can't hang out with your friends. But then they hit an age where I don't know what age it is, but it seems like it happens to everybody, where the kid at some point says, I don't care. Oh shoot, we're at that phase, okay. Mark it in time, it's all downhill from there, right? I don't care.
Okay, and then you have to try and get creative, right? You're like, okay, well, no video games, no TV. I don't care.
I don't care.
Well, that vacation you were gonna go on with your friends. You're not going to get to go on that. I don't care.
Okay, and then you're just like, you know, you come to your wits and you're like, what can I do? Try and, you know, I wanna try and get them to act right. I gotta do something. I can't just be passive about this. Oh, you know.
If you, you're not gonna get to go to school tomorrow. They're like, perfect. You're like, wait. That didn't work. That's not what I was hoping for.
And then, you know. I'm gonna blot out the sun. I'll do anything. Like, yeah, I'm gonna suck. The sun will not rise tomorrow if you don't clean your room right now.
It's like. You gotta get creative. Was God getting creative when He appointed a great fish to go and swallow Jonah? I think so. I think that's a pretty creative way to get someone's attention.
People will argue about the legitimacy of a great fish eating Jonah. Is that even possible, Jonathan? Is this even likely? I mean, what kind of fish, what kind of whale could swallow a person? They could survive in the belly for three days and three nights.
Well, it's not really the point of the story, but for the sake of an argument, I would actually say it's completely within the realm of possibility, especially if you believe the first verse in the Bible, right? In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, right?
Okay, if you believe that, it should be pretty easy for you to grasp that he can do whatever he wants. But also the fact is Part of miracles, Part of the nature of miracles is that they defy natural explanation. That's the nature of miracles, and this fish was a miracle. But I also feel like on social media in the last couple years, I have seen at least like five people get swallowed by whales. Have you seen these videos?
People in kayaks down in Chile, up in the San Francisco Bay Area, Monterey area, they're paddling out in their kayaks, whale watching, which looks like a blast, but then, like, these whales, I think they're humpbacks, come and do the lunge feeding and they get swallowed by one of these whales. That is maybe one of the most terrifying thoughts I could think of: getting swallowed alive by a whale. And you know, all of them were thinking. How legit was that story of Jonah? Could I survive in a whale?
I don't know. But God appointed this fish. He appointed this fish, meaning he crafted it. It was custom. It was specially made just to get Jonah's attention.
And so, literally, you know, the fact is, it doesn't say it was a whale, first of all, it says it was a fish. I mean, this fish was specially prepared. It could have had a living room. It could have had a full-service Chick-fil-A in there with a 4K OLED TV. With a couch, like it could have had any of those things because God is absolutely capable of preparing a great fish.
that Jonah could survive inside of. We do see that Jonah is for sure a historical Literal figure. He is talked about in 2 Kings 14, 25, mentioned by name. Jonah was a real person. And a lot of times we think that it was a whale because whales get huge, right?
Orcas, we have some of those in California, they get 16 to 26 feet. California gray whales, they get 40 to 50 feet. I think the blue whale is the largest organism, the largest living thing, and they get to 100 feet. Over on the island of Maui, and I think down in Mexico, they start off. We get humpback whales.
Here's some cool footage I shot while over on the island of Maui. Not bragging, but it's pretty good footage. I mean, check this out. It's actually really hard to shoot a whale with your drone, especially from land. Look at this shot.
Is it breaches right here? Takes a little breath. Money shot, and then the whale goes, the tail goes out. I was pretty stoked with this. This was a great shot.
And then there's the tail. And right there. Pretty cool. Pretty cool. So, I'm available for any weddings or anything you want to book me for?
No, just kidding. Yeah, so we think whale because whales get huge, right? But the fact is, the most important verification of the story of Jonah is made by none other than our Lord Jesus Christ, when he said in Matthew chapter 12. As Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart. of the earth.
Jesus Himself refers to this story and he affirms it and ties it to His own resurrection. That's significant. That's significant. And so, after hearing all of this, if you still think, hey, I'm positive that no one could survive three days in a fish, and there's no way that this could happen. Hey, feel free to jump in and prove me wrong, okay?
Feel free. Uh That joke landed great and I lost my track.
So my point. Whether it's a storm, Or it's a whale. Or it's an illness. or getting laid off from your job, God. Can appoint circumstances in storms.
Why? Not to pay us back. but to bring us back. Amen? Not to pay us back, but to bring us back.
And that brings us to point number two, God still sees in the dark. God still sees in the dark. Let's look at now verse 1 again in Jonah chapter 2. Then Jonah prayed to the Lord, His God from inside the fish. Let's just pause there for a second.
That's definitely a first. Jonah's definitely the first person to pray to the Lord from the inside of a fish. And it's a great reminder to all of us that we can pray anywhere, anytime. It doesn't just have to be at church on Sunday morning. You can pray on your feet, you can pray on a walk, you can pray on your knees, you can pray on your face, you can pray in the shower, you can pray when you're driving, just don't close your eyes.
You can pray anywhere, you know, underwater, scuba diving in an airplane. The fact is, it's less important where you pray and how you pray, and it's more important. that you pray. Prayer is such a wonderful tool that God gave to us to talk to Him, directly to Him. We talk to everybody about our problems.
We talk to social media about our problems. We talk to. Chat GPT about our problems, right? Can I get an amen? Chat GPT can be pretty smart about solving problems sometimes, but it's also incredibly enabling.
No, you're the right one. That sounds like a very difficult circumstance to go through. It's totally understandable that you would feel that way. Thank you, ChatGPT, right? No, we need to pray about our problems, bring them to the Lord.
So it's less important where and how we pray, and more important that we pray. Let's continue on in verse 2. And so Jonah said, I cried out to the Lord in my great trouble, and he answered me. I called to you from the land of the dead, and Lord, you heard me. You threw me, verse 3.
You threw me into the ocean depths. You might want to underline that. You threw me. And I sank down to the heart of the sea. The mighty waters engulfed me, I was buried beneath your wild and stormy waves.
And then I said, O Lord, you have driven me from your presence, yet I will look once more toward your holy temple. I sank beneath the waves, and the waters closed over me. Seaweed wrapped itself around my head. I sank down to the very roots of the mountains. I was imprisoned in the earth.
Whose gates lock shut forever. But you, O Lord my God, snatched me from the jaws of death. As my life was slipping away, I remembered the Lord, and my earnest prayer went out to you in your holy temple. Those who worship false gods turn their backs on all God s mercies but I will offer sacrifices to you with songs of praise, and will fulfil all my vows, for my salvation comes from the Lord alone. Again, our second point is God still sees in the dark.
A beautiful section of scripture right there. That is a psalm, basically a poem that Jonah wrote. And it's a psalm of thanksgiving uttered from the dark, smelly, slimy, and claustrophobic belly of a fish, right? And while Jonah sat in darkness inside the great fish, he prayed, and God heard and delivered him out of his fishy prison. Nobody can see in the dark better than God can.
God saw Jonah in the belly of the whale. He saw him in his darkness, and he heard his prayer. You know, a lot of people think they can hide from God in their darkness, or that God doesn't see them in their darkness. I don't know what it is, but darkness, we like to hide there, especially when we're doing something we shouldn't be, right? We'll be in a dark room and we think that we're going to get away with whatever: the darkness of our sin, the darkness of a bar, the shadowy alley of a drug deal, or just alone in the darkness of our own room.
We often think that in that darkness of our sin, God hates us. That he wants nothing to do with us, that he is distant, that maybe he's even oblivious and he's certainly uncaring. But the fact is, even in our darkest hour, God hears us. He is present, he's attentive, he cares about you, he wants to hear from you, he doesn't turn away, he leans in and he listens. And when we call on him, he hears us.
The psalmist said in Psalm 139, I could ask the darkness to hide me and the light around me to become night, but even in darkness I cannot hide from you. To you the night shines as bright as day. Darkness and light are the same to you. And so God heard Jonah in his fishy prison. He heard him in his darkness, in the darkness of that whale's belly, or that fish's belly.
But God also knew of the spiritual darkness of the Assyrians, the audience that Jonah was called to go and preach to and was currently on the run from, and the citizens of its capital in Nineveh. Nineveh was the capital of Assyria. In their evil behavior and human atrocities, God had compassion. He knew what was happening, he knew what they were guilty of, and he wanted to send a messenger to them. It's easy to understand why Jonah ran, right?
If you know anything about the Ninevites, you know that the Ninevites deserved judgment. They were evil, they were wicked. Ancient historians and even the Assyrian records describe how they impaled captives. They skinned people alive, they piled up heads at city gates, and practiced brutal terror campaigns. Archaeologists have uncovered reliefs, stone etchings from places like Nimrod and Nineveh, which is modern-day Iraq, showing these very acts.
Modern scholars like A. Leo Oppenheim note that the Assyrians were the masters of psychological warfare, using torture and mass killings to keep their enemies and their empire in fear. Pretty crazy. I read one commentator talk about how they would kill some of the people that were captives and kill some of the people that were enemies of theirs. They would skin them alive.
They would dig a hole in the desert, bury them in the skin, in the sand, rather, with their skin off. That's terrible right there. And then they would actually bury them up to their necks, pull out their tongue, drive a stake through their tongue, and then allow them to die of thirst in the desert. Doesn't that sound so nice? No, that sounds terrible.
And so they were wicked people. They were evil. They were creative. They were trying to come up with ways to drive terror into people's hearts. But something interesting.
According to the Assyrian eponym canon called the Limu List, these were records written by Assyrian authorities in the 760 BC era. And we have these two this day. Around the time that Jonah came and preached, 765 to 759 BC, Assyria faced plagues. They faced revolts, uprisings from their own people, starting trying to do revolution. And a major solar eclipse happened in 763 BC.
All of these things the pagan Assyrians would have seen as judgment from a divine being, right? They would have seen that as some kind of wake-up call. And so the fact is, they were ready for Jonah to come and preach this message. But Jonah didn't care. He didn't care.
He wanted God to strike him. He wanted him to kill his enemies. He wanted him to die by fire, right? He wanted that fire from heaven. He wanted the earth to open up and swallow them.
He wanted asteroids and plagues and vengeance because they were guilty of it. And can we blame him? No. No, we can totally understand that. It's also interesting, Jonah was the very first prophet that's recorded in scripture and that we know of that was called by God to go out of Israel, out of Jerusalem, and to one of these pagan nations.
Now, the apostles went all over the ancient world, right? But the prophets, they were centralized in Israel. Israel was created by God and positioned in such a way that all of the ancient world would have to pass through Israel. To get from one place to the other, it touches three major continents: Europe, Africa, and Asia. And so, if you were trying to go from Asia to Africa or Europe to Asia or whatever, you would likely pass through Jerusalem itself, or you would at least pass by it.
And so, God positioned it in such a way it was at the crossroads of the ancient world. And so, what would happen when they passed by Jerusalem? These people that were part of pagan nations, other countries, that worshiped false gods, gods of stone and wood. They would pass by a group of people. They would pass by Israel, which was positioned by God himself.
They would pass by a group of people that were worshipers of the one true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They would see that they had a completely different way of living. They didn't sacrifice their children. They didn't literally sacrifice their children on an altar. They didn't cut themselves.
They didn't do all kinds of evil things. They actually had dietary laws that set them apart. Their sacrifices weren't to manipulate angry gods. They had laws that valued human life. They had weekly Sabbaths and festivals and yearly cycles that proclaimed their covenantal relationship with the Lord.
They were gracious. God placed his people at this crossroads of the world so the nations, again, would see his chosen people, see how blessed they were, and ultimately, hopefully, lead them to worship the same God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And so the fact that God called Jonah out of Jerusalem out of that space to Assyria is unique. It is unique, but I do believe that God has done the same thing with us. He has positioned all of us at a specific crossroads in people's lives.
He has us strategically placed right where we are so that we can make an impact for him. I have a guy in my small group, great guy, loves the Lord, wonderful guy, and he's a police officer. And we were talking about: oh, if we knew the Lord was coming back in a month, you know, what would we all do? Oh, you know, we'd do this and we'd do that, whatever else, rack up a bunch of credit card debt. No.
But he said, oh man, I feel like I would just quit my job and I'd go and I would just want to preach the gospel full time. I'm like, that's amazing. But I want to let you know that you're in a position that you could preach to your fellow officers. You're in a position to talk to people like nobody else would be. God has each and every one of us exactly where we need to be.
He's given us a sphere of influence. He's given us people in our lives that will listen to us and hear from us, and as we share our testimony and whatever else. He has positioned us there intentionally. When our neighbors pass by our homes, they should know a godly family lives there. When you're at work, you should have a reputation for working hard and having integrity and going the extra mile.
Why? So you can make lots of money.
Well, that's a fringe benefit. But the best reason is to do it for an opportunity to glorify your Father in heaven. Oh, God's given me the ability to get this job. He's given me the education. He's given me the insight.
God led me to this place. And boss, if you're wondering why I'm such a good employee, man, I'm not doing it for you. I'm not doing it for the paycheck. I'm doing it for the Lord. Man, you do that.
Wow, I want to hire more Christians like you. Where do you guys exist? That's a great thing to do. And so. If you're a student, you're a politician, a surf instructor, a janitor, a lawyer, recognize God has positioned you in a sort of crossroads in people's lives, and you have influence, and you have a command from God as well.
Let's continue reading in Jonah chapter 2, in verse 10.
So the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.
Now, the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message that I tell you.
So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. And now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three-day Journey in extent. And Jonah began to enter the city on the first day's walk. And then he cried out, and said to them, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
So the people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth from the greatest to to the least of them. Let's stop there. That brings us to point number three. Finally, saved from and saved for. Saved from and saved for.
Look at verse 1. One more time.
So the Lord spoke to the. Excuse me, yeah, verse 1.
Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, The second time, Jonah heard the Lord telling him to go and preach in Nineveh. For the second time. Think about Jonah's message too. His message is wild. He didn't say, hey, Personally, I hate you guys, but God loves you so much that He called me for the first time in all of history to come and preach to you.
I tried to go the opposite direction because, again, I hate you, but God loves you, and He sent a fish. A fish came and swallowed me whole. You think I smell weird? It's because I was in a fish for the last three days, vomited me onto the shore, told me to go and preach to you guys, and so here I am. That's how much God loves you.
You need to turn. You need to repent. You need to call out to God and He'll forgive you. No, He doesn't do that. He doesn't do that.
He gives what I like to say is probably the worst gospel message ever preached. Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. Where's the grace? Where's the mercy? Whereas the forgiveness in Hebrew, it's actually just six words.
Just six short words, but the entire nation believed. Because this was a divine appointment. God knew what was going to happen. God knew that their hearts were ready. He was the one that was preparing their hearts.
He was the one that was tilling the soil, right?
So they would be receptive to this seed. God gave Jonah a second chance. He spoke to the fish, it vomited him on dry land, and God did that. Why? Because Jonah was cute?
No. He didn't do that because he was cute. No, God rescued Jonah from darkness so Jonah could reach others in darkness. God's done the same thing with us. Did he rescue you from darkness, from your sin, just because he thinks you're cute?
Well, yeah, he thinks you're cute. He likes you. But he rescued you from something, and he saved you from something, and he saved you for something. God saves us from something, from our sin. From hell.
From ourselves. And he also saves us for something so we can go and reach other people that were in that same position that we were. 2 Corinthians 5. Uh gives Credence to this, certainly, it says, God has given us this task of reconciling people to Him. He has given us this task of reconciling people to Him, and He gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation.
So we are Christ's ambassadors. God is making his appeal through you. Like the Israelites, God has positioned you and you and you and you and you and you and me and all of us in a strategic way in people's lives. We have a unique opportunity to minister to people and reach people with the gospel. Like the Israelites, God has placed us at a crossroads in people's lives: your workplace, your school, your gym, your neighborhood.
They are your Nineveh. They are the audience that needs to hear the gospel. You know, um when someone is on their deathbed. And they're sharing their final words. People put a lot of interest into what they're saying.
There's a lot of significance in what this person is saying.
Sometimes they're filled with regret. You know, I wish I would have done more for you. I wish I would have said this more often. I'm sorry.
Sometimes they're filled with gratitude. I'm just so thankful for the life God has given to me, you know, whatever else.
So it can be those things, but also sometimes they're instructional. Hey, You need to go talk to so-and-so. He owes me this debt. You need to take that to this person. You need to get those finances.
And this is going to be your inheritance. Here's how you access it. And so they can be instructional.
Well, Jesus' last words, they were encouraging, but they were very instructional to us. They're called the Great Commission. We should all be familiar with it. This is Jesus' charge to his followers, past, present, and future. He said this in Mark chapter 16, and he told them.
Go into all the world and preach the good news to everyone. Anyone who believes and is baptized will be saved, but anyone who refuses to believe will be condemned. That is the great commission. Go into all the world and preach the good news. That's what the gospel is.
It simply just means good news. Go and preach. the good news that Jesus Christ is alive and that he loves you and that he has a plan for your life and he wants to come into a relationship with you. That is the good news. That's the gospel.
That is the great commission, but for many, it has become the great omission. You know what that means, of course. O mission to omit something. It means you're not doing it. There's not just sins of commission, there's also sins of omission.
And if you are omitting this from your life, you are not following this command, that is a sin. And I tell you what, right now we have a great opportunity in front of us to help fulfill the great commission, to do our part. And that is by getting people to the Harvest Crusade to hear the gospel. It is just 13 days away. Can you believe that?
13 days away, we're going to be at Anaheim Stadium on Saturday night, July 19th. And it's going to be incredible. We have absolutely gone all out this year with our musical lineup, with staging, with lighting, all kinds of fun things are going to be going on. We've got music from We the Kingdom. Cody, Cody Carnes, Carrie Job Carnes, his wife, she's going to be leading as well.
Chris Tomlin, Brooke Lidgertwood. This is an all-star lineup, and it's going to be an amazing event. But it's not just a worship night, it's not just a big get-together for us as believers, though. That's part of it. No, it's to get people there to hear the message my dad's going to be sharing that night.
He is going to be giving a clear gospel presentation, inviting people to come into a relationship with Jesus, and he's going to invite them to come down on that field. We're going to see lives changed. We're going to see families transformed. We're going to see marriages reconciled. Amazing miracles happen every single year.
And we have the opportunity to invite people to it. And so, here's my charge to you: here's my encouragement to you. As you leave today at all of our campuses, and hey, this goes for you on the island of Maui as well. You may be a couple thousand miles away, but you can watch the service while you're there, you can watch the crusade, you can invite people into your home, and you can, of course, be praying for what's happening here on the mainland here in California. But I would encourage all of you to, as you leave, to grab these invitations.
I would say just grab five. You don't need to grab 100, because what happens? You get 100, you leave them in the trunk of your car, a month later, you're like, oh, those are still there. We've all done it, okay? Don't take a bunch of invitations, take five.
And lay out five of them on your table, on your dinner table, when you get home, whatever. And just pray, Lord. For these five invitations, you know exactly the people I need to give them to. Help me to deliver them to the right person. Help me to make the right invitation with each one of these, and that, Lord, you would prepare the soil.
Just like God prepared the hearts of the Ninevites, prepare the heart of the person I'm going to put this flyer into their hand. Don't just go and stand on the corner in Huntington Beach and hand it out, you know, to some random person. Yeah, God can do it that way. Or give it to the random waiter at your restaurant. That's great too.
Do that too. But for these five, For these five, try and make an intentional invitation. Lord, prepare the hearts of the person I'm going to give this to. It's scary going out there, it's a little awkward, not totally sure how I'll go about it, but Lord, this is something that I really care about. You've changed my life, you brought me out of darkness, we're saved from something, but we're also saved for something.
Help me to complete this great commission. Use me, Lord. I want to close with a story now about. How God used me in a way that was a total divine appointment is crazy. I still look back on it and get choked up thinking, but during the COVID lockdown, We, as a church, made phone calls to all of our congregants, as many as we could, and just to check in on them, see how they're doing, ask how we could pray for them.
And I had like 200 people on my list, and I was like, oh, great, I get to do this in a week, right? And then I get another 200 or however many more.
So it was a lot of phone calls, a lot of voicemails. Not very many of you answer your phones, by the way. You all have that setting turned on, right? Straight to voicemail. I'm guilty.
But there was some amazing fruit that came back as a result, one phone call in particular. Started off the day, had made a few phone calls, just voicemail, voicemail, voicemail, voicemail. Kind of gets annoying. And also kind of puts you in a place where you're like, I don't really want to do this anymore. I don't like doing cold calls, right?
This is not fun. I feel like I'm doing a sales pitch. You know, I have to introduce myself every call, but in that moment, I committed it to the Lord and I said, God. You know who's on the other end of that phone. Help me to just direct me to the right people.
Help me to just have a conversation with the right person. Whatever. It's up to you. Ball's in your court. And I just surrendered it to the Lord, picked up the phone.
First phone call I made after that, someone picks up, hello, said, oh, hi, this is Pastor Jonathan. I'm calling from Harvest. And hey, we're just calling and checking in on people, see how we can be praying for you during this crazy season and blah, blah, blah. And she paused for like three seconds on the other end of the line. And she said, I can't believe you're calling right now.
I was like, uh-oh. She said, My daughter just said to me, I wish that I could talk to a pastor right now. I wish I could talk to a pastor. My daughter and her husband just got word they had a miscarriage, and they were so far along. And when they found out, she said, I wish I could talk to a pastor, and the phone just rang, and here you are.
So I was, of course, blown away. And so, in that moment, I was able to talk to her daughter. I was able to pray for her. I was able to point her to scripture. And I'll be honest, I didn't say anything that was that triumphant or that amazing.
I didn't fix the situation. They were still in grief. They still had a difficulty, a difficult season to go through for sure. But that girl came and found me at church when we were able to regather, and she came and told me that that phone call, that conversation, made the biggest impact on her and her husband and their faith, and it strengthened them during that difficult season because, in their darkness, in their time of need, God answered their prayer. I was just doing what I was called to.
They're just a number on the list. But you know what? I think that that was just God saying, yeah, I'm the one that's in control. I'm the one that's preparing people's hearts. And so for all of us here today, This is what God has in store for us.
Would you just be obedient? You don't have to be the one to manipulate and talk anybody into anything and do a sales pitch and talk them into getting solar on their roof when it's like doesn't make sense. You don't have to do that. You just be obedient to what God has called you to do, and He will do the rest. Amen?
Amen.
So take five invitations. Do it. Do it. Don't miss this opportunity to invite somebody to the crusade. We don't know how long we have on this earth before the Lord comes back or just in life in general.
We also don't know how long we're going to get to do the Harvest Crusades for. We'll see. But again, take those five, give them to the people that God has called you to. Romans 10, 14 says, But now how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him unless they have never, if they have never heard about him?
And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them that's you. Unless someone tells them that's you. Inside this invitation even has the gospel inside of it. They don't have to wait for the Harvest Crusade. It might be in that moment right there.
They're ready to make that decision.
Well listen, I would be remiss if I didn't. Invite those of you today who may not know Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior. You know, as we were talking about Jonah during this message, we can't help but just remember the greater Jonah. The greater Jonah. That's what Jesus called himself.
One greater than Jonah is he. And that is what Jesus is. He is the one that is greater than Jonah. You know, we sometimes would think about how it would be so great if we could do a miracle, right, and prove to all my non-believing friends. You know, we're barbecuing in our backyard, we can't get the grill to ignite.
Lord, if you could just send down fire from heaven, I could get Uncle Harry for sure to believe right now on his knees. I could lead him in the sinner's prayer. Would you do it? We wish we could do that, but Jesus actually talks about that. Jesus said, A wicked and adulterous generation seek a sign, but no sign will be given to them except that of the prophet Jonah.
As Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The super sign we have is the gospel. That is the sign we have today to share with people. It is the gospel. One greater than Jonah is here, Jesus said.
You see, Jonah ran from God's will. Jesus obeyed God's will to the point of death for you and me. Jonah's sign was getting barfed out of a fish. That was his miracle. Jesus' sign was rising again from the dead.
Jonah came to Nineveh reluctantly. Jesus came to this earth from his throne willingly. Jonah came hoping the Ninevites would be judged and destroyed. Jesus, the righteous judge, came to us so that we could be saved. He loves you.
Jesus is the greater Jonah, and He loves you and He laid down His life for you.
So, if you would like to put your faith in him today and know that you can be forgiven of your sin, have the hope of heaven, and have a beautiful life, until then respond to this invitation now. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for. The story. of Jonah.
We thank you for his transparency, his willingness to talk about how he was not wanting to do this thing. But, Lord, he was obedient. And God, you used his obedience, you used him as a tool. To really transform a nation. And so, Lord, we ask that you would help us to do the same.
We just need to be obedient. Convict us of that, Lord. Help us to follow through with that. Thank you. Our heads are bowed and our eyes are closed.
We're praying together. I know there are some, again, who haven't put their faith in Jesus today. If you would like to do that. If you would like to have that hope of heaven, if you would like to have that burden of guilt and shame removed, yes, Jesus can even do that. If you deal with anxiety and fear, Jesus is the Prince of peace, and He can bring peace into your life.
If you're dealing with addiction, if you're dealing with struggles, listen, God can make you a new creation and help deliver you from those things as well. But first, You need to repent of your sin, recognize that it is what he calls it sin missing the mark. You need to turn from that, and you need to turn to. Jesus. If you'd like to do that today, Pray this out loud after me.
Pray this prayer right now. This is you talking to God. Pray this, dear God. I know that I'm a sinner. But I know that Jesus is the Savior.
who died on the cross for my sin. And I turn from that sin now. from this moment forward. Help me to walk with you. Help me to hear from you.
and help me to obey you. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
Amen.
God bless you. God bless you. Hey everybody, thanks for listening to this podcast. To learn more about Harvest Ministries, follow this show and consider supporting it. Just go to harvest.org.
And to find out how to know God personally, go to harvest.org and click on know God. Yeah.
