GYC SE 2012: Not Very Far

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GYC Southeast

Doug Batchelor

The Sign of Jonah

Thank you for coming, friends, and happy Sabbath.

We are very grateful for the privilege of being able to come here to the university again and to open the Word of God and are especially looking forward to the programs this fall, next October, where we're going to be talking about the ultimate purpose and how to take theory and bring it into experience and I hope even now you'll be praying for that.

It's something that we're going to be recording, presenting and broadcasting here and inviting university and college students around the country, around the world really, because it will be broadcast around the world from your campus to participate.

And so even now I hope that you'll be praying for that, that God will do something wonderful both here and abroad with this special series that was designed to focus on what is the ultimate purpose in life.

And I want to talk a little bit about that this morning in addressing the nearness of God and that everywhere you go God is there and that every word of God is true and you can believe it.

There's power in this book that changes lives and it helps us become aware of the nearness of God.

I remember hearing an interesting story years ago about a retired lady that was reading her Bible on a public bus.

And a man rode the bus with her frequently and he noticed that she was always reading her Bible and that troubled him because he was an atheist.

I don't know, maybe his conscience was bothering him.

And 1 day as he was standing holding on to the overhead rail and she was sitting reading her Bible he couldn't resist and he looked down at her and he said, I see you're reading your Bible again, she said, yes sir, it's the word of God.

And he said, you don't take it all literally do you?

He said, you mean to tell me that you believe that all of the stories in the Bible really happen?

And he said, so you're going to tell me that you believe the Lord created the world in 6 literal days.

She said, God's word says it, and I believe it, and that settles it.

And he said, I suppose you're going to tell me you believe that God told Noah to build a big boat and 2 of all the animals were put on that boat.

She said, absolutely, God can do anything, I believe it.

He said, and I suppose you're even going to tell me that Jonah was swallowed by a whale and he lived inside that whale for 3 days and 3 nights.

And she said, the Bible says it, I believe it.

He said, how can a man live inside a whale for 3 days and 3 nights?

And he said, well what if Jonah isn't in heaven?

Well I'm 1 of these people who really does believe every word.

I used to be an atheist or at least an agnostic.

It depended on what day you asked me, but I certainly didn't believe the Bible was true, and I believe that all the stories in the Bible were fables and fairy tales, but that's not the case anymore.

And I believe The story of Jonah is 1 of the most important passages in the Bible, indeed in the scripture reading, Our Lord Jesus.

If you believe the words of Jesus, refer to Jonah as a true story.

And so If nothing else convinces you, the words of Jesus should convince you that he endorsed Jonah as a real event.

As true as Jesus rose from the dead, that's how true it was that Jonah survived going through a fish.

But there's a lot of also spiritual lessons in this story.

Jesus said, no sign will be given to this generation except the sign of Jonah.

That's a very important statement for Jesus to make.

By the way, He also makes that same statement in the Gospel of Luke as well.

But I want you to turn to the book of Jonah with me.

We're going to take a little marathon and see if we can get quickly through the book of Jonah and find out what it says to us today about the nearness of God for 1 thing and His plan for our lives.

You'll find the book of Jonah just after the book of Obadiah in your Bibles among the minor prophets.

Now The word of the Lord, Jonah starts in a wonderful way, starts with the word.

The word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amatei.

Jonah means dove, Amatei means loyal or true.

Jesus was spirit-filled and he was the truth.

And it says arise, the word of God lifts us.

The whole plan of salvation is summed up in 2 great utterances, Matthew chapter 11, where we are invited to come to Jesus, come unto me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I'll give you rest.

And then it's summed up in the Great Commission, go therefore and teach all nations.

It's sort of like this, everything is a love relationship, love your neighbor, it's this horizontal love relationship, and it's this vertical.

But before you can love each other, you must love God.

First you come to Jesus in this love relationship and then after you've fallen in love with Jesus you can't keep it to yourself then you go for Jesus in this love relationship.

And God said, look, there's some lost people I want you to talk to.

I want you to go and tell them so they'll turn from their sins, that there's hope.

You mean you want me to get out of the land of Israel and go talk to the pagans?

That great city, and cry out against it for their wickedness has come up before me.

But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.

And he went down to Joppa and he found a ship going down to Tarshish, so he paid the fare and he went down into it with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord." A little footnote that I think is fascinating, here you've got Jonah being told to go and to speak to the Gentiles.

And from the place where he leaves the land of Israel because he doesn't want to talk to the Gentiles, 800 years later God speaks to Peter and he tells him to go and talk to the Gentiles in the same town of Joppa.

What Jonah didn't want to do from that same town, the apostles are later told to do.

Now Tarshish was, You know, some have wondered was it the Hebrew way of saying Tarsus or was it talking about Tarshish, this further most city off the coast of Spain where they actually did metal smelting there.

Now my ears always perk up a little bit because you've heard me mention more than once that I'm half Jewish.

My mother's maiden name was Tarshish, or Tarshish as you would say, and my grandfather could never make up his mind.

Sometimes he told me I was related to the Apostle Paul, and other times he told me I was related to Jonah.

And I don't think either are true, but it always made for a good story, and I wasn't sure what to think about that.

And so he went to flee from the presence of the Lord.

It's like when our children were little and they wanted to play hide and seek.

They'd think they could hide from us by closing their eyes.

And yet some of us, we sometimes think that God isn't seeing what's happening.

Not only does He see everything we do, He sees everything we think.

We're reminded of this when we read in the Psalms.

Go to Psalm 139 and you can start with verse 7.

If I make my bed in hell, behold, you're there.

If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there your right hand shall lead me, and your right hand will hold me.

If I say surely darkness will fall over me, even the night will be light about me.

Indeed the darkness shall not hide from you." And you'll find before the story's over that even in the deepest darkness, Jonah could not hide from God.

There's nowhere that we can leave God's presence.

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The Sign of Jonah

Transcript

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