Once again, it is a pleasure to be here, a privilege to get to be amongst you this morning. I do bring greetings from my wife and our family back in Nashville, Tennessee. I wish Barbara was here with us and she could enjoy the opportunities that I enjoy. I just get to come back home and tell her stories and such.
First, when you have a missionary come to speak, you expect a missionary sermon. And I am concerned about missions. I am concerned about the gospel. I'm concerned about evangelism.
And one of the burdens of my heart is that nothing would hinder the gospel. Over and over we read in scripture of prayers and exhortations that the word of God would not be hindered, but that it would flow freely. And that's my desire, that it would not be hindered. And I know I'm in Canada, so I don't know all that goes on here.
I don't know what the issues are in this country. But I know in America there are issues. There are, even now with an election coming up, there are issues that are raised. Among those, illegal immigration is one of the issues that weighs heavy on a lot of Americans' minds.
They don't like the idea of people coming across the border getting benefits, educational or medical benefits. They don't like the idea of people mooching off of the government and then not paying taxes, and that offends many people. I've also heard there are other controversies, a controversy related to abortion. That's a topic that is still hot, and it'll always be hot, I think, as long as it exists.
It's a topic that has caused a lot of God's people to be stirred in many ways. I met a couple not too long ago, who came to me and said that they were among those who protest abortion clinics. And I asked them the question, what would you do if the abortion doctor moved in and became your next door neighbor? Then what would you do?
Would you go and protest against your neighbor? Would you wish that your neighbor's house would burn down and that they would just go away? But there are other issues out there. One of them is Islamic extremism.
I think when you think about Muslims, or when some people think about Muslims, all they can think about is terrorists. All they can think about is people who just want to blow up other people and want to rule the world. And that is something that affects people. Brethren, the thing that I'm concerned about is that these issues don't affect our compassion for the gospel to those various groups and people.
One of the things I think can be a problem is an attitude. An attitude against those groups, those individuals, those people, those untouchables that are out there. in our minds that would keep us from wanting to reach them, keep us from wanting to even pray for them, and have a burden for them. I don't know what it's like here. Maybe, in a sense, it's good to be a visiting preacher because I don't know who's who, I don't know the believers, I don't know the unbelievers, I don't know who's a visitor.
I don't know. So I'm just going to preach as the Spirit of God enables me to preach today. What I'd like to ask you to do is join me in looking at Jonah. As I thought of this topic, this man Jonah came to my mind because I believe Jonah had an attitude problem.
Now, the Book of Jonah, of course, it's just about three pages, not even three pages in my Bible. I'm reading from the ESV version, by the way. We could read it all right through if we wanted to, but we won't. We'll look at various parts of Jonah.
But one of the things about Jonah that interests me is the fact that it's not a prophecy against a nation or condemning this group or that group against one of the kings. It's a prophecy that was addressed to the prophet. It was the prophet's prophecy. And by extension, I would say, it's a prophecy for God's people.
Jonah represented the people of God and the attitude that could be possible in the minds and the hearts of God's people. Before I go on, I'd like to ask you to join me one more time and pray.
Opening Prayer
Our God and our Father, we are privileged to be able to gather together in relative peace and quiet. We can take time to think about the things of God. We can take time to consider our ways. We aren't being threatened and attacked day by day.
We do have that liberty. And yet, our Father, we also know that there are some things can perhaps even consume our thoughts and make us to be prejudicial even against others. We pray that you would help us if that's the case, that you would show us that you're a God of great compassion, a God of mercy, a God who delights and showing mercy slow to anger. And we pray that you would make us more and more like you.
We ask that you would bless us now as we look at your word. In Jesus' name, amen. Well,
Introduction
what I'd like us to do first this morning is begin to look at this man, Jonah, and first of all,
God's Command Rejected
I'd like to point out that we see here in Jonah in the very beginning, in the first two verses, a command rejected. A command rejected. And we'll read that God commanded Jonah to pronounce judgment against Nineveh, verses 1 and 2. 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." God had given Jonah a specific command.
He commanded Jonah to go to Nineveh. Nineveh. It's called a great city. We're told in chapter 3 that it took three days to go across the city and Jonah at one point when he actually obeyed God's command, he had gone a whole day and then he began to preach in the city.
So it was a great city and it was a large city, exceedingly great, we're told. It was politically a great city. It was the capital of the Assyrian Empire. That's where all the attacks came from against the northern tribes of Israel.
It was a great empire ruled the whole Middle East for a time. In that sense, it was a geographically large place. But the population, we are also told in Chapter 4, in the very last verse, The population was also great. It was a great city because it had a lot of people in it.
It says there that there were 120,000 persons who didn't know their right hand from their left. We understand that to be children. We consider how many people that is, including the parents and the rest of the families that are there. That's a large city.
Hundreds of thousands of people in this city. So
Nineveh: Great and Wicked
Nineveh was a great city. But Nineveh also was a wicked city. So it was great, but it was a very wicked city that deserved the wrath of God. We're told here, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it.
For what? For their evil has come up before me. It was an evil city. The Assyrians were known for brutality, for their bloodletting, for the horrible treatment of those that they captured.
Nahum, we read that they were known for their brutality. They're called vile. They're said to have fed people to lions. They're called a bloody city, unceasing evil.
Eventually, and within 100 years, they actually destroy the northern kingdom of Israel. You can imagine how the Israelites felt about Nineveh, how they felt about the Assyrians. They hated them. They despised them.
But they were a wicked people. They deserved God's wrath, His judgment. When God pronounced His judgment, it wasn't because they didn't deserve it. They weren't innocent.
There are no innocents. They weren't innocent. They were deserving of God's anger and His wrath. What God had commanded Jonah to do was perfectly legitimate.
And Jonah ought to have done what God commanded, because this was something God had full authority to do. God had given Jonah a command, but Jonah ran away. He simply ran away. We read in verse 3, But
Jonah's Flight from Duty
He went away. Now, someone might think, well, Jonah was just afraid. He was just a scaredy cat. He didn't want to go because he was afraid of suffering, or he was afraid of the people.
I don't believe that's true. I believe Jonah was a courageous man. He wasn't afraid to die. Later on we read where Jonah says, throw me into the sea.
What's going to happen when he's thrown into the sea? He's going to drown. He knew that he could die. He wasn't afraid to die.
Jonah was a prophet of God. He wasn't afraid to die. He was a courageous man. Jonah was a man who had known God's blessing on his ministry.
He had preached about victory for the people of God. He had preached about expansion of the territory. He was a man who was probably a very popular, a loved prophet. He loved Israel.
He loved his people. He loved God's people. But he wasn't afraid. He wasn't afraid.
But though God gave him a command to go to this foreign country, He got up and he left. Something made Jonah reject God's command. And I say reject because he didn't simply stay home. To disobey, you just stay where you are and don't do what you're told to do.
That's just disobedience. But he didn't stay home. He left. He ran away.
He rejected outright what God had commanded him to do. He knew the place of duty, but he left the place of duty. He forsook the call that God had given him. If you were in the military, you'd be called a deserter.
You deserve punishment. And actually, Jonah was a man who needed to repent. He himself was sinning against God. He forsook God's command.
But the thing is, Jonah was God's man. God had called this man and commanded him to do something, and he was going to do it. He was going to do it. That was God's intent.
There wasn't another man out there God wanted to send. It was Jonah. Jonah had a specific obligation. This was his mission.
This was his calling. He attempted to nullify God's command by denying God's call on his life and going in the opposite direction. And what did he do first? He left.
He physically departed the scene. Perhaps he was thinking, well, if I get out of the way, if I get out of here, maybe God will overlook it. Maybe he'll forget. Out of sight, out of mind.
Maybe he won't expect me to do anything. I'll be so far away from here, he won't bother with me anymore. He'll just give up on me. But Jonah knew he couldn't flee from God's presence, because we're told that's what he attempted to do, flee the presence of God.
He knew he couldn't leave the presence of God. Psalm 139 is very clear and says, how can you leave the presence of God? Where shall I flee from your presence? Where shall I go from your spirit?
There's no way you can go anywhere. If you go up into the heavens, if you go down into the pits of hell, you can't flee. from the presence of God, and Jonah knew he couldn't flee from the presence of God. But you know, a lot of times when we have a command, we run away from it by doing other things. I don't know.
Maybe Jonah thought, I'll go to Tarshish. I'll be amongst strangers there. Maybe I can serve God in another place. I have no idea.
But I think sometimes we can do the same thing. Maybe we find other things to do, to be busy. Maybe in our homes, we have a responsibility to do something in our homes, to care for our wives, to care for our families. Maybe we find other things to do in neglecting those responsibilities.
Maybe churches do this. Maybe churches, instead of going out to the world and fulfilling the Great Commission, Maybe churches focus so much attention on themselves and upon their ministry, upon their worship, upon their theological needs. They focus so much on themselves. It's possible that we do other things in an attempt to avoid some of the things that we are called to do.
But Jonah did that. Jonah. left. Whatever his intent was, he showed he was unwilling to do the thing God commanded. I also think Jonah, in a sense, he even left mentally.
When he got into this boat, we are told later on that he got into this boat and he went down into the bottom of the boat and what did he do? He fell asleep. You know, the kids, I think you all have probably heard stories about Jonah. So that's why I don't think I need to explain too much.
But you probably know the story of Jonah. But he was down in the ship, and he's asleep. He's asleep, unmoved by his condition, unmoved by the situation. There's a lot we can say about Jonah and about how we could, as believers even, sin and deny even the efforts that God makes to awaken us.
But he did that. But though he attempted to nullify God's command, as I said, he was God's man. God hindered his escape. God hindered him.
How did God hinder him? He sent a great storm upon the sea. God showed he is sovereign. He's omnipotent.
He's the God of the sea. He's the God of the storm. He's the God of creation. You remember the story of the Lord Jesus being on the Sea of Galilee with his disciples?
The storm is raging. He's asleep in the boat. And the disciples, they're terrified. Lord, don't you know that we're going to perish?
And he gets up. And he says, oh, you of little faith. And he says, peace, be still. And the storm is gone.
The power of our God. He is powerful. There's nothing too great for God. Nothing too great.
And God is showing Jonah, I am the God who rules all things. I am the God who made heaven and earth. In fact, Jonah speaks of him that way later on with these sailors. He is the God who made heaven and earth.
He's not the God of this region or that region. He's the God of all the universe. And this is the God that commanded Jonah. This is the God who gave him a calling.
But God hindered him by causing the storm. Not only that, but he sent this fish, big fish, came and swallowed Jonah. God's not limited. He's not limited in any way.
He could send a fish. He could cause a donkey to speak. He can do all sorts of things. and we need to understand that you know I was thinking about this this chapter this first chapter the rest of the chapter speaks about all that these sailors go through to protect All that they do to show compassion on Jonah. They don't know Jonah.
He's just a troublemaker for them. But all that they do to try to protect him, to preserve his life, they were willing to throw everything overboard for Jonah. They tried doing everything to get back to shore for Jonah. What compassion they showed on this man who had no compassion on them. a testimony of how God worked even through a rebellious prophet.
Jonah wasn't trying to evangelize sailors, and yet we find the sailors falling down, calling upon the Lord, calling upon God. An amazing thing. But
Why Jonah Fled: Hatred and God's Character
here's the question. Why did Jonah escape? Why did he attempt to escape? And I think you know the answer.
But there's a couple of things, I think, come to play here. The first thing I think is that he hated the Assyrians. Plain and simple. He hated them.
He had a prejudice against the Assyrians. Not for, without reason. They were wicked. They were brutal.
They murdered babies and killed pregnant women. They did all sorts of horrible, brutal things to people. No wonder they were hated. He hated them.
But another thing we see in chapter 4, verses 1 and 2, we see that he knew the character of God. He knew that God is a God of compassion and mercy. He knew that. Chapter 4 says, but it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and I'll look at that a little bit later.
But it displeased Jonah because eventually these people repented and were saved. But he was angry, and he prayed to the Lord and said, oh Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster."
God's Warnings Are Mercy
He knew God was kind. He knew God would bless these people. He knew if he preached to them, they'd be saved. Can you imagine that?
Someone is upset about people being saved. He didn't want them saved. He didn't want them blessed. Oh no, they deserve to go over the pit.
That's where they should go. They deserved God's wrath, and Jonah was determined that that's what would happen. He didn't want their blessing. He didn't want God's goodness on them.
Oh, Jonah knew about God. He knew God. He knew God was a God of compassion. He knew that God was a God who when he warned, he warned to show mercy.
When he gave his warnings, it was to show mercy. If God wants to wipe out a people, what does he do? He wipes them out. He comes to Sodom and Gomorrah and wipes them out with fire and brimstone.
That's what he does. He doesn't give them warnings. He gives warnings so they repent. That's what it's all about.
That's why you hear the gospel. It's a warning. Today is the day of salvation. Why do we say that?
Because if you hear, if you harden not your hearts, And you hear, this is your opportunity, this is your warning. If you continue in disobedience, if you continue in being unrepentant, if you continue to go the way you're going, you're in trouble. And God is a God who is ready to receive you. If you are lost, he is ready to save.
He is very full of mercy and compassion. He is slow to wrath and slow to anger. But he's ready to receive all who will come to him. Come unto me, the Lord Jesus said.
All you who labor and are heavy laden, I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Learn from me. Come to me, God says.
Come to me. Come now, let us reason together, we are told in Isaiah chapter 1. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. God wants to call sinners to faith and to obedience, to follow him.
I'm reminded of that parable of the fig tree. This man planted a tree, and it didn't bear any fruit. And he says, three years I'm coming, and there's no fruit. Cut it down.
Just by saying cut it down, stirs up his keeper to say, Lord, just give it one more year. You know, folks, God has been giving us time. You're hearing the gospel preached in your church. You're hearing over and over and over.
Some of the children have grown up hearing the Bible being read in your homes, prayed over, your parents praying. You've heard these things over and over. It's not new to you. But you get hard, and you get cold, and you get distant, and you don't want to deal with it.
And you put it all off. Well, God has been warning you all this time. Why? So you would believe.
So that you would embrace the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. That's what the warnings are for. And Jonah knew that. And he didn't like it.
Because he hated the Assyrians. Jonah didn't understand God's absolute sovereignty. God is sovereign. He's sovereign in His dispensation of wrath.
He's sovereign in His dispensation of mercy. God saves whom he wills to save. Romans 9 says, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy.
God's Sovereignty in Salvation
Jonah needed to understand this was God's call, not his. Jonah's responsibility was obedience, faithfulness, submission to God's call. But Jonah can't save and he can't condemn anyone. I can't save or condemn anyone.
Jonah had the privilege of being a mouthpiece of God. He had a calling to be God's mouthpiece and his servant. And that's where it stops. He has to fulfill his calling.
If anyone is to be saved, it's God's work to save them. God uses his gospel call to save people. 1 Peter 3 says, For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit. Christ came to save the unrighteous. And our call is to proclaim that.
It's God's prerogative to save. It's his prerogative to extend his mercy to whomever he wills to extend it. When Jonah was swallowed up by that fish, that was the lesson he needed to learn. He was brought down into the depths.
He was brought to a position where he was lost. And he said, I understand. that salvation is of the Lord. It's God's prerogative to save who he wills to save. It's his call.
Now, there are many people who have thought that if you're not worthy, then you should be left alone. The Pharisees were very well known for this. They saw some people as worthy and some people as unworthy. Samaritans were unworthy.
Samaritans. Why would you talk to Samaritans? Even the disciples of the Lord Jesus, when He was compelled to go to Samaria and He spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well, you remember the story? This woman heard the Gospel from the Savior's lips.
The disciples come back and they see Him talking to the woman. The woman herself was surprised that he would talk to her. She says, the Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. They have no dealings with them.
They stay away from them. They keep them at a distance. They keep apart from them. It wasn't new.
It wasn't a new thing. Jonah was doing that thing. Jonah was keeping apart from these people. He hated the Syrians.
The Jews hated the Samaritans. And anyone else who was unclean in some way? What did they say when they saw the Lord Jesus eating with prostitutes, with tax collectors, with sinners and immoral people? What did they think?
What? When this woman, a prostitute, touches him, doesn't he know what kind of woman this is? These are the kind of people that we don't want to touch. We keep them off in the distance.
Lepers! They're like lepers. You don't touch lepers. You don't touch these people.
I think that's this attitude, this spirit was what was motivating Jonah. These Assyrians, they're dirty, they're outside, they're not God's people, they don't deserve God's goodness. I know we wouldn't say that. I know none of us would say that about anyone.
You wouldn't say about a homosexual they don't deserve God's mercy. We know they don't. We don't either. No one deserves it.
But you may not say anything outwardly against anybody, but you may feel it. You may wish that something would happen to all those people. I wish they would just go away. I wish something would just happen to them.
What would you do if something did happen to them? Well, we find Jonah eventually comes around and he obeys God's command in Jonah chapter 3, verses 1 through 4. Then the
Jonah Obeys, Nineveh Repents
word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you. So Jonah rose. and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord." Now, Nineveh was an exceedingly great city. Three days journey in breadth. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey, and he called out, "'Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!' And the people of Nineveh believed God.
They called for a fast, and they put on sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least of them." Well, we find Jonah obeys God's command, and then they repented, at the preaching of Jonah. They repented. And I think our Lord Jesus even brings this up, doesn't he? The people repented at the preaching of Jonah.
We need to repent at the preaching of Christ. The preaching of the gospel. But he obeyed. He went.
He preached. The people in verses 5 through 10 They repent, all the way from the king, all the way down to even the animals. It was sackcloth and ashes. Unbelievable repentance.
It was a revival that was going on. Wonderful thing happened there. I can't imagine being in Jonah's shoes. I would say, hallelujah, praise God.
There's an awakening amongst the Assyrians. Something's happened in there. But Jonah, we are told, was very displeased about this. He didn't like that they repented.
And he didn't like that God blessed them. Because it says in verse 10, when God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them. And he did not do it. And you can imagine Jonah saying, I knew it.
I knew it. You were going to be good to them. No matter what I said, no matter what I did, you were going to bless these people. Jonah was angry, we read.
He did not like what had happened there. Though Jonah learned a lesson about sovereignty. He knew. Intellectually, we know a lot of things up here.
He knew about the sovereignty of God and saving. But he had an attitude that hindered him. It still hindered him. Prejudice hindered the free flow of the gospel, of the message.
Yes, he obeyed. But there was an attitude issue within Jonah. And
Prejudice Hinders the Gospel
I wonder if that might not be a similar attitude that some of God's people have. As I mentioned, it wasn't that he had a problem with fear. He was a courageous man. It was that he hated these perceived enemies.
And you know the Lord Jesus commands us to love our enemies, doesn't He? He commands us to love those sorts of people. He wants us to hate sin. God loves righteousness.
He hates wickedness. He wants us to love righteousness and hate wickedness just like Him. He wants us to be pursuing holiness and despising wickedness. We must hate wickedness.
But God also doesn't want us to hate sinners. He doesn't want us to hate sinners. We are called to love our enemies, to love them. The many things, the many examples of our Lord Jesus Christ and how he reached out to the lost around him, how he was compassionate, he was merciful to those around him.
That is an example that we should follow. God wants us to commit ourselves to his mission, to his sovereignty, Not our will, not our ideas, not our ministries and our ways, but His, His calling. In fact, it's interesting because He says, go and preach to them the message that I tell you. That's what we're called to do.
Preach the message we are told to tell. The messenger is a critical part of the Gospel presentation, brother. It's a critical part. Your attitude is critical.
It'll affect how you pray. It'll keep you from praying for some when you want to pray for them. It'll affect you in the way you interact with people who are really strange and really weird, who are different. They deserve God's wrath.
Yes, they are sinners. Maybe they're homosexuals, lesbians, or otherwise. Maybe they are immoral in some other way. Maybe they're some sort of perverts.
Maybe they're into pornography. Maybe they're into some other things. Maybe they're drug users, and they're high on drugs. Maybe they're drunk on liquor.
Maybe they're adulterers or adulteresses. They're immoral. We aren't immoral, are we? We're clean.
We've been washed. We've been changed. But such were some of you, the Lord Jesus said. Such were some of you, the scriptures teach us.
We were like that. I don't know what your testimonies are, but I can remember back in those days. We used to call it the BC days, the before Christ days. I can remember the immorality.
If it weren't for the goodness of God to send someone to speak a word to me, put a tract in my hand, to be a testimony, an example, I wouldn't be here today. If it weren't for God's goodness to me, where would I be today? Where would you be? But for God's grace and kindness.
But we get saved, and then our lives change. We get cleaned up. We look nice. We act nice.
We have a different community of people. And then suddenly, there are people out there that are dirty. And sometimes, we want to just keep them out there, away from us. There are co-workers.
There are next door neighbors. There are supervisors. They're out there. There are students.
They're there all over the place. And we may have these attitudes against them because of what they do. Oh, I know how that person lives. I know what they do.
I know their political views. Whatever it is, there's sometimes things that could keep us or keep them at a distance from us. And as I mentioned, Jonah was God's man. God uses instruments.
He uses us. He uses people to proclaim His Word. He doesn't just send out, He doesn't like, you know, send out like a, some kind of a thing in the air. I saw one of these airplanes flying over with a big old sign.
He doesn't send those up there. Well, some of them are out there doing that too. Maybe put John 3.16 up there. He doesn't do that.
He sends us. The Lord Jesus was the Word become flesh to dwell among us, to proclaim God to us. He declares God to us. We declare God to men.
That's what we're here for. That's what we should be doing. Romans 10, 14 and 15 say, How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard?
And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news." These are people that are going out to proclaim Christ. We're not talking about evangelists and pastors, we're talking about believers proclaiming the truth wherever they go.
When there was persecution, we read this in the book of Acts, after Stephen's death people just went scattered everywhere telling about Jesus, telling the gospel. What a privilege we have. What a wonderful privilege we have being Christians. being children of God, having the opportunity to say something that is meaningful, real meaningful. One of the young men was talking about how he loves languages, and I said to him, as long as you have something to say, right?
If you could proclaim it in Swahili and you're preaching the gospel, that's wonderful. Well, if you're just talking about the news or sports, what is that? But we have something to say, brethren. I know someone was telling me once when We were talking about people who want to go into missions.
Well, one of the things he said was, well, you've got to have something to say. You've got to have something. I mean, that sounds trite, but you do. Do you have something to say?
Do you know Jesus? Do you know him? Is he your life? Do you have something to tell people?
That's what you're here for. That's what your life's all about. Jesus said, you are the light of the world. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.
You are the light of the world. Jonah was denying that reality. Jonah was the light of the world, and he was living as if he weren't. And even the sailors believed.
Even the sailors, like a fallout of God's mercy. That's what we are called to do. That's what we are to be. How will these people hear?
I wonder about that. I've got next-door neighbors. I'm just getting ready, just starting to get to meet them. And I'm thinking, I gotta meet them.
I gotta know these people. How will they hear if they're lost? How will they hear? Maybe I'll find some Christians among them, and somehow we'll be able to talk about the things of God with others.
Maybe we'll start a Bible study. Maybe something will happen. I don't know. But how will they hear, brethren, unless we are out there doing the talking and living And then there are some of those that are like untouchables to us.
We don't want to talk to them. I met a young man whose brother was homosexual and he got married. Well, he got whatever you want to call it. But he refused to go to the wedding on principle.
I thought that was a good decision. He wouldn't go to the wedding. But he wants to do whatever he can with his brother and this person. without compromising his faith, but in an effort to win. I don't know how you can do that.
What a challenge that would be. This is your brother and this other person. Being with them would make me uncomfortable. And yet this is what this person wants to do.
Brethren, that's kind of what we need to be doing. There's a lot of uncomfortable things out there. That's what we need to be doing. When the Lord Jesus was telling His disciples, when you invite people to a dinner, don't just invite your friends and your neighbors.
They'll invite you, too. Invite those people that can invite you. Invite the unclean people. Invite these other people.
Jesus ate with these people. You don't just eat a meal. That's all you do. You talk.
You interact. Brethren, there are people out there you can do that with. You've got next door neighbors. You've got co-workers.
You've got people you can get to know. Bring your neighbors a, I don't know, do you make banana nut bread around here? Bring them some banana nut bread. Bring them some kind of a meal.
Find out if they're sick. Bring them some soup. That was great soup we had the other night. Bring them something.
Do something to show them the compassion of God. You know, people hear of Christians protesting all the time. We're protesting this. We protest against that decision of the government.
We protest against abortion. We protest against homosexuality. We protest everything. Why don't we reach those people?
Why don't we find ways to go to those people? To somehow touch their lives. If you've ever been to a homeless shelter, you find all kinds of smelly, dirty people. They haven't taken a bath.
They've been drinking maybe. There's alcohol on their breath. There's all sorts of things that are distasteful. But you can do that by the grace of God.
We can do that. We can reach those other people. Because I believe this is the mission of God, to show compassion to the unworthies, to reach those who didn't deserve it. Can't you just wonder at God's plan and purpose when he said to Jonah, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach the message I have for you to preach to them.
What is God thinking? These are enemies. These are bad, bad, bad people. God is teaching us something with that.
He's showing us that's just what I'm all about. Mercy and grace. That's what grace is. You don't deserve it.
They don't deserve it. Reach out to those people. How important is our attitude? brethren, to other people, how it could hinder us, how it could make for opportunities, what our attitude really means. Well,
Motives for Reaching the Unwanted
let me just, you know, I have a whole lot of things on my mind this morning, but I want to give you some motives and maybe some things you can do to cultivate reaching undesirable people. And several motives can be brought forward to or right in Jonah. the sovereignty of God. We are called to be lights. We are called to be witnesses, go into all the world, make disciples of all the nations.
We are commanded, brethren, we must obey, simply, obedience. That should be a motive. Mercy should be a motive. God says to Jonah in chapter 4, verses 10 and 11, you had mercy on this plant.
And I'm not going to go into this plant thing, but it But to say it was a temporal thing, it was not a living soul. But Jonah was so moved with anger because this temporal vine was destroyed by a worm overnight. But sometimes we get unbalanced. Sometimes we're so concerned about the whales that get stuck in the ice, and we don't get concerned about the souls that are perishing.
There's an imbalance here. There's the environment. Yes, we need to care for environment. Yes, we need to be stewards of the world God has given us.
We need to be that. But we also have priorities. We have concerns that are all much more important than those. And that's what God is saying.
Shouldn't I have compassion upon these hundreds of thousands of souls? And he wasn't even talking about the really bad ones. He was talking about the babies. All the little babies, they haven't learned all this bad stuff yet.
There may be future terrorists, but they're not there yet. Well, maybe they are. They're not there yet. Why shouldn't I be compassionate? toward those people.
Brethren, every Muslim's not strapped with bombs. They're not all out there killing people. They're living lives like you are, day in and day out. They're going to work.
They're living their lives. They've been indoctrinated with false teaching and they believe that stuff, but they're just living their lives. They're on farms and they're in workshops. They're people.
They need to hear. They need to hear Christ. Mercy. The gospel of grace.
That ought to be compelling enough. There's no one good. Not one, we're told. Which of you is good?
Which of you can make yourselves good? None of you. None of us. The Lord Jesus Christ came to reconcile lost sinners to God.
He came to bring us to God. He came to call us to believe and repent. Repent. You know, if you're homosexual, you're called to repent, and believe, and be saved.
We're all called to repent. Maybe there's 99 of them out there that don't think they need repentance, but there may be one, and God rejoices over one sinner who repents. The pattern of Christ's behavior and teaching, I don't need to say any more about that. I've mentioned it already.
The Lord Jesus is a pattern for reaching the lost. Think about the Good Samaritan and all the stories our Savior told. The pattern of the Apostle Paul. What did Paul do?
He said, I do all things. I become all things for all men that by all means I might save some. You know what kind of a man Paul was? He was a Pharisee.
He was a Pharisee, a religious man. Do you think he didn't have some issues with unclean things? Don't you think there are some of the things that he saw people doing would have turned his stomach? Don't you think he felt uncomfortable as a Pharisee?
And yet he was willing to put some of that stuff aside to reach people. That's what we have to find a way to do. And just think about their need. How are they going to hear unless you tell them?
I'm not saying that their salvation depends on you, but how will they hear unless you tell them? You know people that don't know Jesus. You've got to tell them. And God's providence, he puts you in the lives of other people.
Sometimes that's very uncomfortable. Why, Lord, did you introduce me to this person? Why me? Couldn't somebody else be the one?
But I'm the one. I don't like this person. I don't enjoy being around them. They cuss all the time.
They do this and they do that. Why do I have to be the one? Well, that's what God plans. He puts you into close proximity with all kinds of different people.
And that's what it's for. That you might be a light to those people. We need to see ourselves on mission, all of us. We're all on mission to win people around us.
I'm not saying everybody is a pastor, everybody's an evangelist, but every one of us is commanded to be on mission for God in this world. That's the reason why you're here. Well,
Application: How to Reach the Lost
some things you can do. I've already mentioned some of them. First of all, you need to think about what the Lord Jesus has done to you. We always need to remind ourselves, don't we?
We forget so easily where we came from and what Jesus has done for us. We need to remind ourselves over and over and over where we have been and what Jesus has done. Remember that. and remember and be humbled by the forgiveness that you have received, the weight of debt, indebtedness that was on your shoulder that Jesus lifted and took away. Brethren, there are a lot of people who don't know anything about that.
There are Muslims, they know nothing about forgiveness of sin, nothing about being free, set free. But you have been, and you have something you can say. Brethren, you should educate yourselves. I didn't ask this question, but I often do ask it.
Since 9-11, since 2001, how many of you have taken the time to find out and read any books about Islam? How many of you actually have come to learn some things about Islam since that time? You've got 10-11 years now. And even since then, we've had all sorts of reasons why we should be finding out about Islam and how to reach them.
Sometimes I think about, and I don't know how you all feel about Lord of the Rings, but I think that the Church, in America particularly, in the United States, is often like the hobbits in the shire. It's all happening out there, brethren. There's all this stuff going on out there, and many of us are oblivious to it. We don't know.
All we do is hear it on the news, and we have opinions, but we don't know how to reach people. Do you know how to talk to a Muslim? Do you know how to talk to a homosexual? Have you tried to find ways to do that?
Or is it your fear or your animosity toward them keeping you away? Educate yourselves. Read books. Study the scriptures.
Follow the news. Get involved. Subscribe to some newsletters or prayer letters. Learn about what's going on in other places.
Get involved with things. Participate. This is, I think, I heard that even around here there's like an Islamic center. There may be some sort of a an opportunity where people can actually get to meet with Muslims just to understand each other.
Maybe there'll be even opportunities to have discussion groups. I know that there were some people that I know of down in Virginia who actually they would put out a topic and they'd have They'd be able to come and talk about it. The person who talked about it could talk until they were done without anybody interrupting them, and then they would have discussions afterward on any given topic. Who knows?
You may have opportunities like that, where you could actually bring up things and talk to people. You know, I found in Turkey, one of the best things was just to be curious. Why do people do that? You believe that Mohammed said this or did this?
Or why do you think this? Or you heard something about Jesus. Why do you believe this about Jesus? Where did you hear that?
Ask people why they do what they do. So how do you go to heaven then? How is a person in Islam saved? What do you do about sin?
I mean, ask people questions and find out where they're coming from. I asked these guys once about heaven. I said, Tell me, what's in heaven? What do you think is in heaven?
And they said, well, holy people and beautiful women and food. And I said, oh, they said prophets. I said, so what about God? Oh no, no.
You know why they said no? Because Allah is so separate. He's not there. I said if he's not there, why would I go there?
What is there in heaven that is so attractive if God's not part of it? You ask questions and you find out where people are coming from and you deal with them. Participate. Get involved.
Find out about outreach opportunities. Maybe get involved in a mission opportunity. Maybe you can go to some other country. I have always invited people to come to Turkey and visit.
Too bad. I came back to America. I don't have a place for you to stay now. But if I were there, I would have you in my home.
I'd bring you to my neighbors and other people. I'd bring you to villages. Wherever you want to go, I'd show you. I'd show you the seven churches.
I'd show you Ephesus. I'd bring you all over. Because I know once you meet people, once you're touching people, you're going to get hooked. You'll get hooked.
And I hope you get hooked here. I hope that something happens to you that you'll meet people right in your own neighborhood. We've met some Turks since we've been back to America. We just had dinner with a Turkish family not two weeks ago down in Nashville.
And here we are. We have these different little opportunities. They're here, brethren. You've heard this before.
The nations are here. The nations are here. You know they are because you know where they are out here. There are people God has brought into your lives.
Closing Exhortation
We need to pray that God would help us not to allow attitude to hinder the free flow of the gospel, to hinder us from talking, to hinder us from living for Christ in the world we're in. We could be more passionate, more bold. We could be more alive for Christ to these people. They could hear.
We need to be the ones that they hear from. We need to find ways. and pray that God would bless our efforts. Amen. Let's pray.
Closing Prayer
Heavenly Father, I confess that I am so weak in being able to even communicate what ought to be communicated about you, the greatness of your heart, the greatness of your compassion and mercy. Father, you created everything, and you specifically created all of humanity that it would be a reflection of you, image bearers of God. And you ought to be honored and exalted. As we sang in the hymn, let the peoples praise you, O God, let all the peoples praise you.
Then shall the earth yielder increase. Our God, God, our own God will bless us. Father, we ask for your blessing. Would you bless this church?
Would you bless these brethren here in Chilliwack? Would you bless their lives, their witnesses, their their testimonies? Would you bless each one here? Would you use them please in this place?
Would you make them lights? Would you make them witnesses for you here? Would you deliver each one of us from the attitudes that we have, the feelings we have against or about others? Would you forgive us for wrong attitudes?
And would you help us to to pursue the lost, to find ways to pursue them, to reach out to them, that they might believe and might be saved. Father, you are worthy that there would be a multitude from every tribe and tongue and people and nation and even every various unnamed group that you might be glorified. You are worthy. We praise you this morning.
Thank you for meeting with us. Thank you for bringing us together. May your word be kept upon our minds and upon our hearts. In Jesus name.
Scripture References
- Psalm 139:7-8
- Isaiah 1:18
- Jonah 1:1-3; 3:1-5; 3:10; 4:1-2; 4:10-11
- Romans 9:15-16; 10:14-15
- 1 Peter 3:18