Escaping God's Will

I want us to look into the familiar story of Jonah today, friends, and to peer into his life and the will of God on his life. We will begin reading in Jonah chapter 1 and verse 1. 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 has come up before me. Let me pause here, friends, to say, when the wickedness of America comes up before God, as it does every day, do you believe that God is looking for a prophet of his to go against it? I believe God is on the lookout for men like Jonah, who will emerge from the deep waters of purging and preparation, to go and preach his word to a generation bent on going to hell.

And I believe, friends, that one man truly revived and sold out to God, and in the spirit of God, that if he will go out in obedience to God, crying out in God's name for repentance, he can bring a nation to its knees. Let's continue with our text from verse 3. But 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 unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.

I will stop there. God told Jonah to go to Nineveh, which was to the east of Israel. Instead, Jonah went to Tarshish, which was the western extremity of the trade routes for the ships of Tyre.

In other words, Jonah was running as far as he could, in the opposite direction from the place God wanted him to go. We all know the rest of the story about how Jonah is thrown overboard in a storm, is swallowed by the whale, and comes to the place where God finally conquers him. It took a storm, an overthrow, and a near-death experience as Jonah was brought to the bottom as far down as God could take him.

I believe there are some men and women out there who have been running from God in an attempt to escape the will of God. Maybe it was a call to the mission field, and you had your excuses not to go. Perhaps it was a call to leave the business world and go into full-time ministry, but you have your excuses.

Or maybe it was a call on your life to be a preacher, and you've been on the run from that. I was discipling a man one time, and it seemed this man wanted to go deeper with God, but he kept hitting the wall. Finally I asked him to come clean with me, if there was something I needed to know.

He said with a broken voice and a sad look in his eyes that he felt God had called him to be a pastor, and when he was in college he took some pulpit supply for some country churches, but he realized after a while he didn't want to be a pastor because he didn't want to be poor. I looked at him as he sat there telling me his story. He was on his third marriage and hoping that would be the one that would bring him happiness.

His second wife took all his money, so he didn't end up being a rich man, but we can only wonder how the plans of God that he had for him as a pastor would have changed some things in the course of his life. Jonah ran from God as far as he could and tried to go to sleep, but God sent a storm in his life to awaken him. I wonder, friend, if you've been on the run from God and, in an attempt to escape God's will for your life, I wonder what kind of storm he will have to send your way to get your attention and get you in the place of obedience to him.

Let us pray.