Intro To Jonah
Tom Shrader begins a six-part series on Jonah by establishing the Bible as God's infallible Word and salvation through Christ alone. He introduces Jonah's call to preach to Nineveh and his immediate flight in the opposite direction toward Tarshish. Shrader emphasizes that there's 'a little bit of Jonah in all of us' - we often know what God wants us to do but choose not to do it, attempting to run from His presence and escape His discipline.
“There's a little bit of Jonah in all of us, and that's a point that we want to come back to again and again and again, and I think that's why this makes this book so powerful.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Jonah (2004)
Recorded: 2004 at Cannon Beach Conference Center
Duration: 36 min
Themes: obedience, running, calling, rebellion, discipline, presence, authority, disobedience, avoiding god's will, new believer, struggling with obedience, feeling called, running from responsibility, young adult, mentor, resisting authority
Scripture: Jonah 1:1-3, Matthew 12:39, Jonah 4:2
Theological Themes: biblical authority, scripture infallibility, salvation by grace, divine calling, god's sovereignty, spiritual discipline, biblical inerrancy, sanctification
Full Transcript
I'm truly excited to be with you and to be here, to be with Evan and John and the whole team. John said we go way back. We do go way back. We may not look it. John and I are exactly the same age. We played basketball together at Murray State. Well, that's not actually true. John played basketball. I went out for basketball, but they already had one. So that was the end of my career.
I do have a lot of history with John. We've done many things together over the years. So it's great to see Johnny and it's a privilege for us to be here. We're from Gilbert, Arizona, which you should laugh at, except that it's the fastest growing city in the United States of America and just a great area, part of the Phoenix area. Susan and I have been on vacation since the 1st of August. So you don't need to feel sorry for us. We're just easing our way back into it with this weekend.
We came up on Tuesday. We've been here since Tuesday and have just enjoyed the weather, the time and the hospitality of Jeff and Janet and the whole staff here. I am pretty sensitive to the fact that you've had a long day and it's a little warm in the room, maybe. So your attention span, which was absolutely enormous to start with, has shrunk down to about this. I understand that. So I want to be brief tonight, but I want to set the table and then I may cheat and pick up a few extra minutes through the weekend as it goes on.
Getting Started
There are a couple of things I'm going to tell you up front. You'll need a Bible. I didn't prepare any PowerPoint for you. So you're going to need a Bible, not so much tonight because we'll cover just a small section of the book, but you'll need it as we work our way through. We're going to spend six sessions studying the book of Jonah.
I love this book for a couple of reasons. The first is that the book is under such suspicion. Years ago, in a very famous trial, Clarence Darrow was a defense attorney from the Scopes trial. He was defending a couple of guys accused of murder. He had one of the prosecuting witnesses whose testimony was just damaging to his case. In trying to pick apart that testimony, Darrow said this: "Why a person could as easily believe this man's testimony as he could believe that a whale swallowed Jonah." What he was trying to do was attack it and he said, you know, nobody who's really thinking would believe that there was a great fish and he swallowed a guy and he spit him up.
By the way, that's the title of this series: You Can't Keep a Good Man Down. So that's where we're going in this whole process.
The Authority of Scripture
I love the fact that we start here, that this is the Bible, the authoritative Word of God. One author writes this: "Nevertheless, those who adhere to the total trustworthiness of the Bible now as then rightly insist that Jonah was literally swallowed and was thus preserved alive three days by the fish's action. To those who believe in the literal bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, such an event is not at all impossible."
Matthew chapter 12 verse 39, Matthew writes this: "A wicked generation asks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."
I don't shy away from teaching Jonah at all. It is a magnificent book, and I will just put my cards on the table up front. I believe that there was a literal fish. There was a literal man named Jonah. He was swallowed by this fish. Whether he lived or died in that three-day process, I'm not going to argue a bunch about, but he was in this fish for three days. Ultimately the fish vomits him on the shore. He's alive, and he ultimately proceeds with the job, the task that God has given him.
I want you to remember this, and we'll come back to it throughout this series. There is a little bit of Jonah in all of us, and that's a point that we want to come back to again and again. I think that's why this makes this book so powerful.
Foundation: The Bible as God's Word
I want to spend just a second, though it's probably not necessary in this group, but I want to spend just a second to make sure the very first night we're all on the same page. So we start with this: I believe the Bible is the infallible Word of God.
I finished four, five, six books on vacation this year, and none of them are spiritual per se. This one is written by a publisher from Forbes Magazine, and it's a book called Life 2.0. It's a really interesting book. I don't know if any of you read it by any chance or are familiar with it. His premise is this: He believes, and thinks statistically he can support this, that one-third of all white-collar jobs in America are on their way overseas. I'm not talking about manufacturing jobs now. I'm talking about tech jobs.
He talks about Massachusetts General Hospital, where they were paying a head of radiology $350,000 a year to read MRIs. They now email the MRIs to India. A tech that they pay $20,000 a year reads the MRI, emails back, and they cut this guy out. Something real interesting he's talking about. He's talking about areas like California and New York are literally
The Need for True North in a Changing World
Going to start to shrink up. He talks about this huge gap. When he graduated from high school, a house in Bismarck, North Dakota, that's where he's from, and a house in Palo Alto, the house in Palo Alto cost twice as much as Bismarck. It's now 13 times higher. Here's what he says, and this book is all about it. It's about the fact that people, successful people are now moving out of those cities.
Let me read you a list. It's kind of fascinating. Here are some of the places that are going to be hot. Ashland, Oregon, Bismarck, North Dakota, Bowling Green, Ohio, Des Moines, Iowa, Lincoln, Nebraska, Appleton, Wisconsin, Corvallis, Oregon, Dubuque, Iowa, Douglas, Georgia. I'm trying to get some of them from Oregon, and I don't know Ashland, Oregon at all. You all do. Sisters, Oregon. And what he's saying is, with transportation the way it is, and the internet the way it is, and the cost of living, the highest concentration of Microsoft employees outside of the Seattle area is now in North Dakota or South Dakota, 3,200 employees.
Well, all of that is really interesting, and it's a great book, and it's worth reading it, but he's also a pilot. Here's what I want to get to. He's talking about the risk of flying.
The Danger of Flying by Feeling
Here's what he writes. Flying a small plane is said to be seven times more dangerous than driving a car and 40 times more dangerous than hopping on a commercial airliner. The risk is equal to driving a motorcycle. Mechanical problems with an airplane itself account for a small percentage of the accidents. The rest can be chalked up to human error, usually pilot error.
The most fatal errors are caused by flying into clouds or evening haze without a proper understanding of instrument flying. This is how John F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife and his sister-in-law met their end on July 19, 1999. Beginning his descent from 5,500 feet into Martha's Vineyard in his six-seat Piper Saratoga, young Kennedy lost the horizon in the evening gloaming. This is frighteningly easy to do. Lacking an obvious reference point such as the horizon to check if a pilot's wings are level, the average non-instrument rated pilot will lose control of his airplane in 45 seconds.
Flying by gauges is safer, but it is counterintuitive. Here's the point I want to get to. All the other stuff has just been fascinating. Flying by gauges is safer, but it's counterintuitive. I know because one day while flying with an instructor through the clouds overlying Los Angeles, I became convinced we were nose diving and losing altitude. All my instincts screamed at me to pull the yoke back and raise the airplane's nose. The gauges told another story. We were flying perfectly straight and level. Had I raised the nose as every cell in my brain implored me to do, I would have slowed the plane's airspeed perhaps to the point of a stall and a Kennedy death spiral.
God's Word as Our True North
Here's what I want you to understand. In this world where you've got all sorts of information and maybe instincts, when all of a sudden you have feelings that are racing all over, you have a culture that's saying to you, this is important and this isn't. The way you find your true north, the way that you have your gauges that keep your wings level, your nose and airspeed exactly right is to trust this word. That's the key right here. We can't ever lose sight of that.
There's a phrase. In fact, I came across it. It's a long story. Maybe we'll develop as the weekend goes on, but I've been talking about this. What you know trumps what you feel. There's lots of times where feelings are fine and feelings are good, but periodically those feelings are going to lie. You may be here tonight with feelings that are lying to you.
You may be a Christian and you may be filled with guilt to the point where you're saying, "You know what? God can never forgive me." Well, that's a lie, isn't it? Doesn't the scripture say, if you confess your sin, He's faithful to forgive you? You may be sitting here and you may have all sorts of feelings, feelings that say, "You know what? I'm not happy. I've sat with men who've said, listen, I'm not happy in my marriage. God wants me happy. Therefore, God wants me to get a divorce." It is amazing what the mind and the senses can do.
How do I get grounded in the middle of that? I go to my true north. I go to the word of God. It's a trustworthy document. It's a document that can be believed. It's written not just by Jonah and other men. It's written by God Himself. All doctrine is good for us, for teaching and reproof and correction and training and righteousness. The Bible tells us what's right, what's not right, how to get right and how to stay right, doesn't it?
Establishing Our Foundation
So we've got to get on the same page, at least for me, so you know where I'm coming from. You don't know me from a post. This is as close as we're ever going to get, probably. By the end of this weekend, you'll know me a little more, but we're not going to have any intimate relationship at all. But you need to know at least where I'm coming from. I'm coming from the fact that the Bible is the word of God.
Here's the second thing, and we've got to establish it up front. And we do it the first night. We don't do it at the end. We do it right now. That there is a heaven to gain and a hell to shun. And that those that are going to heaven are not people who are good, because the Bible says no one's good, no not one. They're not religious. They're not people who go to church, and that therefore saves them. Those that go to heaven are those who place their faith and trust in Jesus Christ and Him alone, no one else.
All have sinned in false order of the glory of God. That's you and me. And you know what? The whole world believes this. This is so easy to talk about with people. Let me just prove it to you. You finish this phrase. I haven't prompted you. I haven't encouraged you. I haven't coached you. You just finish this phrase. You with me now?
Nobody's perfect. If nobody's perfect, then everybody's sinned. All sin in false order of the glory of God. Isn't that amazing? We acknowledge it. We understand it. The world sees it.
But the Bible tells us something about sin that we really don't get, and that is that it's an offense to a holy God. We look at it oftentimes, and we say, "Well, it's no big deal. Boys will be boys. It's just this little indiscretion. I really couldn't help myself. I'm addicted, or I have a propensity toward this, or I just wanted to do this, or it was a weak moment. I was overcome by temptation, and it wasn't that big a deal."
Isn't that your instinct? You're driving down the road, and that speed limit says 55, and you're going 62, and they stop you. Doesn't everything in you say, "Why aren't you catching a real criminal?" They did. It's you. But it's no big deal. We are always going to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt when it comes to sin.
The Reality of Eternity
Here's what I want to establish. I want to establish that if you know Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, heaven is in your future. If you don't, you'll spend eternity separated from Him in a place called hell.
I had a lady who was dying. She knew it, and she said, "At my funeral, what I want you to do, because all the kids are saying to me, 'Mama, we're going to see you in heaven,' and they're not Christians, and I am. At the funeral, I want you to tell them that they aren't going to see me again, that they're going to be in hell." And I said, "Well, this would be best if you wrote it out in longhand and I read it."
I got a letter right before I left from a gentleman. His brother died a year ago, and his brother was a key part of our church. I made the point to his family that they would not see him in heaven if they didn't know Jesus. One year later, his brother, on the anniversary of his death, wrote to tell me that he was offended by that, that I was proud and arrogant, and that my job at that moment was to comfort the family and be sensitive to the family. In the process of composing the letter back, he asked me not to write him back unless I apologized.
So I wrote back and said, "I apologize for your misunderstanding." But there's nothing sensitive about saying to somebody you're going to be in heaven when you know they aren't going to be, is there?
The Importance of Truth in Our Spiritual Climate
This is really important for us in this day and time, because there's a resurgence of spirituality. If you go down to the bookstore, the secular bookstore here in Cannon Beach, it has a spiritual section, and you will find, to the best of my knowledge after going through it, one book that would remotely be okay. So you buy your books here. But if you talk to the people coming out of there, they'd say, "We're good, we're going to heaven."
This is a really important issue. Although, as we start Jonah, it doesn't have a lot of direct application to Jonah, it has a lot of direct application to this weekend. This is going to be a great weekend. There's a lot of work that's been done, all the planning's been done, the food's been prepared, the kids are taken care of, Evan's worked hard, Johnny's worked hard, I've studied. Everything is ready. We've done everything we can.
You can walk away and say, "I had a great weekend," but if you don't know Jesus, it's just a little blip on the screen. So you need to know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. If you're here tonight, and you feel like there's something missing, and you don't know Him, I can tell you that's what's missing. So important.
Christianity as Doctrine, Not Just Ethics
It's so important to understand that Christianity is a body of doctrines, not just a behavior or an ethic. You know what I mean there? Because a lot of times, somebody will say, "Bob's a great Christian, he's a great husband and a great father and a great worker." Well, there's a lot of pagans that are great husbands and great fathers and great workers. Christianity is not about an ethic, it's about a set of truths and doctrine.
It's not about being sincere. On September 11th, 2001, you saw some extraordinarily sincere people, and they were the hijackers. They were sincere. I cannot fathom what it would have been like to fly that plane into that building, to see that building coming up on you, and the adrenaline pumping through your brain. Why would you do that? Because you were convinced that at the moment of death, you would have your version of heaven. They were sincere. But they were sincerely wrong.
My Theological Foundation
So I just want to get my cards on the table. I want you to understand where I'm coming from. I believe the Bible's the infallible Word of God. I believe it has no error in it. It cannot err. It does not err. It is filled with things I don't understand and can't fully comprehend. I also believe that salvation is to those who know Jesus and to them alone.
Beginning Jonah
With that backdrop, we're going to do about 10 minutes here and just start to unpack a little bit of Jonah. So open your Bibles, and let's just look at the first three verses. Then we'll come back tomorrow, pick up right here, and we'll work our way through this book.
"The Word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before me. But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. So he went down to Joppa, found his ship, which was going to Tarshish, paid the fare, and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord."
The Word of the Lord comes to Jonah.
It's this again, real man. The Word of the Lord comes to him. We don't know how that word came to him, but apparently it was clear. And God asks Jonah to do three things. Number one, get up. Number two, go to Nineveh, which was the great city. And three, cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before me.
So there's the story. There's the request. There's the call of God on him. What we're going to look at as we work our way through this book is how good God is, and how He never forsakes His people. And He's a respecter of persons, not based on gender, but based on humanity. He's the God of the Gentile and the Jew. Salvation is not of works. This becomes a picture for us of the resurrection, and God's will is accomplished. This is a story of great mercy, of God's sovereignty.
Jonah's Partial Obedience
Arise, go, and cry. Now, if Jonah were playing Major League Baseball, he'd be in the Hall of Fame, for he does one of the three. He arises. He arises, and he goes not to Nineveh, and he obviously at that point doesn't go and cry against it.
Nineveh was a great city. Most scholars believe at that point in time in history, it was the largest city in the world. We're going to see population base probably around 600,000 people. Circumference of the city was plus or minus 60 miles. It was this huge city, this great city filled with palaces and art and great libraries.
Jonah Flees in the Opposite Direction
So the call comes. Here's the message: arise and go to Nineveh. The problem with Nineveh is that it was also a wicked city. If you look in verse 3, what Jonah does is he rises up and flees not to Nineveh, but to Tarsus.
Let me put it in some geography here. Let's say that it's the United States of America, and Jonah is in Chicago. God is saying to him, "Jonah, arise and go to New York." Jonah arises and heads to Los Angeles. He went in exactly the opposite direction. He went as far from Nineveh as he possibly could.
For a couple of reasons, I would guess. One of it is just the wickedness and the danger. It was a wicked city. Jonah's afraid. He despises the people. That's what we're going to see. He despises these people. They were his enemy.
If we can put it in our context, it would be like saying to you, "Arise and go to Al-Qaeda and preach to Osama bin Laden." That's the call here. That's the call that's coming to Jonah. Jonah is scared. He is afraid.
The Real Reason for Jonah's Flight
Most of all, look at chapter 4 and verse 2. Here's what Jonah's most afraid of. This is all down at the end. Obviously, we'll unpack when we get there. He prayed to the Lord and said, "Please, Lord, was this not what I said while I was still in my own country? This is what I said when I was back in my own land. You said, arise and go to Nineveh. Therefore, in order to forestall this, I fled to Tarsus. Why? For I knew that thou art a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity."
Here's why, the number one reason he didn't go. Was he afraid? Yes. Was it dangerous? Yes. Was he petrified? Yes. But he said, "Here's why I didn't go. I was scared you'd save these people. I didn't want them saved. That's why I didn't go, God."
I know what kind of God you are. I know what you're like. You're a kind God, and a loving God, and a compassionate God. And the very moment I heard, "Come and go," at that moment I knew you were up to something. At that moment I knew you were about to do something. And my fear was, you were going to save these people. And God, I don't want them saved. They're my enemy, God, whether they're your enemies or not.
Running from the Presence of the Lord
I said at the beginning, and then we'll wrap it up for tonight. There's a little bit of Jonah in everybody. Look at what Jonah's doing. You got it there in verse 3? It's stated twice. Jonah rose up to flee Tarsus. Here you go. You could even mark it or circle it: "from the presence of the Lord." And he goes down to Joppa and he found a ship that's going to Tarsus. And he paid the fare. And he went into it. And he went with them to Tarsus. Here it is again: "from the presence of the Lord." He's running. He's running from God.
When I say there's a little bit of Jonah in all of us, here's what I want you to see. It's not a matter of Jonah knowing what to do. It's just a matter of Jonah doing it. I find that most often to be the case with Christians. Rarely are we stumped. "I don't know what to do." Most often, what we want to say is, "I don't want to do it."
Knowing God's Will Versus Doing It
We've got this thing, and it's probably unfair to pop this up tonight, but let's just throw it out there like a little bomb and then I'll run to my room. But we've got this thing called knowing the will of God. "I want to know God's will." And when we sit down with people or we do Q&A or we talk about the most, number one question we get is, "Can I lose my salvation?" The second most frequently asked question is, "How can I know God's will for my life?"
So let's take them in order. Can I lose my salvation? No. If you're a Christian and you're here tonight, you're as sure of heaven as the saints that are already there. You're not going to lose your salvation if you're truly saved. Now, if you're not saved, you've got issues.
How do I know God's will? When we say that, what we typically mean is, "How can I know who God wants me to marry or where God wants me to live? Does He want me in Ashland, Oregon or Sisters, Oregon?" Probably Portland. But in the middle of all this, "How can I know?"
When we turn to the scripture, here's what we find when we talk about the will of God. Number one, we find God's sovereign will, which by definition is mysterious and you can't know it until it's revealed. The second thing we know, and this is the way it's used most often, is God's moral will. So when you say, "I want to know God's will for my life," well, He's got all sorts of advice in here. Husbands, love your wives. Wives, submit to your husbands. If you're single, stay sexually pure. That's God's will for your life.
The Impossibility of Knowing God's Singular Will
We want to know that unknowable, singular, personal will, but I don't believe you can discover it for certainty. Screws you up, doesn't it? Well, wait a minute. How can I ever make a decision?
Well, let's look at the most basic of decisions. Should I get married? So guys, let me put it—I think like a guy, which is good. So I'm trying to figure out who to marry. How do I know? How do I know God wants me to marry? Well, I can get something from this book, right? I know that He wants me to marry a Christian, but that answer was probably better than mine.
Did you say a woman? Is that what you said? Let's start with that. You know, we never used to have to go back to that step, but I forgot I'm in Oregon. So yeah, the first thing is a woman. A woman. And if you're a guy, it's a woman, and if you're a gal, it's a guy.
Biblical Guidelines for Marriage Decisions
A woman. Now this woman ought to be a Christian. If you want a woman who's a Christian, I wouldn't just say, "Hey babe, are you a Christian?" and when she goes "yeah," that's not enough. I want to really know it.
Here's some other things about the marriage relationship. You got to love her and she's got to submit to you. So you better find somebody that's lovable and you better find somebody that isn't going to be fighting you all the time for the headship. Here's what you do guys. Here's how you make the decision. You get all the candidates together. You get the grid. The grid is, is she a Christian? You take all the candidates, put them through the grid. You take what's left and you marry the prettiest. It's real simple. That's who God wants you to marry. Go for her.
Well, you see that? How am I going to know? How am I going to know? Is that the one? Is that the one out of 3.5 billion women in the world? How do I know that she's the right one? Well, the minute we stand here and you say "I do" and she does, that's the right one. How do I know if God wants me to have this house or that house? Some of this stuff I don't think you can know.
Jonah's Problem Is Our Problem
But I want you to see Jonah's problem is a lot like yours. He doesn't try to figure out what God wants him to do. He wants to try to figure out how he doesn't have to do it. Isn't that your problem? Mine. Ours.
We know He wants us to love one another and care for one another. He knows the structure for the family and He gives it to you. Dad, He tells you not to provoke your children to anger. He tells you that as far as it depends on you, live at peace with one another and care for one another and pray for one another. You know the right thing to do, don't you? Almost all the time. But you don't do it, do you? Because there's a little bit of Jonah in all of us.
Jonah's Two Fundamental Mistakes
Jonah makes two fundamental mistakes. Number one, he's trying to hide from the presence of God. And you can't do that. Number two, he thinks that somehow he's going to escape God's discipline. And you can't do that either.
If you're here tonight and you know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, I want you to understand you can never run away from Him. You can never hide from Him. There's no place you can go to escape Him. And if you're His kid and He has spoken to you and you know what He would have you do and you don't do it, let me tell you what's coming. The discipline of the Lord. And you can't escape it.
There's a great little phrase tucked in here in verse 3. It is a great phrase. It is so terrific. And I love this phrase. So tomorrow morning we'll start right with that phrase. Because it's just tucked right in there. That was great, wasn't it? I hadn't planned on that. That just came to me as inspiration of the moment. I'm still thinking about start by marrying a woman. I'm still stuck on that. That's still stuck in my mind.
Summary of Key Truths
Here's where we are tonight. Number one, the Bible's the Word of God. Number two, salvation is found in Jesus and no one else. Now, there's a little bit of Jonah in all of us. And God has said to you, do this or do this or do this. What has He said? Yes, and I'm not looking for some supernatural sign. I'm saying here it is. Here's what He's told you to do.
Now, you're a fool if you think you can escape from His presence or escape His discipline if you disobey Him. I want to pick up right there. That's a great introduction. That's a great set the tone for us. We're going to have a great weekend.
What's going to make this a great weekend is not the food that will be great or the weather or all that. What's going to make this a great weekend is if God touches your heart. And so, I just encourage you through the weekend, just as you're walking across and looking at the flowers, you're going to get the kids. Be asking Him, "Father, open my eyes, touch my heart. Open the eyes of my heart, Lord."
Closing Prayer
Let's pray together. Father, thank You for this weekend, for this place. As we've already said time and time again up here tonight, God, You are the one that we're waiting to see work. We've planned and we've prepared and we've prepped, but now we're waiting for You.
God, if there's someone here tonight who doesn't know Your Son Jesus as their Lord and Savior, would You open their eyes, their hearts? And for those of us who would call You Father, for those of us who are truly saved and we know heaven is in our future, for us, God, would You give us a sense of comfort and peace as we obediently follow You?
God, it may be that we're here today and we need to do business with You. Maybe we're like Jonah and we're kidding ourselves and trying to run from Your presence and hide. We can't. Help us understand it. God, maybe we think we can avoid Your discipline. Foolish. For those that You love, You will discipline. God, thank You for the people in this room. You got us here for a reason.
I pray for some of those who may be even driving up here saying, "Why are we doing this? I've got other things to do. I don't want to be here right now." God, touch their hearts. You got us here for a reason. It's exactly what Johnny's saying. You've chosen us. You've brought us here. No one's here by accident. We are so excited to see how You're going to work in our life this weekend.
Father, thank You more than anything for Your son Jesus who died on the cross so that our salvation is secure. And God, we pray to You tonight in His wonderful, precious name, the name of Jesus. Amen.