You Can Run...but God - Part B

I think you'll agree, God sure went through a lot of trouble to use Jonah. Right?

A wind, a fish. That's the point. God is in the business of using the most unlikely people. It's my life verse, 1 Corinthians 1, God has chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise. God won't force you. He respects your choice.

But let me put it this way. God has ways of strongly persuading you. Just knowing God's truth doesn't mean you'll grow in it.

You have to apply it in your life and live it out. Today on Connect with Skip Heizer, Skip shares how God still works in and through you even when you fail. Right now, we want to tell you about a resource that sheds light on what the Bible says about God's nature and character, including his plans and purpose for your life. Does God exist? And if he does, is it possible to know him? Your answer to those two questions shapes how you see the world.

Skip Heitzig once wrestled with those very questions himself. You know, I've been teaching the Bible for over three decades. Before I became a Christian, and when I was new to the faith, I studied science and philosophy alongside the Bible. As I studied, I grew confident that God does exist, and yes, we can know him. In Biography of God, the brand new book by Skip Heitzig, you'll learn to remove the limits you may have placed on your idea of who God is.

Everything changes when you acknowledge and believe that God is who he says he is. Now, we're in Jonah chapter one as we get into the message with Skip Heitzig. Nineveh means fish town. It's fish town. They were right on the Tigris River.

It's just an interesting fact because the guy with the greatest fish story is about to go to fish town, a town where they worshiped a fish God, a couple of them, and come up with a message. So that's possibility number one. It's too difficult. I'm not going. Second possibility was too dangerous.

Too dangerous. Did you know that the Ninevites were famous or infamous for their brutality? Look at what it says in verse two. The Lord says, their wickedness has come up before me.

I am taking notice of how wicked this city is, and I'm going to do something about it. There was another prophet that was sent to the Ninevites by the name of Nahum the prophet, who says of Nineveh, it is a bloody city, a great number of bodies, and countless corpses are there. The Ninevites were known for dismembering people, decapitating people, burning people alive. One of their emperors, Ashurbanipal, the grandson of Sennacherib, would take people's lips and tear them off their bodies while they were alive, pull their hands and feet off, and then kill them. Tiglath-Pulisir, another of their rulers, flayed his captives alive and then piled up their heads so they were eventually piles of skulls at the gate of the city of Nineveh. So if you're Jonah and God says, go to Nineveh, you're thinking, no thanks.

I want to get ahead in life, not add my head to a pile of a bunch of other people. So two possibilities. It was too difficult. It was too dangerous. Now, truth is, none of those were the reasons. The real reason that Jonah ran from the Lord isn't because it was too difficult or dangerous, but because it was too disdainful. Now listen to this. He's not going to go there because he knew that his preaching would actually work. I want you to read it yourself.

I want you to see it. Go to chapter three, verse 10. We're skipping ahead in the story. All the people of Nineveh turned to God, an incredible revival unlike ever seen before, verse 10. Then God saw their works that they turned from their evil way. And God relented from the disaster that he said he would bring upon them and did not do it. Now look at chapter four, verse one. Let's see. Let's see how this prophet, his preaching just worked. The whole town turns to God.

You think he'd be going? Yes. Yes. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.

Not this guy. Verse one. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly.

What? And he became angry. So he prayed to the Lord and said, now, because it says he was angry, I got to do this. He said, ah, Lord, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore, I fled previously to Tarshish.

He's saying, this is why I left. For I know that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant and loving kindness, one who relents from doing harm. Now, therefore, O Lord, please take my life from me. What a pouting prodigal prophet.

Kill me, for it's better for me to die than to live. You see, Jonah admits, I knew it. I know you're the kind of God who loves people and you love to forgive people and you would love and forgive the people I hate. Jonah was a racist. He was a bigot. He was a bad attitude prophet, a down in the mouth prophet. You've got to be pretty bitter and pretty bad to not want to see people repent and turn to God.

That's pretty deep stuff. Jonah ran from God because he hated the very people God loved. Now, before we get down too much on Jonah, we should, God does, in this story.

But let me frame it in more modern times to help you maybe get a better understanding. Let's say it's World War II and the word of the Lord came to a Jewish rabbi in New York City and said arise, go to Berlin, speak to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, this message, and if they turn, I will love them and forgive them. I think that Jewish rabbi would probably not go, okay.

I think you might read, and the rabbi went and took a boat in Manhattan and went to Hawaii to flee from the presence of the Lord. Nonetheless, Jonah is a prejudice prophet who prefers bitterness to forgiveness. You know, some people actually like to live in bitterness. It's comfortable to them. It's their home.

They've made a bed out of it. But here's the problem with bitterness, it blinds you from truth. I want you to know that. Jonah, again, what is Jonah again? He's a what? He's a prophet. Jonah's a prophet. So Jonah should have known better. It says Jonah went to flee from what? The presence of the Lord. Can a prophet do that?

Is that possible? Can you get to any place on earth where God is not omnipresent? And wouldn't of all people on the earth a prophet know that? Oh yes, he knew that. In fact, Jonah knew the scripture very well.

I'm going to prove that to you in a moment. But by the time Jonah lived, David had lived and David had written the Psalms and they were part of Jewish liturgy, temple liturgy already. One of the Psalms is Psalm 139.

It's familiar. David said, Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend into heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in hell, behold, you are there.

If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, behold, even there your hand will hold me. Jonah should have known that. He did know that. But blindness is on Jonah's heart because of bitterness. So God's call doesn't guarantee our success. Here's the second life lesson. Knowing truth doesn't mean doing truth.

Knowing truth doesn't mean doing truth. You see chapter two, verse one, then Jonah prayed to the Lord is God from the fish's belly. Now I'm not going to read what follows, but there's a prayer that follows.

Nine verse prayer. And when you read the prayer, you discover something. You discover that Jonah knew the will of God. Jonah knew the word of God. Because in that prayer, there are no less than 11 references to Old Testament texts, nine from Psalms, one from Lamentations, one from Job, all embedded in this prayer. He knew that stuff. He prayed that. He prayed that prayer in the belly of a sea monster. Now, when people pray in a crisis, they don't pull out a little thing in their pocket, a little written down type of prayer to hold on and pray some flowery prayer.

When people are in a crisis, they pray spontaneously, extemporaneously. Whatever comes out is what's inside. And that's my point. This was inside Jonah.

And here's the greater point. Exposure to scripture does not guarantee a godly life. Knowing truth is not the same as doing truth. Jonah's words are bathed in Bible truth. Jonah's works are bathed in bitter self-will.

One author said, if you know the words of the Bible, but don't take them to heart, it is practical atheism. To run from God is to be digested in the belly of your own pride. You remember the night of the Passover? We just celebrated communion moments ago. After the supper, Jesus did something very uncomfortable for those friends of his. He got up, put a towel around him, got a basin of water.

And what do you do? Wash their feet. And after he washed their feet, he said, I've done this as an example so that you'll do it. And then he said this, if you know these things, happy are you if you do them.

Did you get that? He didn't say, if you know these things, happy are you if you know these things. He didn't say if you know these things, happy are you if you underline and memorize them. If you know these things, happy are you if you preach them. He said, if you do these things.

The joy is not in the knowing, the joy is in the doing what you know. So we can study a passage of scripture that can stir us emotionally or challenge us intellectually, but it will never bless us spiritually unless we do what we know. Jesus said, why do you call me Lord when you don't do what I tell you to do? It's a good question and it's a fair question. Lord, why do you keep calling me Lord?

You don't do anything I ask. Why do you use the title Lord? I think you and I ought to think of the Bible as an accurate map that tells us how to get to a good destination. But the map itself doesn't have the power to transport you to that destination any more than a GPS if you put in your coordinates, and then you just sort of sit there with your arms told to go, okay, I've been an hour. How come I'm not there? Because you got to go where you're told to go. You got to do what you know to do. See, sometimes we as believers have a problem.

Here's the problem. See if you agree. We don't really believe what we believe. We have two forms of theology.

We have a prescribed theology, but then we have a practical theology. Our prescribed theology, Jesus is Lord. We said Jesus is my Lord.

But our practical theology says, no, Jesus isn't Lord, you're Lord. Because if Jesus is Lord, why are you sleeping around? If Jesus is Lord, why did you leave your husband? If Jesus is Lord, why did you leave and dis your wife? If Jesus is Lord, why do you swear like a sailor?

If Jesus is Lord, why do you keep cheating? At what point does the Lord portion really take root? What we mean sometimes when we say Jesus is Lord is Jesus is Lord, as long as it doesn't conflict with my desire. But when it does, I'm taking over.

That's what we really mean. So let me tell you this. If Jesus Christ is your Lord on Sunday, but not the rest of the week, then he's only one seventh Lord. Is he really Lord?

I don't think so. I've always liked the story of the goat who was in the jungle, always wanted to be a lion. And he actually thought that if he could walk like lions walk and talk like lions talk and go where lions go, he would be a lion. So he practiced. He practiced, imagine a goat walking majestically and he would swish that little stubby goat tail and pretend it was some majestic fur-lined lion's tail.

And he actually thought he was doing it. Then he practiced his voice and he tried to turn that pitiful little bleat into a deep ferocious roar. And he convinced himself that he was walking and talking like a lion. Then he thought, I've got this nailed. I now just need to go where lions go. So the next day at lunchtime, he went where lions went. End of story, end of goat. The goat had the right speech. He didn't have the right stuff. And sometimes people think if I go where Christians go and talk like Christians talk and sing like Christians sing, I am one.

Well, then you're lying. Sorry, I couldn't resist that one. God's call doesn't guarantee our success. Knowing truth doesn't mean doing truth. And finally, and we close with this, your willfulness won't stop God's will. Now, when we're reading the story and we just barely get into it, God gives this guy a call, tells him to do a job. And then verse three, we read this, but Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.

We might be tempted to say, story's over. It's not gonna happen until we get to verse four. See, it says, but Jonah in verse three, it's like God says, you know what? I see your but Jonah and I raise it a but God. But Jonah fled, but the Lord sent out a great wind on the sea. Verse 17, now the Lord prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah. Chapter three, verse one, now the Lord, the word of the Lord came to Jonah second time, says, get to it. Verse three, so Jonah arose and went to Nineveh.

Yay! Now, here is the point I wanna make. If God wants Nineveh reached, guess what? Nineveh gonna be reached. Whether Jonah does it or if he still digs in his heel, God can use somebody else and he might.

If Nineveh, if God wants it to be reached, it's gonna be reached. That's a principle, in the book of Esther, Esther is the queen, second queen. There's a guy in that court named Haman who has this genocidal scheme to exterminate all of the Jews living in Persia. Esther's uncle Mordecai hears about it, comes to Esther and says, you gotta approach the king. She goes, I can't just go into the king anytime, he could kill me. Mordecai says to her, if you keep quiet at this time, deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place.

It's gonna happen. But you and your relatives will die. What's more, who can say, but that you have been elevated to the palace for just such a time as this. It's the key verse of that book. What we see here in the book of Jonah is a case of severe mercy. God wants to be merciful to those Ninevites and he wants to be merciful to the prophet Jonah. Listen, if I was around back then and I was the guy in charge of picking prophets, I wouldn't pick Jonah. At this point I'd say, God, this guy's disqualified, let him go.

There's plenty of other servants of yours who will say yes immediately. Let him go. Bypass him, he is disqualified. In fact, I think you'll agree, God sure went through a lot of trouble to use Jonah, right?

A wind, a fish, that's the point. God is in the business of using the most unlikely people. It's my life verse, 1 Corinthians 1, God has chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise. God won't force you, he respects your choice, but let me put it this way. God has ways of strongly persuading you.

I think you'll agree with that. Moses went to Pharaoh and said, thus says the Lord, let my people go. What was Pharaoh's response? Not gonna happen, not letting your people go, I'm Pharaoh, you're not, I'm in charge, you're not, bye. But God has skills in the fine art of persuasion. After a few plagues, like flies and lice and frogs and darkness and hail and river turning to blood, what does Pharaoh say?

Okay, go. So, let me put it to you this way. If God's still small voice to you doesn't work, you may wanna buy flood insurance, storm insurance. You know, some people God just speaks to and they automatically go, yes. Yes, Samuel was like that. He said, speak Lord, your servant hears. You're just ready to obey other people are not so much so that way. And so the Lord resorts to stringent methods. Jacob wrestled with God all night long and walked away the rest of his life limping. Proverbs 15, 10, harsh correction is for him who forsakes the way. Harsh correction is for him or her who forsakes the way.

The NSV, the new Skip version of that verse, if you wanna fight God, he can take you on. There was a story and I closed with this in a newspaper from the east about a woman driving home one night on the freeway. She was in her car, but she noticed that in the rear view mirror, she could see a semi truck getting uncomfortably close to her car. She sped up only to discover the truck sped up. No matter how fast she went, that truck kept the speed and was close to her, followed her. She's scared, she pulls off the freeway on an off-ramp and guess what's behind her?

Same truck. She turns on a main street in town hoping to slow him down, but he runs a red light on that street and stays even closer to her in panic mode. She whips her car into a gas station, jumps out screaming for help. The man jumps out of his truck, runs toward her car, opens the back door to take a man who was hiding in the back seat out. She was running from the wrong guy.

From the vantage point, the truck driver could see a man who was in the back seat. He was a would-be rapist waiting for the right opportunity. She was running from him, but he was chasing her not to hurt her, but to save her. And some people run from God because they're scared when God has their best interest in heart.

I'm gonna tie a bow on this in this sense. Two years ago, I had an opportunity to go to Iraq, and I was in the city of Erbil in northern Iraq. I was asked to speak at a church service that night.

I said I'd love to do it. And that night, the church service midweek was packed. Every chair packed, people standing around the perimeter of the building, I'd never seen a service so jammed. What was interesting about the service is that the people who were there, believers, most of them were not local. Most of them were war reference workers. Refugees, displaced people who had fled from the city of Mosul.

Mosul is the modern name for ancient Nineveh. It dawned on me, I'm preaching to Ninevites. And guess what book of the Bible I taught from? Book of Jonah, it was perfect. And it dawned on me that Jonah spoke to Ninevites centuries before about the judgment of God. I was able by the grace of God to speak to them about God's love for them and plan for them and in spite of the horrific things they had seen. And bring hopefully some sort of comfort and purpose for them. It was a great privilege. All of that to say, whatever God's call on your life is, the quicker you say, speak Lord, your servant hears, the better off you'll be.

The happier you will be, happier you if you do that. That wraps up Skip Heiseck's powerful message for you from the series, But God. Now, we want to tell you about a unique opportunity to take your knowledge of scripture to a new level. Calvary College is now open for registration. Calvary College is offering select online classes as an opportunity for individuals to take their life's calling to a whole new level with an educational emphasis in biblical studies with our unique partnerships with Veritas International University and Calvary Chapel University.

You will have the opportunity to obtain your bachelor's or master's degree with complete online programs. Whether you're looking to obtain an accredited online degree or take individual courses to become better equipped in your knowledge of God's unchangeable truth, Calvary College has you covered with a range of opportunities for updates on classes and registration information for Calvary College. Please visit calvaryabq.college. That's calvaryabq.college. For Calvary College, calvaryabq.college. Here at Connect with Skip Heiseck, we get to hear incredible stories about how God is encouraging people, not just around the block, but around the world.

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Thank you. Come back again tomorrow as Skip Heiseck shows you how God can work mightily in your home, no matter what struggles your family faces. Make a connection. Make a connection at the foot of the crossing. Cast all burdens on His word. Make a connection, connection. Connect with Skip Heiseck is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.