Running from God
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
On February 1st, 1959, nine skiers were making their way through the Ural mountains in Siberia. After a long day of cross country skiing through the Dyatlov pass, they pitched their tent for the last time. Days later their tent was found abandoned. It was apparent from the tent that the nine young people in the tent had cut a hole from the inside of the tent and had run out into the freezing Siberian night for no apparent reason. Later their bodies were found without any clothes on. Some have called this the greatest mystery of the 20th century because why on earth would nine healthy college age kids cut their way out of a tent on a cold night and run outside to their deaths? Different theories have spawned from the incident, everything from a Yeti attack to a secret Russian military experiment, and although it was most likely a case of group psychosis brought on by hypothermia, there is something especially mysterious about people doing unreasonable things that end in their demise, and that’s what makes the Dyatlov pass incident so mysterious.
However, there is an even deeper mystery of a similar nature, one in which the whole human race is desperately running away from the source of hope, joy, and life to the outer darkness and death. People have pondered the mystery of the Dyatlov pass for over 60 years, and yet humanity lives in their own version of it. A story of running and hiding from the God of light because “people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.” Although we may never know what happened to those nine skiers, we know what happened to us: sin happened, and with sin came a desperate and yet foolish running away from the presence of God.
The Grace of God’s Word
The Grace of God’s Word
The book of Jonah introduces us to a man who had unusually special access to God’s revelation. This is because he was a prophet. In the OT, a prophet was someone sent by God to gives God’s word to God’s people and, primarily, to the King of God’s people. This King was commanded to have a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures, but the Prophets were reminders to the King that they were accountable to the commands of God. They interceded between God and the people, they brought specific instruction from God to the people and kings, and they often reprimanded Kings for their unworthy behaviour before God. (Nathan and Elijah).
The book begins with the great grace of God’s Word. “Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai.” Many of the prophetic books begin like this. It gives credibility to the rest of the book, assuring the reader that what is to follow is, indeed, the Word of God and not just the opinion of one man. A prophet, much like a pastor today, is not tasked with making up messages or giving his opinion, he is tasked with simply communicating the Word of God effectively and truthfully to the people that God is speaking to.
To receive God’s Word is a gracious experience, both for the preacher and for the listener.
It gives us access to God, letting us know how we may approach him and know him.
It shows God’s desire for reconciliation.
It brings about his purposes, which are always right and best.
It realizes the love and care of God for us.
It brings about messages of judgement so that people have a chance to repent before their sin leads them to death.
To be a messenger of God is greatest privilege. God has given his people the joy of taking his word to others. This is what it means to be ambassadors of Christ, to present him as the ultimate revelation of God to all the world. Paul describes those of us who take the word of God to others as being jars of clay full of the golden treasures of the Gospel. It is the greatest honour that can be bestowed upon us.
Jonah’s job is to go and call against the great city of Nineveh. The term “great city” likely includes some of the surrounding cities that make up the area, sort of like the GTA often includes Peel, Markham, and North York. He is to preach against them because their evil has come up before him. It seems like Jonah is being commissioned to proclaim judgement on the city that was the source of all of Israel’s problems at the time, to bring the Word of God against the pagan assyrians and show them how powerful they and their God are.
The Foolishness of Fleeing God’s Presence
The Foolishness of Fleeing God’s Presence
This is why we may scratch our heads at verse 3, “But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD.” This verse is just as mysterious as the skiers in the Dyatlov pass fleeing from their tent. God’s presence is a special place to be, and only those who have been declared righteous by God can enter such a place. Our Puritan forebears rejoiced in secret meetings with Jesus in which prayer and the Word founded a greatly enriched time of affectionate awareness of the presence of God. This presence was their spark of perseverance in the Christian life. How desperately did David desire the presence of God in Psalm 51 where he prayed
Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
And how comforted was he in the presence of God in
For you make him most blessed forever; you make him glad with the joy of your presence.
And the promise of God’s presence is given as a great comfort to his people in
And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”
Why would someone flee the presence of the Lord? Adam and Eve fled it in
And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
Cain left it in
Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
So we see that, while the presence of God is to be greatly desired, that it is a place of comfort, safety, help, and hope, those who are in sin are quick to flee it. This is what Jesus was talking about in
And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.
To be in the presence of God is to be exposed to his holy majesty and his pure eyes. He does not allow guilt and sin to remain before him. He does not give rest to the one who attempts to hide sin from his face. We know this. Although Adam and Eve were forced out of the garden, they hid themselves purposefully. Although Cain was rejected by God, he left his presence willingly. A pursuit of sin is not compatible with being in the presence of God in the way that Scripture speaks of it in these passages.
The great foolishness of sin is that it rejects the grace of God’s revelation. Sin manages to convince us that God’s revelation is troubling and a burden rather than a blessing. It tells us that God’s presence is enemy territory, a place of labour, pain, struggle, and not one of peace, rest, and grace.
We may leave the presence of God when we are pursuing something else that we deem more worthy of our attention. This is idolatry.
We may leave the presence of God when we are convinced that we must be somewhere far from God, either out of guilt or fear. Such was the case for Martin Luther.
We may leave the presence of God out of self-preservation. Knowing what God may expect of us, these are those who fear God’s expectations and plans rather than trusting his goodness and love. This was Jonah’s situation.
Where can you Go?
Where can you Go?
Although Jonah thinks he can escape God, God’s purposes and election are unchanging. When one tries to escape God’s presence, they find that they are in for a miserable time and that God has never truly left them.
Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.
We can never truly flee the presence of God. We may try, or we may find ourselves somewhere where we feel that God is far off, but God is always present. In Jonah’s case, God would make sure he didn’t get to Tarshish because he was his prophet. Jonah did not have the right to choose where he went and where is didn’t. He was God’s chosen prophet, and chosen he was to do God’s work whatever that may be.
We later find out that Jonah fled because he perceived that God would show mercy to Nineveh. People flee from God because they know what God is like, and so they either consciously run away from God or else they deceive themselves into thinking that God is different. People flee from his holiness, his purity, his love, his wrath, his justice, his authority, and mostly from his Gospel. But where can they go? This God is their God. he is their creator and he is their heavenly King. There is no other reality to which they can escape, no other God that they can pit against him. It is foolish to run because he is always there, so where can they go? Better to take advantage of the mercy that Jonah so despised and come to him on his own terms than to find him as a vengeful King dealing out retribution on his enemies.
Conclusion
Conclusion
God’s people flee from him sometimes, and God always lovingly but firmly draws them back with his discipline. Are you fleeing? Here are some questions that may show whether you are.
Are you avoiding the Word, or certain parts of the Word, or is the Word dull to you?
Have you avoided or neglected prayer?
Have you been knowingly practicing sin or neglecting Christian duties?
Have you felt that your joy and desire in Christ has gone?
Do you avoid the fellowship of the saints?
There are many reason that the sin which remains in our hearts may causes us to wander. It may be an unnoticed drifting, or it may be an all-out dash. What should we do when we realize we are fleeing God’s presence?
Respond to God’s discipline. Consider whether the hardship in your life are God trying to grab your attention.
Seek him in his Word through desperate and heartfelt study.
Seek him in prayer even when we don’t feel the affection we want.
Search your life and see if there is any practice of sin that has remained unrepented, either of commission or ommission.
Surround yourself with the truths of the Gospel.
God will never abandon us even when we, in our sin, flee from him. Yet we may lose so much in our running. Don’t keep fleeing, surrender yourself to the glorious presence of God. Embrace it, cultivate it, and behold the treasure it is that you can know God.