Today's Word Radio

Brett Meador: In our rebellion, God sends storms, saints, and sinners. Do you understand that? Don't be shocked when God has a path for you and you're on a whole 'nother path. God will send in your life storms, saints, and sinners. What do you mean, Brett? Well, did you notice it says there, "But the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea."

Host (Male): Pastor Brett Meador illustrates with Jonah how God has ways to get our attention. The storm came from God. Sometimes God himself will cause things not to go perfectly in your life because he wants to wake you up and change your direction.

The prophet Jonah had a clear command from God to go preach to the people of Nineveh, but he flat-out refused and fled in the opposite direction. As he attempted to set sail in the distance, instead, Jonah found himself in a life-threatening storm at sea. Coming up in today's word with Pastor Brett Meador, a challenge to our own resistance of God's persistent grace.

Brett Meador: We have here a story of a man who was called by God to ministry: Jonah. And we're going to read this story and talk about this reluctant prophet, this guy that the Lord gives a very clear call, but Jonah—well, let's read. Verse one of chapter one of Jonah.

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." There's three main things we see here in verses one and two. We see first of all the call, then we see the crime, and then we see the cry.

The first thing is the call, and we see that he's called to arise. Now, he's not living in Jaffa. That's something that people think, "Oh, he lived in Jaffa." But no, that's where he went. We'll show you that in a second. So the call was to arise and let's get going from your place, where you live.

The second part of this is we see the crime, and that is the Lord sees, it says here in our text, "The wickedness that is come up before me." Again, we've talked about how the Lord sees all what's going on there in Nineveh. Now, Nineveh was the capital city of the Assyrian people, which is today in modern-day Iraq.

But the ancient Assyrians go down in history as truly one of the most brutal people of all ancient people. Archaeological discoveries show the heinous, barbarous treatment inflicted on prisoners of war, as well as some of its citizens. They were gruesome. Some would have their eyelids cut off and were made to stare at the sun until blind.

Others were skinned alive and their skin wrapped around building pillars to dry out for drums and furniture upholstery. This is just one of the hundreds of descriptions of horrible things that the Assyrian people would do. You've got to understand this because how would you like the Lord to call you, "Hey, I want you to go to Nineveh."

There's just no place equivalent of that today. If you're Jonah, you're thinking, "You want me to go where? Nineveh? That's like the worst place on the planet I could ever imagine going." So you've got the call to go to arise and the crime—well, that's the Ninevites were wicked and the Lord saw their wickedness. But that then brings us to the cry, Jonah's message that he was supposed to bring.

He was going to go preach, it says there, and cry against it. What would Jonah's cry be? If we fast forward and read in Jonah chapter three at the end, we hear what his cry is. It's eight words. It's this: "And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried and said, 'Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.'" That's his whole message.

"Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me." So that's the cry that Jonah's going to make. Well, verse three. It says, "But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord."

What does Jonah do? God says, "Go," and Jonah says, "No." Perhaps he had more fear than faith. That's something I've seen in my own self or even in our lives when the Lord calls us to something. Sometimes it's the fear that can thwart the ministry that God's called you to do. And one of the things we have to remember is we've been given a very specific calling.

I feel like lately the Lord's been putting this on my heart to remind us a little bit over and over of this. It's the Great Commission. Not the Great Suggestion. This is the Great Commission. Matthew 28, after Jesus died on the cross, was buried, rose from the grave, then he said this:

"And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, 'All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.'"

"Oh, but that's your job. You're supposed to preach the gospel." And I do, and I teach. But one of the mistakes congregants make is they think, "Well, that's the church's job." But not really. Do you understand there's places you can go that they'd never even let me in the door?

Some of you have jobs where you work with people that are very far from knowing the Lord, and you've got a calling to preach the gospel and to share the word. But I wonder if maybe, even though you might be called to preach, maybe like Jonah, is it fear that drives you? That you say, "I'm not saying anything."

We need some boldness in Christians today, and the world is saying, "Christians, shut your mouths. We don't want to hear what you have to say." But is that going to drive our fear? So I think sometimes it's more fear than faith, and that could be part of Jonah's problem, possibly. We're called to go and teach and preach.

But Jonah, he goes the opposite direction. Let me show you a little bit about this. He goes to Joppa. It's amazing that that day he just goes and finds—there's a phrase in our text that says he found a boat there, found a ship going to Tarshish. Oh, what a coincidence.

Now, some of you might be saying, "Well, where's Tarshish?" Well, first let's talk about Jaffa. Jaffa, or Joppa, is this little town not too far from Tel Aviv. But it's also where the house of Simon the Tanner was. Do you remember that story where Peter was on the roof, saw the sheet, rise, Peter, kill and eat?

Then Peter was the one who was going to bring in the Gentiles into the church. And Peter goes from there north to Caesarea and Cornelius. It's a great story. But this is the town where Peter first gets the message that God's saying, "This isn't just for Jews." He says it's not just for the Jews; it's for the Gentiles as well.

So this little town has a few biblical, significant places. But one of the significances of this is that this is where, Jonah runs to. And this is quite a few miles from Nazareth. So the first thing he does is he leaves his town near Nazareth and probably walks down to Joppa, which would be several days' journey.

But when he gets here, he finds out, "Hey, I got a ship. What a coincidence." And he pays for that ship. Now, if you look at a map of this, in his mind he's like, "Okay, Nineveh's on the one end of the world. I'm going to go to the other end of the world." That was the—they didn't know about North America, Columbus hadn't sailed the ocean blue yet.

So this was the edge of the world. Tarshish is close to Gibraltar there in Spain. But this is where he's going to go. He's going to go 2,500 miles in the opposite direction. And there's something I want to tell you about that you as Christians need to understand. We know the Bible talks about how the Lord is able to open doors that no man can shut, and he can shut doors that no man can open. We know that.

But can I just suggest to you that Satan also opens doors? You have to be careful because just because it's an open door doesn't mean—I wonder if Jonah's like, "What a coincidence, I found a ship that's going to the place I want to go, Tarshish." And he just paid a fee and he's on board, he's ready to go.

But this was—I believe when you're in rebellion against God, Satan's going to be right there going, "Oh yeah, you want to go to Tarshish? I got a ship for you right here. Jump on board, pay your fee, and let's go." What do you mean, Brett? Well, if you're a woman whose husband's maybe not as sensitive as you like and you're struggling in your marriage, Satan's going to open a door to some guy at work that's got a soft shoulder to cry on.

And he's just emotionally tuned into you and somehow it just seems like so much better and at least he listens to me and he cares about me and all this stuff. And Satan will open that little door even though it's the door of death and destruction. And you might find yourself in a big fish someday. You got to watch out for that.

Maybe you're a single person. "I'm tired of being single." But Satan will open the door and a really nice person that you think, "Oh, this—so they're not a Christian. I'll missionary-date this person and they'll become a Christian at some point. Maybe after we get married, then they'll come to Christ and accept Jesus."

That's an open door that maybe Satan just opened right there for you. Watch out for open doors because that's what Jonah gets. He gets this—I just think it's funny that phrase, he went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. The opposite end of the earth, right where he wanted to be, away from God's calling.

So why did Jonah disobey God? Number one, he would rather maybe do something else. That's possibly a thing. Number two, maybe he had more fear about the Ninevites skinning him alive than faith. Or maybe number three, removing self from responsibility assumed he'd no longer be responsible. There's kind of this what I would call sort of a denial.

And I liken it to the little three-year-old who, when you're playing hide and seek and the little three-year-old covers their eyes and says, "You can't see me." They haven't learned the lesson. Just because they can't see you doesn't mean that you can't see them. It's a life lesson. Some of you are still trying to figure that out.

But yeah, in a way, we do that maybe not with our eyeballs but with our responsibilities. It's like this. Maybe you're a dad and you got a girl pregnant when you were young, and she gave birth to a child. But because you felt like you weren't ready to be a father, you bolted.

And you got rid of that responsibility. Out of sight, out of mind. Just because I left means I'm assuming I have no longer responsibilities. I wonder if some of us do that kind of stuff in our lives, thinking that by bolting, taking off and going the opposite direction, somehow we're sort of relieved of our duties.

But actually that's not the way it works. And anybody who's lived a little bit of life, you know that that could actually end up in real sorrow, sadness, and despair. It's almost like Jonah saying, "Man, if I can go further and further and further away from my responsibility going to Nineveh, maybe God will just kind of forget. Maybe I'll erase my responsibility there."

But the Lord, he knows all that. You're not going to be able to—maybe not just a responsibility as a parent. Maybe responsibility in your marriage. You think if I can just remove my marriage, then I'm not responsible. Or if I can—this is a tough one. When you see marriages that are suffering and then they sort of do this thing where sometimes people think, "Well, we'll separate our living conditions as a married couple."

Did you know the Bible actually doesn't really allow for that? Did you know that? It does for a certain time period. Remember there when it says husbands and wives are not supposed to defraud each other or be apart from each other, but they can separate for a season. For a season, you can separate each other for the purpose of prayer and fasting.

So as long as you can fast, you guys can agree to separate. How long can you fast? Some of the ladies are like, "Three years. I will become a skeleton before I have to move—" Yeah, that's not the point. But the point is you're supposed to work on your marriage.

And the problem is, here's the problem. And this is what I've seen. I wonder why the Bible says you're not supposed to separate your living conditions even if your marriage is in trouble. Now, don't get me wrong. I've said this a million times, I got to say it again because I always get people saying stupid things.

But if you are a woman in a house where you're being physically abused, we believe you should get out of that house. And that's just biblical truth. For safety, for protection, you got to get out of the house. Not saying divorce, but I am saying get out of the dangerous situation and have the church and have your friends and have people come around you and we'll help you.

And that man needs to be helped, repented, changed, transformed before we really think you should ever put yourself in that situation again. And that takes prayer and work and marriage counseling and all kinds of things. So there are circumstances like that that I would say are different sets of circumstances.

But just because he leaves his socks on the ground, "I'm sick of him leaving his socks on the floor." Or maybe the guy's saying, "I'm sick of her nagging me all the time." And so you say, "I'm—we're separating." And you know what is amazing? Wherever you go, you know what? His socks are not going to be on the floor.

And it starts—you know what? I like this. No more socks. And he's going, "I like it too. No more nagging." And the couple just becomes more and more comfortable living apart. And they're not working on their marriage. It's been stated that marriage is like you're in a house and you put deadbolts on the door, but the lock is on the outside.

So when a fire breaks out in the house in marriage, rather than trying to beat your way out the door, the key is to get the fire out. And that's true. Wedlock was meant to be a padlock. I hope you understand that. "Brett, you sound so negative about marriage." No. The idea is committing to a person even through thick and thin, for better, for worse, in sickness and in health.

And that's what God has called people to do. But they say, "Oh, I'll be so much happier if I separate my living conditions." And they do this kind of for indefinite amounts of time. And pretty soon it becomes pretty easy and pretty nice being single again. But you kind of forget that you're miserable and you're out of obedience with God and you're not going the direction God has called you to go.

And you're like, "Well, it's better than being yelled at or better than being chided every day about my socks on the floor or whatever." Be careful, Christians. Be biblical when it comes to things like this. I wonder if sometimes we remove ourselves from a marriage because we feel like if we're out of that, we're no longer responsible for fixing the marriage. Be careful.

I wonder if that's what Jonah's doing. God says, "I want you to go over here," and Jonah goes as far the other direction as he possibly can. Fourth reason, maybe he could care less about the Ninevites. Now, you might say, "Brett, I don't know. What you've told us about the Ninevites, I think it's more the—maybe number two, maybe he's afraid of the Ninevites."

But as it turns out, number four might just be the truth more than any of the other ones I just mentioned. I'll tell you why. Because do you remember as we're going to see as we get through this book a little further, Jonah did not want them to repent. It's so funny.

It's like Jonah's saying, "Man, you can send me, Lord, but I'm not—I don't want to say this because I know people will repent and be saved, and I just don't want that to happen." It's almost like Jonah absolutely hated these Ninevites. Now you might say, "Well, Brett, they were horrible people it sounds like, skinning people alive."

So he had a right to hate them. But isn't it interesting that the Lord actually cares about the Ninevites so much that he raises up a prophet, Jonah, just for them? That humbles me. That sobers me up. I wonder, are there people groups that we kind of say, "Well, they've kind of made their own bed and so they're sleeping in it." What about Islam?

Our culture and our United States, we're sort of acting like Islam's this wonderful religion. And I'm still going to say it's not. It's a false religion. It's not a peace-loving, wonderful religion. It's a made-up cult that is wacko. "Well, that doesn't sound very loving."

Well, there's a difference between Islam the religion, but then Islam the people. I believe God loves them and wants them to be truly saved. And the comparison between Christianity and Islam is so amazing. Allah is this capricious god who cannot be figured out. And he might be in a good mood or a bad mood and good luck with that. That's kind of the Islam view.

We serve a God that can be known and is gracious and merciful and kind-hearted and compassionate and forgiving of sin. Do we care about the Muslim? Do we care about sharing the gospel? "I don't want to offend them, Brett. They're really convicted in their own religion." Well, their own religion is going to lead them directly to hell, which is heartbreaking.

And the Lord loves them. It's interesting, by the way, around the world there's some great revivals going on in Muslim countries. Even Iran. Iran has a revival. And it's not within the leadership of Iran, they're the imams and the mullahs and all these people. But the Iranian people, there's a bunch of Christians.

And these people, by becoming a Christian, they're putting their life on the line. But the Lord's doing a work there. There's a work going on in Afghanistan and in Iraq. These Muslim nations, we're seeing Christians, people become Christians. It's kind of an amazing thing. And I love that Muslims can be saved, and they are being saved.

And there's people that are called to share the gospel around the Muslim world. That's an amazing thing to me. I love that. Islam means submission. That's what it means. Submit to Allah. But I love how being a Christian, Jesus laid down his life for us. And that's the good news.

So interesting. We see here he's called to go and he says no. And these are the main reasons, I think, he's disobeying. Possibly. Don't know for sure. Number four is kind of a sure thing that he really had no heart for the Ninevites. He said, "Whatever, I don't care about them, and I don't want to go because if I speak my eight words that I'm supposed to speak, then they're all going to repent." And he says, "I don't want that."

That's interesting. We'll see that in chapter three. But be that as it may, let's go on to verse three. It says, "But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish." And notice what it says, "from the presence of the Lord." And then at the end it says he went down to the ship to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.

When you are going in the wrong direction of what God has for you, you're leaving kind of behind his presence in your life. Do you know that? Do you remember when I shared with you Matthew 28, the Great Commission? Just a few minutes ago I shared you that scripture. Well, let me show you it again.

But notice what it says at the end of that. When it says there in verse 20 we're supposed to go into all nations, baptizing, teaching, "Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen." When is the Lord with you? Always. When you're doing what? Going into all the world, preaching the gospel.

At the end of Mark, it says, "Go and preach the gospel." But it also says at the end of Mark, when you go into the world and you're preaching the gospel, you could handle deadly serpents and you won't die. You might drink deadly poison and you won't die because I'm with you and I'll protect you as you're going.

Now, there's some goofy churches in the deep South that handle serpents in church because they think it says you can handle deadly snakes and you'll be fine. But they missed the context. That means when you're in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso and there's a snake that comes up, the Lord will protect you from those snakes. The Lord protects us when we're in those things.

I love it. "Lo, I am with you always." One guy was fearful of flying and he was a Christian guy and his buddy said, "Man, you're a Christian. Why are you afraid of flying? Matthew's gospel chapter 28 verse 20, the Lord says, 'Lo, I am with you always.'" L-O-W? No. L-O. Different.

But anyway, the Lord is with us always. And I love that because when we're doing what God calls us to do, he goes with us. We're in his presence. But I find it interesting that two times the Lord reminds us when Jonah said no and he did an about-face and went the opposite direction, he was leaving the presence of the Lord. And the Bible makes a real point of that. I think that's important.

Well, let's take a look at verse four. "But the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken. Then the mariners were afraid, and cried every man unto his god, and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten it of them. But Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship; and he lay, and was fast asleep. So the shipmaster came to him, and said unto him, 'What meanest thou, O sleeper? Arise—'"

Same Hebrew word there in verse two. Arise. Now the shipmaster's saying the same thing to Jonah. "'Hey, get up, let's go, let's roll. Call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not.' And they said every one to his fellow, 'Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us.' So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah."

Don't you love how the Lord uses these weird practices of these people? "Oh, you want to cast lots? Okay, I'll make it work out. You want to know who? Okay, cast your lots and I'll make that happen." It's like the Lord. In our rebellion, God sends storms, saints, and sinners. Do you understand that?

When you are rebelling against the Lord, don't be shocked when God has a path for you and you're on a whole 'nother path. God will send in your life storms, saints, and sinners. What do you mean, Brett? Well, did you notice it says there, "But the Lord sent out a great wind in the sea." This storm came from God. And sometimes God himself will cause things not to go perfectly in your life because he wants to wake you up and change your direction.

Have you ever had a day where you just sense there's everything's going in the opposite direction? Have you ever been on the highway on the road? Like one day you can go out there and everybody's waving to each other and being kind and letting you go first. And then the next day people are flipping you off and cutting you off and mad at you.

Have you ever noticed that? Like one day from another can be very different. And then that whole day it's just like, "Why is everything going so badly today?" You might want to say, "Lord, am I on the wrong path today? Are you sending the storm?" Sometimes God himself will send the red light.

"Why have I hit every red light today?" The Lord's thinking, "Because I want you to stop and pray at each red light. It's time to seek my face when you're racing to your destination." I wonder. Does the Lord send red lights? I think he does. But he also sends saints, other believers to come alongside of you and help you when you're in your bad rebellion.

Host (Male): Pastor Brett Meador drawing important insight into the Lord's persistence of grace, drawn from the very vivid example of the prophet Jonah, from today's word. And we hope you'll be along next time for the continuation of this study series in Jonah. And also stay right there as Pastor Brett will join me to help us with a question that many Christians struggle with.

But first, our teacher Brett Meador is the senior pastor of Athey Creek Church in the Portland suburb of West Linn, Oregon. If you've missed any portion of our time today, you can find this message online at TodaysWordRadio.com. That's TodaysWordRadio.com. All right, I have Pastor Brett with me.

Reading God's word, the Bible, is obviously very important for Christians to grow in their faith. But what about a person who struggles finding the time? Brett, what advice can you share with that person, where to start, and how to remain consistent in reading God's word?

Brett Meador: I think I'd like to encourage people to start with low pressure. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. I think the Bible is so huge and people feel like, "Well, I've got to read a lot." And I've noticed there's a lot of people even with dyslexia or comprehension issues and they just throw it out and say, "I can't read the whole Bible."

But I would encourage you start small. Start with just saying, "I'm going to read three verses every day." Or if you're a good reader, one chapter a day. And I wouldn't start in Leviticus. I would maybe start in the Gospel of John. What a beautiful expression of Christ and the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So start in John. Some people start in Genesis, but that's a heavy lift. But it is interesting. Take your time and I think day by day, daily in the word. Remember the people of Israel would get up in the morning there in the wilderness wanderings and they'd see manna in the morning.

And they got manna daily and what happened if they tried to store up the manna? It would grow worms and get stale and ugly and moldy. What they needed to do is daily get fresh food. I think that's what we need from the word of God. To daily take small bites and see how the Lord might just use that. But the word will always reward you.

Host (Male): That's such a practical and really encouraging way to think about getting into a daily reading program of the Bible. Thank you, Pastor Brett, for that. Well, I want to mention that if you'd like more information about Pastor Brett Meador or today's word, just go to TodaysWordRadio.com. Well, that's all the time we have. Next time Pastor Brett Meador will continue in the book of Jonah, and we'll find Jonah discovering how rebellion carries consequences. Today's word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.