Today's Word Radio

Brett Meador: It's really interesting because the Bible makes it clear how we're supposed to live, what we're supposed to do, and even how we're supposed to think. But the question is, how are you doing with this idea of just going with God's plan and purpose? Obedience or rebellion? It's really as simple as: do you want to do this the easy way or the hard way?

Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador with an important application of Proverbs 13: "The way of the transgressor is hard." The Lord didn't design you to be taking up sin. He told you to watch out for that stuff and go the other way.

The prophet Jonah learned the consequences of rebellion the hard way when he found himself trapped inside a big fish after running from God. As his plight unfolds in Jonah chapters one and two, Pastor Brett Meador says we'll learn why he chose the easy path of obedience instead of the hard way of rebellion. Let's join him as our study of Jonah continues in today's word.

Brett Meador: Jonah chapter one. The first part of this story is greatly about rebellion: Jonah's rebellion against the Lord. He goes against the Lord's way, in fact, in the opposite direction. God wants him to go one way, and Jonah goes the other.

This idea of rebellion—if you think about it historically—rebellion never works out. When you're rebelling against God historically, whether you're a person, a nation, or a group of people, rebellion against God is not a good way to go.

It's interesting because God lovingly wants us to come to His side and go His way, but when people really want to do it, when they want to defy God, as it turns out, God will let people do what they want to do. That's a choice you and I have to make. Rebellion is one of those things that, when you do it, it might even feel good for a moment that you're going against God, but in the long term, there's destruction there.

There's an interesting scripture that has to do with this idea of free will, you and I doing whatever we want to do. As it turns out, God has made it so you can do whatever you want to do. You can go find some drugs and do meth. You can do that, but is that really a good plan? That's actually in rebellion against God.

In 1 Corinthians 6:12, Paul talks about this when he says, "All things are lawful to me, but all things are not expedient," or a better word in modern language is "profitable." Not all things are profitable. "All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any."

Yes, God gave you a free will and you can do whatever you want, but you say, "Well, then why is the Bible full of 'thou shalt nots'?" You have to understand: here's the Bible telling us what sin is. Sin, or the "thou shalt nots," are things that God says, "Hey, listen. You can go with My plan or you can go with your plan." Your plan is not expedient or profitable. Your plan will bring you under the power of something evil and dark, but if you go with My plan, you'll actually be blessed.

In 1 Corinthians chapter 10, Paul reiterates this several chapters later when he says, "All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient. All things are lawful for me, but all things edify not." Whether they bring you under the power of something like alcohol, drugs, or pornography where people are stuck in their sins and addicted—that's not profitable and that's not good.

When it says it doesn't edify, the word "edification" means to build up. You can do whatever you want, but not everything you do is going actually build your life up; it'll actually tear your life down. This starts to get to one of the clumsy handlings we have historically of a single word in the Bible, and that's the word "sin."

Too many people think of sin totally wrongly. You can tell by people being offended when you say something like, "For example, if you work at Intel or if you work at Nike and you say homosexuality is a sin." They'll fire you for saying that. "How could you say someone's a sinner?"

That just shows me nobody knows what the word "sin" means. Sin means to miss the mark, and everything that's not on the bullseye is called sin in the Bible. That's the word sin: to miss the mark or to be off the bullseye. To miss the mark.

That's the thing. When people get all offended—"I can't believe you think I'm a sinner"—well, you don't even know how bad of a sinner I am. We're all sinners. That's what the Bible says. We all fall short. No one is righteous, not even one person, the Bible says. Even the people that seek God, they're not really seeking after God.

What do you mean, Brett? That's what Paul said. Have you ever been saying, "Well, I'm seeking after God"? Here's what happens: the older I get, I realize that even when I'm seeking God, I'm sinning. That's why Paul says, "I find no good thing within me."

As a young man, Paul said, "We're all sinners." As a middle-aged man, Paul said, "I am a sinner." As an old man, Paul said, "I, Paul the Apostle, am the chiefest of sinners." What happened? Was he getting worse as the years went by? No, he was realizing that almost everything is sin. Almost everything.

When you pray, do you ever pray selfishly? Self-centered prayers? "Lord, bless me. Help me to be victorious. Give me this." How many times did Jesus say in His prayer, the Lord's Prayer, "I," "me," or "my"? Zip, zilch. Even my prayers are full of sin because they become self-centered or self-serving, and James tells us that some people, their prayers are not heard by God because they ask amiss.

Even your prayers, seeking God, can become corrupted by sin. So we shouldn't be shocked. Sin is not bad because it's forbidden; it's forbidden because it's bad. That's the thing we have to remember. The word "sin" is not just something innately evil. No, the word "sin" means if you do it, it's not going to be beneficial to you. It's not going to help you. It's not going to edify you, or it might even entrap you and make you stick to that problem.

That's why we need to understand the nature of sin. That's the problem with rebellion. Rebellion is saying, "I'm going to go the opposite direction of what God actually wants for me to do." It's really interesting because the Bible makes it clear of how we're supposed to live, what we're supposed to do, and even how we're supposed to think. But the question is, how are you doing with this idea of just going with God's plan and purpose? Obedience or rebellion?

It's really as simple as: do you want to do this the easy way or the hard way? When you say, "Yeah, whatever, I read in the Bible you're not supposed to do this or you're not supposed to do that, whatever," and so you press on, the problem is the Bible—I've found this to be right in my own life, so many of you have too—Proverbs 13:15 says good understanding gives favor, but the way of the transgressor, or sinner, is hard.

You can sin it up; all things are lawful, but it's going to be really hard for you. You might become addicted, you might become messed up, you might find yourself in a terrible, terrible predicament. The Lord didn't design you to be taking up sin. He told you, "Watch out for that stuff. Go the other way."

You can jot some of these things down. Number one, we saw Jonah's rebellion against God. We saw that in verses one through three. Let's take a look at that just to review. Jonah chapter one, verse one: "Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, 'Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.' But Jonah rose up to flee to 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 to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord."

So, it's the rebellion against God. God said go; Jonah said no. How far do you think you have to go to get away from God? You might laugh at that, but you know what Jonah does is he gives a pretty good shot at this. He gives it a try.

When we use these Bible names like Tarshish and Nineveh, whatever, God said go to Nineveh, and so what does Jonah do? He goes to the opposite end of the earth in his mind, all the way to Tarshish, which is near Gibraltar there in Spain. That's where he's headed. He wants to go 2,500 miles. They didn't have airplanes; they had some real rickety ships that might make it across the Mediterranean.

Jonah is bending over backward to go against God's plan, and his rebellion against God is obvious. This raises a question. You can rebel, by the way, both as a non-believer, unsaved, non-Christian person just saying, "I don't want to go God's way. I don't want to believe in God." That's the worst-case scenario.

Even as Christians, you and I can find ourselves going the opposite direction of where God wants us to be. We can learn from Jonah. Are you in rebellion against God? That's a question you have to ask yourself right now. Is there anything, maybe there are small things, maybe there are huge things?

Maybe that boyfriend that you're going out with right now is not a Christian, and you're missionary dating, hoping that he gets saved. "Oh, I'm sure if I get married to him, he'll eventually come to Christ and be saved." You're in rebellion against God. The Bible says, "Do not be unequally yoked with an unbeliever, as the custom of some people is." Don't do that.

Maybe some of you have a job that you know God doesn't want you in that job. Maybe it's caused you to have to compromise your integrity. Maybe your boss is deceitful and ripping people off, but you know it's wrong and sinful, but you're afraid to leave that job because you're afraid you won't be able to pay the bills or get another job. Could it be that you are in rebellion against God just because you refuse to get out of that situation?

Or maybe some of you are in rebellion just by who you hang out with. Are some of your friends leading you in things that are sinful and corrupt and leading you in a path of rebellion against God? "Yeah, but Brett, I like hanging out with them." Yeah, but the Bible says that's still contrary to what God would have you to do.

I could go on and on. What are the things that you've taken or paths that you've chosen that are in the opposite direction against God? Rebellion against God. Well, the sad thing is, once you have rebellion against God, Jonah finds this out, then secondly, you have separation from God.

When you're rebelling against God, don't be shocked if you feel like your relationship with God is dried up or even non-existent. Did you see there in verse three? It said it twice. Jonah, when he left for Tarshish, he left from the presence of God. Jonah was in the presence of God, but when he rebels, he leaves the presence of God.

When the Bible says something twice, you kind of have to sit up and take note. It says in the first part of verse three, "Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord," and then at the end of that same verse, "with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord." He went from the presence of the Lord.

By the way, when you're rebelling against God, I told you the way of the transgressor is hard, and it will be, but initially, it doesn't always go hard. Sometimes rebellion against the Lord is real easy at first. What do you mean, Brett? Well, consider Jonah. Jonah says, "I'm not going to Nineveh." So what does he do? He goes down to Joppa and, lo and behold, he finds a ship. It just so happens to be going the opposite direction. "Yes!"

"How much does it cost?" "It costs this many shekels." He looks and finds, "I've got those shekels. Yes!"

"Is there room for me?" "Yes."

I mean, so far, he's got a sweet situation. Keep in mind, we all Christians, we all pray, "Lord, open doors that no man can shut, shut doors that no man can open." There's a truth in that. I get that. I understand that, and I've prayed the same thing. But at the same time, did you know that Satan opens doors in front of you too?

Like the girl I was talking about that's dating the non-believer. I've seen the rationality. "But I love him. He's awesome and he's hot, and he likes me and he listens to me and he hears me." Oh, Satan will open that door. Don't be shocked if that way is easy at first.

I call it rubber band theology. God puts a loving rubber band around you because He loves you, and you say, "I'm going the other way." You start walking away and, at first, it's easy, but the rubber band starts to get a little tighter as you start dating that guy. Before long, you realize maybe he's not as nice as he once was. "Is he ever going to ask me to marry him? Oh man, he doesn't like Christmas and he doesn't like going to church. Oh man."

It gets harder and harder and then pretty soon, he's almost abusive. You're like, "How could this girl who's dating this guy keep going?" It's this rubber band and it's going to get harder and harder. The question is, how hard is the snapback going to be? If you're still young and not married, the snapback's kind of like back with the Lord. You're in good standing. If you get married and you go down and keep pushing against the rubber band, the snapback's going to be way harder because it's going to be stretched out a lot further. I have seen, you've seen the snapback from that. It's a horribly painful situation.

But that's the problem. The enemy will open the door. Charles Haddon Spurgeon talked about this. Picture this big fiery preacher: "When Jonah went down to flee unto Tarshish, he found a ship going there. Was not that a remarkable providence?" Perhaps he said to himself, "I felt some doubt about whether I was right in going to Tarshish, but when I got down to the seashore, there was a ship and there was just room for me to go on as a passenger. The fare was just the amount I possessed. So I felt that it must be from the Lord."

Nonsense, Jonah! It is of the Lord that you do what is right. That's what Charles Haddon Spurgeon said about that. It's true. You can say, "What a coincidence, everything's working out wonderfully even though you're walking in rebellion against God." Jonah is now well on his way from the presence of the Lord, separation from God.

Many scriptures talk about this. Isaiah 59:2: "But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear." Colossians 1:21: "And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled." This gives us a sneak preview of hope for the person who's in rebellion, that the Lord says, "Oh, I want to redeem or reconcile you back." But it's your sin that has alienated you from the Lord by your wicked works. The Bible is full of this type of discussion when it comes to our sins.

The story goes on, verse four and onward. The Lord lets Jonah get on the boat—smooth sailing—up until it wasn't. Somewhere in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, the Lord sent a huge storm. That's what the Bible says. The Lord sent it. The storm started pounding this ship that was in the sea. Jonah was sawing logs under the deck. Does that remind you of someone else?

Should we compare Jonah to Jesus? The answer is yes. I'm going to give you a sneak preview. Yes. But when you compare Jesus sleeping under the deck of the boat, what's the difference? Jonah was sleeping because he was a loser; Jesus was sleeping under the ship because He was Lord. Jonah was sleeping on the ship because I don't think he cared about his life. We're going to see that in a second. But Jesus had power over life and death. When they woke Jesus up, He stood up and said, "Peace," and the storm was stilled. When they woke up Jonah, he stood up and everybody freaked out. That's the difference.

Jonah wakes up and they say, "What? Don't you care? We're dying out here!" They're toiling and they throw all their stuff overboard because they want to try to lighten the ship's load. But that doesn't help. They start crying out to their gods. These are a bunch of pagan mariners. "Oh, gods, save us!" But nobody was listening.

Then they decided to do another kind of pagan practice. "Let's cast lots and find out who's guilty. Who's the one guilty for this?" Now this cracks me up because this is kind of a pagan practice of casting lots to find out who the guilty party is. But God says, "Okay, I'll use that." So they start casting lots and there's Jonah and the guys in the circle and the lot cast falls on Jonah. They all look at Jonah. "What have you done?"

Jonah's like, "Okay, I'm guilty. I know." "Well, what are we going to do?" He said, "Okay, throw me overboard." And they're like, "What?" "Yeah, throw me overboard. I'm the guilty party, so throw me overboard."

This is where I kind of think Jonah would rather die than do what God asked him to do. He could have said, "Turn the ship around and let's go back and drop me off back at Joppa." But he doesn't say that. He says, "Just throw me overboard."

Interesting. Well, the men don't even do it. They say, "Yeah, whatever, we're not going to do that." So they toil for more hours trying to save the ship, but eventually, it gets so bad and the ship gets so pounded that finally, they're like, "Sorry Jonah, we got to throw you over, dude." And they throw him over. There he is being tossed in the ocean and thinking, "Well, this is it, I'm going down."

We saw number one, the rebellion against God. We saw the separation from God. But now we see the preparation of God. We see that in one of the most fascinating verses in all the Bible, I think. This is a loaded verse, verse 17 of chapter one. It says in verse 17, "Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights."

What a short little verse, but there's a lot to process there. First of all, the Lord prepared a fish. Now, when you and I prepare fish, that's on a stove with some good seasoning and stuff like that, but the Lord prepared a fish to do business with Jonah, to swallow him up for three days and three nights.

This is an amazing miracle of God. Now some of you are hung up on this. How did a fish swallow a man? Is that where we are with you? I mean, it's always funny to me that—and I know some of you were told by your college professors—"Well, we know that this is just a mytho-historical story that never really happened. There's no way a whale could have swallowed a man, biologically or scientifically, we know this stuff. So this is just a fake story."

Well, you can hear that whether you're at Berkeley, Beserkeley, or even Christian universities. These same college professors, some of them are trying to diminish the truth of the Bible. I always marvel when people refuse to believe things that are slightly miraculous. This is kind of a miraculous thing, I'll admit—a big fish.

But there's so much we don't know about the ocean. For any stupid college professor to say, "Well, we know that there's no fish that could swallow a man," that just shows me you don't know what you're talking about because there's so much about fish that we don't still know.

If you go to the deep sea, the deepest parts of it like Mariana's Trench, seven miles deep—we've only been down there with these little tiny subs that are so thick with metal because otherwise, they'd be crushed like a little tin can with the pressure. But there are still a lot of creatures that they believe we've never even seen down there yet.

But let's talk about what we do know. We do know the sperm whale can be 62 feet long. The sperm whale, its stomach is seven feet by 14 feet by six feet. Average size sperm whale stomach. As it turns out, in his book "63 Years of Engineering," Sir Francis Fox tells of a story of a whaling station that had a sperm whale that they had collected and they did some measurements.

A sperm whale can swallow clumps and lumps of food eight feet in diameter. One of the whales they found actually had a complete shark that hadn't even been crunched up that was 16 feet in length. That's like a huge shark that was swallowed by a sperm whale and that's been documented.

So those that try to say a whale could not swallow a man or would not swallow a man—well, did you see a couple of years ago in Cape Cod? "I was completely inside," lobster diver swallowed by humpback whale off of Provincetown. 60 Minutes did a whole episode on this and it was kind of fascinating.

He was down there looking for lobster as a diver. The whale got him and swallowed him down, and then the whale felt something wrong with it. It wasn't like all the other fish; it had scuba tanks and stuff. I'm sure he's like, "Man, I've got to get some Rolaids or whatever, Tums."

But the guys on the surface, they're all just kind of doing their thing on their boat and all of a sudden, this massive humpback whale starts thrashing at the top of the surface and they're like, "What's going on?" and they're thinking, "Oh no, I hope our buddy down below is okay." Right about then, they saw the whale reach out of the water and spit—they literally saw their buddy fly through the air, arms and legs flailing as it spit him out. That's how they know he was in the mouth of this whale. It really happened!

It's an amazing story, you can check it out if you want to. 60 Minutes did a thing on it. But it makes me wonder: God prepared a fish. That's what the Bible says. The preparation of God. It makes me wonder: what is God preparing for me to correct me, to get me going on the right direction? I wonder what it is, the vehicle that God's going to use. In fact, that's the question you might want to ask yourself. What is the vehicle the Lord will use to bring you back?

For Jonah, it was preparing a fish. For some of you, it might be you getting fired. Maybe for some of you, it might be you getting dumped by your girlfriend or boyfriend. Others, you might be getting caught. Sometimes the Lord will use any number of things that you might say, "Well, that's horrible! That's a bad thing."

Well, do you think Jonah thought, "Oh, I've been swallowed by a big fish. That's a problem." But some of the problems that come your way if you're walking in rebellion as a Christian or as a non-believer and you're wondering, "Why is everything going so horribly?" Could it be the Lord is using those things as a vehicle to bring you where you actually need to be?

Some of you know how this works out. Long term you see, "I got fired and I was so upset," but the Lord had a totally different job for you that was going to be better to begin with. "I got dumped! I'm so mad at the Lord, I loved him!" But then you realize he was a total loser, and then the Lord brought you the right person and you realize, "Oh, thank you, Lord, for that guy dumping me." What is the vehicle God is using to bring you back where you need to be? And that's that rubber band question: how far are you going to go before the snapback? What is the Lord using?

Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador reminding us with the plight of Jonah that God's pursuit of us is His grace redirecting us back into His will for our lives. And there's much more for us to learn from Jonah's story in today's word next time. Also, stay right there as Pastor Brett will join me to answer a question many people have wondered about his church.

But first, Today's Word is the radio ministry of Athey Creek Church just south of Portland, Oregon, where Pastor Brett Meador's the senior pastor. Our vision on today's word is to proclaim the hope of salvation and help people know Jesus through careful study of the Bible. We invite you to find out more by going to todayswordradio.com. If you've missed any portion of this message, you'll find all of Pastor Brett's messages online at todayswordradio.com.

All right, I have Pastor Brett with me now. Brett, I know that there are people out there that are wondering about the name of your church, Athey Creek. You said it before, but can you repeat, how did you get that name?

Brett Meador: Well, people say, "How do you pronounce that? A-they or?" and I say, "Well, it sounds like atheist, but we are not atheists." But it's Athey. No, the way we got that name was we started with a different name 30 years ago and as it turned out, somebody about 100 miles from here had the same name that we chose.

So we quickly had to change and our first church meetings were in a middle school and that school was called Athey Creek Middle School. It's because there's a little creek right next to the school called Athey Creek. And so we thought, "Nobody will name their church Athey Creek." So we took that name and you know what's kind of funny about that, Curt, is we moved from that school about a mile away and built our church building, and right next to our building is a road called Athey Road.

So the Lord kind of worked it all out, but it's a unique name, but you know it's funny how a name that's strange becomes very familial and happy. We just think it's just kind of a nice name for our church. Athey Creek Church is where we landed.

Curt: Absolutely, that's a great story. Thanks for sharing that, Pastor Brett. And if you'd like more information about Athey Creek Church, Pastor Brett Meador, or today's word, you can visit our website at todayswordradio.com. That's todayswordradio.com. Well, that's all the time we have. Next time, Pastor Brett will look at the prophet Jonah's attempt to run from God, but then finally recognizing that he had never been out of God's hands in the first place.

Guest (Male): Today's Word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.