Jonah chapter number 1 and we'll read verses 1 through to verse number 6. Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before Me." But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord. But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up. Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his god. And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep. So the captain came and said to him, "What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call out to your god! Perhaps the god will give a thought to us, that we may not perish." Let us pray. Father, we come to You now asking that You would send the spirit to stir and revive and strengthen our hearts. May we hear the word of the Lord and be faithful in obeying its every commandment. Strengthen us, we pray. Empower us by Your Spirit, we ask, in Jesus' name. Amen. We considered last time when we were in the book of Jonah, the theme of this book, which is found in the final words of chapter 2 verse 9. And that is that salvation belongs to the Lord. And throughout this book, we saw that God's hand is active in every page, in every chapter, in every verse it almost seems where there's this clear orchestration of God's activity so as to save the Ninevites, to save Jonah, to glorify His name. And we saw that God is a God who is sovereign over all, and particularly has manifested that sovereignty in the salvation of sinners. And now we come to a consideration of chapter 1 verses 1 to 6, as we get into this text together and have a look at what it teaches. Now, have you ever made a life-changing decision? Yes. If you've been married, this is a big decision that would, it changes your life. You have children, there's a big decision there that changes the direction of your life. Perhaps negatively, you made a decision to disobey the Lord in some area and it really shaped and changed your life. Perhaps you took on a job that you knew didn't honor God, that would keep you outside of the house of God and away from the people of God. And you look back at your life and think, man, that was a bad decision. I have, I have suffered much and immensely because of that. Maybe you have made a decision to, for example, take up an offense that you shouldn't have taken up and it set you on a trajectory that was downward, that your life seemed to spiral, as it were, and you realized, man, this thing's bad, I shouldn't have made that decision. And the list could go on, all in our own personal experiences of the various decisions that we have made that have changed as it were the course of direction in our lives. Well, this book opens up with a decision that Jonah makes that affects the course of his life. A decision that he makes in response to the word of God that shapes the rest of this story. And we ought to therefore take heed to what decisions we make when we are confronted by the word of God. The passage starts with these words, "Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying." You could almost open up every prophet, major prophets, minor prophets, and something to this type of statement will be found there. The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, the word of the Lord came to Micah, the word of the Lord came to, and you can go through the various prophets and you can see the word of the Lord coming to them. And sometimes the word of the Lord would tell them to go preach this message to this people. Other times the word of the Lord will come to them and tell them, go and do this thing, even though preaching is the doing, but say these things or to go and perform these things. Ezekiel was a prophet that that did that. He had to lie on his side for so many days and all these kind of things as an illustration of what God was going to do to the nation of Israel, to the people of Judah. Now, here the word of the Lord comes to Jonah, and we find what is not so often found among God's prophets. We find Jonah's disobedience as being the response. Now, I want you to understand that when the Bible says these words, "Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying," this is helping us understand that God is speaking and therefore Jonah must be listening and Jonah must be obeying. You see, the Lord speaks, and when the Lord speaks, and in this particular case He says, "Arise and go to Nineveh," God's word speaks with authority. You see, God did not make a suggestion to Jonah. God gave him a command. The command was simple and straightforward, verse 2, "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before Me." This was a call, this was a commission. There was no kind of argumentation that needed to be had here. There was no further discussion that need to be had about the wisdom of this decision. God, the sovereign Lord over heaven and earth, the King who reigns supreme over the universe, spoke and said to Jonah, "Get up and go to Nineveh." There's a mission. This straightaway reveals to us God's sovereign right and His kingship over His creation. The God who made the universe not only is sovereign in that He orchestrates and controls and governs the entire universe so that all things works out according to the counsel of His will, but more than this, this God has spoken in His word, and He speaks with authority. Meaning that He has not only the power that governs the universe, but He has the right to command all His creatures to do whatever He desires them to do. And this reminds us that when God speaks, there is immediately a call to duty that comes upon those to whom He speaks. God is our commander in chief and we are His troops. And as the old hymn says, "It is not mine to question the judgments of my Lord. It is but mine to follow the leading of His word." And this is exactly what Jonah was confronted with. We're not in a position, none of His creatures, neither was Jonah, to disobey the commands of Scripture. We're not in a position to pick and choose the commandments of the Lord. We're not meant to just say, well, this one makes sense to me, therefore I will do it. This one doesn't make so much sense to me. I don't know if I like it. Or, you know, I like to keep this many of what commandments of what God has said, but I don't want to keep all the commandments of our God. Whatever God says to His people, in covenant relationship with those people, we are bound to do all that the Lord requires and what God has said. And so here the word of the Lord comes to Jonah, saying, "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, call out against it, for the evil has come up before Me." And the word of the Lord was met with the willfulness of Jonah. So Jonah did arise, chapter 1 verse 3. But he rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. Oh, he got up all right. The call was to go to eastward to Assyria, to Nineveh, and to preach the message that God had given him to preach to those people. And that was about maybe 800 kilometers away distance, pretty far while, eastward. Jonah rose and went westward to Tarshish, which was Spain, some place nearby Spain, 5,000 kilometers away. Call eastward, goes westward. Wow. The litmus test of a person's surrender is how they respond to the word of God, wouldn't you agree? God speaks to Jonah, straight away the wrestle comes into Jonah's heart. We've all felt this in some regard, I'm sure. And the truth comes to Jonah, the word of the Lord comes to Jonah, this is God's word, is authoritative. I can't pick and choose the commandments of the Lord. And Jonah is at the crisis point. The dividing line has been set by the authority of Scripture and by the word of God. And Jonah makes his decision, and that is to travel west rather than east. That is to travel away from the place where God wanted him to go. Now, physically, this was, as I said, a really long journey. Sydney to Perth, just for a bit of perspective, is 3,900 kilometers. He went further than that without a car. We're on a ship, didn't have those fancy engines that they have today either. And it was no Fair Star daydream holiday resort ship either. The point being, Jonah flees from the presence of the Lord, demonstrating that Jonah wants to be king of his own life, not submit himself to the authority of the word of God. And so he goes to Tarshish and he flees from the presence of the Lord. By the way, the trip to Tarshish is about four to six weeks travel, they say, and it would have cost Jonah something between three to six months wages, so estimates. Pretty serious rebel. He really didn't want to go obviously. But it's amazing what people will do with their resources that God has given them to go on disobeying God. Here we see that in the life of Jonah. And so physically he makes this long, expensive journey 5,000 kilometers away from the presence of the Lord, away from the place where the Lord wanted him to go, and he makes his way to Tarshish. But spiritually, the direction of his departure is not a matter of going westward or eastward. The point of the passage is to show that the direction of his departure was away, that is away from the presence of the Lord. This was really what Jonah was seeking to do. He wasn't just wanting a nice holiday and going on a long trip for a holiday. This was a movement of rebellion in his heart spiritually moving away from the presence of the Lord. And that statement is mentioned three times in this one chapter helping us realize that this is the real issue at play here. Jonah is moving away from the presence of the Lord. Now, what does that mean? Because Jonah would have been quite versed in the Old Testament Scriptures and would have known this Psalm that says, "Where shall I go from Your presence?" As Psalm 139 says, "Where shall I go from Your spirit, or where shall I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me and Your right hand shall hold me." Jonah knew that the God that he served was king over all the universe and that the heavens of the heavens cannot contain Him. So what does it mean then that Jonah then flees from the presence of the Lord? I think the best way to understand this is that the language describes to us the guilty conscience of a rebellious person that wants to flee all things God even though they understand God is everywhere. See, Jonah was moving away from the presence of the Lord, and I think there's a indication here that he was moving away from Israel. Now, what does that mean? Well, the temple was in Israel, the worship of God was in Israel, the feasts of God were in Israel, the name of God was known and proclaimed in Israel, the worship of God was there in Israel. Jonah would have to participate in the feasts of the Israelites when he was there, and Jonah's like, I want to get out of the place where I'm going to hear the name of God, see the name of God, have to participate in the things of God. I want to go as far as I can to a nice pagan place where I can put God somewhere in the back burner and not worry about Him at all. Jonah knew that me being out of fellowship with God would be made much more uncomfortable if I'm around God's people, in God's city, hearing God's word, seeing the feast which will all continually point to the fact that I'm out of fellowship with God and need to come back and obey this God that I worship and I fear. And so really this is the language of rebellion. Moving away from the presence of the Lord is Jonah seeking to escape all things God, even though he knows that he can't really escape God physically. God is everywhere. This rebellion is described also in the text as a downward direction. He goes down to Joppa, he goes down into the inner parts of the ship, and eventually he goes down into the depths of the sea. The author, I believe, uses this language to show this is the direction. He is moving down. Away from God, away from His presence, into his own little bubble where he feels that he can shut out God and safely go to sleep in a state of complacency and escape all things God. But the truth is, Jonah could put God out of his thoughts. Jonah may be able to put God out of his daily activities. God may be able to put Jonah out of his relationships, just like you and I might be able to do this morning. But you cannot put God out of the world in which He governs and rules. You may, as it were, flee His manifest presence, because you don't like the manifest presence of God that awakens your conscience to your sin and makes you feel guilty and sinful and dirty and unholy before Him, but you can never remove yourself from the omnipresence of God which is everywhere. Perhaps you're like that here this morning. You're fleeing all things God, but you cannot escape God. God fills the universe. He's in control. He is sovereign over all. And Jonah's willfulness would not put God out of the universe. His willfulness may put God out of his mind, may put God out of his relationships, may put God out of his sphere. He may go to a place where he doesn't have to hear about God, but the one thing that Jonah cannot do, the one thing that you cannot do this morning is put God out of the world in which you live. God is here. But the Lord is met with the wind of God. And verse number 4 begins with this word, "but." But the Lord. What does verse number 3 begin with? But Jonah. You see what's happening here? God gives a command and says, "Jonah, arise, go to Nineveh, preach the message that I've called you to preach to the to the Ninevites." But Jonah arises, flees as far as he can from the presence of the Lord, evading all things God. And the Bible then goes on in the very next verse to say, "But the Lord." Now, we should look at this but the Lord as a gracious but the Lord. This is a redemptive but the Lord. Just imagine with me for a moment if God just let Jonah go all the way to Tarshish and let Jonah have his way and God removed His presence from Jonah and didn't chase Jonah and didn't pursue Jonah, what would be the end of Jonah? An apostate prophet perishing in the lake of fire for all eternity because he did not obey the voice of God. A man living a miserable life all his days with a heavy, guilty conscience because he knows that I'm out of fellowship with God and I'm not enjoying that abundant life that God has provided for those that love Him. He flees from the presence of the Lord, but the Lord by a gracious operation of His sovereign power sends the wind. But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea. And there was a mighty tempest, verse 4 says, on the sea so that the ship threatened to break up. Instead of God giving Jonah up to his own devices and letting Jonah eat the full fruit of his labor which would result in his death and apostasy, instead, God graciously chastened Jonah. And the book of Hebrews says this, "The Lord disciplines the one He loves and chastises every son whom He receives." This is a token of God's love towards Jonah that He will not let Jonah go. O love that will not let me go, I rest my weary soul in Thee. Here is love, here is mercy, here is grace that takes the rod and drives it to the back of Jonah and says, "Jonah, Jonah, obey and listen to my word." And it comes in the form of a wind that causes a great disaster there on the sea, that gets everyone on the ship freaked out, "What is going on here, we're going to perish." But Jonah's sleeping. Sleeping down in the ship. Now Jonah is a representative of the disobedient Christian. You see, God's word and God's call and God's commission has come for His people, for His church. We've been saved by grace. We're called to live a life that preaches this grace to others and that lives in the power of this grace day by day to let our light so shine before men that they may see our good works and glorify our Father which is in heaven. God's church, God's people have been told in New Testament language to arise and go to Nineveh, the Gentiles. Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. The commission has been given to the church of God to live and preach and to make known the mysteries of the grace of God. And along with that commission and commandment has a whole other bunch of commandments found in the New Testament for God's people. And these are not optional extras to the Christian gospel. It's not like God is saying, "Hey, I saved you by grace. Now you can live however you like, but you know what, I've got a couple of things that if you could really do this for me, it would be nice and I think it'll work out okay." No. The God that called you from darkness into His light, the God that took you out of the kingdom of darkness and translated you into the kingdom of His dear son, the one who saved you by grace, cleansed you from sin, and put His spirit within you, He owns you. You're His. You've been bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which belongs to God. And this God who saves, says, "Now you are mine. Now live for My glory. Obey My commandments. Preach My gospel so that the world might know that there is a God in heaven that lives and reigns forever that saves sinners. Make Me known to the people around you. Preach Me to your people, people in your sphere, in your circle, in your workplace. Go and tell your family. Go to Nineveh as it were and speak My word. He may even say to you, go overseas and speak My word to a foreign land. He might tell you go and speak your my word to your neighbor. However that applies more specifically in our lives, as a general truth and a commandment we have been given, the great commission, to make known the gospel of Jesus Christ so that sinners might know where they find might find bread for their hungry soul. And that is not an optional extra to the gospel. That is meant to be the fruit and power of the gospel. So that a fleeing to Nineveh and running from the presence of the Lord might only prove that you have never known the Lord. Not in all cases, but it might only demonstrate that you do not know this God or you have not tasted of His grace. You see, the way that the New Testament works is that God so transforms us by the power of His spirit internally within us, He puts new desires in us so that we might serve Him and live for Him. And a refusal to obey the word of God is always, as I said, a litmus test of a person's relationship to God. Whether it be one of temporary rebellion in a certain area of his life, or maybe it might just be the reality that you do not know Him. And the Christian's resistance to the word of God is much more sophisticated than Jonah's. I kind of like Jonah's honesty in some respect. You know? I mean, it's crazy. Fleeing westward as far as you can, getting on a ship, going out there. It's a real clear rebellion against God. I'm not justifying that in the slightest. But we're a little bit more sophisticated than Jonah, aren't we? We like to rebel against God while sitting in His house. We like to use Christian lingo. We don't like to necessarily evade all things God, we like to evade some things God. Because then we can justify that we're doing okay in other areas and, you know, it's all good here and I can pat myself on the back here with a bit of praise and honor and glory. I can have this little pet sin in the corner of my life. I'll give God the keys to the entire house of my life except for the bedroom. You know, we we come up with sophisticated ways in which we maintain Christian lingo and and desire but really at the depths of our hearts, we're on a ship to Tarshish just like Jonah. We've got all kinds of excuses. Only if Christians were more kind, then I'd be a better Christian. Then I'd like to have some fellowship. Only if pastors were more faithful, I would be a more faithful Christian. Only if I could find a church that was perfect and the one that could satisfy all the things that I want, then I'll plug in, then I will get involved, then I'll serve God's people and love God's people and fellowship with God's people. Oh, if I knew my Bible better, then I would speak for Jesus. Maybe I should enroll in college and have a three-year Bible college course to tell someone about the gospel. No, no, no, no. That's just a sophisticated excuse and reason. Why can't you just say to someone like the blind man said, 'Once I was blind, and now I see, and this Jesus is the one who saved me.' And you know what, I can't tell you everything about this Jesus. I don't know everything yet about Him. But here's someone who can help you. If only God would give me a spouse, then I could really serve God together with someone that I love, because it's really hard now being single serving God. If I had the money, then I could give to God, then I could do God's will and do God's work. But until He gives me that, then really what can I do? What are you saying that I will obey the word of the Lord then? If that's your attitude in any way, shape or form in your life at this time, I'm telling you right now in love and care for your soul, you're on a ship to Tarshish. And Satan's ship to Tarshish is always ready to go. It's there, always there. The thoughts that you have are near your actions, and the actions that you yield to is through those temptations that come to you and you yield to them, that is just you jumping on the ship to Tarshish and fleeing from the presence of God. You're leaving the dock. And such a rebellion as this that leads to our disobedience to the word of God and sending us on a ship as it were away from the presence of the Lord, such a rebellion comes and becomes a kind of complacency in our lives. It becomes to us like a new normal. A kind of insensibility comes over us and an insensitivity, should I say, over us. We're like Jonah, asleep in the ship. You see what's happening? Jonah is asleep in the ship. He is hiding and fleeing from the presence of the Lord and he's having a sleep. It pictures this to us that he's disobeying Lord and he's sleeping on it. He's getting comfortable as it were in his disobedience. But thanks be to God, not only with Jonah, but also for the Christian that whenever we get comfortable in our sin and we're on a ship to Tarshish, the same gracious God that sends a wind to Jonah to awaken Jonah to righteousness, that he will not sin and now live for the glory of God, is the same God that sends a wind into our lives. And He seeks to awaken the sleeper. Verse number 6, so the captain came and said to him, 'What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call out to your God. Perhaps the God will give a thought to us that we may not perish.' Here is a pagan telling Jonah how to respond to trials. Here is a pagan telling Jonah, "Hey, this is what you need to do when trouble comes your way. Jonah, you need to cry out to God." I don't even know who this God is, a little g God, obviously not Jonah's God, but whoever that God is for you, Jonah. Like, what are you doing sleeping? We're perishing here. You're in the bottom of the boat, you're living for your own glory, your own will, your you're living in your own way, and you're not even caring about the fact that we're perishing. Get up, oh sleeper, and go talk to your God and get us out of this mess. Now, obviously, that's not the right biblical response, but pretty good from a pagan if you ask me. And so he God sometimes, I guess, in one way or another, uses an unbelieving world to awaken up a Christian, doesn't he? You've been silent in your workplace for so long, afraid to share the gospel of Jesus Christ, and then someone says, "I'm really going through this struggle in my life and I don't know, I believe there's a God out there. I don't know much and all this kind of stuff." And they're talking to you as if you're not a believer, as if you don't know the Lord. That's just God's nice, gracious wind saying to you, "Arise, O sleeper. Tell him about the love of Jesus." Here we have even the unbelieving world saying to them. You know, we get this all the time. Calamity and crisis happens in the world, war and all these things, and unbelievers are kind of thinking, "This is what we think about it and what do you think about this?" And what an opportunity to testify of the grace of God. What an opportunity to arise out of our sleep and say, "Let me tell you about why there's war in the world, because there's sin in the world." And so this is what happens in Jonah's case. God sends this wind and the wind amazingly gets the attention of the sailors before it gets the attention of Jonah. But nonetheless, he is awakened and he is confronted. God may do it that way, an external issue that happens in your life that gets your attention, or God might bring an internal wind into your life, a personal conflict, an eternal storm, a storm of your conscience, as it were, that leads you, as it does to Jonah, of a confession of God as the great and living God. And an acceptance, as in the case of Jonah, of your sin and the consequences for your sin. And you say, "Throw me into the depths of the sea. This is happening because of me." And so Jonah represents the disobedient Christian, but Jonah also represents really the human race. If you haven't picked up on it already, this is exactly what happens in the story of Adam and Eve. The word of the Lord comes to Adam and Eve saying, "You may eat of all the trees of the garden, but of this one tree, you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat thereof, you will surely die." And Adam and Eve eat in disobedience to the word of God. And what do you find Adam and Eve doing? Fleeing from the presence of God. This is the story of sin and grace. Transgression and sin, fleeing from the presence of the Lord, but the Lord. But the Lord, it says in Genesis chapter 3 verse 9, called to the man and said to him, 'Where are you?' Where are you? Here is Adam, here is Eve, fleeing from the presence of God, covering themselves with fig leaves and God graciously, but the Lord says to them, "Where are you, Adam? Where are you? Come out from your hiding. Arise, oh sleeper. Stop running. Stop covering yourself with the fig leaves that can never cause you to be right before Me and to present yourself holy before Me by your own good works. Come to Me. Confess Me as the Lord and living God. Confess your sin. Acknowledge that you have strayed from your way and submit yourself to the consequences of your sin and humble yourself under the mighty hand of God and receive His mercy in Christ." This is what God does. Where are you, Adam? Adam has to come out to the light, have his sin exposed, take off his own righteousness which is his fig leaves and accept the righteousness of God in Christ which was represented by the lamb sacrifice that God slew that animal and covered him with a proper covering. And so the story of Jonah with regards to his willfulness against the word of God is not only a picture of the Christian who rebels against God, but also of the human race who runs and flees from God when the word of the Lord comes to them. And so really the early verses of the book of Jonah teach us of this. Where sin abounds, grace did much more abound. Here is God's creation, rebelling against His word, fleeing from His presence, but here is God. Pursuing sinners, saving sinners, loving sinners, dying for sinners. Here is God as that shepherd that pursues that sheep and brings him back on his shoulders and says, "Let's rejoice." Here is that father waiting for that prodigal son to return. Here is that woman that seeks out that lost coin in her house and rejoices with her friends when she finds one. Here is grace in the middle of the depths of Jonah's sin. This is the story of God's grace toward us. Are you on a ship to Tarshish this morning, fleeing from the presence of the Lord? Does the words down and away describe your life? Down, down, down further into sin, further into lust, into pornography, into sexual immorality outside of a marriage covenant, down, down, down into substance abuse, alcohol, drugs, down, down, down into bitterness and envy and hatred, down, down, down into anger, and away and away and away from the presence of the Lord? Does that describe your life this morning, that you are going down into greed, down into manipulation, down into further lies and further disobedience to the word and commandments of God? If your life is marked now by going down and fleeing away from the presence of the Lord, I'm telling you now, brothers and sisters, I'm telling you now friends, look over your shoulder. Do you hear that? It's a storm. The storm will come for you. And when you look at that storm, do not harden your heart against God further, but realize that the storm in my life right now because of my sin is a token of God's grace to awaken the sleeper so that I can follow after Jesus Christ. The storm is sovereignly designed by God to gain my attention, to cause me to come to help me to to cast myself upon the Lord, to confess once again that there's a living God in heaven that I should worship and love and serve. To remind me that the way of the transgressor is hard. To go in your own way only leads to more pity and destruction. Return to the Lord. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. Come now, says the Lord, let us reason together. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow, and red like crimson, they shall be like wool. Our God is gracious. Our God will save. It was Tim Keller who said there is no refuge from God, only refuge in God. There is no refuge from God, only refuge in God. You can run, but you can't hide from God. And the hiding place that we are to find ourselves from the wrath of Almighty God is in God, that is in God the Lord Jesus Christ. And it is in Him that we are sheltered. It is in Him that the storm does not touch us. It is in Him that the storm actually is designed to drive us to and to get us to submit to the word of God. Brothers and sisters, let us receive the word of God as an authoritative call to obedient surrender. Do not despise this word on any grounds. Do not despise this word on the ground of your feeling. Oh, it's too hard. Don't despise this word. It is the word of God. It comes from heaven. And when God speaks, He acts. This is the mind and will of God for us. We are not in a position to pick and choose the commandments of the Lord. It is ours to surrender. It is ours to obey. It is ours to learn and to know and to set ourselves as a sacrifice, a living sacrifice upon the altar. Self-pity and pride has sent many of God's people on a ship off to Tarshish. Really, you should always ask yourself, the measure of my holiness, the measure of my surrender to God is how I respond to the word of God. And don't deceive yourself with anything else. You can feel like God's close to you, but if you love Me, keep My commandments. How do you receive commandments? How do you receive reproof and correction and instruction? Are you like Job who treasures the words of his mouth more than the portion of his own food? As God's people, let us never forget that the gospel that called us, called us to submit to the word, "Repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ." That disposition should never leave us. We are called then to a life of submission. Repentance and faith, constantly turning to God and believing all His word, not just the word of His grace in salvation. Let us pray.