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[ Silence ] [MUSIC] ♪ And may the angels rise up ♪ ♪ And carry me so high ♪

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♪ For this I'll be an oar ♪ ♪ And will be on the land ♪ ♪ With Jesus close to me ♪ I'll go anywhere, if Jesus goes with me.

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I'll go anywhere, He's there with me, wherever I be. ♪ In His hand ♪ ♪ Like thousands of rivers ♪

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♪ His hand is called so grand ♪ ♪ If Jesus knows with me, I'll go anywhere ♪ ♪ If Jesus knows with me, I'll go anywhere ♪ ♪ Anywhere is heaven to me ♪

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♪ Wherever I be, with His blessed ♪ ♪ I counted a privileging ♪ ♪ All to Him ♪ ♪ If Jesus knows with me I'll go ♪

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Amen. Amen. 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 is come up before me. These words are recorded in the book of the Prophet Jonah chapter 1 verses 1 and 2.

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The subject of the message, a reluctant missionary, a reluctant missionary. The book of the Prophet Jonah is of interest to us as we consider the biblical revelation because it is the first missionary book, the first world missionary book. It is concerned with a world outreach program. It is a message that is designed to shake us out

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of our complacency, to move us out of the realm of the familiar. It is designed to cause us to engage in missionary activity. The Prophet Jonah resides in Israel. Israel is considered the favored people of God. They worship God. They have the temple in Jerusalem. They sing his praises and that

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is sufficient. This occurs until the kingdom is divided. When the kingdom is divided in the north, there is the kingdom of Israel representing ten of the tribes and in the south the kingdom of Judah representing only two tribes. So when the kingdom is divided another place of worship is built in the northern kingdom. It is in the northern kingdom that Jonah lives and

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Jonah is a prophet of God. He is called of God. His mission is to speak for God And of course Jonah no doubt speaks for God within the boundaries of Israel. But something strange happens because God is concerned about all people. He's concerned about all of the nations of the world.

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And so the call comes from God to Jonah to become a missionary to a foreign nation. He is called to go to Nineveh, a great city. This is his missionary task. to speak for God to the chief city of the Assyrian Empire. Now it so happens

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that the Assyrians do not have good relations with Israel. The Assyrians are the people who are looked upon as the enemy. Syrian government is powerful. It is a government with a strong army.

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They are known for their military might. And Nineveh represents the epitome of the people the achievements of the Assyrian government at this time. Nineveh was a great city. Her gorgeous temples and picturesque palaces were the showplace

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of the East. But you see the Assyrians I say were great people and Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire. Her mighty armies made nations bow at her feet. Nineveh was a great city. She was far above the other cities of her day. She boasted of a huge population and she had more than her share of the material

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goods of the world. Nineveh was a great city, but something had happened to the soul of Nineveh. There were signs of moral corruption everywhere to be seen. Loose living was the order of the day. Nineveh was a great city, but something had happened to the soul of Nineveh. Nineveh was drunk with conquest and exalting material

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prosperity. It was a place where the strong suppressed the weak and the rich became richer and the poor became poorer. Nineveh was a great city, but something had happened to the soul of Nineveh with an arrogant twist of the neck. She looked away from the other nations of the world,

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lifted up with her own selfish pride, with neither love for man nor respect for God, she boasted of her own achievements, saying, "I am Nineveh.

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"There is none beside me." Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, but she had a distorted view of life. She had violated the moral law,

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and the holiness of God frowned upon the wickedness in Nineveh, and the justice of God cried out, "that I've tolerated the foolishness of Nineveh

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"long enough, something must be done." And a voice spoke from heaven saying, "Jonah, arise and go to Nineveh." Jonah heard this voice, but this voice comes

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into the life of Jonah as a strange message because Jonah had always thought of his mission as being just to Israel. He hears the word, go to Nineveh.

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Nineveh is far away. And you see, Jonah is a segregationist. He thought that God was just to work with the Jewish people. That if he's going to be working with other people he can get other people to work with other people, but not Jonah.

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And and while he hears the voice of God he hears it clearly. He hears the call of God. He hears the call. But now let's consider his conduct. He decides

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within himself that he is not going to respond to the call of God in the way that God has directed him. Instead of going to Nineveh he decides that he is going to Spain, he's going to Tarsus. Instead of going east he's gonna go west. He's gonna do just the opposite to what God commands. He doesn't want his

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prejudices disturbed. He wants to remain in the same rut. He does not want to be upset by doing anything new. So he goes down to Joppa and he finds a ship manned by heathen sailors and he pays his fare and gets aboard the ship on his way to to touch us. Oh is that not like so much of what happens God calls us to do? And we hear clearly

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the voice of God and we really know what God wants us to do but somehow we decide on what we want to do. And we know the direction that we must go in order to please God but we go a direction that pleases us which is just opposite to what God requires. Because Jonah wants comfort and Jonah gets on the ship and gets the most comfortable place he can

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find and goes fast asleep and that's what many people want to do. After having heard the call of God to somehow get some comfortable place within the church and go on to sleep and not worry about whatever takes place. Don't bother me now, let me rest. And that somehow gives us a vision of what is the way of many of

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us we are more concerned about some little nest in which we can rest than really doing what God commands. And so he's sleeping. He doesn't have a care in the world. But you know God has a way of getting our attention. In fact really what Jonah does is that he does this because he thinks that he can flee from the

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presence of God. He thinks that he can run away from God. Oh God, God is worshipped here in the temple of in Jerusalem and he's worshipped up here in Israel in the temple but but if I get on this ship and go in a different direction I can somehow flee from the presence of God. Where can I flee from

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his presence. Where shall I go from his presence? If I take the wings of the morning, dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, behold he's there. And even if I make my bed in hell, behold he's there. Where can I go? There is no place we can go. And you see God somehow has ways of bringing us to the point of seeing what

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we are to do and hearing what he has to say. God has a way of bringing certain circumstances to bear. In other words, because of his conduct he finds himself in a crisis, in a crisis. A lot of times we find ourselves in a crisis because of what we've done. Gone contrary to the will of God and God somehow has forces that he

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just turns loose. In other words, he turns the wind loose on us. He's in the ship and he thinks that he's safe. He's sleeping and God has the wind and the wind begins to whip and whirl around the ship and the waves dash against the ship and the lightning begins to flash and the thunder begins to roar and those sailors who had been on many voyages

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wonder what is taking place. And they begin to pray to their gods and they pray and nothing happens every man aboard is aroused and they look and they find Jonah here asleep. And they say, "Man, what you doing here asleep in a time like this when the tempest is raging and here you are fast asleep? Who are you anyway? What are you

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doing here?" Jonah said, "Well, I'm a Hebrew. I'm a servant of God and I'm trying to run away from God and that's why this storm is coming on the ship that's why we're in this storm and the only way you're going to be saved is just throw me overboard well the men didn't want to do that they tried to roar the ship safely

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but they could not and they finally threw Jonah overboard he's a reluctant missionary he doesn't want to do what God wants him to do. He doesn't want to go where God tells him to go. He's reluctant to do that. And when they threw him overboard the scripture says that the Lord had prepared a great fish.

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A great fish and many times we get all tripped up in the story of the whale and we miss the real meaning of the tale. But you see the Lord has a way of preparing certain circumstances for us

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And Jonah ends up in the belly of the whale He has gone down into the deep and There in the belly of the whale for three days and nights Jonah

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Begins to pray to the Lord You know I have a feeling that Jonah had not Remember to pray he had forgot to say his prayers before that time Sometimes it takes certain circumstances for us to realize what we really know God has called us to do

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It's this crisis experience in Jonah's life and while he's down there if you listen to the prayer that he prays to the Lord in The way, and he said now Lord if you let me out of here I'll keep my promise I promised that I'd go where you want me to go, I'd do what you want me to do, but I've been trying to run away from you and if you just let me out.

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I will be faithful to your will and way. And Jonah comes out of the whale, he's put on the beach, and God calls him again. The second time it says Jonah, Jonah arise and go to Nineveh and Jonah goes to Nineveh. He then complies with God's demand. He is in compliance because now

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he goes to Nineveh. You know every now and then the Lord has to bring certain circumstances to bear and he has certain ways of checking on us, checking on us. The government has certain rules and regulations, we had rules about affirmative action and other regulations the government has and then every now and

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then someone comes around to see if you are in compliance, if you're in compliance. It's only after the crisis, it's only after somehow Jonah has been in the belly of the whale that he finally comes to the point, "Now Lord, I'm willing, I'm willing, I'm willing to go." God has called us to go to Nineveh, to

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Nineveh. There's some strange places. Where is Nineveh for us? Nineveh is the unfamiliar. Not just to be a mutual admiration society, to greet one another every Sunday morning and and tell one another how good you look today and whether or not you had a good week. That's a wonderful thing to do, but he's

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He's called us to go to Nineveh. He's called us somehow to reach out to some faces that may not be so familiar and live in some places that we may not really like to go.

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But he's called us because the people need to hear the word, everybody needs to hear the word, and that God wants to use every one of us a channel of his grace to tell others of his goodness. Go, go. Don't stay in one place

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but somehow be on the move. We are a pilgrim people. Go. That's the word, go. God says to Abraham, Abraham go. Get out of thy country and go to a land that I have made known to to a land that I will show you. God says to Moses, Moses go.

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Go tell Pharaoh to let my people go. Go. God says to Joshua, go. Arise Joshua and go over this Jordan.

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Go. God says to Elijah, go. stand before Ahab, go. And God says to Isaiah, go tell this people, go! Don't just stay here but go. Jesus Christ says to his disciples, go ye into all the world

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and preach the gospel, go. It's ours to go and somehow when the Spirit of God so possesses us, when somehow we lose sight of ourselves and recognize that we have a commitment to God, a commitment that we must keep, we're able to say, "I'll go where you want me to go, dear Lord. I'll say what you want me to say." And we just

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sang a few minutes ago, "If Jesus goes with me, I'll go anywhere. 'Tis heaven to wherever I be, if he's there, go. That's the message that God would have us obey. As we sing now the hymn of invitation, we extend to you the privilege of the church. There's a wideness in God's mercy. God's concerned about everybody, boys and

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girls, men and women, young and old, from the cradle to the grave. We invite you to come. [MUSIC PLAYING] [ Music ] [MUSIC]

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♪ In wonder see ♪ ♪ Thy love is ♪ ♪ Fondly still ♪ ♪ Dead of my death ♪

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♪ He is the Son ♪ ♪ He is the Word ♪ ♪ And I'm coming home ♪ ♪ He is coming ♪

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♪ Home to me ♪ ♪ To my heart is true ♪ ♪ Faith is true ♪ ♪ There is no other ♪

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[MUSIC] [Music] ♪ I know places ♪ ♪ Far away ♪

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♪ There is mercy ♪ ♪ In the Savior ♪ [Music] [Music]

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[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

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[Music] ♪ Come to me ♪ ♪ Oh, I am pleased ♪ ♪ Pleased to meet thee ♪

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[music] ♪ In this ♪ ♪ Sunday ♪ ♪ Come ♪

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♪ To me ♪ ♪ Lord ♪ ♪ Love and peace ♪ ♪ Praise to thee ♪

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Hallelujah. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]