Can one person really make a difference? They can when they belong to God and bring His power and presence into every situation. Today, on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah considers the influence you can have on the world around you when you're living according to God's will. As he returns to the book of Jonah, here's Davids introduce the powerful conclusion of his message, no man is an island.
And today we conclude our discussion of what happens when you say no to God and the beginning of the experience you're about to have when you do that. God will not let go of you. You're one of his, and he will follow you, and he will do everything he can to get you back on the right road. And sometimes his actions are dramatic, as we shall see in the life of Jonah. The book of Jonah is recorded now in its teaching format, both audio and video.
You can get these different ways of studying, either by listening or listening and watching. There's a beautiful study guide that goes with this. If you're interested in doing a small group, this would be a great one to do. Do the Jonah small group and get your participants a copy of the study guide. You get the C D's and you can facilitate this study and have a great discussion about this Old Testament book.
It's one of the most assailed books in the Bible because it's filled with miracles. And of course, the skeptics, the critics of the Bible, don't like miracles and they cannot believe a whale ever swallowed a man. And you can hear all kinds of stories about that. But we're telling you what the Bible says, and you'll be blessed by it, I'm sure. Go to our website and find out more information.
Well, today we come to part two of No Man is an Island. The rest of the interesting intrigue that happened aboard that. ship when Jonah was running away from God. Here we go.
Now, notice what happens next: the discovery of Jonah's sin. But Jonah had gone down into the lowest parts of the ship. and lay down and was fast asleep. Doesn't that seem strange? I mean, I don't think I'd be sleeping in a storm.
Here he is at the bottom of the ship. He's sleeping, and the captain came to him and said to him, What do you mean, sleeper? Arise, call on your God. Perhaps your God will consider us, so that we may not perish. And they said to one another, Come, let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this trouble has come upon us.
So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. As the storm continues to rage, the captain looks around and realizes someone is missing. I can almost hear him reasoning out, didn't we pick somebody up in Japa? Where is he? Did he go overboard?
And one of the sailors said, You know, Captain. What I think I saw was that guy down in the bottom of the ship, and I think he's down there sleeping. And the captain says, You've got to be kidding me. I just added that. I don't think he really said that, but that's what I would have said.
So he goes down to where Jonah is and notice the steps that take place. First there is inspection. They search the ship and they find Jonah asleep. Then there is interrogation. The captain asks Jonah, What do you mean, sleeper?
Can you imagine how unbelievable that must have seemed to the captain? Everybody else is praying, throwing cargo overboard, probably sick to their stomachs. Doing everything they can to survive, and here is this one man at the bottom of the ship.
Sound asleep. The captain is saying, What are you doing? Don't you know we're about to go under? Get up and pray to somebody. Then there is intervention.
This is one of the most interesting moments in the story. The sailors say, Here's what we'll do. Let's find out who the problem is. Let's cast lots. In their own way, they entered what we would call a lottery.
They cast lots, and the Bible says the lot fell on Jonah. And I've read some people who say, what a coincidence that was. You know, I don't think that was. I mean, if God could send the wind and the storm, I think He could figure out how the lot was supposed to come out and make sure it fell on Jonah, because that's who it should have fallen on.
So finally there is the identification. through their own pagan way, Jonah is singled out as the culprit. The lot fell on Jonah.
Sort of as a reminder to us, be sure your sin will find you out. Jonah is now in the center. of their target. One of the most sobering things that I've watched over the years as a pastor. is how often the discovery of sin comes long after the sin itself.
The Lord never says exposure will be immediate, but He does say accountability is inevitable. I could tell you some incidents that come to mind when I say what I just said. of people who Got in trouble. They shouldn't have been in. Nobody knew about it and seven years later, It came to light.
and destroy their life. You know, we think that if we get away with something for a short period of time, we've got it made. The Bible says, be sure your sin will find you out. Sin has a long, long tail. and you almost never get away with it.
You may think you're clever more so than anybody else. that you can cover it and nobody will find out. But come and tell me the same thing five years from now. Jonah has run from the Lord. He is asleep.
He's trying to shut everything out, but God orchestrates the events.
So that Jonah is singled out as the one man to whom God has now directed his attention.
Now we look at Jonah's discussion about his guilt. in verses 8 through 14. This discussion goes on between the Mariners and Jonah. Let's walk through this together. First of all, the concern of the mariners.
Then they said to Jonah, Please tell us. For whose cause is this trouble upon us? What is your occupation? And where do you come from, and what is your country, and of what people are you? After they realized that Jonah was the cause of the storm, the sailors said to him, Please tell us.
For whose cause is this trouble upon us? And then the questions start coming one after the other: what's your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?
Later, they will ask the ultimate question. What are we supposed to do with you? But here they are saying, Jonah, if you are the reason we are in this mess. We need to know who you are.
Now notice Jonah's confession.
So he said to them, I am a Hebrew. And I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. If this verse were all there were in the text, we would say Jonah has come back, he's got everything back together. But unfortunately, this is not a confession of disobedience, it's just a confession of truth. I love this.
Jonah was thinking a lot about dry land right then. Did you see that in his text? Isn't it interesting that Jonah could say something like this in the middle of his rebellion? He said, I am a Hebrew. I fear the Lord.
Well, Jonah, you don't really fear the Lord enough because if you feared him the way you should, you wouldn't be where you are doing what you're doing. But here's the important point. Jonas' theology was correct. and he was still disobedient. Wow.
Isn't that interesting? You can have correct theology. You can know everything to the last. Drop. And just because you know it doesn't mean you're going to obey it.
some of the most brilliant men that I have ever known. Demonstrate what I am saying now.
So brilliant. And yet disobedient to God. And the consequences are even greater when that is true. Did you know that the more we know, the more responsible we are? Listen to Hebrews.
Hebrews is a very challenging verse. It says, think about. How much worse the punishment will be for those who have trampled on the Son of God. And have treated the blood of the covenant, which made us holy, as if it were common and unholy. and have insulted and disdained the Holy Spirit who brings God's mercy to us.
It's one thing to sin against God in ignorance. It's quite another thing to sin presumptuously. To know the truth, to know God, to know what's right, to know what's wrong, to know what Jonah said about God in verse 9, to claim to fear God, and then still choose to do wrong.
So Jonah confesses what he knows about God. but he has not yet confessed his disobedience. That does not happen until the next chapter when he reaches the lowest point of his life. We come not of confusion of the mariners. When Jonah finishes speaking, we're told that the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, Why have you done this?
For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord because he told them. And they said to him, What shall we do to you, that the sea may be calm for us? For the sea was growing more tempestuous. All the time they were having this interchange between them. The wind was blowing harder and the waves were getting bigger.
And the sailor said, We got to come to some resolution, Jonah. If you're the cause and you're the reason. Please tell us what to do so we can get rid of you and get back to calm.
Now listen to Jonah. And Jonah said to them, Pick me up. Throw me into the sea, and the sea will become calm for you. for I know that this great tempest is because of me. That's a pretty good start for Jonah.
He's not all the way home yet, but that's a good place to begin. You know, when we finally come to grips with the facts that it's us. And we quit blaming everybody else. And we say, you know, like the old spiritual that says, it's me, it's me, oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer. Not my brother, nor my sister, but it's me, oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer.
I tell people now more than ever: until we face the truth, we have nowhere to go. Jonah couldn't get back to where he should be until he was willing to be honest. Truth is the starting place for recovery and restoration. As long as we avoid the truth about ourselves, nothing will change. As long as you keep trying to cover it up, as long as you're trying to excuse it, as long as you're trying to make reason for it.
It will never get better until you face up to what's happened and what you've done, honestly, look in the mirror and say, it's me. I'm the reason for this. We are very good at shifting blame. We blame our parents. We blame our upbringing, we blame our schools, we blame our environment, sometimes we blame our churches.
We blame our circumstances. We just seem to always find someone else to blame. But the Turning Point comes when we stop deflecting and we start being honest. When we look in the mirror and say, I'm the problem, this didn't happen to me, I made it happen to me.
So Jonah finally came to that moment of truth, and he said, If you want to get rid of the storm, Then you better get rid of me. That's me. I'm the reason for the storm. And in a moment of courage. He said, throw me overboard and everything will be all right.
Now, I want you to pause for just a moment. I want to ask you this question. If you had been a sailor. How long would it have taken you to get to Jonah? and get him out of the ship.
You would have immediately grabbed hold of his clothes and thrown him overboard as fast as you could. hoping that this craziness that's going on in the ship would stop. But that's not what happened. Notice what it says in verse 13. Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to return to land.
But they could not, for the sea continued to grow more tempestuous against them. Therefore they cried out to the Lord and said, We pray, O Lord, do not let us perish for this man's life. and do not charge us with innocent blood, for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you.
So, if I'd been one of those sailors, the moment Jonah said that word, I would have grabbed him by the shirt and he'd been on the water. Can you understand that? You're the one causing all of this. You're gone. You're out of here.
Hostula Vista. But did you see what they did? They rowed as hard as they could to shore. And the Bible says they prayed. They didn't pray to their old gods.
Now, somehow, they've decided that maybe Jonah's God is the right one since he brought the storm. And they began to pray.
Somehow, through that conversation with Jonah, they had come to believe, at least in some measure, in the true God. And instead of crying out to their many gods, they're now calling on the Lord himself. Oh God, do what you must do, but don't let us perish in the process. All of this is a remarkable testimony to the sailors' compassion for Jonah. They had no obligation to help him.
They had every right to get rid of him. He was the reason they were in this storm, and yet they chose mercy over convenience. And that brings us to the determination of Jonah's fate. Verse 15 says, They picked up Jonah and threw him into the sea. And the sea ceased from its raging, and the men feared the Lord exceedingly.
and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and took vows. The sailors finally picked up Jonah and threw him. into the sea. And the moment they did, the scripture says the storm stopped. The waves calmed down, the wind quieted, everything changed instantly.
And that's when the men knew that it wasn't a storm, that it was God. God was involved in this. The Bible says they feared the Lord greatly. That means they were totally in awe of the Lord. They felt deep respect for God.
They offered a sacrifice to him. They made promises to follow him. In one moment they went from fearing the storm to fearing God. and they didn't just survive the storm, they met the living God. in that moment of crisis.
I called this message As I prepared it, no man is an island. And I want to make sure that I get this across. As we bring us to a conclusion. People say it all the time. I've heard it many times over the course of my life.
It's my life. It's my choice. It's me. I can do what I want to. It's nobody's business but my own.
I'm not going to hurt anybody. I'm just going to do my own thing. But it almost never is just you. Sin complicates your life, and it complicates the lives of the people around you. Those sailors would never have been in that storm had it not been for Jonah.
One man's disobedience disrupted the lives of everybody around him. And that ought to make us stop and think. Whenever we step out of the will of God, We carry people with us. We take people down with us when we go. We do not mean to, but if you could sit in the counseling rooms of our offices for just one week.
You would hear story after story of hurt. in good and godly families. Because someone they loved took a turn when God told them to go straight.
Now, let me contrast this for just a moment, because this is one of the great blessings of studying the Bible. There is a fascinating comparison. between this storm and Jonah's life. And another storm in the New Testament that involved the Apostle Paul. Both Jonah and Paul were missionaries to the Gentiles.
Both were on a ship In a storm. Both were witnesses to sailors. and both were used to deliver people from death. But the process could not be more different between the two. In Jonah chapter 1, the prophet is in a storm.
In Acts chapter 27, the apostle is in a storm. The scenes are almost identical. Cargo is overboard. Desperation fills the ship and lives are hanging in the balance. But here's the difference.
What is Jonah doing? He is sleeping. And what is Paul doing? He is standing in faith and strengthening those around him. Acts 27, 23.
Paul says, there stood by me this night an angel of the God to whom I belong. and whom I serve, saying, Do not be afraid, Paul, you must be brought before Caesar and indeed God has granted you all those who sail with you. Therefore take heart, men, for I believe God, that it will be just as it was told me. Here is Jonah, God's prophet, among pagan sailors because of his disobedience. They almost die.
And here is Paul among pagan sailors because of his godliness. His faith becomes the means of their deliverance. This is how it is supposed to be. You might think that just one person doesn't matter. But one person can make a big difference when even one person belongs to Jesus.
God's presence goes with them into every space they enter. He goes with them into a home, a classroom, a team, or a friendship. And that one person can be you. One of the most memorable moments of my life in recent days. was the graduation of my grandson from Liberty University.
Don and I went to that event. And we sat in the stadium there on campus that seats 30,000 people. 30,000 people came to my grandson's graduation. As we sat there and looked at that crowd, I don't know why, but it just came on me in a moment. I turned to Don and I said, do you realize what we're looking at here is all the result of one man's faith?
I remember before there was a school, before there was a graduation. There was Jerry Falmwell. Who believed God for a great university where champions could be trained to serve the Lord? and from his faith came that school and from that school came that graduation. where 30,000 people gather together.
One man. made all that difference. It is an amazing thing to stop and wonder sometimes about influence. In The Gift of Influence, Thomas Spaulding shares a thought-provoking statistic. The average person lives about 78 years.
and influences more than 80,000 people over his lifetime. That number sounds big, but think about family, friends, teachers, co-workers, neighbors, teammates, customers. Strangers, you see every day when you add up thousands of ordinary interactions over decades. the number becomes surprisingly believable. We influence three people a day.
And then he paints this picture. that will stick in your head as it has mine. He said, Imagine standing on the 50-yard line of a football stadium filled with everyone you've influenced. Your spouse? your children, your friends.
This is a secular book, Your Barista. Yeah. the Uber driver, the coach. The co-worker, the neighbor.
Now listen, he says, what's the sound of that stadium? Are they cheering because your life encouraged them? Or are they booing because you lived for yourself? or silent because you were too distracted to even notice them. What do you hear?
But do not forget this. God is committed to you and He loves you and you carry influence wherever you go. You can use it for the good or as Jonah did in this particular episode, use it for evil. Jonah by his influence, almost cost men their lives. Only Eternity will reveal how many times that has happened.
through people that you and I both know, perhaps even through us. But God gives us the opportunity to live for Him. And we ought to pray, as I try to almost every day: Lord, wherever I go today, help me to take the influence of Jesus Christ with me.
So that people will not just see me, but they will see Christ. They will know him. That's who we should be because the possibility that we have to influence people is beyond anything we have ever imagined. You say, oh, Pastor Jeremiah, I'm just a humble person. I don't know very many people.
I don't do very many things. If you could see your life and your pattern of influence as it really is, you would be shocked. No man is an island. No man lives to himself. And once we realize that, we begin to realize there's a stewardship in life that goes beyond time, treasure, and talent.
It's the stewardship of influence. How are you stewarding your influence? Did you know that Satan Has as his number one goal to destroy the influence. The Bible says he goes about seeking whom he may devour. Who is he trying to devour?
He's trying to devour the influence of God's people. But if you stand strong for the Lord and you let your influence be seen and felt and known. God will use you to be a change maker. And one day, if you ever get to see all the results, which I think we might, you will look back and say, I'm sure glad I did that. I'm sure glad I didn't go there.
I'm sure glad I made that decision. We can never take for granted. What happens? through our activities and our conduct. It is really true, no man is an island.
No man lives to himself. We are all responsible to God, not just for ourselves. but for the people we influence. throughout life. I hope that will be a lesson we will not forget.
Jonah teaches us that in very graphic ways. And there's still more to come. Amen.
Well, it's Friday, and I'd love to take a moment on Friday and encourage you to go to church. And this is me telling you that. You know, I'm on the radio, and sometimes I might be tempted to say, well, just listen to us on the radio. Let me tell you something. The radio or television or any other methodology never was meant to replace the church.
The church is God's idea, and it's His idea. Important Pleasure to have you present in church every week.
So, if you're not going to church, maybe you dropped out during COVID or other reasons have come along, let me just encourage you: go back to church. You need to do that to stay healthy as a believer. It's a part of taking care of your soul, and I hope you will do that this weekend. Don't forget, also, we're on television over the weekend. You can find us if we're on during your church time, DVRs.
Watch us later. Don't use us as an excuse to stay home. And then, of course, we'll be back here on Monday as we continue the study of the book of Jonah. I'm David Jeremiah. Thank you for listening.
Have a great weekend. Today's message came to you from Shadow Mountain Community Church and Dr. David Jeremiah, the senior pastor. Turning Point is also on radio and TV this weekend. To learn where you can find it, visit our website davidjeremiah.org slash radio.
That's davidjeremiah.org slash radio or call 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of our 14-month 2027 calendar, The Light of the World. It's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English standard New International and New King James Versions, available in several attractive and resilient cover options. It's such a blessing when we hear from you.
So please write us at Turning Point, PO Box 3838, San Diego, California, 92163. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us Monday as we continue the series, Jonah the Runaway Prophet, on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.
