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Introduction
You remember the story from last week.
God told Jonah to go and preach a message of repentance in Nineveh.
This assignment so upset Jonah that he ran in the opposite direction.
He booked passage on a ship bound for Tarshish.
Unfortunately for Jonah and everyone else on the ship it didn't take God long to catch up.
Jonah's storm was no mere chance occurrence.
This was no random storm on the Mediterranean Sea.
Jonah's storm was sent by God to arrest His disobedient prophet.
The storms of life come and go.
Sometimes we know why they happen and sometimes we don't.
In Jonah's case it's pretty clear why things turned out as they did.
Jonah caused his own storm by running away.
Look at some of the details of this storm and see how we can avoid our own.
JONAH'S STORM HAD A PURPOSE
Jonah knew there was no mystery about the storm's origin.
He told his sailor friends why it occurred, and he was right.
How did Jonah know this?
He just knew.
When there is a purpose to our sufferings and the storms of our lives God will let us know.
He won't leave us in the dark.
What would be the purpose in that?
Not telling us would do nothing.
You have heard me on more than one occasion tell of God answering my prayers in such a way that I responded with: “ I get it Lord, you don’t need to use a 2x4.
There has been, however, twice in time in my life when God had to use a 2x4 in my life to correct my path.
And like Jonah, I had abandoned my Call of God.
God called me to ministry around the 4th of July in 1976, in a very dramatic way that also was a 2x4 experience.
During a sermon by the then Pastor to the US Congress (Dr.
Richard Halverson) I took what I refer to as a vision trip: During this vision I saw as a first person the crucifixion of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
In this vision, I was guilty of sin as we all are, and I was sentenced to death by Pilate himself.
Then Jesus came into the courtyard and told Pilate that He would die in my stead.
And Jesus did just that.
I at once accepted Christ, gave my life to Him, and was transformed.
In some ways this was like Paul’s Damascus Road Conversion.
I realized that I had the Call of God on my life.
I went to school to gain the skills that I use here at Curry’s Chapel Church today.
Now some of you know my checkered history already, and some of you may be surprised by what I am about to share with you.
This is my Jonah Strom: I ran far from my Calling, and like Jonah, I alone caused my storm by running away from God.
While I had been transformed in 1976, I held back from allowing the Holy Spirit to fully transform me.
In the early 2000’s I allowed my greed to take hold of me.
Up until this time, even though I was a believer, I lived much less than a Godly life.
I would get extremely angry at the drop of a hate.
I lived a very selfish life, with little concern for my family or others.
I allowed my greed to take hold and committed crimes that landed me in Federal Prison for 21 months.
The purpose of my Jonah Storm of going to prison, was like Jonah’s Whale.
It was a wake-up call to turn my life around.
While in the belly of my whale I allowed it to complete my transformation.
During my time in prison, I committed myself back to God, I studied His word continuously, I lead Bible studies and witnessed as much as I could.
I was privileged to personally lead a dozen men to the saving grace of Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.
So, prison became my Nineveh.
And like Jonah, I hated the experience.
Yes, there were some good times (especially seeing Nancy and my kids), and leading others to Christ.
There we even a few funny times: One example of a funny time is: Early on, I was assigned to the kitchen for my work detail, one day I was assigned to make biscuits, which were always looked forward to by my fellow inmates.
However, it turned out that I cannot make good biscuits, but I did make some really good hockey pucks that day.
These discs were so bad that I got actual death threats.
Now that is funny as I look back on it now but was terrifying at the time.
It has taken me a long time, to overcome my guilt and to feel worthwhile enough to be in a pastoral position.
I am humbled that you have accepted me, for who I am despite my past.
Hopefully, most of you have not had Jonah Storm experiences.
However, sometimes there doesn't appear much purpose in some of our storms.
Sometimes things happen because that is simply the nature of the fallen world in which we live.
Tragedy is this world's middle name.
Every life is going to have some level of tragedy attached to it.
The key thing is not knowing why things happen but knowing that God will always be available to those of us who belong to Him.
JONAH'S STORM AFFECTED THE LIVES OF OTHERS
In these verses we find two different kinds of fear.
At first those who sailed with Jonah were afraid for their lives but by the end of their ordeal they were more afraid of the Lord then they were of dying.
These men might have been common sailors, but they were no fools.
It is a foolish person who refuses to learn something from God's judgment of others.
My own Jonah Storm not only sent me to prison, but it deeply affected my dear wife and wonderful children in ways that I can never undo.
Whatever we do good or bad always has an effect on others, whether we realize it or not
The fear these men felt in verse 10 was because of God's judgment.
Unfortunately, good people will get caught up in the bad things we do.
Thinking of others more than we do ourselves will keep others from sharing in our judgment.
The awe these men felt in verse 16 was because of God's justice.
God knew something neither Jonah nor these men knew.
They didn't know about the whale.
They thought they were throwing Jonah to his death.
God's judgment got Jonah to his pulpit in Nineveh, but a very visible demonstration of God's justice changed the lives of those who sailed with Jonah.
It's a foolish person who doesn't learn something about God's judgment of others.
JONAH STORMS:
I’ve mentioned Jonah Storms a few times now.
Jonah Storms are storms of our own making.
Some characteristics of Jonah Storms.
They can be of varying intensity - from spring showers to F5 Tornadoes.
If not dealt with they will become deadly.
Even spring showers Jonah style are deadly.
These are the only storms that WE can control.
Jonah storms represent a fundamental spiritual problem.
If we are going to survive Jonah storms, we need to know several things.
I said before that these are the only storms over which we have control.
Therefore, we need to know where they come from and how to stop them or better yet how to prevent them.
1 - Causes
(I refer you back to Jonah 1:1-3, from last week)
Now I want you to know that I have named these Jonah Storms for a reason.
Not because he is the only one in scripture to have them, to the contrary almost every important person in the scriptures has faced these storms.
Jonah just is a perfect example in a just a few verses.
He displays perfectly all four of the major causes of these storms.
Let’s look at four major causes of Jonah storms.
a. Disobedience
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