When God's Call Tests Our Faith

Here is a brief ministry update.

Praying for 3 different ceremonies tomorrow. The memorial day ceremony at the veterans cemetery at 10 AM followed by two plaque dedications.

I leave on Tuesday to begin my journey to California. I will speed two weeks taking part in the largest Army Reserve exercises ever. I will be cut off from the outside world for those two weeks. Please help support Jessie as I will not be able to.

What you believe about God is revealed when God test our Faith.

Jonah: A Man called to Go to his enemy.

There was once a man who enjoyed a great ministry. He had the rare privilege of standing before the king, declaring with certainty that the Lord would bless his reign. And indeed, the Lord did. Under the king’s rule, the nation expanded in land, flourished in prosperity, and grew in power.

But soon after, the Lord called the prophet to a daunting mission: He was to travel to the capital of a wicked and powerful empire. This empire was notorious for its cruelty—their emperors boasted of flaying their enemies alive and leaving them to perish outside the gates of conquered cities. The prophet, a fierce patriot of his small nation, longed for independence from this oppressive power. He despised them and their brutality. Yet God commanded him to leave his home and go to the heart of his enemy’s dominion.

Rebellion swelled within him. He could not fathom delivering God’s message to such a people. So, he ran.

But God did not abandon His prophet to his defiance. Through the storm and the sea, through the hands of the unfaithful, and even through the belly of a great fish, the Lord pursued him—until obedience was gained.

Well if you know your Bible, you may have noticed this is the story of Jonah. We like to focus on the great fish, or a whale as some people call it. The short book of Jonah is simple, we are going to look at the surrounding context and at Chapter 4 of Jonah.

Jonah the prophet of God

Prophesied before Jeroboam the king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel 2 King 14:25

Jeroboam reigned 793–753 B.C

Jonah went to Nineveh around 759 B.C.

6 years before the end of Jeroboam’s reign

Contemporary of Amos and Hosea

Amos 5:27 “Therefore I will send you into captivity beyond Damascus,” Says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts.”

Hosea 11:5 ““He shall not return to the land of Egypt; But the Assyrian shall be his king, Because they refused to repent.”

Jonah’s hate

Tired of being a vassal state of Assyria

Wanted Israel to prosper

Knew and perhaps had seen the Assyrian cruelty

Knew that coming judgement would come to Israel by the hands of the Assyrians, as prophesied by Amos and Hosea.

Israel would be taken into captivity in 722 B.C. 37 years after Jonah went to Nineveh.

Jonah rebels against God’s calling to go to Nineveh.

Jonah went the opposite way.

The sailors obeyed, the sea obeyed, the great fish obeyed, but the man of God did not obey.

God’s Glorious plan

The Assyrian Empire had experience a plaque 765 and 759

The Assyrian Empire had also experience a total eclipse on June 15, 763.

Assyria understood these things as a warning of God’s coming punishment.

God was working to get his chosen people to obey and delayed their punishment.

This allowed Assyria to regain strength from the plaques to be able to carry Israel away to captivity.

Jonah, called to his enemies rebelled, but God used him to do a work in Assyria that only God could do.

What do you do when your faith is tested?

Do we respond with joyful obedience?

James 1:2–3 “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.”

Do we respond with rebellion?

Open- like Jonah a blatant rebellion against God’s call.

Quiet-trying to give the appearance of obedience, but rebelling when convenient.

What do we know about God?

There is a difference between understanding and believing.

Jonah knew God’s character but thought he knew better.

Jonah 4:2 “So he prayed to the Lord, and said, “Ah, Lord, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish; for I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm.”

Do you know what God says, but think you know better or believe that you can get away with it.

What do you know about God, but you chose to forget?

It is revealed, when we have given into the temptation to sin.

It is revealed, when we choose to lie, because we do not trust God with the outcome

It is revealed, when we wallow in selfish thinking.

We believe that we are more important than God.

1 Samuel 15:23 “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, And stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He also has rejected you from being king.””

We believe that we know better than God.

Isaiah 30:1 ““Woe to the rebellious children,” says the Lord, “Who take counsel, but not of Me, And who devise plans, but not of My Spirit, That they may add sin to sin;”

We believe that there are no consequences for our disobedience.

Galatians 6:7 “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.”

Jonah’s response to God

God’s Grace

gave shade to Jonah. Jonah 4:6 “And the Lord God prepared a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be shade for his head to deliver him from his misery. So Jonah was very grateful for the plant.”

God took away the shade. Jonah 4:7 “But as morning dawned the next day God prepared a worm, and it so damaged the plant that it withered.”

God worked to get Jonah’s attention

Jonah 4:8–9 “And it happened, when the sun arose, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat on Jonah’s head, so that he grew faint. Then he wished death for himself, and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.” Then God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”

Jonah wallowed in self pity And he said, “It is right for me to be angry, even to death!””

God remind Jonah where his priorities ought to be. Jonah 4:10–11 “But the Lord said, “You have had pity on the plant for which you have not labored, nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night. And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left—and much livestock?””

God was working in Jonah’s life, but Jonah was not humble. He responded with rebellion when God tested his faith.

Why does God test our Faith?

To grow our patience

James 1:2–3 “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.”

To show himself might

Daniel in the Lions Den

Ultimately, to bring us to a better understanding of who He is.

1 John 5:20 “And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.”

David and Svea Flood

In 1921, a missionary couple named David and Svea Flood went with their two-year-old son from Sweden to the heart of Africa—to what was then called the Belgian Congo. They met up with another young Scandinavian couple, the Ericksons, and the four of them sought God for direction. In those days of much tenderness and devotion and sacrifice, they felt led of the Lord to go out from the main mission station and take the gospel to a remote area.

This was a huge step of faith. At the village of N’dolera they were rebuffed by the chief, who would not let them enter his town for fear of alienating the local gods. The two couples opted to go half a mile up the slope and build their own mud huts.

They prayed for a spiritual breakthrough, but there was none. The only contact with the villagers was a young boy, who was allowed to sell them chickens and eggs twice a week. Svea Flood—a tiny woman of only four feet, eight inches tall—decided that if this was the only African she could talk to, she would try to lead the boy to Jesus. And in fact, she succeeded.

But there were no other encouragements. Meanwhile, malaria continued to strike one member of the little band after another. In time the Ericksons decided they had had enough suffering and left to return to the central mission station. David and Svea Flood remained near N’dolera to go on alone.

Then, of all things, Svea found herself pregnant in the middle of the primitive wilderness. When the time came for her to give birth, the village chief softened enough to allow a midwife to help her. A little girl was born, whom they named Aina.

The delivery, however, was exhausting, and Svea Flood was already weak from bouts of malaria. The birth process was a heavy blow to her stamina. She lasted only another seventeen days.

Inside David Flood, something snapped in that moment. He dug a crude grave, buried his twenty-seven-year-old wife, and then took his children back down the mountain to the mission station. Giving his newborn daughter to the Ericksons, he snarled, “I’m going back to Sweden. I’ve lost my wife, and I obviously can’t take care of this baby. God has ruined my life.” With that, he headed for the port, rejecting not only his calling, but God himself.

Within eight months both the Ericksons were stricken with a mysterious malady and died within days of each other. The baby was then turned over to some American missionaries, who adjusted her Swedish name to “Aggie” and eventually brought her back to the United States at age three.

This family loved the little girl and was afraid that if they tried to return to Africa, some legal obstacle might separate her from them. So they decided to stay in their home country and switch from missionary work to pastoral ministry. And that is how Aggie grew up in South Dakota. As a young woman, she attended North Central Bible college in Minneapolis. There she met and married a young man named Dewey Hurst.

Years passed. The Hursts enjoyed a fruitful ministry. Aggie gave birth first to a daughter, then a son. In time her husband became president of a Christian college in the Seattle area, and Aggie was intrigued to find so much Scandinavian heritage there.

One day a Swedish religious magazine appeared in her mailbox. She had no idea who had sent it, and of course she couldn’t read the words. But as she turned the pages, all of a sudden a photo stopped her cold. There in a primitive setting was a grave with a white cross-and on the cross were the words SVEA FLOOD.

Aggie jumped in her car and went straight to a college faculty member who, she knew, could translate the article. “What does this say?” she demanded.

The instructor summarized the story: It was about missionaries who had come to N’dolera long ago...the birth of a white baby...the death of the young mother...the one little African boy who had been led to Christ...and how, after the whites had all left, the boy had grown up and finally persuaded the chief to let him build a school in the village. The article said that gradually he won all his students to Christ...the children led their parents to Christ...even the chief had become a Christian. Today there were six hundred Christian believers in that one village...

All because of the sacrifice of David and Svea Flood.

For the Hursts’ twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, the college presented them with the gift of a vacation to Sweden. There Aggie sought to find her real father. An old man now, David Flood had remarried, fathered four more children, and generally dissipated his life with alcohol. He had recently suffered a stroke. Still bitter, he had one rule in his family: “Never mention the name of God-because God took everything from me.”

After an emotional reunion with her half brothers and half sister, Aggie brought up the subject of seeing her father. The others hesitated. “You can talk to him,” they replied, “even though he’s very ill now. But you need to know that whenever he hears the name of God, he flies into a rage.”

Aggie was not to be deterred. She walked into the squalid apartment, with liquor bottles everywhere, and approached the seventy-three-year-old man lying in a rumpled bed.

“Papa?” she said tentatively.

He turned and began to cry. “Aina,” he said, “I never meant to give you away.”

“It’s all right Papa,” she replied, taking him gently in her arms. “God took care of me.”

The man instantly stiffened. The tears stopped.

“God forgot all of us. Our lives have been like this because of Him.” He turned his face back to the wall.

Aggie stroked his face and then continued, undaunted.

“Papa, I’ve got a little story to tell you, and it’s a true one. You didn’t go to Africa in vain. Mama didn’t die in vain. The little boy you won to the Lord grew up to win that whole village to Jesus Christ. The one seed you planted just kept growing and growing. Today there are six hundred African people serving the Lord because you were faithful to the call of God in your life...

“Papa, Jesus loves you. He has never hated you.”

The old man turned back to look into his daughter’s eyes. His body relaxed. He began to talk. And by the end of the afternoon, he had come back to the God he had resented for so many decades.

Over the next few days, father and daughter enjoyed warm moments together. Aggie and her husband soon had to return to America—and within a few weeks, David Flood had gone into eternity.

A few years later, the Hursts were attending a high-level evangelism conference in London, England, where a report was given from the nation of Zaire (the former Belgian Congo). The superintendent of the national church, representing some 110,000 baptized believers, spoke eloquently of the gospel’s spread in his nation. Aggie could not help going to ask him afterward if he had ever heard of David and Svea Flood.

“Yes, madam,” the man replied in French, his words then being translated into English. “It was Svea Flood who led me to Jesus Christ. I was the boy who brought food to your parents before you were born. In fact, to this day your mother’s grave and her memory are honored by all of us.”

As written by Aggie Flood Horst

Application

How do we respond when hardship reveals what we believe about God?

Do you attend church out of tradition? or to be challenged to take knowledge to application?

Is there an area of your life where you are currently responding like Jonah — running away from God?

Have you been resisting God’s work in your life because you do not want to confront your sinful, prideful, and comfortable life?

What is the next right step in your life and how will you respond when God calls you?