If you're online, if you're listening online, we are in Jonah chapter one tonight, and we have some questions before we get to Jonah one. Shortest book in the Bible? Shortest book in the Bible? Old Testament, sorry, Old Testament. Obadiah is correct. Two is what? What's the answer to two? 31,102 what? Verses is correct. 1,189 in the Bible, how many of these? Chapters. Who's the son of Amittai? Jonah. What family relation was Joseph to Abraham? Great-grandson. Great-grandson is the correct answer. Who's the pig, fig, not pig pinching, fig pinching prophet? Amos. Amos, correct. So you say it three times fast. Fig pinching prophet. I'm just gonna say it once and leave it at that. Obadiah predicted the destruction of what country? A little harder question. Edom is correct. Yeah, if you said Edom, you did say it correctly. Amos prophesied judgment through a vision of this carpenter's tool. Plum line. The minor prophet's name means Jehovah is God. L on the end, Joel, correct, Joel. Where Abraham was willing to offer Isaac, place of Christ's crucifixion, the place, Mount Moriah, yes, where the threshing floor and possibly where Elias' head is buried. Introduction, so we find here that Jonah is found Submitting to the will of God, well, he finds it a very difficult thing to do. Let's read a few verses here as we get started. Jonah, about 775 BC, now the word of the Lord, now what does the capital L-O-R-D, all caps, mean? Who is that? Yahweh, correct. It's the Tetragrammaton, it's the Yahweh. That simply means that it's the, we would call them consonants, and then it added the vowels, so the Y-H-W-H, et cetera. Yahweh, when you add the vowels, it becomes that. Jonah then is the son of Amittai. The Lord came to Jonah saying, how in the world did this happen? How in the world did the word of the Lord come to Jonah when he may not have had any, may have had some Bible, but possibly had no Bible at all. Let's just say he didn't have any. So how did that happen that God spoke to, how does God speak to you today? But open the word, Holy Spirit speaks to us and he convicts our hearts. So if he doesn't have the Bible to pull out, how does the verbally or through a dream or through a vision? That's how God spoke in the past. There are five dreams in Matthew one and two alone. So how God speaks to dream through dreams. Some will say, I remember hearing the late, I think it's the late, he's late isn't he? He's probably not late, I think he's dead. The guy that started the 700 Club, Bill Robertson, Pat Robertson, he was, I had a vision last night, I heard him say, I had a vision last night of something, that's not, the vision that from Jehovah God okay Jehovah's God so I think it's Pat Robertson I'm pretty sure he's dead and so uh I'm not trying to wish him ill or anything but there we are so but this is different God speaks to has does God speak to anybody else in the Old Testament not from a cloud does God speak to anybody yeah Spoke to a lot of people. He spoke to Abraham in chapter 18. He appeared as a man. He spoke to Adam and Eve in the garden, right? Every night he'd come down and speak to them in the garden. Can you imagine that for a moment? Every evening, you're walking in the garden and here comes God. Wow. Yes, and they gave that up. He even spoke to Balaam. So I just want you to think, I want you to take what Bible knowledge you have learned and apply that. You can have all, I want you to do, and so when people ask, we have such a, we don't have a lot of people like you, and you have a good Bible background, keep it. Your grandchildren and your sons and daughters, they need to know what the Bible says. And you need to know that way. That's why you have it, not just to hoard it up. We are to be a can open on both ends where the spirit goes through and out to somebody else. That's why that's why you're here. That's why I'm here. God's not done with you. Do you think God could take you home in a moment if he's done with you? Yes. But you're here for a reason. So let's fulfill what God has for us. And I trust you're doing that. I believe most of you, that's what your goal is. By God's grace, we want to serve him however he would have us to serve until, it sounds like the end is near. I mean, it sounds like we're getting close. So arise, he says to Jonah, and go to Nineveh, the great city. By the way, before you think great's a good thing, Herod was called Herod the Great, so just don't get, a great city is not like always a good thing. And cry against it. Do you see two, I'm just, the two cries, just comes, what does that mean to cry, I see two things here. Cry against it to preach the gospel, and cry against it, for they won't change their ways. So cry, I don't see that necessarily, but it could be, cry against it. Yes, lamentation. For their wickedness has come up before me. That reminds you of what city back in Genesis chapter 19? We had a wickedness that came up before Solomon. So it reminds us of Hezekiah chapter four, America. Wickedness to come up before? It's not in the Bible, but if it comes up before him regarding that, why doesn't it come up before regarding us? But Jonah rose up to flee from Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. Is this a good plan? No. And went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare thereof. Now just think for a moment. A double entendre. paid the fare thereof. He not only paid with his money, he paid with his comfort for three days. So he paid the price. So running away from God, I'm just telling you, he's going to spank you. And if you can run away from God and not have any conviction, you're not one of his children. Because the Bible says clearly, for whom the Lord loves, he spanks. Not those exact words, but that's the discipline of Hebrews chapter 12. He wasted his money, and yes, what'd you say? No hiding place from God. He wasted his money. It may have cost him, I don't know. And he went down into the ship to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. Now, he had not read Psalm 139. Where shall I go from thy presence? Because there's nowhere to go. If I make my bed in hell, you're there. If I make my place in heaven, you're there. I think, though, he may well have known. What's the principle? Why would God call him in the first place if he was not God's person? Why would he call an unbeliever to, why would he call an unbeliever, yes, to share the gospel, though? Why would he call an unbeliever to preach? So that's something, but. Yes, good, yeah. I think it was a walk with God in some capacity for God to start using him. He has, but I will tell you this, an unbeliever can take God's word and read the Bible, and the Holy Spirit can convict this person's heart. And even though this person's not a believer, they can come to the Lord because it's the word of God that makes a person here. How many pastors who weren't really saved were in churches for a long time? I think of that, the guy who wrote that book, Greg, not Greg. Anyway, he said, I'm not a Christian anymore. But how many people are in his large church had come to know the Lord because the Holy Spirit spoke to them while he was preaching. I mean, they're gonna stand before the Lord and say, have we not cast out devils in your name? Have we not done this? Have we not walked up all the 16 levels on our knees and bloodied our knees? Have we not done the 14 stations of the cross? Have we not whipped ourselves mercilessly? Have we not carried a wooden cross ourselves every Easter for 15 years? We deserve heaven. We're only going to go if we know the Christ of heaven. Isn't that going to be sad? People who... Mother Teresa. If Mother Teresa doesn't rely upon God's forgiveness for her sin, even though she's so famous, she's not going to be in heaven. That's the beauty of the gospel message. Children four years old can understand how Christ died for them, and I'm a sinner. I need to trust you, Lord. I think we'll stop right there in three. So he paid the fare thereof, went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. So let's go right to our outline. We've already just sort of covered some of the things already. God's called a Jonah. I asked a question, why does God, and this is where my thinking, and I'll let you give you a chance, why did God include the book of Jonah? Why did God include, now, okay, I know he knows what's best. But what is maybe your, why did God include just one narrative? Minor prophet. It is an important book, yes. Especially when Christ quotes it in the Old New Testament. Maybe Jonah pastored the largest Baptist church in the area of Israel after this, maybe. We don't know. We don't know. He certainly pastored the largest church in Nineveh. Again, I want you to, We read the Bible and we don't sit, what have I read? That's why I started just taking one verse. Hardly anybody. Who'd wanna go? Okay, what people group today would be the equivalent of Nineveh? Muslims, New York City? These are the worst people in ancient times. In the Near East, they were the most feared, they were the most cruel, they were the most, Ugly, as far as their actions. Los Angeles. Okay. I was thinking Iran. I was thinking of Gaza. Hamas. That's exactly what I was thinking. Hamas. Going to Gaza, Hamas. I mean as a Christian. Yes. That's what God is asking Jonah to do. The first thing that's going to happen, they're going to cut off my head. Actually, they would do a lot of torturing probably before they cut off his head. And they were that kind of heinous people. And they just trampled on and just ruined the lives. They were just evil people. And so Jonah's been asked to go to this huge city. Factoid, we find it interesting the contrast. In chapter 1, Jonah is God's call to Jonah. Chapter 2, in the fish's belly, is Jonah's call to God. Chapter 1, God's plan for his man. Chapter 2, we find God's man's prayer to his God. First chapter, we see Jonah's rebellion, and the second chapter is Jonah's repentance, and in your outline, the contrast in Jonah will help us evaluate where we stand in relation to making ourselves available to God. I've had, in my previous, where I was working, I had so much more time to think about messages, and I had time to think through and study at lunchtime. I am just, it's just constant now, and so I'm not complaining. My life has changed so much, and it's easy. if you're a very busy person at your job it's easy to forget what's the real purpose and I'm spending all my hours and spinning my wheels and the most important thing is sharing God's word and being the Christian I should be but maybe God's called me to do this to have more influence I don't know but we've all got to adjust but don't let the busyness of this world rob us of the joy of this And I've got to tell myself that. And I'm right. If you're a busy person, I'm right there with you right now. And so let's pray for one another. The Lord help us not to lose. If we're cutting out this, we need to cut out something else on the other side or something and something else. So number one, the man in these times, verse one. Now, the word of the Lord came into Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, et cetera. So it's an unusual book. He was a prophet, yet there's the one little prophetic verb, verbiage. He said, yet 40 days and none of us shall be overthrown. Those were the words, but yet, as we mentioned earlier, chapter two, Jesus does go back and say, as Jonah was three days in the, it really makes sense. We'll cover it more in chapter two, but has Jesus died? Remember Jesus died? So Jonah, to make the whole thing fit, died. I think that's my personal opinion. We'll talk about it more and you can have you can read ahead on that if you want But he's a missionary didn't want to go to the mission field He saw that one of the greatest revivals is already mentioned ever and yet he was unhappy because there was revival Who is this unmasked man? Where did he live? Was he for real? What does Jonah's name mean dove? Dove? Son of Amittai, son of, do you know in the New Testament what three-letter word means son of? Bar is correct, very good. Bar-Jonah, Simon Bar-Jonah. Bar-Timaeus, son of Timaeus. And so B-A-R was son of, but here he's the son of, now I don't know what it is in Hebrew, but he's the son of Amittai. So the book of Jonah gives no other information about him. However, he is mentioned in 2 Kings 14.25, also in the New Testament in 2 Kings 14.25. It says, he restored, this is speaking of Jeroboam II, the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath into the sea of the plain, according to the word of the Lord of Israel, which he spake by the hand of his servant Jonah. the son of Amittai, the prophet, which was of Gath Heffer. So that's probably the poor way to pronounce that, Gath Heffer. But that's how it looks like to me. We don't want that one. We don't want that. Well, we do want that one. How about this one? Nay, nay, nay, nay, nay, nay. I like these maps. Thank you for getting those, Mr. Lauderdale. Time passed. We'll start using those. Here we go. I don't want that one, I don't think. So there we go. So here we have our, I like this, it's a beautiful map. We have our, right here is the Sea of Galilee, you got the Dead Sea. You got down here would be Edom, we talked about last time, Edom down in here, Dead Sea. Here is Sodom and Gomorrah, that area. All the way up here is, right in this area, right through here, is Gethsemane. So that's in the basic general area. So what part of Israel, what kingdom of Israel is way up here? Northern Kingdom. How many tribes are in the Northern Kingdom? Ten, correct. Down here is the two Southern Kingdom kingdoms, which are? Judah and Benjamin. Very good. So there we are. There's his hometown. So Jonah was, he preached for about three days. It was three days he preached and they repented. It's an amazing thing. It was also number four, the king was Jeroboam II. Now Jeroboam I was, what was Jeroboam I? He's the first king of what? Northern Kingdom, very good. First king of Northern Kingdoms, Rehoboam, Southern Kingdom, Jeroboam, the 10 Northern tribes. Jeroboam II was like the longest reigning 40 or 41 years. It was actually called the Golden Age of the Northern Kingdom. He actually was able to expand the boundaries to the Solomon David era. And so he had this huge expanded again. You would be amazed at how much the actually, I don't have it on this map, actually that Israel included under David and Solomon. Of course, here, little bit of Israel. And here is over the rivers, David, all the way to here, all the way in here was all, this is a huge amount of land, compared to that little bit right there, that's right now. All this Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, all this was Israel, David's day. And one day, I believe it will be theirs again. So all these people are gonna be converted or moved or something, but this is gonna be Israel's. And so if they're a believer, they'll rejoice in that. Can you imagine that the Palestinian believers will be, maybe they've already changed, but the Palestinians in no Christ will actually one day like Israel? We're gonna have the right heart toward everybody. And they will like us. By the way, we're only just a little bit below Israel as far as hatred. In Matthew chapter, let's look at Matthew 12, 38, please. Matthew 12, 38. And we will see, I've got glasses here somewhere already, I know. On the table, on the pew. I had them here somewhere. Oh, my face. There we go. You didn't hear anything. You didn't see anything, hear anything. Matthew chapter 12. Shows how I'm getting older, my eyes are getting worse. Here is Jonah in the New Testament. It's interesting, it was mentioned and I thought at first it was heresy. Not heresy. But I heard one of the guys I listen to all the time said he doesn't care for the red letter Bible. And I was thinking, Why not? And then he said, what people do is they take the red letters and they consider only that God's Word, because they're Jesus' words, and the rest might be up for debate. So if it's red letters, they say, you know, that's the only thing that's really God's Word and everything else. And so I never thought about it from that standpoint. Now I'm still using my red letter Bible and I like my red letter Bible, but I was a step back, well, I never thought of it like that. But I could see how people would say, you know, Jesus spoke those words, he didn't speak anything else on it. Jesus spoke it all. It's all, if you know the Bible, you know it's all his word, right? Yes, all right. But here Jesus says for us regarding this Jonah, 38 of 12 of Matthew, then certain of the scribes and of the prayer sheaths answered saying, master, we would say a sign from thee. And he answered and said of them, an evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign and there shall no sign be given it to it but the sign of the prophet Jonas for as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth and the men of Nineveh shall rise up in judgment with this generation and shall condemn it Why is Nineveh arising to the generation that Jesus is talking to? Because they will not believe him, and the Ninevites did believe God's word, and this generation that has God in the midst of them, we're not going to believe it as a whole. But be more tolerable in the days of Sidon and whatever the two cities, as it was for Yeah. Can you imagine how bleached his skin was? Yes. It was a five to six hundred mile walk. from where he was going to go, because it's over here on the Tigris River, it's just south of Mosul, wherever it is, it's over on the Tigris River, so it's like 600 mile, five to 600 mile walk from where he was over to here. So here's Joppa, and they believe that Tarshish is, I'm sorry, where's he going? Yeah, Tarsier right here, but there's a that where he's going anyway, it's maybe even on the northern part of Africa there. So Yes through the city, yeah The get to that three-day journey was like a 500 mile walk. It was a huge walk once you got the city itself was three days walk across and I have the statistic there in your I think it's in your thing. It was oh it covered the sea itself covered about 25 to 30 miles and there was a core city that was 1.5 miles and And this way it was a radius, radius, yes. Circumference was eight miles. The walls were 100 feet high, 50 feet thick, not around the three mile, but around the intercourse city was, and it was this eight miles. That's still eight, can you do an eight miles of 100 feet high walls, 50 feet thick? That's a lot of concrete. And they even had towers that reached up another 100 feet, according to historians. And so that was the city of Nineveh, a huge city. Now Philip says up to a million people. It says that the last, is it the last verse of Jonah that says there was 120,000 that didn't know the right hand from the left? Is that the very last verse? Let's look and confirm on that, because I haven't gotten that far read that far along yet. I have read the first part, but I don't think it's the last, I think it's the very last verse. It is, 411, and should not spare Nineveh, that great city wherein are more than six score thousand persons, score is 20, so six twenties is 120, so 120,000 persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, also much cattle. So they were evil people. I'm not gonna try to be too crude, but they even, if you realize when they repented, they covered the animals. So I'm not sure, but that could have been part of the degradation of this society. And so we'll get there a little bit later on. So it was a very degraded society. They were evil from inside out, and yet God saved them. Isn't God's grace marvelous? And where did it start? You know where it started? The king, it started with the king, and the king on down, and when the king did it, the people followed, and God's spirit worked, and Jonah was so unhappy. You know, before we pray, what would you think if a group of Hamas evil, oh, they came in and got saved. Well, you know, I'm just not sure they deserve to be saved, because they've been so evil. I'm not saying anybody else thinks or I even think like that, but we might. Are they just playing to get so I can chop off our heads? But let's say they genuinely got saved. We should rejoice. Well, there's such sinners. We all are sinners, but you see how we could start down that road and we could say they don't even deserving of salvation. Nobody does and maybe if they'd heard the truth of the gospel Like we have had the privilege of hearing So I guess maybe what I'm saying is let's not get arrogant about let's have a compassion for people I'd love to see it too. That'd be great. Let's pray or we just thank you for your word I love your word and love you most of all thank you for giving your word to us and There's so much in your Word and so little we really tap into and understand. So Lord, may we be about your Word. May we be learning, excited, and growing, and look for what you have for us. And Lord, every day you will give us something if we'll look. So Lord, may we do that. Bless us as we go our separate ways. Be with the many requests of this evening. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.