Kerwin Baptist Church Daily Broadcast

Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church The Lord said to the guys, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness is come up before Me. But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa. And he found a ship going to Tarshish, so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. But the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken. Lord, we need your help today, and bless as we begin in this book of Jonah.

Lord, there really is something to learn for everyone, especially us. Lord, if there are individuals here this morning that just don't know for sure that they're saved, Lord, this book has everything to do with them. And Lord, if there are some that know they're saved, but feel they're not quite doing everything that God has laid on their heart to do in their life, Lord, this book's for them too.

Lord, I pray as we lay a foundation for the year to come, that God, you would encourage the hearts of everyone in this church to recommit their lives, to serve you in a different way, in your precious holy name, Amen. Look at verse one if you would. Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying. Look at the first phrase of this verse. Now the word of the Lord came.

Let me give you a little bit of a hint about your life. Everything always starts when the word of the Lord comes to you. Why is it so important that we say that you and I get into God's word?

Because that's where direction comes for our lives. This all started, the whole story started when God's word came to Jonah. Dear friend, do you realize how special it is and how wonderful it is and how blessed we are that we literally have the word of God in front of us? And that's where it all starts.

One commentator said this, I thought this was great. That the word of the Lord came to Jonah, for God's word is a real thing. Men's words are but wind, but God's words are the substance. Dear friend, every decision in your life should not start with the words of men. It should not start because you think it's a good idea, or because mama thinks it's a good idea, or because daddy thinks it's a good idea, or some friend or some co-worker or some mentor thinks it's a good idea and it's what you ought to do with your life. Dear friend, if there's one piece of advice I could give you this morning, don't do anything unless God leads you to do it.

That ought to be the start to everything. When God's word comes to you, get in God's word and it will get into you. I want you to look if you would at verse 2.

This is what God told him to do. Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it for their wickedness is come up before me. Now because this first message, a little bit of introduction, I got to tell you just a little bit about Nineveh. Nineveh was at this time, is what we would call a metropolis in our terminology I guess you would say, of the Assyrian monarchy. And that means this, it was an imminent city, Genesis chapter 10 tells us that about Nineveh. It was a great city, it was 48 miles in compass. And that's a very large city by the way, 48 miles in circumference.

And many historians believe Nineveh was even bigger than that. But that's a very large city. That means this, basically like from here, and I don't know what would be 48 miles, it could probably go on the other side of Burlington. I don't know how far is Burlington from here, isn't it like 30, 35 miles, 40 miles, I don't know. But that means literally going past Burlington, going all the way past that, probably maybe to Mebane or something like that. That literally from this point all the way to Mebane is one city. That's a pretty big city. So Nineveh was a big city, it had a great number of inhabitants. And I want you to, while you're holding your place, look at Jonah chapter 4 verse 11, the last verse in the book of Jonah.

Look at this, I want you to see this. And should not I spare Nineveh that great city, the Lord says, notice this. Wherein are more than six score thousand. Six score is what, 120. A hundred, am I wrong about that, somebody correct me if I am, but six, I'm right. A hundred and twenty, listen. Wherein are more than 120,000 persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand.

Now what are we talking about there? Babies. In this city they had over 120,000 babies who were not even old enough yet to know the difference between a right hand and a left hand. We're showing the scope of this city that they had, it was such a large great city and there was over 120,000 babies in it.

Now that's pretty astronomical at this time of history. Now it was a great city and the Bible in the book of Nahum tells us that this city literally had dominion over all the kings of the earth. That means this Nineveh for a while was the epicenter of everything going on. And God comes to Jonah and he said, Jonah look at verse 2, go to Nineveh that great city, cry against it for their wickedness has come up before me. Now I want to look at this verse real quick, we're not even getting into our points yet, but look at this real quickly. Notice the words that he uses and I want you to understand what he's telling Jonah to do. First word he says is this, arise. When God tells Jonah arise, go to Nineveh, that means this, it was going to take work. It means that Jonah was going to have to get out of his comfort zone. Jonah you're going to have to get up and go.

Arise and go. It means it was going to take effort. It means that he was going to have to leave the position that he was in and the place he was at and he was going to have to go to another location. It means that he was going to have to arise.

It was going to take effort. You're going to have to get out of your comfort zone. Look at me dear friend, I believe God always calls us to get out of our comfort zone. The danger in serving God is often that you and I get too comfortable. Now, and understand from a pastor, just being faithful to this church means the world to me. It is so hard to get people to be faithful. And people think I'm like a preacher's mean because you're always on.

I'm so thankful. We have a faithful church, faithful people and I am thankful for that. But may I say that when you get too comfortable and you're faithful and you come to church and you sit in your seat which you ought to do. But over the years we can get so comfortable with that that that's all we do.

And I am challenging Kerwin Baptist Church, I believe this year God is telling us to arise. Get out of our comfort zone. Start doing some things that you haven't done before. Start making even a little more effort.

Start thinking outside the box of how you could do even more for the Lord this year. Notice what he says here, he says arise. Go to Nineveh, that great city. Now those two words, great city, means this. It means that Nineveh was intimidating.

It means that it was dauntless. You got to understand that God just asked Jonah to go to this city. It was a very intimidating city. It was a very large city.

And how in the world are you just supposed to go and incorporate yourself into this city. And start preaching to all of them that they're literally going to hell if they don't turn to God. That's going to be real popular isn't it? It wasn't popular in that day and guess what?

It's not popular in this day either. And you know what often times you and I we're limited on how we serve God because we're intimidated. It might not be a great city with us but it might be a great boss at work. Or it might be a great problem in our family. And whatever it is for some reason often times you and I don't do for God what He wants us to do and what we should do because we're intimidated.

We're scared. And God even admits it's a great city. It's a large city. It's going to be a hard task. Notice if you would in verse 2 that He says this. When you get to that city cry against it. He didn't say just speak against it. He said cry against it. What He was telling Jonah this was that it was going to take passion. That Jonah was going to have to get a burden. This was more than just going through the motions and getting up and saying hey you need to turn to the Lord.

Thank you. He was going to have to get a burden for this city. He was going to have to get a love for this city. He was going to have to get a passion for this city. He was going to have to have something inside of Him that was greater than him, that was greater than human emotion. He was going to have to get a burden from God for this city. He said I want you to go and I don't want you to go and piddle. I don't want you to go and mess around and fool around and go through the motions. I want you to go and cry against it.

You know what God's calling Kerwin Baptist Church to do? Let's cry to this area. Let's get a burden. Let's get out of our comfort zone. Let's get out of where we're comfortable and where we've always been. And let's get a passion for this area.

And let's get a burden for people. Also when he looks at Jonah he says this, I want you to cry, notice this, against it. Preacher, what does that mean?

I'm so glad you asked. When God said I want you to cry against it, God is saying this. When you get up and you preach my word, you're gonna be going against the flow of that city. It means this, what you have to say is not going to be popular in that town.

Literally, Nineveh was going one direction. And we know it was a very sinful, wicked city. And God said, Jonah, you're gonna have to go to that city and when you cry, you're gonna have to cry, help me out here, against it. God still works that way, folks.

Now you look at me, I want you to understand this this morning, this isn't real popular for a Sunday morning service. God did not call us as a church to cry with the grain of people. God did not ask us just to try to hey, keep going the same direction the world's going, but just try to figure a way how you can kind of get the gospel in here and there. You go ahead and do the wrong that the world does, but then you just try to figure out, listen, God has called us to cry against it. That means that our church should not determine our policies based on what's popular, based on who's doing what, and this large and this large, and they're going this direction, which means we probably would, and that's what we're gonna do. Listen, God said cry against it. That means this, you know what, you're gonna have to get up and you're gonna have to stand up for something and it might not be the direction everybody else is going, but God doesn't care what direction it's going. All God cares about is where it's supposed to be going, and our church is responsible to make sure that we are willing to even cry against popularity in this day.

Dear friend, it's about time for us just to determine where we are and what we are, and we're just gonna have to stand up for what's right. Listen, I would have never come to work at this church in 1994. I would have never even considered it if this church did not have what I felt a good stand.

Now, I was just a college student. College students nowadays, many of them don't really care either way. They just want to find somewhere to work, who has a good salary, who pays your insurance, whatever the case might be, but when I met with Brother Joe, and this is a large church, this is a good-sized church, anybody in their right mind would want to work here and be honored to get to be on staff here and different things, but I asked Brother Joe when we met, he asked me a number of questions, but then I asked him some questions, and he's even mentioned this in years past, that I asked particular convictions and particular things, and where does our church stand on these things? Because, dear friend, God didn't call us to be popular. He called us to cry against it.

Now, notice this very closely. He did not say against them. He said, cry against it, meaning society. Our job is not to get up and ridicule people. Our job is not to get up and belittle people, because they don't do what we do, because they don't think like we think, because they don't wear what we wear, and they don't go where we go, and they don't think what we think. Listen, it's not our job to cry against them. It's our job to cry against it, and I mean, I'm talking about society. I'm talking about the worldly system, and Satan's the father of it.

He's the prince of power of the air, and he is making sure that our society on a whole, and I'm not just talking about America. I'm talking about countries all over. They're heading one direction, and we're not to get out and ridicule people and hate people and blow up these abortion clinics and different things. That's not what God's called us to do. We are to cry against it, not them.

Dear friend, you could stand up for something, but it doesn't mean you have to hate people. If anybody oughta love people, it's God's people. I want you to notice this, and this is taking more time than I was planning on taking on these words, but I feel like God wants me here for a minute.

He said this, I want you to cry against it. Notice this, for their wickedness is come up before me. What is interesting here, folks, listen to me, and there's so much Bible in these verses, and literally even for the sake of time, but I want you to get this. God calls Jonah to go and cry, to preach, against the flow, and here's why. He said, for their wickedness has grown up against me. God always has and always will, look at me, use the preaching of his word to fight wickedness.

Listen, music's great, singing groups are great. Nothing wrong with any of that, but God always has and always will use the preaching of his word to fight wickedness. It's the only thing that'll really work, is the preaching of his word. Now, I don't know about you, but I want you to notice a correlation here. Nineveh, obviously being a very large, great city, had become a very wicked city, and by the way, there might be great cities, and there might be great men, but this book teaches us that even though Nineveh was a great city, it was still under the judgment of God. I don't care how big a city or how big a nation gets, God's still in control, and he's still over all of it, but isn't it amazing how many great cities, large cities in our nation are very wicked cities? You show me a large city, I'll show you a very wicked city. Los Angeles, New York, Chicago are three of our largest, and they're very wicked cities. There's a lot of stuff that goes on that we would not even talk about in mixed company, and all the things that go on, and dear friend, I want you to know that the reason is, is because there's so many sinners there, they help each other sin. That's why an individual, if they're not careful, a clean individual can go to a very filthy city, and because of the pressure, because so many people are heading the wrong direction, they can get to a big city and before long, they've just taken place of it.

Just ask a lot about that. Dear friend, I'm here to tell you, I don't care how popular, how many people are doing what, it doesn't make it right. Because the Bible says that broad is the way that leads to destruction, narrow is the way that leads to life. There's always gonna be less going the right way, and there's always gonna be more going the wrong way, but that's not the direction we're supposed to be heading. Boy, God said a whole bunch, and just a phrase to Jonah, didn't he? And he's saying a whole bunch to us. I want you to notice number one this morning. I want you to notice first, I want you to see Jonah's distance. It starts, if you would, in verse two, after God had given him a command, look at verse three.

But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish, from the presence of the Lord. I'm gonna bring more into this later before we go this morning, but I want you all to understand, every bad circumstance or decision that you make in your life, always starts when you allow a distance to come between you and God. You see, before you ever, and we preachers a lot of times, we're real big, and we've been known over the years, but buddy, we'll just get up, and we'll mention every sin under the book, and we'll preach under everything you understand.

You know how we all do. And buddy, but can I tell you something? Before an individual ever does those things, what happened way before that is they began to get a distance from God. And dear friend, I wanna say that you and I have got to look at our own lives, and just analyze for a second, have I allowed distance to come between me and God?

God came to Jonah, he commanded Jonah, told him what he wanted to do, and the first thing Jonah did was get away from God, from the presence of the Lord. May I ask you this morning, do you have a distance between you and God? Has someone or something come into your life and has taken you further and further away? I've met individuals that were hurt by somebody in church, and because of that, they've gotten away from God.

It doesn't seem right that we would take it out on God, does it, when somebody does us wrong, but that's what happens. I've seen individuals because of circumstances, because something happened, and because they had a loved one killed in a wreck, or something like that, and they don't think it's fair, and they don't understand why, and before long, you notice that, and if they were honest, there's a distance that has come between them and God, and it always starts there, it always starts when we allow anything to start taking us away from God. May I challenge you here at Kerwin Baptist Church, whether you're a member, whether you're not a member, I'm not even concerned about that this morning, I'm asking you as you leave here, and you go to lunch, and you go on with life this week, could it be possible that we, without even realizing it, and without even wanting to, we've gotten a distance between us and God, we've grown further away from him than we were a year ago, because as soon as you let distance start, it just snowballs after that. I notice, I find it interesting here that what he did, it took him from the presence of the Lord.

Now, I don't know about you, but oftentimes, we talk about backsliding, that backsliding is a very slow process, and I've heard preachers use the thing of taking a boat out to fish, and they'll sit there, and they'll turn the boat off, and they'll just fish there for a while, and they'll fish there for maybe an hour or two, and all of a sudden, when they stop and take a look where they were sitting, the current or the water has slowly taken them far away from where they were, and they didn't even realize it. I've heard all that, and I know, but dear friend, may I tell you, I think if you and I are gut honest with each other, we know when the presence of the Lord is not with us. We know it, and I believe Jonah knew that he was taking steps away from the presence of the Lord. By the way, all is vain unless we have the presence of the Lord.

I don't care how talented any of us might be, musically, speaking-wise, whatever the case might be, if we don't have the presence of the Lord in our services, it's a waste of our time. I want you to notice number two, Jonah's direction. The Bible says that he arose and he fled to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, but notice this, and he went down to Joppa. Amazingly here, if you get a map out, Joppa is not necessarily south of where Jonah was. Now he was obviously crying out to Israel, but God had asked him to go to Nineveh. Where Jonah was to get to Joppa was north. But God said when he went to Joppa, although he might have been heading north, he was going down.

It's amazing how God's word notices the details. Dear friend, any step you take away from God, you're always going down. You're not gaining any ground.

You're not helping yourself one bit. You're going down. I don't care if you got away from God, now you're making more money, and now you got nicer things, and now, hey, I got this, and I got that, and I got all these things that the world wants. You can have all of it you want to, but I'm telling you, you're going down. You're heading down. You're going the wrong direction.

I don't care what promotion you get, and I don't care how much fun you're having, and all the things that your money can buy. I'm here to tell you, when all those things in our life takes us away from God, and there begins a distance, I'm telling you, we're heading in the wrong direction. Once you notice, thirdly, the Bible says, and he found a ship going to Tarshish. Tarshish, if you'll notice on a map, and I sent a map to Ben, but I don't think it was enough resolution to try to even be able to show this map. Well, there it is, and I know you probably can't see it very closely, but if you'll notice, and let me point it out for those of you that can't see it, Nineveh is all the way over there on the far right.

Tarshish is all the way over here on the far left. Now, forsaken the future, this body of water right here is where the great fish swallowed Jonah. Jonah went down to Joppa, the Bible says, although where Jonah was, God had called him to go up to Nineveh, so he went up, but went to Joppa instead, and got a boat to take him across to Tarshish. Now, you gotta understand that, of course, number three on the points, I want you to see Jonah's dilemma. God had said to go to Nineveh, and now Jonah goes to Joppa, and he finds a ship. Look at me, that's gonna take him as far away from where God wants him as he can go.

Tarshish is so far away, it's on the other side of the body of water, I mean, as far away as he could get. Where he was was close to Nineveh, but he was wanting to get as far away from Nineveh as he could, and so he had a dilemma. Am I gonna do what God wants me to do, or am I gonna get on a ship and start a process that is gonna take me as far away from where God wants me as I can get? Dear friends, some of you might be in the same dilemma in your life. You've got a decision to make. You can either progress where God wants you to do, or you can literally get on a ship in your life that's gonna take you further, and further, and further away from where God wants you.

Now, here's his dilemma. I'm standing here in Joppa, here's a ship that I can get on, it's gonna take me way away from that wicked city, or I can turn this direction and travel the short distance to Nineveh and do what God wants me to do. By the way, every one of you sitting in this building, every one of us, have always had times in our life when we were in the same dilemma. Do I do what God wants me to do, or do I do what I wanna do?

You see, dear friend, the thing about Jonah, it speaks to every individual, here's why. It is a battle between the flesh and the spirit. Everything in the Christian life always comes down to that. Do I do what God wants me to do, what the spirit's leading me to do, or do I do what my flesh wants to do?

It's a dilemma that everybody faces. I want you to notice next, the Bible says so he paid the fare thereof, and so many things we can say about that, it always cost you. It always is gonna cost you to go against God.

It's always gonna cost you something. But he paid the fare thereof, notice that, and went down into it. Next we see Jonah's decision. All right, I'm gonna get on that ship. I'm gonna make the wrong decision.

I'm gonna do what I wanna do. He paid the money, and he got on that ship. Now, little did he know he would have saved himself a whole lot of heartache to stay off that boat. And how many times, even when speaking with young people, little did they know the heartache that they're heading right into. And they wouldn't listen to you if you slapped them across the head with a two by four. They wouldn't listen to what you have to say, they don't wanna hear it, they've heard it all before, and literally a mom and a dad and a pastor and individuals that love them can literally see exactly where they're heading.

But they're gonna make their decision. And I bring this point to say this, look at me. Jonah was a preacher, he was literally a man of God, and he found himself in a dilemma, and he made the wrong decision. Now look at me, I don't find anywhere in here, this is a freebie by the way, I don't find anywhere in here where God said, and Jonah got on that ship, and the Bible says, if only his parents had raised him better. If only his mom and dad had been a better example. Look at me, dear friend, I have preached this till I'm blue in the face, you all know where I stand on this.

And I'm gonna say it again quickly, our time is almost up this morning. The Bible says, train up a child in the way he should go, when he's old he will not depart from it. And that word it at the end is talking about the training, not the way. And I'm here to tell you, you raise your kids right, and you train them right, that training will never get out of their minds. It doesn't mean they're never gonna do wrong, and it doesn't mean they're never gonna make a wrong decision.

But I don't care what they do, where they go, they can try to go to a place that'll wipe their memory, they'll never forget the training that you put in their minds if you train them right. But I have seen so many times mom and dads beat themselves up because of the decisions that their young people made. And I'm here to tell you, they're the ones that make the decisions.

You can't change that. They're gonna make, he was a man of God and made a wrong decision. It's not mom and dad's fault Jonah made a wrong decision. It's not grandma and grandpa's fault that Jonah made a wrong decision.

It's not somebody that did Jonah wrong, and he went to a church that was just too strict. Thank you for listening today. We hope you received a blessing from our broadcast. The Kerwin Baptist Church is located at 4520 Old Hollow Road in Kernersville, North Carolina. You may also contact us by phone at 336-993-5192 or via the web at kerwinbaptistchurch.com. Enjoy our services live and all our media on our website and church app. Thank you for listening to the Kerwin broadcast today. God bless you. We'll see you next time.