In these pages, you will meet a prophet not so different from yourself. The prophet's rebellious spirit is astounding, but more astounding still is the surprising grace of God. The same God who relentlessly pursued Jonah and who relentlessly pursued the Ninevites is pursuing you. May this story cause you to rest in his unstoppable grace.
In these pages, you will meet a prophet not so different from yourself. The prophet's rebellious spirit is astounding, but more astounding still is the surprising grace of God. The same God who relentlessly pursued Jonah and who relentlessly pursued the Ninevites is pursuing you. May this story cause you to rest in his unstoppable grace.
Running from Mercy: Jonah and the Surprising Story of God's Unstoppable Grace
192
Running from Mercy: Jonah and the Surprising Story of God's Unstoppable Grace
192eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
In these pages, you will meet a prophet not so different from yourself. The prophet's rebellious spirit is astounding, but more astounding still is the surprising grace of God. The same God who relentlessly pursued Jonah and who relentlessly pursued the Ninevites is pursuing you. May this story cause you to rest in his unstoppable grace.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781535902465 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | B&H Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 10/01/2018 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 192 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
| Age Range: | 3 Months to 18 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Grace for the Rebellious Jonah 1:1–6
The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: "Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it because their evil has come up before me." Jonah got up to flee to Tarshish from the Lord's presence. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. He paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the Lord's presence.
But the Lord threw a great wind onto the sea, and such a great storm arose on the sea that the ship threatened to break apart. The sailors were afraid, and each cried out to his god. They threw the ship's cargo into the sea to lighten the load. Meanwhile, Jonah had gone down to the lowest part of the vessel and had stretched out and fallen into a deep sleep.
The captain approached him and said, "What are you doing sound asleep? Get up! Call to your god. Maybe this god will consider us, and we won't perish."
Most of us are familiar with the name Benedict Arnold. It is a name infamously associated with the idea of treason. But what most people probably don't know about Benedict Arnold is that before he committed treason against the colonial states of America, he was a much-accomplished general in the colonial army.
As the Revolutionary War waged on, Benedict Arnold became frustrated by the way the war was progressing and offended that he did not receive the notoriety and the accolades he thought he deserved. Furthermore, he considered defeat at the hands of the British to be inevitable. Consequently, he thought he would get the jump on his comrades and get back in the good graces of the British before it was too late. So he decided to switch sides, and he became an ally of the British. He contacted the enemy and decided to turn traitor.
General George Washington had put Arnold in charge of the key outpost on the Hudson River known as West Point. Arnold devised a plan to sell West Point to the British for twenty thousand pounds, thus significantly weakening the colonies and all but guaranteeing a British victory. Ultimately, Arnold's plans were discovered and foiled. Washington labeled him a traitor for his treasonous act, and he fled to Britain. Today many would argue that Benedict Arnold committed the greatest act of treason in American history.
Yet it is not the greatest act of treason ever committed. That dubious distinction belongs to Adam and Eve.
Theirs was an act of cosmic treason that far exceeded the treachery of Benedict Arnold. It was the act of rebelling against God in the garden of Eden. What Adam and Eve did was indeed treason. They rebelled and committed cosmic treason against the sovereign, Creator God. They rebelled against His goodness. They rebelled against His grace. And ever since the garden of Eden, every human being has come into the world as a rebel. The Bible is clear. When Adam and Eve rebelled, we all rebelled (Rom. 5:12).
Yet the grand and gracious story line of the Bible is "God reaching down to be gracious to rebels." That's the whole story line of redemptive history. The Bible is the story of God's gracious pursuit of rebels. It's the story line of the Bible. It's the message of Jonah.
The prophecy of Jonah is God in gracious pursuit. In fact, the big story of the Bible is pictured for us in the four short chapters of Jonah. Chapter 1 is the narrative of rebellion. Chapter 2 is the narrative of repentance. Chapter 3 is the narrative of redemption. Chapter 4 is the narrative of restoration. God redeems repentant rebels and restores them to relationship with Him. This is the Bible. This is Jonah. It begins with rebellion.
A Rebellious Beginning
The prophecy of Jonah begins with these words:
The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: "Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it because their evil has come up before me." Jonah got up to flee to Tarshish from the Lord's presence. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. He paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the Lord's presence. (Jonah 1:1–3)
The prophecy of Jonah begins with rebellion. God sent Jonah to preach to a people in rebellion against God. Notice how it begins: "The word of the Lord came to Jonah" (v. 1). The word that came to Jonah was clear, and it was direct: "Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it because their evil has come up before me" (v. 2). God sent Jonah to a rebelling people. He sent him to Nineveh.
Nineveh was a great city by any measure of worldly standards. It was the capital city of the Assyrian Empire, which at the time was the most prominent and powerful empire on earth. It was a city that would have been known simply by its name, like New York, London, or Tokyo. It was the most prominent city in the most prominent nation in the land.
Moreover, Nineveh was filled with great things. It was filled with luscious and fabulous gardens. It was filled with a large and prosperous irrigation system. It was filled with great and impressive walls, huge displays of magnificent art, and grand libraries.
Business was booming in Nineveh — there was much commerce. It was also a paragon of education — there was much learning.
It was a large city. It was, as it says later in Jonah 3:3, "an extremely great city, a three-day walk" to traverse. It was populated by upward of 130,000 people at any time.
It was a city known by all, and like New York or London, you only had to say Nineveh, and everyone knew what city you were talking about. You knew where it was. You knew what it was.
Nineveh was a great city by any stretch of the imagination. But it was not only great for what it was; it was great also for what it did. It sinned. And it was full of evil.
Nineveh was Gotham. It was a great city given over to great sin. You can imagine that a large metropolis like this would be filled with the wickedness of human hearts, and indeed it was. It was filled with idolatry, greed, lust, murder, and all the wickedness of the human heart. It was filled with false worship. It was a pagan city and stood against the will and rule of God.
God sent Jonah to speak out against this pagan city. This was not Israel; this was Assyria. This was not Jerusalem or Bethlehem; this was Nineveh. These were not the people of God; these were the Ninevites.
This should remind us of an important principle — namely, all nations are accountable to God. All people and all nations are subject to God and must give an account of their lives. We know Israel was accountable before God, and oftentimes God called Israel to account. But do we know that God is Lord over all nations and not just Israel? The prophets of the Old Testament were not just sent to call Israel to get right with God, but at times the call was to the foreign nations as well. Amos prophesied of God's judgment against Damascus, Gaza, Edom, Tyre, Moab, and others (Amos 1–2). These nations were not recognized as God's chosen people. Yet God would call them to account before His throne of justice. He calls all nations. All people must give an account for their waywardness and their rebellion against God.
The psalmist says, "Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? ... The one [God] enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord ridicules them" (Ps. 2:1, 4). There is no people or nation on this earth who will not answer before God. Not a nation, not a people, and not a person who is not subject to God. Jesus is not simply the Lord of the church; Jesus is Lord of all (Rom. 14:7–8).
The church has long confessed this truth. Beginning in Philippians 2:5, we find one of the oldest confessions of the church. The confession ends with a glorious crescendo of the accountability of all creatures before the sovereign lordship of Jesus Christ. We are reminded that "every knee will bow — in heaven and on earth and under the earth — and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Phil. 2:10–11). Jesus is not simply Lord of the church; He is not simply Lord of the redeemed; He is Lord over all. Every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess. God reminded Jonah and the world that He is God over all. And He holds all accountable for their rebellion.
The remarkable thing is that God was gracious to these rebellious people. God sent His word to them through the mouth of His prophet. He showed grace to them by pursuing them. However, in this instance, the prophet was no different from the people. How's that for irony? God sent a rebelling prophet to rebelling people.
God told Jonah, "Get up! Go to ... Nineveh" (Jonah 1:2). The word of the Lord was clear. The will of the Lord, in this instance, was clear. And yet Jonah's first instinct was to rebel because rebellion comes naturally.
We come into the world rebellious. You don't have to teach your children how to rebel; just leave them alone! Because we are by nature rebellious people, they instinctively know how to rebel. We rebel because we act as if we don't know what the will of God is. Yet, as it was to Jonah, the will of God is clearer than most of us want or are willing to admit.
Too many of us are searching around for the will of God as if it were some ever-illusive magical formula. And because we are unable discern what God's will is, we are content to live in disobedience. We spend our time chasing after and hoping for a word from God. Unfortunately, what we fail to do is look into the Word of God. Like Jonah, if you would look to the Word of God, you would find the will of God. God's will was clear because God's word was clear. It was that way to Jonah. It is that way to us. Do you want to know the will of God? It is clear if you go into the Word of God.
The will of God is clear. According to the Word of God, the will of God is for husbands to love their wives (Col. 3:19). The will of God is for wives to submit to their husbands (Col. 3:18). The will of God is for children to obey their parents (Col. 3:20). The will of God is that we abstain from sexual immorality (1 Thess. 4:3). It doesn't get any clearer than that. The will of God is that you and I would be growing in the grace and the knowledge of Jesus Christ (Col. 1:10). It is the will of God that you and I give thanks in all things (1 Thess. 5:18). As you can see, the will of God is clear if we would go to the Word of God to find it.
So it was with Jonah; there was no misunderstanding of what God wanted Jonah to do. He heard the Word of God. But rebellion is not rooted in ignorance. Rebellion is rooted in rank disobedience. Jonah didn't want to hear it. We don't want to know the will of God, and so we don't go to the Word of God. We want to rebel. And so instead of rising and going to Nineveh, Jonah rose and fled to Tarshish.
Tarshish was a place far away. You may wonder where it is. You may wonder about its geographical location or the coordinates of its global positioning. Yet the point is not so much where Tarshish is but what it represents.
Tarshish represents obstinacy and rebellion. It is the place children go to spite their parents. It is the place men and women go to hide from God. It is the place we convince ourselves we are out of sight and out of mind. Yet to think you are ever out of God's sight is to be out of your mind.
When God determines to save, there is no escape to Tarshish. No matter how far you try to go, you can't go far enough. No matter where you seek to hide, there is no hiding place (Ps. 139:7–8). In fact, Tarshish should remind us that no matter how hard you run, mercy runs harder. Mercy runs faster. Jonah thought Tarshish would save him from God. The wonderful truth is that God saved Jonah from Tarshish. He always does.
Perhaps many days have been spent wondering why God forbade a job, a move, a promotion, or even a relationship. Even though you ignored the warning signs and sought to silence God's voice, God didn't give in, nor did He give up on you. Instead, the mercy of God persisted until your eyes could see the truth. The grace of God relentlessly pursued you until the will of God was not only good for you but also good to you. Thankfully, you never made it to Tarshish.
I am sure there were people in Tarshish who needed to hear the Word of God, but that is not what God sent Jonah to do. How often do we do that? We rationalize our disobedience and our rebellion by thinking we can make something good come out of it. Jonah thought to himself, I'll just go down to Tarshish, God. You send somebody else to Nineveh. I'll preach in Tarshish. I'm sure they need to hear the Word of God too. Yet partial obedience is disobedience.
Partial obedience only leads to full disobedience. God told Jonah to rise. He rose, but that's where the obedience stopped. Instead of going east, Jonah went west. Instead of going north, Jonah went south. Instead of going to Nineveh, he went to Tarshish. Jonah was not just fleeing but also refusing to do the will of God.
Here's the real issue: Jonah was fleeing from the presence of God. It wasn't just that Jonah did not want to do what God had called him to do; Jonah didn't want anything to do with God Himself, and that's really the issue whenever we rebel. When we rebel against God's Word, we rebel against God. This was Jonah's problem. He was rebelling against God. Nevertheless, rebellious people and prophets don't stress God. God's not stressed by your rebellion, and you know why? Because God is resourceful.
Rebellious people and prophets do not stress God out because God has unlimited resources at His disposal, and what He doesn't yet have, He can create.
A Resourceful God
Jonah ran from God. And when he ran, Jonah discovered what everybody discovers when they run from God. When you run from God, you run smack into God.
In his sermon in Moby Dick, Father Mapple states, "He [Jonah] thinks that a ship made by men will carry him into countries where God does not reign." Father Mapple rightly captured the folly of humans running from God. Our God is a resourceful God, and we see the nature of Hisresourcefulness is grounded in His character. Who is this God that Jonah is rebelling against? Who is this God that we seek to run away from? The first thing you ought to know is that He is an omnipresent God.
Omnipresent
Omnipresence means that God is everywhere present. There is no place or space in the universe where God is not fully there.
Twice in verse 3 Jonah is said to have fled from the presence of the Lord. How does one escape the presence of the Lord? The impossibility is staggering if you just contemplate it for a moment. Where are you going? In Psalm 139:7–12, the psalmist says:
Where can I go to escape your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I live at the eastern horizon or settle at the western limits, even there your hand will lead me; your right hand will hold on to me. If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me, and the light around me will be night" — even the darkness is not dark to you. The night shines like the day; darkness and light are alike to you.
Fleeing from God? Where are you going? In Jeremiah 23:23–24 God says:
"Am I a God who is only near ... and not a God who is far away? Can a person hide in secret places where I cannot see him? ... Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?"
The idea of God's omnipresence is not that God is simply present or partially present; the idea is that He fills the place. He is fully present — in all of His being, character, and attributes — everywhere, at all times. Nothing and no one escapes His attention.
However, when you are in rebellion, the last person you want to see is God. The last person you want to hear is God. And so, like Jonah, you flee. You flee from the Word of God because you don't want to hear the will of God. But everywhere you go, there God is. You cannot get away from Him.
When we are rebelling, this seems like bad news. But it is actually great news. We should thank God that we cannot get away from Him.
Do you realize that the happiness in heaven and the horrors of hell are rooted in the same reality? The reality is the uncompromised holiness and justice of God. For the rebellious the justice of God is a horrible, terrible reality. For the redeemed it is their hope; it is their joy. Heaven is heaven because God is there in all of His goodness, giving those made righteous in Christ their reward. Hell is hell because there God's holiness is on display in the fullness of His wrath and righteous judgment. Everywhere you go it's the holiness and justice of God.
You cannot hide from God. A better course of action is to hide in God. You hide in Him, not from Him. "He hideth my soul," the songwriter says, "in the cleft of the rock." Indeed, he does. It is God's delight for you to find refuge in Him. It is God's delight that you know Christ as that Rock in whom you can hide from the ravages of the wrath of God against rebellious sinners. You don't run from God; you run to Him. You don't hide from God, but rather by faith "your life is hidden with Christ in God" (Col. 3:3).
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Running from Mercy"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Anthony J. Carter.
Excerpted by permission of B&H Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Preface,
Introduction,
1: Grace for the Rebellious (Jonah 1:1–6),
2: You Can't Outrun God (Jonah 1:7–16),
3: Divine Appointments (Jonah 1:17–2:2),
4: True Repentance (Jonah 2:1–10),
5: Redemption (Jonah 3:1–10),
6: Jonah's Resentment, God's Restraint (Jonah 4:1–4),
7: Our Big God (Jonah 4:5–11),
Conclusion: Mercy Came Running,
Study Questions,
Notes,