Jonah 6 - There's a Little Bit of Jonah in All of Us
Tom Shrader wraps up his six-week study in Jonah by examining the prophet's anger when God spares Nineveh after their repentance. He identifies four reasons for Jonah's anger: hatred of the Ninevites, wounded pride, loss of sight of his own sinfulness, and exhaustion. The teaching challenges believers to recognize their own tendency to limit God's grace and to embrace His mercy toward all people, even those they dislike.
“He's a God of the second chance, but He's kind of, and the language is probably not taught at the seminaries, but I like the idea - once you're in a relationship with you, you and God, He's stuck with you.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Jonah
Recorded: July 02, 2015
Duration: 38 min
Themes: obedience, mercy, grace, anger, pride, repentance, hatred, exhaustion, struggling with anger, feeling prideful, exhausted believer, judgmental attitude, resisting god's call, new believer, spiritual burnout, dealing with difficult people
Scripture: Jonah 1:1-3, Jonah 1:6, Jonah 1:9-10, Jonah 1:14, Jonah 1:16-17, Jonah 2:10, Jonah 3:1-5, Jonah 4:1-11, Psalm 139, Mark 4, Romans 12:18-21, Romans 3, Ephesians 2, Job 38, Job 42
Theological Themes: divine sovereignty, god's will, biblical obedience, repentance, mercy, grace, omnipresence, sanctification
Full Transcript
If you have Bibles, why don't you open them? Old Testament, book of Jonah. Today is week six and the last week in our study in the book of Jonah. I want to do a summary.
I love teaching this book, studying this book for this reason. I'm always big on the "so what" and maybe add to that I want to be able to teach in a way where we know what it says and we say "so what" and we say "now what." So those are kind of our objectives. This book is filled with application.
Here was the banner that I used to try to pull you into this study so that you would say okay there's going to be a "so what now what." Here's the theme: there's a little bit of Jonah in all of us. Here's my reaction. I studied Jonah and I look at it and I say what a jerk.
Jonah's Disobedience and Our Own
Chapter 1 verse 1, the word of the Lord came to Jonah and it said verse 2, go to Nineveh. Verse 3, He arose and fled to Tarshish. So to put it in geographic perspective, the word of the Lord came to Jonah, go to Tucson, He went to Flagstaff. But that's kind of understandable. Why would you want to go to Tucson? But still, you get the theme here, right?
Here's the application. He runs down and there's a boat and the boat's headed exactly the way He wants to go. It's a boat that maybe would be there twice a year. So it doesn't say this but here would be my mind. I can see Jonah doing what I would do which would be "God I know what you told me to do but if you didn't want me to go there why would you give me a boat? You must have done this for a reason." He didn't, meaning God, make a mistake.
Here was the second big point, week one. Jonah, like you, knows what to do, He just doesn't want to do it. That's what I find in my life. There are wisdom decisions I have to make, whether to buy a blue house or a red house, whether to work at Intel or Honeywell, whether to go over here, eat here, live here, have kids. There's those kind of wisdom decisions. We're not talking about a wisdom decision, we're talking about obedience. The Word of the Lord comes to you, that's this book, and tells us what to do and yet something in us, that flesh, doesn't want to do it.
The Futility of Running from God
Jonah runs and He makes a fundamental error. In your Bible, it's probably underlined by now. It's at the end of verse 3. He thought He could flee from the presence of the Lord. Psalm 139, I can't get away from God. If I go up you're there, down you're there, you're ahead of me, behind me, you know what I'm going to say before I say it? And He thought He could flee from God.
Gets on the ship, a storm breaks out, Jonah's sound asleep in the bottom of this ship. Finally the captain comes to Him in verse 6 and says, "How is it you're sleeping? Call out to your God." Here's what's happening. These sailors are afraid and they're all praying to their own God. They're popcorn prayers to their gods. God of sun, God of rain, God of power, God of mountains, God of planets, whatever it is. Well, I don't know who your God is, Jonah, but maybe we don't have Him covered, why don't you pray to that God? Who are you anyway?
Then Jonah says, verse 9, "I fear the Lord God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land." And the captain says in verse 10, "How can you do this? We know that God." Now it's interesting, the captain knows about Him but doesn't believe in Him, but He said "I know that God too. That's a scary God, that one. That God doesn't mess around. Jonah, how could you do this?"
The World's Higher Standards for Believers
The application point there was the people around you, once they know you're a follower of the one true God, they are often going to hold you to a higher standard for your life than you have for yourself. So you're talking to somebody today and they said, "What did you do this morning?" "Oh, I went to this morning meeting." "Well, was it a breakfast?" "Oh no, they didn't have any food." "Oh, coffee?" "Yeah, they had coffee." "Well, what did you do?" "Well, we talked. I didn't really talk, I listened." "Listened to what?" "Well, it was kind of like a Bible study." "Well, like a Bible study?" "Well, it was a Bible study."
The minute you say that, that person has a whole prescription for how you ought to live your life. It may or may not be accurate, and will oftentimes be higher standard for your life than you have for yourself. In this world we live in, this highly judgmental, highly electric, charged world, more charged now than it was a week ago, the only person you're going to cut slack is yourself. Everyone else you're going to judge, and you're going to judge them harsher than they might judge themselves.
The Sailors' Fear and Faith
He said, "Listen, we don't know what to do," and Jonah says, "Throw me overboard," and they said, "No, we can't do that," and finally these guys are afraid. Look at chapter 1 verse 14. Three times I have the word "Lord" circled in that verse. The sailors call out to the Lord. So they pick Jonah up and they throw Him overboard.
Now, there's a progression in the sailors. In verse 5, they were afraid. In verse 10, they were extremely frightened. In verse 16, they feared God. We pulled a parallel passage, and I think it's Mark 4, where the disciples and Jesus are on a boat, a storm erupts, Jesus is sound asleep, and it says that the disciples were afraid. Jesus gets up and goes, "Afraid? You have no faith," and He turns to the sea, roaring sea, and says, "Be still," and it turns to glass like that. Now, rather than the disciples say the fear is gone, now it says they're very much afraid. They were afraid of the storm, but they now understand they're dealing with something bigger than them, and that's where these sailors are.
God is the Main Character
But see, this story is not about the sailors, and it's not about Jonah, it's about God. Chapter 1, verse 4, He hurled a great wind. In verse 17, He appointed a great fish, and this fish comes and it swallows Jonah, and Jonah has a game-changer.
Jonah spends three days, three nights in the belly of this great fish. And God, again, not done. Chapter 2, verse 10,
The Lord commanded the fish to vomit Jonah onto dry land. This is not about the great fish or Jonah or these sailors. This is about God and the sovereignty of God and the beauty of God, which if you don't know Him personally can be a fearful thing. But if you know Him, it's an incredibly comforting thing to see the Lord take care of you, to know the Lord loves you more than you love yourself.
The God of Second Chances
Chapter 3, verse 1. We have in our studies regularly guys that are pastors, men and women who teach Sunday school classes or Bible studies. If you are one of those and you can't teach Jonah chapter 3, verse 1, then you need to get out of teaching. This is like stealing right here. The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. There's that second time. We love that.
That's my favorite shot in golf—my favorite shot in golf is a mulligan. I get to do this all over again. We're going to tee it up and do it again. Not trying to drop a name at all, but I'm playing golf one day with Daryl and John MacArthur, and MacArthur is a football guy. MacArthur's really competitive. So we're on the practice tee and he says, "What do you shoot?" And I said, "I don't know, I'll shoot 84, 85 or something."
Well, I shot like a 38 on the front and he's not playing very well and he's grinding. We're out at Desert Highlands, I think, or Desert Mountain—someplace I didn't belong. He stands up in the tee and rips it out over the houses. Daryl says, "At moments like this, do you prefer cynicism and sarcasm or reverential silence?" MacArthur said reverential silence and he said, "You know what, I'm going to hit another one. I just hit another one, let's let that go, you guys hit another one." I said, "I don't need to hit another one, I'm in the middle of the fairway, I can't hit it any better."
It was just great—there's that grace, that freedom, that second chance. You love that second chance, so you preach God's a God of the second chance and you screw it up.
But First, He's the God of the First Chance
Here's the thing that I think needs to be preached before the second chance is that He's a God of the first chance. The Bible teaches in Ephesians chapter 2 that we're dead in our sins and trespasses. We're sons of disobedience, we're children of wrath, and by nature we hate the one true God so much so that we'll create gods in our own image. You can have your God, but I'll have my God—not unlike the very story of Jonah here.
What I believe the Bible teaches is that in spite of that, God invades your heart, takes your heart of stone and softens it. So now you come to Christ in repentance and faith. You believe in Him. You believe in Him because He moved you. He chose you. He changed you. And there's that phrase—if it's new to you, that's okay, write it down, get it, think about it—He loves you in spite of you.
It's amazing He's a God of a second chance, but He's also—and the language is probably not taught at the seminaries, but I like the idea—once you're in a relationship with God, He's stuck with you. He can't get out of it. He began a good work in you, and you'll screw it up, and you'll sin, and you'll mess around, and stuff will happen, but He's stuck with you. That's amazing. He said if you come in repentance and faith, that you have eternal life now. Eternal life begins now. You can't break that union. The communion may vary based on your sin, not His position.
That's not that amazing that God's true to His Word. What's amazing is that He's a God of the first chance, that He loves you.
The Overwhelming Reality of Love
I'm doing a chapel at Grand Canyon in November, so I'm apparently now in the rotation where I get one shot a year. You get 22 minutes at a college audience. There's 2,000 of them. It's not a very intimate setting, and I'm trying to figure out what I want to do. I'm going, what do they want to hear? Because everything in me as an old man wants to tell them how hard life is going to be.
I just did that at Baccalaureate, where I said, "All you have your dreams, none of them are going to come true. None of them. I know you got it all figured out, and if you don't believe me, ask the people on this side, your parents, because you weren't part of their dream. So this just isn't going to happen. It's not going to happen that way." But I think the theme I want to get, that I think can—I want to talk about love. That's that thing that's just overpowering. He's the God of the first chance.
Well, now, He's the God of the second chance.
Jonah's Second Chance
Chapter 3, verse 2. Here's the same message: Arise, go to Nineveh. And Jonah arises, verse 3, goes to Nineveh. This time he obeys. He began to walk one day's journey into the city.
Now, God tells us in His Word, in chapter 3, verse 3, that Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, but it was a wicked city. A wicked city in all sorts of ways—a violent place, a perverted place, crooked place. It was huge. We think about 600,000 people.
So here's Jonah. We saw last week, this guy that's been in the belly of a fish. We had an illustration last week of a guy who was touring—he'd been swallowed by a shark for two days, and he was touring through London as a modern-day Jonah, and he was all white and his hair had fallen out. So here's Jonah, probably this odd-looking guy, walking through Nineveh. He's in there about a third of the way, verse 4, and he proclaims, "Yet 40 days in Nineveh will be destroyed." That's his message.
God's Incredible Response
And God moves. Chapter 3, verse 5, God begins to move. And 600,000 people are, in our context, for our discussion, come to Christ, come to God, come into right relationship with the one true God.
And yet, Jonah is still not happy. We looked last week...
Jonah's Angry Response
At verses 5 through 10, the king gets involved, decrees are issued, and these people turn. They say, "Maybe God will spare us at this moment." But Jonah, chapter 4, this is where we pick up today.
Verse 1: "It greatly displeased Jonah, and he became angry." That wasn't what I expected. "And he prayed to the Lord, and he said, 'Please, Lord, was this not what I said while I was in my own country? This was the very reason I didn't want to come. Therefore, God, now you can see Him kind of, I knew You were going to do this, so I was fleeing to Tarshish to put this off. I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abundant to loving-kindness, and one who relents coming calamity. Therefore, now, O Lord, take my life, kill me.'"
This is an odd thing. Here's the prophet, and he begins to say, "God, I knew You were like this. This is the kind of God You are. You're patient, not infinite patience, loving-kindness, You're caring, and I knew You were like this."
God's Response Through Questions
Chapter 4, verse 4: "The Lord said, 'Do you have a good reason to be angry? Why are you so mad?'" Again, if you are a teacher, a great way to teach is to ask questions.
I mentioned to you a couple weeks ago that we've been involved, we meaning Sandy and I, with some of the FCA and the 3D coaching stuff. There's a book called Inside Out Coach that Joe Ehrman asks four questions of coaches: Why do you coach? Why do you coach the way you coach? How does it feel to be coached by you? And how would you define success?
I've been in different settings now. I was in one last Saturday again, and they asked this: "Why do you coach?" You'd think you could make something up. "Why do you coach the way you coach?" Every one of them said the same: "Because it's the way I was coached." "How does it feel to be coached by you?" They all got to go to the bathroom when you ask that one. And then they say, "How do you define success?" They can't help but say wins and losses, though there's other things to it.
Why do you do what you do? Whatever it is. Why do you do it? What would a successful day look like? Somebody yesterday said to me, "I hope you have a great day," and I said, "I do too, I hope you have a great day." And he said, "I do too." I said, "What would make your day great?" I think he had to take the rest of the day off to think about it and go, "I don't know, I'm going to go home, I don't know, and have a beer and go to bed." Those questions are really important.
The Power of Questions: Learning from Job
If you remember the story of Job at all, you know that Job has a series of problems. He's had his counselors and friends tell him to curse God and die, and his wife has said essentially the same thing. So now he's decided, Job's decided, "I'm going to ask God. God, I want to ask You something."
So in Job 38, God said, "Okay, before you do, let Me ask you something," and I want to read from the Message: "Why do you confuse the issue? This is God. Why do you talk without knowing what you're talking about? Where were you when I created the earth? Tell me, since you know so much." This goes on all through the chapter, question after question. I'm not even going to count them up. I had dozens of questions.
Finally, He says, "Okay, Job, I know you had something you wanted to ask. What was it?" And Job said, "You know, I think I'm going to email You my question. I'm going to text it to You. You know, I need to rethink it."
As Job begins to process all this, and he sees God move, in chapter 42, Job says, "Here's the thing. Before I heard about You, now I've seen You. Now I've seen You work." That's the power of these questions. And so it's our faith. When we talk about faith, it's not just faith to believe in Christ to be saved, it's faith in Him.
Four Steps for Dealing with Fear
I'm at Arcadia, our Arcadia campus, however many weeks ago, and Justin Anderson is teaching, and he's talking about fear. Again, I found myself making notes of it. So he's talking about our reaction to fear. This is really good, I think. He said, "I'm going to give you four steps here," and it may not be fear, it may be something else.
Number one: admit you're afraid. Number two: think theologically. What he said was, "What you know trumps what you feel. You know God and how He is."
Number three: remember the stories. It's great if it's the Bible stories and here's God and He's parted the Red Sea and all this stuff, but remember your stories.
The Power of Personal Stories
I think last week in here, I know I didn't on Wednesday, but I think in here last week I told you about having a flat tire, did I? On the way to San Diego, in the middle of nowhere. I get off at this exit, this old guy is there flossing his tooth and I mean I'm going, "What the heck is this going to be?" I'm scared, I can't do anything. I don't have enough strength to open a bottle of water.
I said, "I'll get the lug nuts." I gave it one tug and he said, "Get out of the way." And Sandy, who can lift the building, she said, "I don't really know what to do with this." This guy literally out of nowhere changes this tire.
I don't want to be goofy, but I said to Sandy, "Not only did God protect us because that tire could blow out, we could spin over and die. It would take emergency vehicles a month and a half to find us out there. We're 20 miles east of Dateland, so there's nothing there. Not only did He protect us, but He provided."
That was what, three or four weeks ago. I've thought about that story two dozen times, where I'll be in the middle of whatever it is, and "Oh God, You protect and provide." So remember the stories.
Trust in the Lord
Then he says trust in the Lord. I remember that You did it, and you know what, You're not overdrawn at the provision bank, God. You can do it again and again and again and again. Stories are an amazing, powerful thing.
So here you go. This is pretty good. I have a bunch of notes for you to take, I think are helpful.
Jonah's Anger: Four Reasons
There's a little bit of Jonah in all of us. Why is he so angry? I've got four reasons here I think Jonah's angry. Remembering there's a little bit of Jonah in all of us.
He Hates These People in Nineveh
Number one, he hates these people in Nineveh. He can't stand them. Now in Romans 12, verse 18, Paul writes, "If possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with all men. Never take your revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God. Vengeance is mine. I will repay. But if your enemy's hungry, feed him. If he's thirsty, give him a drink. For in doing so, you heap coals on his head. Don't overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."
We live in a really polarized time. Think ISIS in here. If you need a person, think bin Laden. Imagine if you're the Navy SEAL, and you pop in there, and you got the gun and bin Laden said, "I am glad you're here, because I want to come to Christ in repentance and faith." That would hack you off. That would ruin my day.
The whole same-sex marriage issue - it's screwed up and sin, but the enemy's Satan. These are people to somehow love and care for and lead them to see Christ in the midst of this thing. How you do that is really hard, but the objective here would be to have anyone see Christ in you and be attracted to that. Jonah's angry because he hates these people.
His Pride Is Hurt
Number two, I think his pride is hurt. He's marching through Nineveh saying, "God's going to wipe you out in 40 days," and He doesn't do it. "God, you made me look bad."
He Lost Sight of His Own Sinfulness
Number three, he lost sight of his own sinfulness. There's that saying that we throw out, "There but for the grace of God go I." We say that a lot. I'm not sure we believe it. I believe under the right circumstances and the right this and the right that, I'm probably capable of anything sinful. I like to think I'm not. I know what I was.
Boy, it's really helpful to go back, especially those of you that became Christians later in life, after you've had your decade or two to mess around and all that goes with it. It's helpful to remember that. You can get this idea that that person is not a follower of Christ, he's an enemy, and vilify him. I was that guy. To get a hold of your own sinfulness, to have a conscience that's so tuned into sin.
The Story of Jerry and His Brother
One of my very good friends is a guy by the name of Jerry Smith. Jerry is a wonderful guy. He is in Albuquerque right now. His brother just passed away two days ago. Jerry, like I did with my brother Dan, Jerry roomed with his brother Craig growing up all through. Some of you had that brother or sister and you were just roommates. You slept in the same bed and in the same room.
Jerry was telling me one day about his brother. I think his brother was like six and Jerry was four. They had taken his mother's good deck of playing cards. Taking the cards and going down to their bikes - you know where this is going - and you get the clothespin and you put it on there and it makes noise all day. They're laying in bed that night and Jerry's brother said to him, "My conscience is getting to me, I've got to go tell mom." He said, "Well my conscience is getting the best of me."
So he went down and Jerry said you couldn't hear anything. Then all you could hear is his mom just wailing away on him. Jerry said that was the moment I became a pathological liar. I didn't know what a conscience was, I just knew I didn't want one.
Growing Awareness of Sin
That's the conscience thing. The holiest you should feel is at the moment of conversion. That doesn't mean you are, it's the holiest you're going to feel. Because the longer you walk with the Lord, the more you see your own sin.
That was Paul's description. When Paul's talking in Romans 3, not yet a believer, he says "I was a super Jew." I don't say that pejoratively, he just said he kept all the rules. Then he's converted and he said "I'm the least of the apostles." Then chronologically a little later he said "I'm the least of the saints" and at the end of his life he says "I'm the foremost of sinners." It wasn't that he was sinning more, it's that God's just opening His eyes. As you walk with Him, you should be able to see your sin more and more. Things that one day you would have never thought about now destroy you.
J. Vernon McGee's Story
J. Vernon McGee - I don't know, some of you know that old J. Vernon McGee, long dead but still on the radio - tells a wonderful story of sitting in his office one Monday. Monday was his day off but he happened to be there. The phone rang and this lady who is the quintessential 93-year-old lady in the church - so you get a picture in your mind, you got one in your church - she calls and said "I need to see you" and he said "All right I'm in my office tomorrow" and she said "I can't wait till tomorrow" and he said "Well it's my day off" and she said "I have sinned so gravely I need to see you."
Well if for only reasons of curiosity he said "Come right in." So she came in and she's distraught - she's an old Aunt Bee, okay, if we can do that - and she sits down and she said "I haven't slept all night" and he said "Okay that's fine" and she said "Let me tell you what happened yesterday at church when I was leaving. You were standing there and you said good morning and I said good morning and I said to you pastor that was a wonderful sermon and it wasn't. It wasn't and I couldn't sleep all night. I've lied. I've lied to you."
Well you do that every week Jamie - "that was really good" - I mean you do that every week lying right to his face and I'm teasing. We do things like that but this lady is such a godly lady that lying like that - she just couldn't handle it.
The Sensitivity of Sin Detection
These entrances and I said okay and he said how sensitive do you want the mats and I said well I don't know what you mean and he goes well do you want it—I'm trying to—I don't have any version of a wallet here okay I got my version of a wallet—so he said I can take it so if you take this and drop it it'll set off the alarm or I can take it and you can jump up and down on it and it'll take that to set it off. So how sensitive do you want it? And I said, well, experience would tell me the thief isn't going to come in and jump up and down on it. But I don't want it so the dog walks through and trips it. I said, I don't know. What's the average weight in pounds per square inch or whatever? I don't know. You're the pro. Figure it out.
So Susan said to me, how'd it go? And I said, I've got a great illustration. When you first come to Christ, that sin a lot of times has to jump up and down before you get it. But the longer you walk with Him, you start to see that sin not to incapacitate you, but to remind you of His grace. Jonah lost sight of that.
I'll give you one more reason, fourth reason I think that Jonah's angry. He's pooped. He's tired. He's been through the whole thing. So that's just practical application. That can happen to any of us in this whole process.
Jonah's Watch and Wait Strategy
Verse five, then Jonah went from the city and he sat on the east of it. And there he made a shelter for himself and he sat in the shade. And so we could see what happens. Now, I personally think Jonah's going, I know these people from Nineveh. And God, they might have fooled You, but they don't fool me. This isn't going to take. This isn't going to last.
I had that with Susan. I came home and I told her what had happened to me. And she said, we'll see, buddy. I've seen this. I got into running. And I had two running magazines coming to the house every month. And I got running clothes and three pairs of running shoes. I did everything but run. And she said, we'll see. And after about four months, she said, hey, I think this is real.
And I think Jonah is out there and he'll go, I'm going to sit up high. I can watch this.
God's Object Lessons
Verse six, the Lord appointed a plant. Verse seven, a worm. Verse eight, a scorching wind. He appoints a plant. And it grew up over Jonah. And it gave him shade. And here's the only time—I got it yellowed in my Bible—it's the only time Jonah's happy. 600,000 people are coming to God, but the plant made him happy.
Then He appoints a worm, and the worm attacked the plant. And then there came about the sun, verse eight, and a scorching east wind. This is blowing off a desert. So think of this. Think of leaving Coronado about nine in the morning, and you decide you're going to go all the way. You've gassed up. And you go all the way through. And now you're in Helah Bend. And you get out at the Circle K. And you open that door. That first—okay, that's the east wind. That's how I think of it. And Jonah is going, death is better than life.
God's Final Appeal
Verse nine, God begins to deal with him. Verse 10, then the Lord said, you had compassion on the plant, for which you did not work, and which you did not cause to grow and overcame you. And now, I should not have compassion on none of us. You had compassion on this plant. And I'm moving on Nineveh. You don't want me to? The great city in which there are more than 120,000 people who don't know the difference between the right and left. Who are they? Those are the U of A graduates that are in Nineveh. And they're all left from right. And we know that, right? Gee, I gotta stop that.
But those are the children. So think of the intensity of this now. God's saying, there's 120,000 kids there. I got that maybe you've got a grudge against these adults, but these are the kids, Jonah. And I had compassion on the kids and on the rest of the ones as well, and as well as the animals.
The Book's Abrupt Ending
And then, if you're like me, you're going, what happened? That just stopped? That's the end of it? There's gotta be another page somewhere. To be continued? Is it back here? Did they hide it in Titus? Or what happened? And all of a sudden, the book stops. It's a very weird ending.
And here's, to me, why I think this ends the way it does. Is that Jonah's writing the book. It's his memoir. And I think he got the point. And I build it this way. He accurately portrays this. He shows himself warts and all, and he gives God the last word. It's an amazing little book. Just the four chapters that we looked at.
There's a Little Bit of Jonah in All of Us
And there's a little bit of Jonah in all of us. Practical application all through this book. My tendency is to live like Jonah in that world where, you know what? Part of the reason I'm not out sharing the gospel every day is there are a bunch of people I don't like. I don't want to live next door to them, let alone spend eternity with these people. I don't want to go to the same homeowners meeting with this clown. He comes to Christ, and he'll have the mansion next to mine. That's exactly how this is gonna shake out. And he'll be the president of the homeowners association for all eternity, and I gotta look at this guy. I don't want that.
You see that? See how subtle that is? In this world, where, because it's a dark world, okay? And it's getting darker every day. And I'm watching everybody get all panicked about it.
Opportunity in the Darkness
That wasn't the end of the world, this decision, this court decision. I got it. It's bad and all that stuff. But didn't you know it was bad before that? All this does is codify how bad it is. But in it is an enormous opportunity. The darker the world gets, the less light it takes to shine. I mean, we're gonna look so unique, so different to the rest of the world, day by day by day, so different that they're gonna be stumped by you.
And every one of these dark moves is an opportunity for you to be salt and light wherever God's placed you. Because that's where it's at. Well, everything's headed downhill. Is this a surprise to anybody? Maybe it happened quicker than you think, but it's not. It's not the end.
of your opportunity to be salt and light in the midst of this world. Turn off the radio, watch something other than Fox. I was with some Republican guys the other day, and I said, here you go, boys, here's my call. You have to come up with a better strategy than buy gold and complain. You better come up with something new or you're going to win nothing. You better come up with something. I don't know what it is. I'm the only guy you know who's not running for president. But I'm not running yet. One of these people somewhere are going to lead this thing.
So anyway, that's enough. You don't need that from me. We'll be back in September. Let's pray.
Father, thank You for grace and mercy. Thank You for loving us. Thank You that in this dark world, You are the God of the first chance for us. You've saved Your people and delivered us. There's a little bit of Jonah in us. God, we know what You want us to do. We just don't always do it.
And then amazingly, when we see Your grace and mercy towards some, we're stumped by it. God, don't let us be. Let us be in awe of You and who You are. Thank You for the men and women that are here today. They got a lot of stuff they can be doing, but they're here.
God, give us this time away. Let us kind of recharge and come back. And let us be men and women who would live life boldly for Your glory. We pray in Christ's name, amen.