This morning, we're going to welcome Ben to the pulpit. We're taking a break from the Book of Acts for about five weeks as Ben is going to lead us through the Book of Jonah. Well, it's a pleasure to be back with you all. I've been gone for two weeks, and I really felt like I was away from home for the last two weeks. And so it's just wonderful to be back here with you all. And I'm excited to get to start a new series with you on Jonah that I've been really looking forward to since I came here in May. And I'm really excited to enter into this book with you all. So if you please turn in your Bibles to Jonah chapter one, we'll be looking at the first three verses of Jonah this morning. You're now the inspired, infallible, inerrant, authoritative Word of God given for you. 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. Thus ends the reading of God's word. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of the Lord stands forever. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you in your presence this morning through our Redeemer and mediator, Jesus Christ. We thank you, Lord, that we now have a chance to examine your holy word. Lord, give us open hearts and open ears to hear what you have to say through your word to us this morning. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. You may be seated. When I was a child, there was one time I remember that I tried to run away from home. This is the only time I remember ever trying to run away from home. I remember the details. I was sitting in my basement, and my older brother was watching me, and I, for some reason, did not like the way that he was enforcing the rules. And so my parents were gone somewhere, and I decided that now was the time to make my great escape. Now was the time to finally gain my freedom. So I decided to try to run away from home. And this great escape only lasted 10 minutes because my brother quickly found out that I was running away and caught up with me and caught me. So this one attempt to run away from home showed me that it would be futile to try that again. So I never tried to run away from home again. Probably because I knew that the food on the streets would not be as good as the food at home. So kids, remember that. You will probably not get as good food outside of your home. But, as I was thinking about this story here this morning, it reminded me that we see here in this story a prophet running away from God. we see that he's running away from God because he doesn't like how God is enforcing the rules. He doesn't like how God is running the show. He is, in fact, running away from the presence of God. That's what we find here in this story, in the first part of Jonah. Now, the phrase in this first few verses of this chapter we see brought up quite frequently is the presence of God. Jonah flees from the presence of the Lord. Now, in Latin, there used to be a commonly used phrase, Coram Deo, which means in the presence of God. To live Coram Deo meant to live your life in the presence of God, submitted to Him. And I might ask you this morning, how many of you feel as though you are living your lives in the presence of God? From the very beginning, man was created to live Ikor Amdeo, his whole life, in the presence of God. And from the very beginning, man has been fleeing from the presence of God. And God has pursued man to bring him back into fellowship with himself. And one of the ways that God has historically brought man back into fellowship with himself was by raising up prophets who heard the Word of God and spoke that Word to his people. These prophets were caught up into the presence of God, and as they received the Word of God, they were to obediently transmit this Word to his people. This was the role of the prophet in the Old Testament. And this morning, we encounter one such prophet, the prophet Jonah. And in these first three verses, we're going to see, number one, the heart of God in his command to Jonah. And then we're going to see, number two, the heart of Jonah in his response to God. So we see the heart of God in his command to Jonah, and number two, we see the heart of Jonah in his response to God. And this tale from start to finish, this short book, revolves around these two characters, God and Jonah. And in this, I want you to see how you, like Jonah, are also in need of the radical grace and mercy of God. So, That's the book in a nutshell. We see the need for the radical grace and mercy of God in this book. Now in verse one of our text, we read that the word of the Lord came to Jonah. And so here in the very beginning of our text, we are situated in a time and a place. This first verse in the word of the Lord came to Jonah is a traditional prophetic formula. It always precedes a historic prophetic oracle in the Old Testament. You can look at the Old Testament and see this phrase used over and over again to refer to prophets speaking the Word of God in a real time, in a real place. So this is important because right off the bat we know that we are dealing here with a real historical situation. This is not a fairy tale or an allegory of some kind. Over the last 100 years or so many scholars have reinterpreted the Book of Jonah such that it no longer bears any historical markings. They look at it as sort of an allegory or a fairy tale of some kind. But I want to affirm right off the bat that we are dealing here with a real historical situation. And this is also given away by the reference to Jonah, son of Amittai. Who was Jonah, son of Amittai? That's the question. It's the million-dollar question this morning. Well, this is a real historical prophet who was called to serve in the northern kingdom of Israel. And you can read about Jonah, son of Amittai, in 2 Kings 14. If you turn in your Bibles to 2 Kings 14, You can actually read about Jonah, the son of Amittai. He's a real person in a real time and place. Now just to give a little background to 2 Kings 14, if you recall, the southern kingdom had been split from the northern kingdom after Solomon had died. So there was no longer a united kingdom of Israel. And so Jonah is not serving in the southern kingdom, he's serving in the northern kingdom. And we know this because 2 Kings 14.25 references him serving one of the northern kings. Now look at 2 Kings chapter 14, I'll start reading in verse 23. It says, in the 15th year of Amaziah, the son of Joash, king of Judah, Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel, began to reign in Samaria. And he reigned 41 years. And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. He did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin. He restored the border of Israel from Lebo Hamath, as far as the sea of the Ereboth, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet who was from Gath-Hephur, For the Lord saw that the affliction of Israel was very bitter, for there was none left, bond or free, and there was none to help Israel. The Lord had not said that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, so he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam, the son of Joash. So here we see that Jonah is a prophet of God during the reign of Jeroboam II. So Jeroboam is an evil king. He has done what is evil on the side of the Lord, according to this narrative. He has repeated the sins of his fathers and the kings of Israel before him. But then we see something good happen. We see that Jeroboam restores the borders of Israel. He actually regains territory that Israel had lost to the Arameans before. And so Jonah is prophesying here in this passage, in 2 Kings 14, that Jeroboam will retake this territory and restore the borders of Israel. So here we see the king and the people of the northern kingdom of Israel sinning, and yet here Jonah comes and prophesies that something good is going to happen. Now, that's unusual. because we don't often see God sending prophets to prophesy something good happening when the people and the king are involved in sin like this. But even though Jeroboam and the people are involved in sin, God chooses to expand the borders of the northern kingdom of Israel. He chooses to bless this kingdom in spite of its rebellion. Now you can imagine that as Jonah was prophesying to Jeroboam that the Lord would give him victory as he sought to expand the borders of Israel, that Jonah grew in himself a strong desire to see the Lord bless Israel and punish Israel's enemies. I mean, can you imagine if God gave you the task of prophesying to America that America would win all of its military battles and America would expand its borders, how would this make you feel about America? you would probably become quite fond of America. And I'm sure Jonah is quite fond of Israel. I'm sure that, after all, Jonah is aware of the special place that Israel has in the plan of God. And I'm sure that Jonah knew how the Lord chose Israel from all the nations, out of all the nations of the world, to bless Israel and to be for him a special possession and a holy nation. So you can imagine how Jonah loves Israel and would not want the people of God to perish. And in 2 Kings 14, we read of how God has mercy on his people who had none to help them. So it's likely that as Jonah is prophesying, that he's also praying that God would continue to bless his people and not to wipe out Israel from under the heavens. And so, based on this section from 2 Kings, we get a glimpse of who Jonah is. What is this prophet Jonah like? And I think it would be fair to describe Jonah as very nationalistic and pro-Israel, based on this passage. Here is a man who is about as pro-Israel as it gets. He would have wanted God to make Israel great again. He would have wanted God to bless Israel as much as possible. And yet here we see in this book an irony, right from the outset of the book of Jonah, because where does God command Jonah to go? God commands Jonah to go to Nineveh of all places. Think about how Jonah would have heard that command. You can imagine almost how it would have struck him. Now, Nineveh was a great city in the ancient world. Nineveh, to orient you to this historical situation, this place and time, Nineveh, you can imagine, would have been a massive city, with massive buildings and walls to behold. It would have been something like the New York City of the Ancient Near East. The buildings there were likely very tall, And the city was huge by ancient standards. And yet, as great as the city appeared, and as massive as the buildings and walls were, this city was also greatly sinful. And so God calls Jonah, right here at the outset of this story, to go to Nineveh and preach against it, because its sins have come up before the Lord. Now this phrase, the sins being lifted up before the Lord, is a phrase that occurs throughout the scriptures. So you might be asking yourself, why is God calling Jonah to go to preach to Nineveh if its sins are coming up before him? Why doesn't God just pour out judgment on Nineveh without warning it? Well, this phrase, the sins being lifted up before the Lord, denotes this extreme degree of corporate sin. And so, like Sodom and Gomorrah in the Old Testament, Nineveh was a place where there was great wickedness. And we know that Nineveh is a wicked city based on historical records. Nineveh is the capital of the Assyrians, after all. Now, in case some of you are not familiar with the Assyrians, They are an incredibly brutal people who dominated this region in the ancient Near East during this time in which Jonah is living. And other scriptural passages affirm this. If you look at Nahum, for example, which we studied last summer when I was here, Nahum 3, 1 through 3, speaks about Nineveh's wickedness. Nahum says, "'Woe to the bloody city, all full of lies and plunder! No end to the prey, the crack of the whip and the rumble of the wheel, galloping horse and bounding chariot, horsemen's charging, flashing sword and glittering spear, hosts of slain, heaps of corpses, dead bodies without end, they stumble over the bodies.'" So here in Nahum we get a picture of what Nineveh is like. We get a picture of the Assyrian army, in fact, as they conquered countless peoples. The Assyrians were willing to do whatever it took to dominate militarily. And when they were done, they brutalized their opponents. As one commentator put it, Assyria was one of the cruelest and most violent empires of the ancient world. They would torture, dismember, and decapitate their opponents. As I looked at all the things they did to their victims, essentially, after they won their battles, I decided not to include that here this morning because the gore would be inappropriate for a service like this. Needless to say, the Assyrians were willing to perpetrate unspeakable horrors on their opponents. And it was these Assyrians who were the looming threat to Israel and the region. And Nineveh is the symbol of Assyrian oppression. So the mere mention of the name Nineveh would have made an Israelite shudder just to hear that name. And it is to this city to which Jonah is called, here at the beginning of the story. And here, God is calling Jonah to cry to Nineveh. And in the Septuagint, I think it sheds even more light on what God is calling Jonah to do, because the verb is translated as caruso, which many of you know means to preach. So literally, God is calling Jonah to preach to the Ninevites. Now again, I left you with a question hanging at the, a little bit ago, why would God call Jonah to go preach against the city of Nineveh? Well, as Jonah rightly knew, there would be no point in God sending Jonah to the Ninevites to preach to them unless God was giving them a chance to repent. So in the act of God calling Jonah to go to Nineveh to preach to them, God is giving the Ninevites a chance to repent. Later on, we know this because the Lord speaks this to Jeremiah, this idea in Jeremiah 18, 7, when he says, If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation concerning which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. So when God sends a prophet to go to a city or to a nation to declare judgment against it, God is giving that people and that city and that nation a chance to repent. If this people that God pronounces judgment on repents, this would remove the necessity for judgment. And so in this way, God's call for Jonah to go and preach against the city of Nineveh actually reveals God to be a gracious and merciful God. God's call was in a way opening up the door for the Ninevites to avert the disaster that could befall them. And in this we see the mercy of God. God does not just desire to see Israel blessed and saved and repent, but all the peoples of the world, including the most hated enemies of Israel, This is something I think we need to hear this morning. Remember what God said to Abraham in Genesis 12 verse 3. He said, I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. This is very important to understand. God's plan was never that Israel would be an end in itself. God had always desired to bless Israel in order that, through Israel, all the families of the earth might be blessed. It was not just the Israelite that God cared about, but the Gentile too. And this command to go to Nineveh shows this. We see that God cares for those beyond the borders of Israel. And so, we are given a window into the merciful and compassionate heart of God. God cares about every people group on earth. He cares about all of mankind. And I would say to you this morning, as we're here at Covenant OPC, God cares about people outside of this church. And that's important to remember. It's not just the people of God here in this church that God cares about. We ought to see ourselves and our place here in Abilene, Texas, God has placed us here in order to be a blessing to those outside the church, not just inside the church. We ought to desire to see those in our communities and those in the broader regions of this world to be blessed through us, through the preaching of the gospel. And we see a reminder of that here this morning. Jesus even said, I have sheep that are not of this fold in John. We need to remember that there are sheep not of this fold that God desires to bring in. He desires to use us to bring them into the fold. And so here, we're reminded of the mercy of God and his compassionate and gracious heart to all the peoples of the world. But if we see the mercy of God on display in this first part of Jonah, How does this interact with Jonah? How does Jonah relate to this? Well, we also see in these first two verses the rebelliousness of Jonah. So we first see the mercy and compassionate heart of God, merciful and compassionate heart of God. And then secondly, we see the rebelliousness of Jonah's heart. And how do we see this? What does Jonah do when God calls him to go to Nineveh? Well, when God calls on Jonah to go to Nineveh and to preach against it, Jonah runs. Jonah, whose name, interestingly, means dove, flies away. Jonah does not want to stay and do what God has called him to do. Jonah does what Cain does in Genesis 10-16. He tries to flee from the presence of the Lord. He says to himself, no way am I going to be a part of this mission to give the Ninevites a chance to repent. I don't want to be any part of this. Imagine how Jonah must have felt. God, you're calling me to go and preach to the Assyrians who are oppressing my people? Can't you call me to preach to any other people in the world? Surely the Assyrians don't deserve to hear your word. So you can imagine that this would have been a very difficult task for Jonah to stomach Imagine, for example, if God called a Jew to go and preach a repentance to the Nazis in Berlin in 1939 You can imagine that that would be difficult And this probably captures some of what Jonah felt at this moment Jonah sees Assyria and its dominating force oppressing his people, and he does not want to go and preach to Nineveh. And so Jonah runs. And what does he do? He tries to go as far away from Nineveh as possible. He goes down to Joppa, first of all, and then he finds a ship going to Tarshish, and he pays the fare, and gets on board a ship going to Tarshish. Now, in case any of you don't know, many scholars have located Tarshish on the southern tip of Spain. So think about that. You have Israel on one side of the Mediterranean. Tarshish is on the opposite side of the Mediterranean, okay? So this would be on the other side of the world for Jonah. And so here Jonah is and he says, I want to go as far away as I can from the place that the Lord wants me to go. And so he runs away from God. When God called Jonah to go eastward, Jonah went westward. If God had called Jonah to go north, he would have gone south. Jonah is not desiring to fulfill the word of the Lord here. Now, ironically, it is impossible to flee from the presence of God. You cannot do this, which makes what Jonah is trying to do somewhat comical. You can run, but you cannot hide from God. It is impossible to hide from the Lord. Psalm 139, verses seven through 10 affirms this when it 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." So here this psalm affirms what Jonah probably already knew, that there is nowhere that we can hide from the presence of God. God is everywhere. He's in Tarshish, He's also in Israel. And so Jonah cannot truly flee from the presence of God. And he knows that. If you see later on in this chapter, God, or Jonah tells the sailors that God is the God of the sea and the land. So Jonah knows that God is God everywhere. You can't flee from God. So what is Jonah doing? Well, perhaps the best way to sum up what Jonah is doing is that he is fleeing from the felt presence of the Lord. He knows what God wants him to do. He knows how to obey God, and yet he chooses not to do it. He chooses to do the exact opposite of what God wants him to do. He knows what he ought to do to please God, and yet he chooses to refuse to do that thing. He has a sense of the moral presence of God weighing down upon him, but yet he rejects that. I think some of you would know what this is like. I know what this is like. Perhaps some of you today are fleeing from the presence of the Lord. Perhaps there is something that you know that the Lord wants you to do, but you won't do it. Or perhaps there is something that you know that the Lord doesn't want you to do that you want to do and keep on doing it. Perhaps your own conscience is convicted on some point that you are pushing down. You're saying, no Lord, not there, anything but that. Then you know what Jonah's going through, if you've ever experienced that. Jonah has a sense of the presence of the Lord in terms of what God wants him to do, but yet he won't do it. And we as Christians know this. We know what this is like. And there's an observation that I want to point out here, which is that Jonah is a servant of the Lord. He is one of God's people. He knows the moral law of God. He's not outside the covenant people, and yet he still chooses to sin. Now, what does that tell us? Well, for one, it tells us that God's servants can still sin. You are not beyond sin as a Christian. We Christians still sin, and that's important to remember. Just because you are a Christian doesn't mean that you are not sinful anymore, nor that you don't struggle with sin. You will struggle and wrestle with sin as a Christian. I love how the Westminster Confession of Faith puts this in chapter 17. It's speaking on the perseverance of the saints. And you know this point, which is that God's children will persevere to the end, that God does not allow his elect children to fall away from him. You can't lose your salvation if you're one of God's children. But this doesn't mean that you won't struggle with sin in your life. In Article 3, it says this. Now listen to this, this is a long quote, but I think it's worth our attention here. It says, nevertheless, they may, which is God's children, they, through the temptations of Satan and of the world, the prevalency of corruption remaining in them, and the neglect of the means of their preservation, fall into grievous sins. And for a time, continue therein, whereby they incur God's displeasure, and grieve His Holy Spirit, come to be deprived of some measure of their graces and comforts, have their hearts hardened and their consciences wounded, hurt and scandalize others, and bring temporal judgment upon themselves. This is an important truth to remember. God's children can fall into grievous sins, and even continue in those sins for a time. and have their hearts hardened and their consciences wounded and bring judgment upon themselves. This is very serious language. How is it that Christians are capable of this? Mark Twain once said, we are all like the moon. We all have a dark side. We don't want anyone to see. And this is true of Christians. We have a dark side. We have a sin nature, which still resists God. And each one of us struggles with sin in a particular way. And it is possible for each of us to hear the Word of God and to sit under the preaching of the Word and yet to flee from God. Perhaps there was a time this week that you fled from the Lord. Perhaps it was the way that you spoke to your spouse or your children or your friend. Perhaps it was how you thought of someone else. Perhaps it was something that you did in secret that you didn't want anyone to know about. The same impulse to flee from God exists in all of us, and we struggle with this daily. We all have a choice daily whether or not we will flee from the Lord or choose to submit to Him. And we all have fled from the Lord, and we all have disobeyed and rejected His commands for us. There are so many ways in which we flee from the Lord and flee to Tarshish. And there is always a ship that wants to take you to Tarshish. Satan will always provide a way for you to flee from God, if you are willing to pay the fare. Just as God is always able to give you a way to escape sin, Satan is always ready to help you to run away from God. And we see this here in this passage. And that's what Jonah does. Jonah cannot bear to go and preach to these evil pagan Ninevites. Jonah's sin is that he cannot imagine the grace of God poured out on these wicked evil pagans. Jonah's sin is really a sin of self-righteousness, hypocrisy. You can imagine Jonah thinking of himself as the true righteous person here. You know, God can't give his grace to those evil, sinful Ninevites. He should be blessing us Israelites, we who have so well followed his law. And ironically, it's the mercy of God here in this text that provokes the perversity in Jonah's own heart. And so Jonah flees. He gives in to his own depravity. He gives in to his own hard-heartedness. And we see Jonah here going down. He goes down to Joppa, then he goes down into the ship. And each step away from the Lord is a step towards disaster and death. Jonah is called to go preach a message of repentance to the Ninevites. And yet, ironically, it is Jonah who needs the message of repentance. And one of the main themes of this story is God confronting Jonah with his own hard-heartedness and lack of compassion. And in Jonah's rebellion, we get a glimpse of our own rebellion towards God. So what are we rebellious sinners to do? How do we return to God when we have fled from Him? Well, in this passage, we see Jonah, who is the wayward prophet who flees away from the presence of the Lord. But there is one prophet who does come from the presence of the Lord to restore us and to bring us back into fellowship with God. We see in this story a prophet who does not fulfill his calling. But this shows us the need for a greater prophet who does not flee from the presence of the Lord, but who comes from God's presence to draw us back into fellowship with God. And this is Jesus. I want you to see here the contrast between Jonah and Jesus. Jesus is the perfect prophet who does everything that the Father asks him. He does not shirk the call of God. He dutifully obeys the call of God. and leaves his heavenly throne and crosses the barrier of time and space to reach sinful people. Jesus is the prophet who always does what is pleasing to the Father, always seeking to do the Father's will, always being willing to do whatever it takes to keep the commands of God. And it was He who took upon Himself the judgment that we deserve for fleeing from the presence of the Lord. Jesus was obedient even to death on the cross. And He is the faithful prophet who suffers the penalty for those who flee from the presence of God, for the disobedient servants of God. So, if you are someone who has fled from the presence of the Lord, you are in the right place, because there is a remedy for that. Christ gives you a way back to God after you have fled from him. Christ, in this way, is the ultimate prophet and missionary who overcomes all barriers to reach a sinful and wicked people. And it is in him that you are called to trust. When we contrast Jonah with Christ, who is the true and better prophet, the gospel shines all the more clear. Jesus' perfections become all the more clear. And this is the remedy for those who have fled from the Lord, for those who have rejected what God has called you to do. God has pursued you. Jesus has paid for your rebellion. And now he has given you a way back to the Father. This is the wonderful grace of God to us in Christ Jesus, that even when we flee from Him, that He brings us back to Himself. And as you're reminded of your sin this morning, and how you have fled from the presence of the Lord, flee to your Savior, Jesus Christ, who has perfectly fulfilled all the commands of the Lord, and brought you into His presence. Remember the sinless perfection of Jesus Christ and that you are clothed with that as you believe in him. As you trust in him, he clothes you in his perfect robes of righteousness. And in this, you are brought back into the presence of God. And in this way, you are called, you are enabled to live Coram Deo before the presence of the Lord. And as you remember this, this allows you to draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that you may receive mercy and grace to help you in your time of need. Know that you can bring any trial or trouble to the Lord because he has forgiven you of your sins in Jesus Christ. Know that you will never be cast out of his presence because of what Jesus Christ has done for you. And this, this enables you to run to the Lord instead of flee from Him. Seek your Savior, Jesus Christ, who is the true and better Jonah. Amen. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for Jesus Christ, who did not flee, but obeyed you perfectly, Lord. He has come to us lost sinners, who have needed salvation, and he has opened for us a way back into the presence of God. Thank you for our Savior, Jesus Christ, to whom we can trust. Thank you for all of this. In Jesus Christ's name we pray, amen.