Running from God
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Verbatim Transcription (Fillers Removed and Formatted for Readability)
I wonder what you think is the silliest thing in the book of Jonah. Sometimes in real life you hear things that are just plain silly. Sometimes they don't sound silly at the time but in retrospect they sound ridiculous.
In 1927 Harry Warner of Warner Brothers fame was told that soon the world would have movies with sounds. Harry Warner said, "Who the heck wants to hear actors talk?". In 1962 Deca Recording Studios were given a demo tape of a very new band that were hoping for a contract and the Deca executive said, "We are not going to sign them because we don't like their music, we don't like their sound and guitar music is on the way out". The band, it was the Beatles. In 1981 Bill Gates, when he released his first personal computer, reportedly said, "640 kilobytes of memory ought to be enough for anybody". Some doubted whether he actually did say that, but it's a good story. It does sound silly. You hear some pretty silly things, don't you, and tucked away in this passage in Jonah chapter 1 is one of the silliest things: Jonah runs away from God.
You know it's silly because how anyone could seriously think they could run away from God is bizarre. So here we are, we're in the book of Jonah for October. The book of Jonah is just a tiny little book. It's only two pages pretty much in the red bibles. If you're used to finding the passage with the open flip method, you know roughly where it is and you just thumb through the pages and hope you'll find it, you'd probably give up trying to find Jonah. It's only two pages; it's a little bit like trying to find a needle in a haystack. I tried looking for it even yesterday and couldn't find it. I had to go to the contents page. Turn to page 916 of the Red Bibles. It's a tiny book, but Jonah is very, very famous. Why is Jonah so famous when there is just two pages of Jonah in the Bible? It's the same reason that Noah is famous. It's because of the animals.
That's why Jonah is famous. I think it was W.C. Fields who said, "Never work with animals or children". Why? Because the animals or the children always steal the show. I think that's what's happened here. The reason we know so much about Jonah is because of Jonah and the whale. But if you think this is just about Jonah and the whale, then you'll miss that it's actually about God and us. Although we're going to read about Jonah and the whale and we're going to think about that, it's really about God and us. And today, running from God, as Dy has hinted at and introduced, that's what we're thinking about.
You see it there in Chapter 1, verse one. "The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amiti, 'Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me'". It's pretty clear: God says to Jonah, "I want you to go to the city of Nineveh and preach against it". But Jonah runs completely the other way. God says, "Jonah, go to preach". Jonah says, "No way," and he runs away from the Lord and the Lord's plan. He runs to Japa, gets on a ship bound for Tarshish, which is the complete opposite direction. It's like God says, "I want you to go to Ularoo to preach," and Jonah says, "I'm going to Tasmania". Complete opposite direction.
Why does he run? There's a whole lot of reasons why he runs. The answer in part is that he's scared. I was reminded of a story of a man door-knocking during the Billy Graham crusade. He knocked at a door and the door opened to this room full of very, very large and scary-looking humans with beards and tattoos and leather. He said, "Who wants to come to hear Billy Graham?". And this enormous bikie turned around to the room and said, "Hey boys, who wants to go and hear Big Billy?". "If you should lose your life for my sake" were the words that came to mind. Jonah scared.
The city of Nineveh was located where the city of Mosul now is in Iraq. The city of Nineveh at the time was the greatest city of the Assyrian Empire, and the Assyrian Empire was dominant. He is thinking these are Gentiles, they're non-Jews, they're our enemies, and they are very, very dangerous people, and so he's scared.
You might be able to understand why Jonah runs. You might be able to sympathize with being fearful. You might be able to empathize with him, but it's a crazy thing to do because how can you run from the living God?. How is that possible?.
It doesn't stop people, though, does it?. People can try and run from God in all sorts of ways, or try to. Too cool for God. Too busy for God. Too smart for God. Some people use their intellects to try and run away from God. "Don't be so silly, how can you believe there's just one God?". "In a multicultural society, there are just so many. How could I possibly know which one to choose?". Sometimes it sounds like I can choose God like I choose Uber Eats. "What am I going to have tonight? There are so many choices. How can I possibly say one is correct?". Some people even use religion to run away from God, to escape the real and true and living God.
It's not always conscious the way we do it, and the way we do it is often very, very complex. Often the real reasons and motives and the way it works is it's often hidden even to ourselves. But it's something we humans do. Was that not the problem in the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve hid from God?.
Jonah tries to physically run. He boards a ship (verse 3). A storm springs up (verse 4). The crew pray to various gods (verse 5). They're not quite sure what's going on, so they cast lots to try and work out what's going on, a very superstitious practice. The lot falls to Jonah and they say to him in verse 8: "What have you done? Tell us who is responsible for making all this trouble for us. What kind of work do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?".
Jonah says in verse 9, "I'm a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land". You can almost imagine them saying, "You are in a bit of trouble, aren't you, old son?". This terrifies them. "Jonah, we have a big problem here. How can you run from that God?".
- How can you run from the God who made the atoms that made the trees that made the boat that's carrying you away from him?.
- How can you run from the God who made the oxygen that you're breathing?.
- How can you run from the God that made the blood that is coursing through your veins?.
- How can you run away from the God who sees every corner of the globe, who knows every hair on every head, who knows when every sparrow falls, who knows every inmost thought and desire?.
How can you run from a God like that?.
A few months ago I was a bit of a loose end. I thought to myself, "I need some entertainment. I need to watch something deep and intellectually stimulating". So I watched Arnie in The Terminator, that great movie from the 1980s: Terminator 1, 2, and 3. Arnold Schwarzenegger acting like a robot, which is the way he acts most of the time. The plot is very simple: there is this cyborg from the future who's come back into the 20th century, and he's trying to chase the hero of the future down and get rid of him before he grows up to be the hero. And this cyborg is just unstoppable. There is this sense of inevitability. Nothing stops this; you can slow it down but you just can't stop it, it just keeps coming.
I think that's a little bit like God and Jonah here in Jonah Chapter 1. God is unstoppable. The difference, of course, between this and my movie watching is that this God is good. He's not a God of evil, he's good. The energy and the heart of God is not to destroy, but the energy and heart of God is to save.
You may know that poem by Francis Thompson, The Hound of Heaven:
"I fled him down the nights and down the days; I fled him down the arches of the years; I fled him down the labyrinth ways of my own mind; and in the midst of tears I hid from him, and under running laughter; up-vista'd hopes I sped; and shot precipitated down titanic glooms of chasm fears from those strong feet that followed, followed after. But with unhurrying chase, and unperturbed pace, deliberate speed, majestic instancy, they beat. And a voice beat more instant than the feet: 'All things betray thee who betrayest me'".
This God is unstoppable, and he's good. We might call it irresistible grace. The grace of God that can't be resisted. His heart goes out to those who are his enemies because God desires the death of no one. God raises up a prophet called Jonah, and even when Jonah is very, very, very naughty, God still works with Jonah. God could have said to Jonah, "That's it for you, I'll just go and get somebody else". God could easily have done so, but the energy in the heart of God is toward Jonah as well. He's working with Jonah. You can run from God, but maybe God just won't give up.
Jonah does nothing admirable in this whole book. In Chapter 1, the sailors are better men than he is. The sailors (verse 13 and 14) will do anything they can to try and keep him safe. They start crying out to their gods, but partway through the chapter they're crying out to the Lord. You don't see Jonah doing that. Jonah just says, "Just throw me overboard". Even there, he's not praying to God. Jonah is no hero, but God still treats him with grace and compassion because the heart of God beats on. Nothing will stop it, and it beats on and on and down through the centuries all the way to the cross where Jesus died. That's where you see the compassion and love of God most clearly, where Jesus died for us while we were his enemies. The heart of God beats on for those against him. It beats on for Jonah, and even in the depths of the sea, God fishes him where he wants him.
If you're running from God, if you're avoiding God, he can save you the easy way or he can save you the hard way. God wants it to happen, it will happen. God's plan will prevail.
C.S. Lewis in his autobiography Surprised by Joy describes him coming to God for the first time. He says this: "You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalene night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet". "That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me". "In the Trinity term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps that night the most dejected and reluctant convert in all of England". "I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing: the divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms". "The prodigal son at least walked home on his own feet, but who can truly adore that love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape". "The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation".
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your goodness, your sovereignty, your all-knowing, your all-seeing. We see that most dramatically here in this first chapter of Jonah. We are conscious, Heavenly Father, that you are very great and your plans are very great. We pray that as we study this man and how he relates to you and how you relate to him, we pray we might see something there of ourselves. We pray, Heavenly Father, that you might work with us as you worked with him, and you might draw us on through your plan. We pray this in Jesus name, amen.
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