We'll bow together briefly in prayer. Our heavenly Father, we pray thy blessing will rest upon us as we turn to thy word. Fill me with thy Holy Spirit. Breathe upon us from heaven. Let us hear thy voice and let us give heed to it. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. I want to read the first three verses of the first chapter of Jonah. Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness is come up before me. But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa. And he found a ship going to Tarshish, so he paid the fare thereof and went down into it to go with them on to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. I want to speak about disobeying God and you see it here in the life of Jonah. Jonah's name means a dove, his father's name Amittai means my truth and that's a right blend for a child of God. Child of God should have a dove-like spirit. We shouldn't be a belligerent people, always snapping at people or in their face and being nasty. We should be gentle as a dove. But at the same time, we should not be compromisers. We need to be people of the truth, people of the Word of God. There is a blending here of truth and gentleness, in the name of Jonah and in the name of his father and of course you see that blending in the person and in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ was so gentle the children felt safe with him He was so gentle and gracious that people whose lives were deplorable yet came to him and saw in him a friend. He was faithful to them. He didn't compromise the truth in order to befriend them. He was their friend and he was a very gentle friend. Now Jonah is mentioned in 2 Kings chapter 14. In the time of the second Jeroboam, territory was restored to the ten tribes through the preaching of Jonah. It says that God restored the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath onto the sea of the plain according to the word of the Lord God of Israel. which he spake by the hand of his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet, which was of Gath-Hephur." So Jonah had been faithful in the service of God. He was from Gath-Hephur up in Galilee. And actually, if the scribes had watched, they would not have said, no prophet arises out of Galilee when they were deriding Christ. because Jonah came from that northern part of the nation. He was faithful, and now God gives to him a more difficult task. It's the same when we're doing things, in general, ordinary things. If you're a weightlifter, and you can see that I'm not one, but if you're a weightlifter, you start with the lighter weights. Then you gradually put on more, and those weightlifters that can lift the immense weights, They've started with small weights and they've worked their way up to the heaviest weights, maybe to Olympic standard in weightlifting. Jonah had done the lesser tasks, the easier tasks, then God had used him. and preaching to the ten tribes, preaching about the restoration of territory under the reign of Jeroboam II, now he has the supreme task. He is being sent to Nineveh, which was the capital city of Assyria, and that nation of Assyria was hostile to Israel. On one occasion, a huge army encamped outside the city of Jerusalem, and God slew in one night through an angel 185,000 soldiers. And it was the Assyrians that eventually brought an end to the territory, or at least to the reign of the 10 tribes. So they were a hostile nation. And Jonah's reaction to a commission to go to Nineveh and to preach against it was to rise up, to run away, to flee. And sometimes that's exactly the way that you and I feel. God asks us to do something difficult And what do we do? We don't like it. We try to find all ways and all means of slipping away and getting as far as possible from what God wants us to do. So we need to speak about disobedience. And the first thing I want to say is this. God's commission touched Jonah in a very tender spot. As I've shown you, he already had been successful in preaching to his own nation, the Nation of the Ten Tribes. And we deem him to be a very patriotic prophet. That's good. to be patriotic to your nation. I'm not going to preach a sermon on that, but unless in extreme circumstances, we should never in any way disregard the wishes of our nation. Unless they're doing something wrong that we know to be wrong, we should be patriotic. But now, Jonah is being asked an extremely difficult thing. He's being sent to the great enemy of Israel. Now, he might not have wanted to go there because of fear. It was a huge city, the city of Nineveh. We're told it was a city of three days journey. It's reckoned that you could manage 20 miles in a day. So it may have been, if you went from one end to the other, a city that covered that diameter of approximately 60 miles. So it's vast. Or it may have been that the main thoroughfares, going through them, would have taken you three days from one street, the main street, to the next most major street, and right through the major streets. That may have been a journey of 60 miles that would have taken three days. We know that the walls of the city of Nineveh were 100 feet high and there were 1500 towers that themselves were 200 feet high. three chariots that could ride abreast round the walls of Nineveh. In chapter four we discover that there were 120,000 infants in the city and the calculation is that there must have been perhaps 600,000 or three quarters of a million or maybe even as many as a million people in that city and the people were very cruel. I remember some years ago going around the British Museum coming to the Assyrian exhibition and you see there depicted in the relief the cruelty of the people of the city. You see some of the captives and they have a hook through their upper lip and they're being hauled along. They've been defeated by the Ninevites And now they're paraded as the prize of warfare, and they're being treated most horribly and most cruelly. So Jonah might have feared the cruelty of the enemy. And then again, he might have feared ridicule, and he went into the city and he cried out, 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown." He might have thought, well, the people will laugh at me. They won't believe what I'm saying. And if God doesn't smite them and God doesn't destroy them after my threatening, God will be held up to ridicule. He might have thought that he would be ridiculed, laughed at. He might have feared being put to death. But the real reason is neither of these two things, because the real reason he gives us himself in chapter four. After God had spared Nineveh, it says in verse one, it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. The real reason was this. He did not want Nineveh to be spared. He wanted the city to be destroyed. And he complains to God, and it says he prayed unto the Lord. It wasn't much of a prayer, and I wouldn't expect you to pray a prayer like this. He said, I pray thee, O Lord, take away my life. He says, take my life from me. Because was not this my saying when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish, for I knew that thou art a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil." I knew you'd do this, is really what he's saying to the Lord. I knew that if you sent me to Nineveh and I preached against it, because you're a gracious God, because you're a merciful God, You would save those people. You would spare those people. You would turn their hearts, and they would repent, and you would save them. And Jonah's really saying, I did not want those people to be spared. I wanted those people to be destroyed. I wanted that city to be wiped out. Now you might wonder at the cruelty of the heart of Jonah. that he would wish to see half a million, perhaps a million people destroyed, 120,000 little children destroyed, and all the animals inside that city destroyed and the city itself demolished. Why would you wish such a thing? Well, Jonah was looking further ahead. He was thinking, if this city is spared, In due course, they'll rise up again and they'll become more cruel than ever before and they'll destroy our people. They'll destroy our nation if they're spared. And I believe that's the reason why Jonah didn't want to go to the city of Nineveh. And it was a tender spot with him. He's saying, I'm an Israelite. I love my nation. I don't want to see my nation destroyed. God touches him, and I say it again to you, in a tender spot. And God always touches his people when he wants them for some special service, he touches them in a tender spot. When Abraham was in Ur of the Chaldees, God said, you're to leave this. and you're to go to be a pilgrim in a land that you've never seen before. And then in an even more tender spot, God said to Abraham, You're to rise up early in the morning. You're to take your son, your only son, and he had another son, but the only son in whom all the promises were centered. The only son through which the line of Christ was to come. He says, take your son, your only son, and offer him there for a burnt sacrifice upon one of the mountains I will tell thee of. And he was brought to Mount Moriah, and he was really touched in a tender spot. Can you imagine what it was like for Abraham? when he was going up that mountain. Now he knew, he knew God would spare, some way or other, he would spare Isaac. He might have to put him to death, he might have to reduce his body to ashes, but he believed that God would raise him up if he died. But he had to, he had to go up that mountain alongside his son. And the son was old enough to ask very pertinent questions. You've got the wood and the fire, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering? And it must have been tearing at the heart of Abraham, because he knew what he was about to do. And there's his son, his young son, maybe a teenager by this stage, and he's saying, where's the lamb? Where's the lamb? And then when Abraham ties him on the wood, suddenly, well, even not suddenly, because it would have dawned on Isaac, I am the sacrifice, and Abraham picks up the knife, it's tearing his heart out, tearing his heart out, to plunge that knife into the heart of his son. God steps in at that moment, we know that, but it's a tender spot. God does things like that. There's a famous preacher that we always talk about in Northern Ireland, W.P. Nicholson. Nicholson saw God working, saw two great revivals, 1922 to 23, and then later on in the 1920s. God moved. in a marvelous way through Nicholson. And he saw thousands of people saved. Halfway through the first set of missions that he held in Belfast and in other parts of our province, 12,500 people had passed through the inquiry rooms. And Nicholson didn't make it easy for people. He wouldn't let people under a certain age enter the inquiry rooms. And if you wanted to come through for God, he'd make you stand up in the meeting. And he was very straight with people. So that's halfway through the first set of missions. Twelve and a half thousand people. had passed through the inquiry rooms. Men from the shipyards came and they brought back to the shipyards all the items that they had pilfered, the things that they had stolen. They brought them back. They had to open a special shed at the shipyard for all the stolen things that were returned by men who got saved. But before Nicholson became mighty in God, God thoroughly tested him. And he asked Nicholson to join the Salvation Army in their march of witness that they had on a Saturday night in Nicholson's hometown of Bangor in County Dowell. Nicholson did not want to go. He really did not want to go. He said the Salvation Army at that time consisted of two young women, And a man that was called Daft Jimmy, he wasn't quite, as we would say, the full shilling. Though some of you might not know what a shilling was. Well, he wasn't a full shilling. And Nicholson did not want to go. He thought of all the reasons. But the Lord was striving with him. And eventually, he went. And when they reached the point where they were about to start their witness round the town, one of the young women said, let's get down on our knees and pray. And they got down on their knees and he said that the Salvation Army prayer at that time was like a telegram. It wasn't a long prayer. He would have liked a long prayer because he was so embarrassed. He got down on his knees, the young woman prayed, and he said, when he got up off his knees, the power of God hit him. Yes, God touched him in a tender spot, and when he responded, when he surrendered to the will of God, the power of God came into his life, and Nicholson was greatly used of God. And God tests his people, and sometimes, We find it very difficult to surrender to his will. Perhaps there's someone here that is going through such a trial. And God also tests and tries unsaved people in a tender spot. You think of Herod. What was the tender spot in Herod's life? It was a relationship with Herodias. John the Baptist said to him, it is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife. And that's what finished Herodias, that's what destroyed him. He was willing to do many things, and he did do many things, but not give up Herodias. He wasn't willing to do it. The rich young ruler was tested regarding his wealth. People are tested regarding relationships just as Herod was tested. They're tested regarding their prospects. They're tested regarding the fear of ridicule. Many people lose their soul because they're afraid of being laughed at. Somebody will mock me. My friends, I know how they mock Christians and how they speak behind their back and sneer at them. And I can't bear the thought of that. They lose their soul. They're being touched in a tender spot. It is not easy, I say to you, when the Lord puts his finger on our lives, demands that we give up something that we cherish, but that something that we cherish that he asks us to give up, it would be a stumbling block to salvation or to wholehearted obedience to the Savior. So I'm saying to you, God touched Jonah in a tender spot, and God touches us at some point or other in our lives. He touches us in a tender spot, and it's not just a one-off thing. Constantly, as he looks to us to make a fuller and fuller surrender, he touches us in a tender place. Now, I want to say something in the second place and I want to say that Jonah, in fleeing from God, found his way unblocked. found his way unblocked. That was the worst thing that could have happened to Jonah. He was heading southwest to Tarshish. Now Tarshish is believed by some of the commentators to be Gibraltar, which is just at the southern tip of Spain. So it's believed he was going to go there, and that lay in a southwesterly direction. And God was sending him in a northeasterly direction to Nineveh. So instead of going up that way, he's going down that way. Maybe it's the other way around from your point of view, for I'm looking one way and you're looking the other. He's going the wrong direction. He's going the opposite direction to what God is sending him. And that's the worst thing that could have happened to him to get away with it. He was able to get to Joppa, no breakdown physically, There was a boat there, the ship there, and he had the fare, there was space on board, and he was accepted as a passenger. But you'll notice something, if you notice the reading, that word down keeps coming up. He was going down to Joppa, and down into the ship, down into the sides of the ship, down, down, down. Because when you turn away from God, you go not upwards, you're not going higher in the Christian life. If you're saved, you're going down. You have a downward trajectory. And if you're unsaved, You're not gaining by rejecting the gospel. You're going down, down, down. And if you die on the downward path, you'll go down deeper still, because you'll go down into hell itself. And I say to you, beware, beware of getting away with disobedience. That's the worst thing that could happen to you. Hebrews 12 and verse six says, whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, he chasteneth. And we're told, no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness. Yes, we don't like it. We don't like chastening. But the Bible says that if we're without chastening, and I won't use the word that's used in Hebrews 12, but it means illegitimate. If you're without chastening, you're not a legitimate child of God. See, God's not an arbitrary God. He doesn't suddenly think, well, I must chasten that child of mine, that Christian. I must chasten that Christian. And there's no good reason. God doesn't act that way. God doesn't act that way. That's the sort of act of a drunken father, such as you'll read about, comes home and he beats up his wife and he beats up the children because he's under the influence of alcohol. Never associate God with that type of behavior. God chastens us only when we do wrong. God chastens us in love. He chastens us for our good. And if we're not chastened when we do wrong, that's a bad sign. If you're never chastened, if you get away with doing wrong all the time, it's because you don't belong to the family of God. God is a wise father, chastens his children. But sometimes, sometimes with his children, he doesn't chasten them immediately. And that's what happened here. was Jonah. He has to make that journey to Joppa and all's going smoothly for him. He's able to get on board and he's able to sleep. Not much sign of chastening there. When you're really troubled in your mind You'll toss and you'll turn and you'll be awake until the early hour and then it will get light and you're still awake and maybe if you're going to work you'll go out there and you're exhausted and the problem hasn't gone away. Yes, you're chastened, but if you're like Jonah here, you can make the journey, you can evolve success, gaining admittance to the ship, and you can go down, find a nice comfortable place, and fall fast asleep. I tell you, it couldn't have been worse for Jonah to have his smooth pathway, because eventually, eventually things changed. and a huge storm overtook that ship, and Jonah was found out. But I want to move, before I come to that, I want to move to another point and say that Jonah, in disobeying God, involved other people in trouble. There was one chief offender on that boat, and he was soon found out. You see, while Jonah was sleeping, the storm was brewing, and it was no ordinary storm. God was at work, and hardened sailors were afraid. They lightened the ship, they rode hard, they tried every expedient, and perhaps men that didn't normally pray because they were the tough men, they began to pray. Who's your God? You pray to him. Who's your God? You pray to him. Or if it's a female God, you pray to her. You cry to your God. Everybody on board, cry. Cry to God. It may be that there is a God who has power over the storms. And then the ship master, he noticed there's a man here and he's not praying. And it's Jonah. And he awakes and said, And I would say he awakens him very roughly. What meanest thou, O sleeper? Arise, call upon thy God. If so be that God will think upon us that we perish not. And so Jonah arose. I don't know if he prayed, for it doesn't actually say he prayed. And then they had this expedient. Let's draw lots and let's see if there's one person that is pointed out by the lot. The Bible does say that the lot is cast into the lap. The whole disposing thereof is of the Lord. It's not a way we recommend. Actually, if I digress a little bit, John Wesley, he drew lots as to whether he should preach against predestination, even though he had agreed not to when he took over Whitefield's society at Bristol. He drew lots and then he preached against predestination and caused a rift with George Whitefield. But I better not go down that road any further. But God's in control. And even though they're heathen people and they're drawing these lots, something that you don't normally recommend, well, the lot fell on Jonah. And they were convinced that God had pointed them out, which he had done. And they said, what's the situation here? And you can see they ask question after question, they're in a panic. And Jonah tells them the story, I'm a Hebrew, I fear the Lord, the God of heaven. And he tells them, the storm's because of me. Because I have disobeyed God. He told me to do something, to go to Nineveh, I wouldn't go, I've disobeyed him, and God is pursuing a quarrel with me. I got away with it for a time, but now I've been caught out. And what has Jonah done? He has involved lots of other people in his trouble. And everyone else was innocent of the type of offense that Jonah had committed. I'm not saying they were innocent, because I'm going to touch on that in a second or two. Well, they were innocent of what Jonah had done. And yet they were suffering. They were terrified. Terrified. Everybody on board was convinced we're going down to a watery grave. And you know, David did the same when he numbered the people. Even Joab, ungodly Joab said, don't do it. Don't do it. You're wrong. This is not a scriptural method. This is not God's way. You're not to do it in this way. But David for once rode roughshod over Joab and the result 70,000 people lost their lives, and David bitterly repented. He said, lo, I have sinned and I have done wickedly, but these sheep, what have they done? Let thine hand, I pray thee, be against me and against my father's house. Yes, David realized, I have involved other people in trouble. We could say the same of Achan, and when we sin, We harm other people. We harm other people by our example. Those who are scornful of the Bible, they harden unsaved people in their sin so that they think there is no God, there's no eternal punishment, there's no hell, and if there's a heaven, well, we'll all be there. Yeah. Yes, we harm other people when we do wrong. And we need to think. We need to think. about how we're living our lives. What sort of an example are we setting? Are we pointing the way to Christ and salvation? Or are we turning people away by our evil behavior, by our inconsistency, by our hypocrisy? Are we turning people away from the gospel and from Jesus Christ? And here's something. Sometimes Christian people speak disparagingly about other Christians in front of unsaved people. Doesn't that really give an awful impression? We generally would never dream of speaking ill of our family to people outside the family. I will not speak evil of my brothers or sisters or my children or grandchildren in front of other people. I will not do it. I respect my family. I'm sure you respect your family just as much. just as much, and how awful in the church family when a Christian ridicules another Christian in front of the unsaved. But then there's another point here. Was it fair? Was it fair that other people suffered because of Jonah's behavior? Is it fair, we might say, that other people suffer when we do wrong? Well, put it this way. No one is absolutely innocent. You see, God can pursue a thousand quarrels with people while concentrating chiefly on the main offender. I don't know how many were on that ship. Let's say 150 people, maybe more. Well, not one of those people was truly innocent. They were all sinners. And God had a quarrel with each of them. He had a primary quarrel with Jonah, but he had a quarrel with each of them. And not one person in that boat could say, I'm being treated unfairly. All, all were sinners and all were in rebellion against God. So God can deal with a thousand lesser evils while pursuing a course against a major offender. And do remember that God is not unjust. Every good gift, it says, James 1, 17, and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. There's not the slightest evil in God. In 1 John 1 and 5 we read, God is light and in him is no darkness at all. God never, never acts unfairly, never acts unjustly. And I'll say this now, I'll say it to myself, I'll say it to you, none of us knows enough to criticise God. None of us knows enough. And just let's not forget our influence on other people, both Christian and unsaved. But I want to make one more point. The time has gone. Out of the midst of the darkness, God showed the greatness of his mercy. The sailors, to begin with, they realised by the enormity of the storm that had been sent by God. And When Jonah was found out, he spoke of the true God to those people. They had all their gods. Jonah spoke of Jehovah, the true God. I fear the Lord, the God of heaven. And when they couldn't still the storm by any means, and cried to God, lay not upon us innocent blood. The Lord has done us a pleasing. They could say, this is the true God. the true God, and they obeyed the command of Jonah, albeit very reluctantly, and that's to their credit. They did not want to see Jonah perish, as far as they were concerned. If we throw him into the water, he'll sink in the Mediterranean Sea, he may be devoured by a fish, and he may drown before that time, but he'll not survive. That's as far as they were concerned. They didn't want to do it. They didn't want to do it. We should never want to see any person destroyed. Never want to see any person destroyed. Well, they threw him into the sea and the sea immediately, immediately became like a sheet of glass. Perfect calmness. And now those people on board that ship realized this is, this is the true God. Yes, he sent the storm. We've heard of him from Jonah. He was pursuing a particular quarrel with Jonah. Jonah told us what to do when we obeyed the voice of Jonah and we threw him into the sea. Suddenly, all was calm. and the storm had ended. And what did they do? They sacrificed the Lord and they made vows unto the Lord. They made promises to the Lord. Q. Martin in his book, his commentary on Jonah, believes that they were truly converted. May I say this? The enormous scare was worth it. If all those people on that ship are now in heaven, that scare, was well worth it. And sometimes people get very alarmed when a preacher preaches about hell and say, I don't want to hear that. I don't want to hear about hell. Hell's awful. Don't talk about hellfire. And maybe they say, I would have nightmares if I thought of it. Isn't it better to have a nightmare and get right with God? If that fear that is instilled in your heart leads you to repent of your sins, then I say it is worth it. And of course, God hadn't finished with Jonah. It says the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. A horrible experience. And we might ask, why did God deal so severely with Jonah? Why did God deal so severely with him? What happened to Jonah was awful. I can't imagine. what it's like. I have a fear of being shut in somewhere where I can't get out. I also have a fear of heights. I went with Graham and Adele to Kew Gardens and to my surprise I went up the lift and walked that boardwalk, or it's not a boardwalk, that walk around That was grand until there was a bit of wind. I thought this thing's swaying. And I was glad to get down again. But it helped me a bit with my fear of heights. But to be in the belly of a fish, to be there for that length of time, it must have been absolutely horrible. And I could go through chapter two, but I don't want to do that now. It was a horrible, horrible experience. Most severe. Why was God so severe? I say he was not unduly severe. Remember what I told you at the start? Jonah didn't care about half a million, say a million people. He didn't care. And he was quite happy to see them destroyed. He would have been quite happy to see them in hell. So God was not too severe. And if we do not wish well to people and pray for them and care for them, the Lord may handle us roughly, not as severely as Jonah was handled, I trust, but he may handle us severely. Jonah came through this ordeal. He wrote the book. Now he's with Christ in heaven. And I say this as I finish, really. While Jonah was disobedient, there was no disobedience in Jesus Christ. In Hebrews 5 and verse 8 it says he learned obedience by the things that he suffered. You might say, did Christ need to be taught to obey? No, it's not saying that. He learned the cost of obedience. He learned what it would cost him to obey his Father and take the place of sinners and die on the cross. Christ never disobeyed, never wanted, had no desire ever to disobey. He was perfectly obedient. to his father's will, and through his death, he has provided salvation for all who put their trust in him, all who repent of their sins, and come to him. If you know him not, if you've got away from him, come. For he says to us, him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. We bow in prayer. Father in heaven, we pray, apply the truth to all our hearts. Help me to be obedient. Help each one that is here to be obedient. Though we should be touched in a tender spot, may we yield our hearts to thee and walk in thy ways for Christ our Saviour's sake. Amen.