This is Darren Kuhn with the Masculine Journey Podcast, where we search the ancient paths to find ways that God brings light into a dark world and helps set men free from the struggles that we all face on a day-to-day basis. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it. Share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network.
This is the Truth Network. If not for God, I have Pastor Steve Goode from Northside Bath. Pastor Steve was willing to put his livelihood, his church on the line. He actually let me speak at his church a couple of times.
I'm all about living on the edge, taking gambles. But we actually have him back here today. Pastor Steve is the author of the book Marriage Triage, and Goode is spelled G-O-O-D-E. Just really has an exciting ministry that he does with the homeless.
Another time I think we'll do a video on that. Today we're actually going to be talking about Book of Jonah. Now, I know Pastor Steve, you were just talking about that yesterday.
There's a lot to it. And when I look at the Book of Jonah, I definitely see God's mercy, because this is a, you know, Nineveh is not a place that really deserved anything. But God told Jonah to go there to tell them that judgment was coming, and maybe they would repent, this or that. The other side of it is that is just the disobedience to God that you saw in Jonah. Jonah says, no, God, I'm not going to do that. And he ends up being eaten, I guess, sucked in or swallowed by a fish, not necessarily a whale.
A big, big fish. A big, big fish before Jonah finally says, okay, God, I'll do what you tell me to do. But, I mean, what is your main takeaway from the Book of Jonah? Well, Jonah's kind of the story of my life in a way, because I was called to ministry when I was 19. So I felt that like tugging, that was the direction I was supposed to go. And what I did was I said, thank you so much for that opportunity, God, but no thanks.
I got some other places to be. I did that primarily, by the way, too, because I was a preacher's kid. I had been behind the curtain of church most of my life.
So I always kid about all those years I spent in police work, I did not learn about the depravity of man from being a police officer. I learned about it from being a preacher's kid. Being behind the scenes, because people in the church can be mean. I mean, you see people, warts and all, but that's the cool part, too, about church. You do see people, warts and all, different personalities, different ways to look at things.
And many people are just, you know, if they're hard to get along with outside in their day-to-day walk, they're hard to get along with in church, too. But also, saw some deep hurts throughout my dad's ministry, but it never deterred him. He just kept pressing. So anyway, 19 years old, and that's how I felt. And I said, man, I'm going in a different direction. I ended up in the military. I ended up a security officer. I was Paul Blart Mall Cop for about a year and a half or two over at Four Seasons Mall in Greensboro, and loved doing that, too. I mean, we had a blast. And then was hired by Greensboro Police. Did that for 11 years.
That wasn't enough. I went on into computer work for about another decade. And finally, there came this moment after all that that I'd been doing, because I'd been running. My wife knew it. April knew it. I'd been running my whole life, it seemed like, ever since coming out of my teen years, because I knew that call was there.
I knew people were there. And finally, God ended my job where I was. He finally said, okay, look, you're doing good, making good money at this job, but it's time. And I finally, I think that's when I finally surrendered and said, God, I'm tired.
I'm tired of this feeling that I constantly have that I'm supposed to be somewhere else. And it's time. It's time I surrender, and God forgave me for my disobedience. But he put me on the path, and I got to see the fruits of being in the will of God.
That was awesome. Okay, back to Jonah. So now we're at Jonah. And you see Jonah. And by the way, did you notice how it takes all of about two verses for Jonah to be disobedient?
He doesn't waste any time. I mean, an Israelite prophet, you know, he lived just lived in a cut not too far, probably from from Samaria. And but the moment that he gets a chance to go and minister to these evil people, these cruel people, these enemies of his people, he's like, Oh, I ain't doing it, God.
There's like, I'm not doing this at all. A lot of people don't realize, too, about the Assyrians, how brutal they were. We overlook about how brutal they really were. I mean, the Assyrians would literally skewer people, they would shish kebab people that were political enemies. It's like if you were a political enemy, and they wanted to make a point, if you were to go to the city of Assyria, you would you would there would be these walls that surround it, by the way, there's walls in a city get go figure, and there'd be walls there.
And then you would see all of these posts, and they would just be jutting out with with sharp ends on them. But if you looked at the bottom of those posts, what they would do with their political enemies is they would literally put them on those, they would grease those poles, they would then put them in on those poles mouth first, and they would let them slowly run down the poles. So okay, you got to realize that the context of where Jonah was going, Jonah was told by God to go to their enemies who do that kind of evil. And by the way, where if you want to see that kind of evil now, all you have to do is go to set there's some some Middle Eastern countries now Afghanistan's ones. And this is the kind of torture tactics that are used on people even to this day. But if you were to go there, so that Jonah was told to go in and preach, hey, 40 days you'll be destroyed, huh?
How long do you think he was gonna last? And so he said, Oh, I'm not going. So he already had that spirit of disobedience in him. But I hate to give Jonah like, just a little bit of a understanding piece here of a little bit of empathy. But that would have been like horrendous to be told that you're going to go you have to go and give a message from God to the enemies of your people. But that you know that we we aren't even to the point where they actually listen to him and repent.
He just didn't want to carry that message. Disobedient when, like you said, to give Jonah a little bit of leeway, I think about how many times in my own life, where I felt like God was telling me to do something and I didn't listen. I learned the consequences of that. And I tried to listen to God and I tried to obey his voice. But I think sometimes we all sometimes we're all disobedient in certain areas. But Robbie, what about you?
Get on the hot seat, Robbie. Let's see. It was interesting.
I didn't have that experience. I mean, it just I love the book of Jonah. I really, really, really do.
But my favorite part of the book is actually the the crazy plant at the end that he keeps getting mad at. Yeah. I mean, I love the fish. I really do. And I love that that God sent him to Nineveh. And I've read those same things about Nineveh. Yeah.
And it was not too hard to understand why Jonah was reluctant. But the thing that just grasps me is here you were, you actually had a chance to do something for God. And now you're upset. And, you know, he uses such a unique way for those of us who love nature. It's just a plant.
Right. And it grows out to shade him. And the next thing you know, now I'm completely relating for me to Jonah. I can completely relate to his bad attitude. Like God, I don't understand why you did this, right? Why you were good to somebody else. You know, it's a matter of iniquity. And it's really a cool thing because I have those same struggles. So I don't relate so much to the disobedience of the fish, but I relate completely with a bad attitude. And one of the things that, you know, when we're talking about this, another part of it is, and I think we kind of touched on this, was God's mercy towards those who did not deserve mercy.
Does that sound like anybody we know? You know? A lot of scholars, by the way, and they'll even characterize this as the first time that God told a prophet to take the gospel, I mean, to non-Jews, to those who were not within the Jewish population. So it was kind of that first time to carry the gospel outside. It also shows where God's going with this, that he's already showing that the gospel, you know, in his sovereignty, the gospel was never just for the Jews. The gospel itself, he brought it, as a messenger, he brought it with the Jews.
But that gospel was always going to expand to all people. And I think the big piece there, I think that's kind of a critical piece. This is like the first time. Jonah's experience, he gets to carry it. But I don't think Jonah saw it as a big, like, you know, yay, God, thank you so much. I get, yes, I'm the first.
I'm the first. He didn't see it that way. I mean, how excited are we to preach the gospel to our enemies? I mean, so many times we talk about all of these, and you were saying it before, these Middle Eastern countries where they're torturing people and, you know, things just don't seem fair over there.
They're persecuting Christians. And, you know, what if God told us to go and share the good news with them? Or what if God told us to go and say, hey, there's going to be destruction on your country.
First of all, like you said, how would they receive it? And then second of all, you know, is there a part of us that almost wants the worst for our enemies? And I mean, like you said before, you could almost understand if somebody did not want the best for their enemies, where that would come from. I'm looking in Romans chapter 5, and I'll start in verse 6. It says, For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.
It wasn't for the great people. He died for the ungodly. Verse 7, For scarcely for a righteous man one will die. Yet peradventure for a good man, some would even dare to die.
But God commendeth his love towards us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. One of my favorites. Yeah. And by the way, can I poke the bear for a minute? Yeah. Can I poke?
Can I poke the bear here? So, God, think about it right now. The problem of illegal immigration right now is kind of the big, big hot button topic right now. Let's just, can we play a scenario game here? We've all got good imaginations.
I know you do. Okay, so God comes to you, and he says, Michael, I want you to go carry the gospel to all of the illegals that are coming on the border. I want you to go make a ministry of carrying the gospel to the illegals on the border. The reason I say this is right now, the church, here's where I may be poking the bear of some churches, because I am a Christian through and through. Who I am is a Christian. I am bought and paid for by Christ.
I am clothed in his righteousness. Who I am is not a Republican. Who I am is not a Democrat. Who I am is not an illegal.
All of that, it's not that. But the church, the mission of the church, when it comes to even illegals, is we still have the mission to treat every single person no different. The gospel goes to all.
There's not a limitation on who we share the gospel with. If God calls me to go, and in fact, right now, we actually minister to a significant number of undocumented aliens, even in our church now, that are living in Greensboro, of all things. If I could, if I wanted to get an attitude, I could go, God, they ain't gonna follow the law. They broke the law by coming in to begin with. Uh-uh. I don't have that luxury. For that matter, I don't have that luxury, because God loves all of them.
The mission of the church can never be surrounded by that kind of political atmosphere. Yeah, and I guess one of the things that I'm thinking is that whether they broke the law or not, it looks like they're gonna be here. I mean, nobody's really doing anything about it.
And so what we're not saying is we're not saying, okay, it's just okay to break the law, and it's okay for them to come in here illegally. But I like what you said as well, is that if God is telling us to do something, that we need to go do it. Let me ask you, Robbie, has there ever been a time where God has told you to do something where maybe you didn't want to do it? He always gets the bike. He gets the hot seat. You swing it right to me.
What actually came to my mind was, you know, I get to do lantern rescue. And so I often interview Mark. And you can imagine how difficult it would be when you had in your class, somebody that had, you know, basically brought on the rape of his own baby. I mean, literally baby, I'm not talking about, you know, a 14 year old girl or something.
I'm talking about somebody who brought on the rape, and the and the prenographer use of their own child, and all these different things. And I have seen Mark, like, just become completely like I had to see this person as a victim to victim to fight. And, and I'm just like, in awe. Because, you know, that that's an innovative right there, right? Or those people that are beheading people, like you said, in Afghanistan, or all these different things, you know, but it gets upfront and personal for me, because, you know, sometimes I have relatives that live in my own house, that are related to me by marriage.
I'm not gonna mention any names. And there's lots of opportunities that God gives me. So yeah, where does it where does it hit me? It actually hits me in the act day to day, like, yeah, you know, put me on the big stage with, you know, oh, yeah, well, I can, you know, but when you're actually in the, like, they're in your house, and they've upset you, and they've upset you, and they've done this, and they've turned their back on you and all this stuff. And now God says, Robbie, I want you to go in and fix some breakfast. You want me to do what?
Yeah, for a plant, you know, climb under for some shade. Well, sometimes, and this is this may be a word of warning to use, Pastor Steve, but I'm sure you've seen this in your own church, is a lot of times when I'll talk about something on my show, like I just did a show about forgiveness. And now I'm really having to live that out. Oh, yeah, like a lot of times when I talk about something on the show, and I'm sure you've seen where you talk about something from the pulpit, then it's like the next week, man, it hits you right in the face. Oh, absolutely.
Absolutely. And it is next thing you know, you know, you're having kind of those one of those micro runs, those micro runs experience experience there. And by the way, you notice we haven't even got out of chapter one of Jonah. I mean, this is how this is so interesting.
You know, Jonah is such a hard, fast bam, you know, you get in and get out. But it's so deep. It's so deep here.
And we're to that point. And by the way, the one thing about running from God running from his call in your life, too, is the impact it has on others around you. And this this is key. The when Jonah ran, men lost their livelihood because of him. And while he was trying to sleep in the boat, thinking if if nobody sees me, then I'm cool.
I'm cool. I'll just stay in the bottom of the boat here. But in turn, what ends up happening, we got men that end up in a violent storm, God caused, they end up throwing over goods that they're making money on to take to the next port.
And they lose their livelihood because of him. I always tell people, you know what, don't ever think that you sin in secret. Don't there's no such thing as secret sin.
I mean, after all, God knows anyway. But your sin has a cascading effect. In fact, I even write about this, like in in my book, that there's a cascading effect of that happens with your sin that you don't even make you may not see or may not know readily. But it's happening in Jonah, because of what Jonah did. He sees the cause of his sin, he sees men lose their livelihood men put into total fear because of what he did. And I think that's that's another thing, like I said, we're not even out of chapter one.
And all of these things are happening. And finally, they realize who he is. He's a prophet of that Hebrew God. And and it scares them to death.
They're like, here's something else I always thought was so cool, though. That's a theological word, by the way. It's the fact that that even though Jonah was in total disobedience and defiance of God, these men who were calling out to their pagan gods, because they didn't follow the one true God, when all is said and done, begin to want to lift up sacrifices to the true God. And once again, Jonah still in total disobedience means been thrown out, you know, it's going to be thrown over the boat boat. But Jonah did never saw he never got to experience with these men, the fact that he caused a revival to happen on that ship. He stirred a revival, I mean, a literal reawakening for these men. And they came to that they came to a place where they actually paid homage to God. But once again, you know what, Jonah had a choice. He could have spent in the will of God and shared the gospel with him and watched all of these things unfold. But he didn't do that. He was still staying in willful disobedience. And I tell people about this. You know, you got a choice in your life. You either. It's like if you're going down the rapids, you can either be in the boat in the raft where it's safe, going down the rapids, which you're going to be going down the rapids either way.
Or you can say, I would rather just flounder in the water and almost drown in the rapids and not experience the comfort. And I think that's what Jonah that's where Jonah was. Jonah just, he just said, forget it.
You know, I'm, he's he was in willful disobedience. And he caused all of these things to happen, that all of this in such a simple chapter, one chapter of Jonah. And you see all this, all of these little insights about how Jonah hat was, uh, he teaches us about what happens if we're willfully disobedient to him. That's it, you know, in, in, in towards the end of chapter four, this is something that really kind of spoke to me because I've heard so many times where people have said, well, how could a good God allow this to happen? How could a good God allow this to happen?
And what you really see in the book of Jonah is that these people, first of all, these people did it to themselves. Um, it's not that God made this happen or whatever, but because of people's disobedience, finally, God says, okay, I've had enough or whatever. But even in the end of chapter four, uh, after that plant had risen up and then, and then God allowed the plant to die, um, the, uh, but in verse 10, it says, but the Lord says, uh, you have been concerned about this plant though you did not tend it or make it grow.
It sprang up overnight and died overnight. And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh in which there are more than 120,000 people who cannot tell their right hand from their left and also many animals. So that to say that, well, how did God allow this to happen? First of all, God cares. God doesn't want these bad things to happen, but if we continue in our willful disobedience, there does come a point where God says, okay, I'm no longer going to allow this to happen.
Kind of like Sodom and Gomorrah or, Oh, maybe somewhere else we know. Yeah. It looks that way there, you know? Well, wait a minute. It couldn't have been more willfully disobedient, right? God put him in a fish.
Yeah. A big fish, you know what I'm saying? And, and, and then, you know, once you're in the belly of the fish, then all of a sudden, but the neat thing, the more I've studied the book, and I also dearly love the book is the one thing you got to say about Jonah is this dude was not a poser.
No, he wasn't. I mean, right down to the end, you know, he's, he, yeah, he may have a bad attitude as I often do, but at least he comes right out and tells God what he feels and what he thinks. And, you know, the hero of the Jonah story is gone.
And, and I just think how courageous if you were going to write a book for the Bible, right? Well, here's the story of where I messed up here. And I didn't learn my lesson. And I messed up again.
And where do we end the book? I've messed up. Okay. That's it.
That's it. And so, you know, you got to think that, man, God is the hero of the book of Jonah. He is I even think about that one day we'll be in heaven and we'll go Where's Jonah? Oh, he's that bitter guy over there in the corner.
No, no, no. That's just it that the story leaves us in the story. I think the most meaningful part, one of the there's several but one meaningful part is the way it ends. It doesn't end with this.
And they all live happily ever after. In fact, quite frankly, I think we're in around 760 BC. I don't know, some of you out there may remember it, about 760 BC.
And remember what's going to happen. We're coming to the conclusion of Sumerian Israel in 722 BC. And the Assyrians are going to take them out of the city of Samaria, then all out with fish hooks in their nose.
I mean, literally, if you could picture you know, when you go fishing, and you have all the fish on the on the big chaney thing, and you're carrying the fish over your shoulder. Well, that's how they're going to treat the Israelites to take them out. And they're going to disperse them all throughout all of the territories that they'd conquered. This is a Syria. So you know, was as bitter as Jonah was, you know what, these same people he carried this message to are going to end up conquering Samaria and Israel, they're going to conquer them.
And, and they've conquered so many territories, they didn't even have the manpower to occupy Samaria, they're going to just like spread them out through all the territories and that will maybe keep some of the rebellions down. So that's but then the conclusion of this. Yeah, Jonah, Jonah walks away kind of with that kind of embittered spirit. And, but I don't I don't question God's love for I mean, Jonah's love for God. I don't question that. But I do think he had a long pity party. In and who knows we, you know, Jonah may have lived to see the set what happened in 722.
I don't know. But he may have lived to see that day. I mean, and when I look at this as Second Peter, three, eight through 10, it says, but beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord is 1000 years and 1000 years is one day, the Lord is not slack concerning his promise as some men count slackness, but as long suffering to us word, not willing that any perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night and the witch, the heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the element shall melt with fervent heat.
The earth also and the works that are in shall be burned up. And, and what I'm reminded in that verse is there in that in that passage is that God, you know, people say, well, how could God send anyone to hell? He doesn't want you to go to hell.
He wants you to go to heaven with him. That's, that's why he, according to that verse, that's why he hasn't come back yet is because there are still lost people who need to be saved. And if you've never given your life to Jesus, we want to encourage you to reach out, call out, cry out Jesus to be your Lord and Savior today. And Pastor Steve, we thank you for coming on.
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