### Summary

Good morning, everyone. Today, we celebrate the incredible work God did during our Vacation Bible School (VBS) last week, where 11 children accepted Christ. We had over 110 volunteers, and despite a power outage on the last day, it was a blessed week. Let's also pray for our teenagers heading to Dayton, Ohio, for a life-changing experience.

We are beginning a new series on the book of Jonah, a short but profound book that reveals a loving and merciful God. Jonah is often remembered for being swallowed by a big fish, but the book is more about God's mercy and second chances. Jonah, a prophet, was commanded by God to go to Nineveh, a great but wicked city, and preach against its wickedness. However, Jonah ran away from God, heading in the opposite direction to Tarshish.

Many people struggle with the story of Jonah, questioning its plausibility. But if we believe in a God who created the universe with a word, then the story of Jonah is entirely possible. The book of Jonah is not a parable; it is a historical account with real names and places, even referenced by Jesus Himself.

Nineveh was a massive city, known for its culture and extreme wickedness. The Assyrians, who lived there, were notorious for their cruelty. Understanding this context helps us see why Jonah was so reluctant to go there. He had legitimate reasons to hate the Ninevites, but God still called him to go.

Jonah's story is a mirror for us. We often hear God's word but choose to disobey, thinking our reasons are justified. Delayed obedience is still disobedience. Jonah's rebellion began when he said no to God and ran away. Even though Jonah was a respected prophet, his heart was far from God when he chose to disobey.

We must be cautious not to mistake peace in our hearts as God's affirmation, especially when it contradicts His word. The heart is deceitful, and Satan can numb our conscience to lead us astray. Instead, we should look to God's unchanging word for guidance.

This week, I challenge you to read Jonah chapter 1 and examine your life. Ask God to reveal areas where you are saying no when you should be saying yes. Remember, God's mercy and grace are always available, even in our failings. If you don't have a relationship with Jesus, today is the day to say yes to Him.

### Key Takeaways

1. **God's Mercy and Second Chances**: The book of Jonah is a profound illustration of God's mercy and His willingness to give second chances. Despite Jonah's initial disobedience, God continued to pursue him, demonstrating that no matter how far we run, God's grace is always available to bring us back. [38:50]

2. **The Reality of Disobedience**: Delayed obedience is essentially disobedience. When God calls us to act, postponing our response is a form of rebellion. Like Jonah, we often have our reasons for not obeying immediately, but true obedience requires prompt action. [54:45]

3. **The Deceitfulness of the Heart**: Our hearts can be deceitful, leading us to believe that peace in our hearts is God's affirmation, even when it contradicts His word. We must rely on the unchanging word of God rather than our fluctuating emotions to guide our actions. [01:04:42]

4. **Understanding God's Commands**: Sometimes, God's commands may seem difficult or even impossible, but they are always for our good. Jonah's reluctance to go to Nineveh stemmed from his hatred for the Ninevites, but God's command was rooted in His desire to extend mercy and bring about repentance. [51:50]

5. **Self-Examination and Repentance**: We are all prone to rebellion in some areas of our lives. This week, take time to read Jonah chapter 1 and ask God to reveal where you are saying no when you should be saying yes. True repentance involves recognizing our disobedience and turning back to God. [01:06:41]

### YouTube Chapters

[0:00] - Welcome
[36:37] - Prayer for Teenagers
[37:55] - Introduction to Jonah
[38:50] - God's Mercy and Second Chances
[40:00] - Jonah's Story and Skepticism
[42:43] - The Plausibility of Jonah's Story
[45:00] - The Wickedness of Nineveh
[47:18] - Jonah's Reluctance and Hatred
[51:50] - Understanding God's Commands
[54:45] - Delayed Obedience is Disobedience
[57:05] - Jonah's Rebellion
[01:01:37] - The Deceitfulness of the Heart
[01:06:02] - Challenge for the Week
[01:09:26] - Closing Prayer

### Bible Study Discussion Guide

#### Bible Reading
- Jonah 1:1-3
- Jeremiah 17:9
- Matthew 12:39-41

#### Observation Questions
1. What command did God give to Jonah in Jonah 1:1-2, and how did Jonah respond? ([40:31])
2. According to the sermon, why was Jonah reluctant to go to Nineveh? ([47:59])
3. How does the sermon explain the plausibility of Jonah's story, especially the part about being swallowed by a big fish? ([42:43])
4. What does the sermon say about the deceitfulness of the heart and how it can mislead us? ([01:04:42])

#### Interpretation Questions
1. Why might Jonah have felt justified in disobeying God's command to go to Nineveh, and how does this reflect our own tendencies to justify disobedience? ([51:50])
2. How does the sermon illustrate the concept that "delayed obedience is disobedience"? What are some modern examples of this? ([54:45])
3. In what ways can the peace in our hearts be misleading, according to the sermon? How should we instead seek guidance? ([01:04:42])
4. How does the story of Jonah challenge our understanding of God's mercy and second chances? ([38:50])

#### Application Questions
1. Reflect on a time when you felt God was calling you to do something difficult. How did you respond, and what was the outcome? ([51:50])
2. Are there areas in your life where you are currently saying "no" to God? What steps can you take to turn that "no" into a "yes"? ([01:06:41])
3. How can you ensure that your decisions are guided by God's unchanging word rather than your fluctuating emotions? ([01:04:42])
4. Think of a situation where you delayed obedience to God. What were the consequences, and how can you act more promptly in the future? ([54:45])
5. Identify one area in your life where you need to extend forgiveness, even if it feels undeserved. How can you take a step towards forgiveness this week? ([52:41])
6. How can you cultivate a heart that is more receptive to God's commands, even when they are challenging or counter to your desires? ([51:50])
7. What practical steps can you take this week to read and meditate on Jonah chapter 1, as challenged in the sermon? ([01:06:02])

Day 1: God's Relentless Mercy and Second Chances
God's mercy is a central theme in the book of Jonah. Despite Jonah's initial disobedience, God continued to pursue him, demonstrating that no matter how far we run, God's grace is always available to bring us back. Jonah's story is a powerful reminder that God's love and mercy are not limited by our failures. Instead, He offers us second chances to align ourselves with His will. This relentless pursuit of Jonah by God shows His deep desire for repentance and restoration, not just for Jonah but also for the people of Nineveh. God's mercy extends to all, even those we might consider undeserving.

Jonah's experience teaches us that God's plans are always rooted in His love and desire for our good. When we stray, He doesn't abandon us but instead provides opportunities for us to return to Him. This week, reflect on the areas in your life where you have experienced God's mercy and second chances. How has His grace transformed you, and how can you extend that same grace to others? [38:50]

Jonah 3:1-2 (ESV): "Then the 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.'"

Reflection: Think of a time when you experienced God's mercy and a second chance. How did it change your perspective and actions? How can you extend that same grace to someone in your life today?


Day 2: The Reality of Disobedience
Delayed obedience is essentially disobedience. When God calls us to act, postponing our response is a form of rebellion. Like Jonah, we often have our reasons for not obeying immediately, but true obedience requires prompt action. Jonah's story highlights the consequences of running away from God's commands. His initial refusal to go to Nineveh led to a series of events that not only affected him but also those around him. Our disobedience can have far-reaching impacts, and it's crucial to recognize that delayed obedience is still disobedience in God's eyes.

Jonah's reluctance to obey God's command stemmed from his personal feelings towards the Ninevites. However, God's commands are not based on our comfort or preferences but on His divine plan and purpose. This week, consider the areas in your life where you might be delaying obedience to God's call. What steps can you take to respond promptly and faithfully to His guidance? [54:45]

1 Samuel 15:22 (ESV): "And Samuel said, 'Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.'"

Reflection: Identify an area in your life where you have been delaying obedience to God's call. What practical steps can you take today to respond promptly and faithfully?


Day 3: The Deceitfulness of the Heart
Our hearts can be deceitful, leading us to believe that peace in our hearts is God's affirmation, even when it contradicts His word. We must rely on the unchanging word of God rather than our fluctuating emotions to guide our actions. Jonah's story serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of following our own desires instead of God's commands. Jonah felt justified in his disobedience because of his personal feelings towards the Ninevites, but his heart led him astray.

It's easy to mistake our own desires and emotions for God's will, especially when they align with what we want. However, true discernment requires us to measure our feelings against the truth of God's word. This week, examine the areas in your life where you might be relying on your emotions rather than God's word for guidance. How can you ensure that your actions align with His unchanging truth? [01:04:42]

Jeremiah 17:9-10 (ESV): "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? 'I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.'"

Reflection: Reflect on a recent decision you made based on your emotions. How does it align with God's word? What steps can you take to ensure your future decisions are guided by His truth?


Day 4: Understanding God's Commands
Sometimes, God's commands may seem difficult or even impossible, but they are always for our good. Jonah's reluctance to go to Nineveh stemmed from his hatred for the Ninevites, but God's command was rooted in His desire to extend mercy and bring about repentance. God's commands are not always easy to follow, but they are given with a purpose and for our ultimate benefit. Jonah's story reminds us that God's ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts.

When we face difficult commands from God, it's important to trust in His wisdom and goodness. He sees the bigger picture and knows what is best for us and for those around us. This week, reflect on a command from God that you find challenging. How can you trust in His wisdom and goodness as you seek to obey? [51:50]

Isaiah 55:8-9 (ESV): "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

Reflection: Think of a command from God that you find challenging. How can you trust in His wisdom and goodness as you seek to obey?


Day 5: Self-Examination and Repentance
We are all prone to rebellion in some areas of our lives. This week, take time to read Jonah chapter 1 and ask God to reveal where you are saying no when you should be saying yes. True repentance involves recognizing our disobedience and turning back to God. Jonah's story is a mirror for us, showing how we often hear God's word but choose to disobey, thinking our reasons are justified. However, God's mercy and grace are always available, even in our failings.

Self-examination is a crucial part of our spiritual growth. It allows us to identify areas of disobedience and seek God's forgiveness and guidance. This week, take time to read Jonah chapter 1 and ask God to reveal where you are saying no when you should be saying yes. How can you turn back to Him and embrace His mercy and grace? [01:06:41]

Psalm 139:23-24 (ESV): "Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!"

Reflection: Read Jonah chapter 1 and ask God to reveal areas of disobedience in your life. How can you turn back to Him and embrace His mercy and grace?

### Quotes for Outreach

1. "At the end of the day, the book of Jonah is a really beautiful picture of a loving, merciful God, and he's mentioned 38 times in the book. The God of second chance. The God who commands us to obey him. Not just to make our lives miserable. That's not what it is. It's all about God knows what's best for all of us. He wants us to learn to follow him because he knows what's best. He knows what's best better than we know what we think is best for us sometimes." [38:50](35 seconds)(Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "If you can believe in a God who spoke everything into existence by the word of his mouth, then you can believe something that are beyond our comprehension. Things that seemed impossible. We can just believe it. And here's the reality. There's no way to escape that unless you want to get rid altogether of the idea of God, the God who's at work in this world. And so I believe, absolutely, 100%, I believe in the story of Jonah and the whale, and it's absolutely real." [44:11](37 seconds)(Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "The word of the Lord will come to some of you, and you'll hear specifically from God, and God wants you to do something. God says, hey, I want you to do this, and in your mind, you might say, okay, I understand, God, that's what you want me to do, but I'm not going to do it. I don't want to do it. Perhaps, you know, maybe someone has wronged you or hurt you or hurt someone that you love, and the word of the Lord, it comes to you, and the word of the Lord says, hey, I want you to forgive them, forgive them, and to forgive as you have been forgiven, and you say, I don't want to do that. They don't deserve forgiveness. I am not going to forgive." [52:41](46 seconds)(Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "Delayed obedience, it's really disobedience. Delayed obedience. It's really disobedience. It's really disobedience. It's like parenting techniques that we see sometimes with kids, with parents, with their kids. You know, you got little Johnny, you got little Becky, and we say, Johnny, I want you to do this. Come on, Johnny, do this. Come on, you come here now. Don't make, don't you, don't you make me come over there, Johnny. Johnny, you get here. I'm going to give you a count of three. One, two, two and a half. Right? Right? And what are we doing? What we're teaching them that delayed obedience, you know, obedience, it's okay, but the reality is delayed obedience, it's disobedience, disobedience." [55:26](52 seconds)(Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5. "Whenever God speaks to you, whenever God's word tells us how to live, you can always bet on it. You can always find a boat, a ship sailing in the wrong direction every time. In other words, if you want to run from God, there will always be a ship ready in Tarshish. If you want to run, there will be a boat ready for you. You have a spiritual enemy, right, the devil. His role is to ready the ship for your disobedience. He wants to ready the ship for you to run." [01:02:34](43 seconds)(Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


### Quotes for Members

1. "Jonah tells God, God, I don't want to go there. I can't stand those people. I don't want to have anything to do with those people. They make me angry. I hate them. I hate them. We'll see that in the story. The Bible says in Jonah 1, verse number 3, but Jonah ran away from the Lord. He headed for Tarshish, went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. And after paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee, to run from the Lord. And here's where it begins, Jonah's rebellion against God. God clearly had told him to go to Nineveh, and he ran the other way. In fact, it's not just a little way. It's 2,500 miles away from Nineveh. He ran the complete opposite direction of where God wanted him to go." [57:05](71 seconds)(Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "You see, sometimes we tend to evaluate our walk with God, and walk with God, right? Sometimes we tend to evaluate our holiness by comparing how godly we are to others. Hey, I go to church more than they do. You know, I give more. I get involved more than they do. I'm a pretty moral person. I've got my life a little bit better than so-and-so. And we tend to compare our holiness, we begin to evaluate our holiness and compare it to others, and we build ourselves up, we measure ourselves against others." [58:37](45 seconds)(Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "You see, you're never farther from God than when you're close to him. Let me say, I want, that got to sink in for just a minute. You're never farther from God than when you're doing all the things, going through the motions of religion, going through the motion of Christianity. You're never farther from God when you're close to him, and you say no. And this is what Jonah is. He is a man of God, a prophet. From the outside looking in, he's got it made, living for the Lord, that his heart, when he said no to God, his heart was far from him." [01:00:30](52 seconds)(Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "Peace in your heart may not always be God's affirmation of what you're doing. You understand that? Peace in your heart may not always, can be sometimes, but not always be God's affirmation of what you're doing. It may be Satan numbing your conscience as he leads you down a path towards death. So I'm telling you, don't look to peace in your heart as a guide for your life. Why? Because the heart is deceitful. Who can know it? The Bible says. It is destructive. And so don't let your heart be your guide. Look to God's word. Don't look to peace in your heart as a guide for your life because peace in your heart can change based on what you ate sometimes, right? Sometimes it can change based on your mood. God's word, it never changes. It never changes. No matter what our culture says, as the word of God, consistent, and it's the same, never changes." [01:05:24](78 seconds)(Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5. "I want to challenge you to do, two things this week. I want to challenge you, number one, read chapter one of Jonah. And so I'm going to read all four chapters. Great, more power to you. But at the minimum, read chapter one this week. Meditate on Jonah chapter one. And then here's the second thing. I want to challenge you to examine your life. I want you to ask God, God, church my heart. God, where am I saying no? Where I should be saying no? I want you to ask where am I saying a no? Where I should be saying a yes? It doesn't matter who you are. It's a message not just for you but for me. Every now and then, I can begin to say no to what God wants me to do. And I can rebel. All of us. There's a Jonah in us. But the bigger picture we're seeing in this story is the mercy and the humility that God has for us. the grace of God. Even in my failings, He never stopped chasing after us." [01:06:41](96 seconds)(Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)

Good morning. We're glad that you're here today. Thank you for being a part of our service.

I think we've already mentioned we had a great VBS this past week and 11 kids that got saved. We had a great, great week. And volunteers, I just want to say thank you. Thank you to all of our volunteers. I believe we had over 115, 110 volunteers, and they ranged from teenagers all the way up. I appreciate every one of you. It was a hot week, but we did it. We had a great week.

I appreciate our director, Shelly Hill. I don't know if she's in here, but she just did a fantastic job leading us in our Vacation Bible School. I'm just thankful for all that God has done this past week.

Unfortunately, on Thursday, we did lose power, so we were unable to do the last night of VBS because of a power outage that happened. But we do celebrate all that God has done this past week, and we're just excited about teenagers, you know, this week. Corey is taking care of the kids, and we're just expecting kids to go to Dayton, Ohio. So, please be praying for them, praying for our teenagers. Can we do that? Can we just take a minute and pray for our teenagers?

Let's pray. God, we ask you to be with our youth, our teenagers this week, and our leaders that are going with them. We pray that this will be the most impactful week of their lives and that they will come back more fired up for you. We know there are some that might make a decision for you, for a relationship with you. There will be some that will be called to ministry, to a greater calling. God, we just pray that you work in their hearts, whatever that might be. We pray for protection as they go, and we pray that the next five or six days will be a highlight that they'll never forget for the rest of their lives—the decisions that they make this week. In Jesus' name, amen.

Thank you.

Well, we are starting a new series today on Jonah. The book of Jonah is just a really beautiful picture framed in four chapters. So, it's a short book, right?

What is the book of Jonah a picture of? Some people would say, well, it's a picture of a whale. You know, you see the story, and it's Jonah and the whale. In the book of Jonah, it's actually the big fish or the great fish, and it's only mentioned four times—the great fish. Others would say that it's a picture of a great city, Nineveh, which was the largest city in that day and the most influential city in that time period. But the great city of Nineveh is only mentioned nine times in the book of Jonah.

Others would say, well, the book of Jonah is just really a picture of a disobedient prophet. You know, it's named after him, the book. It's named after Jonah, but Jonah's only mentioned 19 times in the book of Jonah.

At the end of the day, the book of Jonah is a really beautiful picture of a loving, merciful God, and he's mentioned 38 times in the book. The God of second chances. The God who commands us to obey him—not just to make our lives miserable. That's not what it is. It's all about God knowing what's best for all of us. He wants us to learn to follow him because he knows what's best. He knows what's best better than we know what we think is best for us sometimes.

So, it's my privilege, my prayer that in this series, we'll get a clear picture of who God is, how much he loves, and what he wants to do in our lives. The picture is a picture of the God of mercy, the God of second chances.

I want to open our Bibles. We're going to dive in—no pun intended. By the way, if you don't know where the book of Jonah is, let me help you out. It's right between Obadiah and Micah. That was helpful, wasn't it? Jonah is tucked in with all those books that sound like Star Wars characters, right? You got Obadiah, you got Jonah, Obi-Wan, you got Micah, Nahum, Chewbacca. It's all right there, okay?

So, if you got to use the table of contents, listen, there's no shame. No shame if you got to do that and check that out.

But Jonah, chapter one, I want to dive in the first two verses here.

The word of the Lord came to Jonah, son of Amittai: "Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it because its wickedness has come up before me."

Now, I want to stop right here for just a minute. I think it's so important that we clear up some things. If people know anything about Jonah, they know that Jonah is a man of God. They know it has something to do with Jonah telling God no, him running away, being swallowed by a big fish. A lot of people just get hung up with this story right here. They say, well, how can that be true? How can this happen? How can a man that gets swallowed by a fish survive three days?

It sounds like, Scott, this is just a little fairy tale, a myth. It reminds me of a story of a woman. She was on an airplane, and there was a four-year-old man. She was sitting there, and she pulled out her Bible and was reading. The man next to her kind of chuckled, kind of looked the other way, kind of ignored it. Then finally, he couldn't help himself, and he looked at the woman and he said, "Hey, you don't really believe the Bible, do you?"

And the woman said, "Well, yes, I do. The Bible is God's word. It's divinely inspired, and it helps me to live for him, and it shows me how to live and grow in my walk with him."

And the man said, "Well, that's great, but what about the guy who got swallowed by a whale?"

And the woman said, "Oh, yeah, yeah, that's Jonah. And yes, I believe in the story of Jonah. I believe it's true because all of God's word is true."

And the guy said, "Well, how in the world did Jonah stay alive that entire time?"

And the woman said, "Well, I don't know. But when I get to heaven, I guess I'll just have to ask him."

And the guy said, "Well, what if he's not in heaven?"

And the woman replied, "Well, then I guess you'll ask him."

Now, I would not even put this, you know, when I think about all the impossible things that we sometimes think in a story, I wouldn't even put there in the top 10 hardest things to believe in the Bible. You know, there are bigger things to believe. I mean, from Genesis chapter one, verse one, in the beginning, God created. God spoke. He spoke the worlds, the galaxies, into existence with the word.

And I mean, to me, that's a top 10, right? Luke, you know, in the gospel, you see a God being born on earth as a baby, being born by a virgin, right? And to me, that's incredible, right? That's incredible. And then he healed people and raised people to life. He did that. And then eventually he was crucified, was dead for three days, and then he himself rose again.

So why would we pick this out and say, "Hey, the story of Jonah, that's impossible"? Because God created all the galaxies with a word. Then my friend, he can pull off stuff like Jonah and the whale. And if you can believe in a God who spoke everything into existence by the word of his mouth, then you can believe in something that is beyond our comprehension—things that seem impossible. We can just believe it.

And here's the reality. There's no way to escape that unless you want to get rid altogether of the idea of God—the God who's at work in this world. And so I believe, absolutely, 100%, I believe in the story of Jonah and the whale, and it's absolutely real.

Some people will say, well, you know, maybe it's supposed to be read as a parable, right? An allegory. And the problem with that idea is that the book of Jonah is not written that way. There are names, there are dates, details. It's written in a genre of history. It says, you know, right there in the beginning, Jonah, the son of Amittai. It doesn't start off, "Once upon a time, a guy named Jonah."

You know, by the way, 2 Kings and other parts in our Bible talk about this man named Jonah. Jesus made a reference to Jonah, and if Jesus knew who Jonah was, and if he was real, then I feel like, hey, we're good.

And so we've got a lot of information here that this is beyond a parable. This is a true, real story. So I kind of want to get that out there in the front. It's not just some fable. And there are some powerful lessons for all of us here.

So in Jonah chapter 1, let's look at verse number 2 again.

He said, God said to Jonah, "Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it because its wickedness has come up before me."

Now, I want to stop here again. A couple of things about Nineveh we need to understand. First of all, Nineveh was a great, huge city. Like I said earlier, Nineveh was one of the probably three largest cities of the time. It had so much culture, had the largest libraries—one of the first ancient libraries of that time period. And it was huge. It had city walls that were so wide that three chariots could race on the top of the city walls.

The city was massive. We see this later in Jonah that Jonah walked from one side of the city to the other. It took him three days to make that journey across the city of Nineveh. So there was great architecture, great culture that was reflected here in Nineveh.

By the way, Nineveh is the capital of the Assyrian Empire. This leads me to my second thought here: the thing about Nineveh is that it's extremely wicked. The Assyrians, the Ninevites, were wicked people. They were known as some of the cruelest people in the ancient world. In fact, Nineveh kind of bragged about how bad and how wicked they were.

I mean, they kind of took joy in the fact that they were evil. I mean, it's kind of like us with the Detroit Pistons fans. I mean, are there any Detroit Pistons fans in the room? How many of you remember the bad boys? Right, okay. I mean, everybody in Detroit loved Bill Laimbeer. I mean, he was the bad boy, right? And everybody else, if you weren't a part of Detroit, if you weren't a fan of the Detroit Pistons, you couldn't stand the bad boys.

But we kind of loved the persona of being the bad boys. All right, so the Ninevites, they saw themselves as the bad boys of ancient history, and they kind of took pride in that—in a very twisted, wicked way.

And here we got Jonah. Everybody's wondering, Jonah's a prophet, right? He's a preacher, he's an evangelist—that's what he does. He preaches the word of God. So why didn't he just obey this very simple assignment to go to Nineveh?

When you understand the history of Nineveh and the history of the Assyrians, then you understand a little bit more why Jonah ran, why Jonah hated the Ninevites. The Assyrians were so brutal in the way that they would handle the prisoners, the captives. It was rumored that when it was known the Assyrians were coming to raid a village, sometimes a whole town of people would just kill themselves because they would rather die that way than to experience what would happen if they were captured by the Ninevites.

I mean, that's how feared the Assyrian Empire was, and they were hated. You can read this in the history books. They would go in, they would take over a city, they would kill all sorts of people, surviving women and children. They would do wicked, abhorrent things to them, and they would torture the kids, they would torture the wives, the females. They would take the husbands who were still alive, the prisoners of war, and they would take them outside of the city gates, and they would skin them alive.

Then they would bury them up to their neck in the hot desert sand, and they were still alive. You can just imagine the torture, the pain. Then they would take their tongues up to their neck in the sand. The Assyrians would take their tongues and pour it as far as they can and drive a stake into the ground, and they would be thirsty, agonizing in pain.

And then to make things worse, all through the night, they would make them listen to Nickelback music. If you're a fan of Nickelback music, I am so sorry. I'm just trying to make it—I just made that up, right? But the rest of it's true. I mean, I had to take the edge off; I mean, it's kind of hard here, right?

Anyway, you can just imagine the horror, right? You can just imagine the pain, and most of these men would go crazy before they die. Then once they were dead, they would behead them, and then they would take the heads of all the prisoners of war, and they would make a human head pyramid right outside the city that they conquered. They were sending a message to everybody: "We are the bad boys, and we just conquered this city."

When you understand that, when you hear that, maybe we have a little bit more understanding for Jonah when he tells God, "I am not going there. I hate those people." Perhaps he had a friend or a relative that was part of that atrocity. Maybe they've experienced that, and he despised them.

But God tells Jonah, "Hey, Jonah, I want you to go. I want you to do something." In Jonah's mind, he had legitimate reasons not to obey God.

Maybe here this morning, you can relate just a little bit with Jonah. The word of God will come to some of you, and you'll hear specifically from God. God wants you to do something. God says, "Hey, I want you to do this," and in your mind, you might say, "Okay, I understand, God, that's what you want me to do, but I'm not going to do it. I don't want to do it."

Perhaps, you know, maybe someone has wronged you or hurt you or hurt someone that you love, and the word of the Lord comes to you, and the word of the Lord says, "Hey, I want you to forgive them. Forgive them, and forgive as you have been forgiven." And you say, "I don't want to do that. They don't deserve forgiveness. I am not going to forgive. I know that's what God wants me to do, but I don't want to do it. I just don't want to do it."

Maybe some of you, you know, you've heard the teaching of the biblical tithe, and you feel like maybe God is speaking to say, "Hey, I want you to be faithful in the way that you give a tenth of your income. I want you to do that." And you say, "God, I hear you, but I got my stuff I want."

So, I'm not going to give back. I'm not going to return the tithe back to you. I'm going to do what I want to do. I have my desires. I got things I want to do more than I want to obey God.

Maybe this morning you're dating somebody, and you get close to the person, you know, and before you know it, you're doing things that you should not be doing. You've been messing around. The word of the Lord will come to you and say, "Hey, I want you to save your body for marriage. That's not for dating."

And you've got a choice. A lot of us would say, "Well, hey, I know that's what God says, but I want to do what makes me feel happy. This makes me feel good. I don't care what God says. I'm going to do what I want to do."

You see, at the end of the day, when we begin to read Jonah, and the more we read Jonah, the more we realize that there is a Jonah in every one of us, right? There's a Jonah in you. There's a Jonah in me.

And the word of the Lord will come to you and say, "Hey, I know what I'm supposed to do, and I'll do it, but I'll do it on my time. I'll do it later, God. I'll do it later. I got things I want to do first before I do what you want me to do."

And if you're taking notes, I want you to remember this: delayed obedience is really disobedience. Delayed obedience is really disobedience.

It's like parenting techniques that we see sometimes with kids, with parents and their kids. You know, you got little Johnny, you got little Becky, and we say, "Johnny, I want you to do this. Come on, Johnny, do this. Come on, you come here now. Don't make me come over there, Johnny. Johnny, you get here. I'm going to give you a count of three. One, two, two and a half." Right?

And what are we doing? What we're teaching them is that delayed obedience, you know, obedience, it's okay, but the reality is delayed obedience is disobedience.

And the word of the Lord will come to some of us, and it'll often tell us to do something that you just don't want to do. And Jonah, this is where he's at. Jonah tells God, "God, I don't want to go there. I can't stand those people. I don't want to have anything to do with those people. They make me angry. I hate them. I hate them."

We'll see that in the story. The Bible says in Jonah 1, verse number 3, "But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee, to run from the Lord."

And here's where it begins—Jonah's rebellion against God. God clearly had told him to go to Nineveh, and he ran the other way. In fact, it's not just a little way; it's 2,500 miles away from Nineveh. He ran the complete opposite direction of where God wanted him to go.

There are a couple of things here I want you to take notice of. Number one, rebellion. Number two, rebellion. It's really saying no to God. That's what rebellion is. In the simplest definition, that's just when you say no to God in any area of your life, you're rebelling. You're rebelling against him.

And you see, Jonah—and here's what you need to know about Jonah—Jonah is not some rogue prophet. I mean, he's an upstanding guy. He really is. In fact, when we see this in 2 Kings, chapter 14, it talks about Jonah and talks about how he was one of the premier prophets of his time. He was very well respected. He had a very influential ministry. Some would say that he would have been the Billy Graham of this time period, right?

And so, this is Jonah. But he rebelled against God. And I think it's so important to understand. You see, sometimes we tend to evaluate our walk with God and our holiness by comparing how godly we are to others. "Hey, I go to church more than they do. You know, I give more. I get involved more than they do. I'm a pretty moral person. I've got my life a little bit better than so-and-so."

And we tend to compare our holiness; we begin to evaluate our holiness and compare it to others, and we build ourselves up, we measure ourselves against others.

You know, remember the TV show back in the 80s and 90s, "The Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous"? A very popular show. I think a lot of people were drawn to it because they see the lifestyle of the rich and famous, and they see how it's spiraled, and a lot of them were just spiraling with a mask.

You know, and it goes through multiple, multiple marriages. Sometimes we tend to watch a show like that, you know, back then, and we'd be like, "Hey, it just makes me feel good. I'm not as messed up as these people. I'm not messed up like them. I'm doing pretty good."

And Jonah was an outstanding guy, but he missed it. He missed it. You see, you're never farther from God than when you're close to him.

Let me say that again: you're never farther from God than when you're close to him. That got to sink in for just a minute. You're never farther from God than when you're doing all the things, going through the motions of religion, going through the motions of Christianity. You're never farther from God when you're close to him, and you say no.

And this is what Jonah is. He is a man of God, a prophet. From the outside looking in, he's got it made, living for the Lord, but his heart, when he said no to God, was far from him.

Here's the second thing I noticed in this verse, verse number 3, is that Jonah found a ship ready. He found a ship ready. You ever notice that people assume the readiness of the ship? It's like God's ship. It's okay on a plan of action.

I can't tell you how many times, how many conversations I've had where people are doing something that's clearly against the will of God, and they were telling me, they said, "Pastor Scott, look, I know it didn't look right and sound right, but look, it all works out."

And I've talked to people in the middle of adultery, and they would say, "Scott, I was miserable in my marriage, and then I met this person. I felt like God was trying to say, 'Hey, I just want you to be happy. I just want you to be happy.'"

Let me say this: whenever God speaks to you, whenever God's word tells us how to live, you can always bet on it. You can always find a boat, a ship sailing in the wrong direction every time.

In other words, if you want to run from God, there will always be a ship ready in Tarshish. If you want to run, there will be a boat ready for you. You have a spiritual enemy, right? The devil. His role is to ready the ship for your disobedience. He wants to ready the ship for you to run.

If you want to ruin your marriage, there will always be a too-good-to-be-true relationship that will present itself. And if you tolerate greed in your life, there will always be a great deal to buy.

Let God lead you in something that's right, something that's good. There will always be average. He will always make it look like, "Hey, the grass is always greener on the other side of the track." He always presents that to you. He always makes his ship ready for you.

I've heard people say, "I had some peace in my heart about this." We think that peace in my heart overrides God's word. He said, "Hey, you know, I override the scripture because I got peace."

Peace is one of Satan's primary jobs—to give you peace about doing the wrong thing. Y'all with me?

He said, "Hey, in Genesis chapter 3, it started there, faithful temptation. He goes to the woman, he goes to Eve, he said, 'Hey, it's okay. The forbidden tree, it's good, it's fine. Hey, listen, you'll get wise, you won't die.'"

What was he doing? He was offering Eve and Adam and Eve the peace. "Hey, it's gonna be good." And he gave her peace about disobeying God.

You see, peace in your heart may not always be God's affirmation of what you're doing. You understand that? Peace in your heart may not always—can be sometimes, but not always be God's affirmation of what you're doing.

It may be Satan numbing your conscience as he leads you down a path towards death. So I'm telling you, don't look to peace in your heart as a guide for your life. Why? Because the heart is deceitful. Who can know it? The Bible says it is destructive.

And so don't let your heart be your guide. Look to God's word. Don't look to peace in your heart as a guide for your life because peace in your heart can change based on what you ate sometimes, right? Sometimes it can change based on your mood.

God's word, it never changes. It never changes. No matter what our culture says, the word of God is consistent, and it's the same. It never changes.

And we're going to stop here. We're going to finish this message. You know, you say, "I got more on my handout." I'm going to finish. We're in it next week. If you can't make it next week, watch online as we kind of get going here in this book of Jonah.

But here's what I want you to know. Here's what I want to finish up. I want to challenge you to do two things this week. I want to challenge you, number one, read chapter one of Jonah.

And so I'm going to read all four chapters. Great, more power to you. But at the minimum, read chapter one this week. Meditate on Jonah chapter one.

And then here's the second thing. I want to challenge you to examine your life. I want you to ask God, "God, search my heart. God, where am I saying no when I should be saying yes?"

It doesn't matter who you are. It's a message not just for you but for me. Every now and then, I can begin to say no to what God wants me to do. And I can rebel. All of us. There's a Jonah in us.

But the bigger picture we're seeing in this story is the mercy and the humility that God has for us—the grace of God. Even in my failings, He never stops chasing after us.

Maybe you're here today, and you're saying no to Jesus altogether. You've been saying no. You don't have a relationship with Him. You don't know God. And you're here today. Maybe you've been coming, or maybe you're here for the very first time.

Maybe here today, you're saying, "You know, I need to say yes to Jesus." Because He is the way, the truth, and the life. He is the path to life. Because the way you're going, I'm telling you, the path that you're on is the path of death. It dead ends. It gets you nowhere.

And eventually, you will be eternally separated from God in a place called hell. But you can turn it around just where you are. And so, Scott, you don't understand where I'm at. It doesn't matter. God will forgive you.

No matter where you are in life, you just have to say yes. And if that's you today, I'll be here. Our pastors, staff, we have a prayer team in just a minute. Talk to any of us and say, "I need to learn what it means to say yes to God." That's all you have to say, and we'll help you.

We'll help you, talk to you about what it means to have a relationship with Him. And if you are a Christ follower, now we're going to be back. We can still rebel and still be a Christian. We can be, you know, like I said, we can be far from God, even though we might think we're close and we've got it all, you know, we've got our religious exercises down.

We're going to be far from God due to the fact that we're saying no to something. What area in your life do you need to say yes to Him?

Our Heavenly Father, we ask you to help us today. God, I pray that you help us to understand that in every one of us, our heart is deceitful, but your words never change.

So God, I pray as we read the story of Jonah, we begin to see Jonah in all of us, whatever that might be, whatever we're saying no to. God, I pray that we take that no, surrender, and give it to you.

God, if there's someone here that does not have a relationship with you, perhaps today, they can give their life, their heart. I pray that they don't put it off. Don't put it off. Get it done today. In Jesus' name, amen.