Dr. David Jeremiah begins a new series, Jonah the Runaway Prophet, with the message Running From God.
The story of Jonah is about far more than a man and a great fish. It is the account of a real prophet who received a clear command from God, resisted it, and deliberately headed in the opposite direction.
Dr. Jeremiah first introduces the structure and historical setting of the book of Jonah. He explains that Jonah was a real Old Testament prophet who lived during the reign of Jeroboam II and was sent by God to preach to Nineveh, the capital of the
00:00:05 Introduction to Jonah the Runaway Prophet
00:03:03 Frank Abagnale and the theme of running away
Welcome to Turning Point. If the name Jonah only makes you think of the man who was swallowed by a fish and lived to tell about it, buckle up. Today, Dr. David Jeremiah begins the new series, Jonah the Runaway Prophet, to reveal the full and fascinating story of this Old Testament figure. Get ready to meet a truly unforgettable man as David introduces today’s message, Running From God.
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And today we talk about Jonah, and this is the beginning of the series, and I’m so excited because I just got in preaching this, and I had so much fun teaching this. and such rapt attention from everybody. We really got involved in the life of Jonah because so much of it touches on things we’ve experienced in our lives as well. By the way, have you ever tried to run away from God? Doesn’t that sound kind of crazy when you think about it? He’s omnipresent. Everywhere you go, he’s already there. Well, Jonah didn’t understand that, and when God told him to go to Nineveh and preach the gospel, he went to Tarshish as far away from Nineveh as he could get, and we’re going to find out what happened in just a moment. Hey, this month we are featuring our calendar. This is something we do every year. We do it in September, so you’re sure to get it. It begins in the month of November. It’s a 14-month calendar. So you get to start using it around Thanksgiving time or before Thanksgiving. Start entering your notes in the calendar. This is a beautiful wall calendar this year. The theme for this year is the light of the world, and it is filled with beautiful photography, four-color. Oh, man, is this ever pretty. And you will have such a wonderful time. It’s got a holiday planner in it. You can get this calendar when you send your gift to Turning Point during the month of September. Now, don’t forget to ask for the calendar when you send your gift. But this is our way of saying thank you for your investment in this ministry during the ninth month of the year, the month of September. And I hope you will fellowship with us in the giving of your resources to help underwrite what we’re doing. Don’t forget also that we’re going to the Caribbean in December. We are just kind of getting our crowd together, and we’ll be leaving the 26th of December and coming back on the 2nd of January. And we’ll be seeing San Juan, St. Thomas, Half Moon Cay, Grand Turk. We’ll have a great time together. And hey, it’s warm there during that season of the year. So if you live in a cold community, come get a little warmth, not only from the sun, but also from fellowship and the Word of God. More about this from davidjeremiah.org. Now let’s get started with the book of Jonah. Here is part one of Running from God. Frank Abagnale Jr. was a teenager in the mid-1960s, and he ran away from home. His home was in New Rochelle, New York. He had no money, had no plan, and But he made a desperate decision. If the world rewarded confidence, he would borrow some. And what followed became one of the most famous crime stories in American history. By his own account, Abagnale spent years on the run, cashing forged checks, assuming false identities. He posed as a Pan Am pilot. He was flying free and staying in hotels on the airline’s tab. He pretended to be a pediatrician in Georgia and a lawyer in Louisiana, always being able to stay one step ahead of the law. Eventually, it all caught up to him, and in 1969, he was arrested in France. He served six months in a French prison, six more in Sweden before being extradited to the United States, where he was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison. His story turned into a movie, and it’s one of my favorite movies, Catch Me If You Can. Speaks about fraud prevention, consulting for business. Whether every detail of his tale is accurate or embellished, I can’t tell you, but he has consistently described his life on the run as empty, exhausting, and unsustainable, marked by fear, isolation, and the inability to live at peace with himself. Long before the FBI caught Frank Abagnale, there was a man who ran from something much bigger. He wasn’t running from the law. He was running from God. Today we begin a series in one of the most interesting books in the Bible, the book of Jonah. And before we jump into the story itself, I want to give you a big picture introduction. Just some upfront information that will help you understand what kind of book study this really is. First of all, the book is short. It’s only four chapters, 48 verses. You can read it in five minutes. I tried it and you can do it. Not only is it short, it’s surprising. Jonah is the only prophet in the Bible that God sends to a foreign nation outside of Israel, and he sends them to people Jonah doesn’t like in a place Jonah doesn’t want to go. It’s short and surprising, and it’s simple. Most prophetic books in the Bible contain long speeches and powerful oracles from God. But Jonah’s book is different. He gives only one very short message, just eight words in the Hebrew, and yet an entire city responds to his words and repents. And one of the greatest revivals in the Bible comes from one of the simplest sermons ever spoken. And it’s sincere. It’s emotionally real. Jonah is the only prophet of the Bible who gets angry when people repent. Instead of celebrating God’s mercy, he resents it. And it’s a strange book. The book is full of unforgettable details. A great fish, animals in sackcloth, a vine that grows up overnight, and a tiny worm that destroys it. And finally, it’s a structured book. One word keeps repeating itself throughout the book, and the word is great. If you read the book with this in mind, you’ll see it. There’s a great city, a great storm, a great fish, a great fear, and great mercy. That word great shapes the story, and so does the way the book is built. It’s four chapters. The first two chapters talk about Jonah running away from God, and the last two chapters tell the story of him returning to God. Very easy to understand the structure because it’s a story. The book will take us beyond the borders of Israel to an enemy city, We’ll be in a violent storm and into a series of moments where God’s purposes collide with human stubbornness. Along the way, we will meet unexpected characters, unusual events, and uncomfortable questions. And fittingly, the book does not wrap everything up in a big package and leave us with a big answer at the end. The book ends with a question. one that quietly turns the spotlight from Jonah to us. So we’re going to slow down in this short book and listen carefully, not just to what Jonah says, but to what God says through him to us. So let’s get started, first of all, with the description of Jonah. Before we look at these first four verses today, I want to ask a question. How do we know… that Jonah was a real person. How do we know that this book isn’t just a fanciful story that somehow slipped into Scripture? Let me tell you, it’s the most debated book in the Bible. Scholars have fought over this book for years because the whole story of a great fish swallowing a man is incomprehensible to them, and they don’t believe it. And there’s a wonderful story about a young lady who was a valedictorian of her class in a Christian school. And she went to a secular college, and she was in a class where the professor had as one of his goals the destruction of any faith he would find along the way. In one of his first classes, he asked the students, how many of you believe in Jonah? And she was the only one who raised her hand. And the professor went after her. He said, you believe in the book of Jonah? Yes, I do. Do you know what that book teaches? Do you know that it says a great fish swallowed a man? I know that. And you believe that? Yes. Why do you believe it? She said, well, first of all, it’s in the Bible. Secondly, my parents taught it to me. I went to a Christian school and I learned about it there. Yes, I believe in the book of Jonah. He said, young lady, you have to be one of the simplest people I’ve ever met. You cannot possibly believe in Jonah. How do you know it’s true? And she went on and on with this. And finally she said, look, when I get to heaven, I’m going to talk to Jonah and he’ll verify everything I’ve been saying. And the professor said, what if Jonah isn’t in heaven? She said, then you can ask him. Amen. Amen. So that’s the kind of book it is. It’s a book on trial for many people. But let me tell you something. It’s very verifiable because of internal evidence. You know, external evidence is what people say about it. Internal evidence is the evidence you find within the Scripture. And first of all, in the Old Testament, we discovered that Jonah is not a fictional character. He’s not some symbolic figure. This is not a made-up story. He was a real prophet who lived about eight centuries before Jesus, and he is anchored in real history. Jonah is first mentioned in the Bible in 2 Kings chapter 14. In that chapter, he’s identified by name, by family, by hometown, and by historical setting. We are told there that God used him to deliver a message to Israel during the reign of King Jeroboam II, a real king who ruled the northern kingdom of Israel. Scripture records that Jonah prophesied Israel’s territorial expansion. 2 Kings 14.25 says, Jeroboam restored the territory of Israel from the entrance of Hamath to the sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the Lord of Israel, which had been spoken through his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet who was from Gathhefer. The detail matters. They placed Jonah in a specific time, under a specific king, in a specific nation with real cities and real borders. This is not the language of legend or parable. This is the language of history. Even Jonah’s identity is concrete. He was called Jonah, an uncommon name, and it means dove, a symbol often associated with peace. How fitting that God would choose a man with that name to deliver a message of mercy. In the Old Testament, Jonah is not presented as a fictional character. He is described as a real historical person. When you come to the New Testament, the evidence is even greater. Let me say this as clearly as I can. You cannot believe in Jesus and then not believe in Jonah. You just can’t. You might think, well, I believe the New Testament. I’m all right with that. But man, I’m just not sure about Jonah. Well, Jesus didn’t think Jonah was a made up story. Jesus talked about Jonah as a real person who actually lived and In Luke 11, people asked Jesus for a sign to prove who he was, and Jesus refused to follow their directions, and instead he pointed them to Jonah, and he said, This is an evil generation. It seeks a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah the prophet. For as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so also the Son of Man will be to this generation. Jesus went on to remind them, that Nineveh listened to Jonah and repented when he preached. By talking about Jonah and the Ninevites this way, Jesus treated them as real people and real events, not a made-up story. His point was clear. Jonah was a real person, a real prophet, and repentance really happened in Nineveh. And someone far greater than Jonah was speaking to them, and they needed to listen. Finally, Jesus went even further, and here is the great proof of the reality of Jonah in all of the Bible. Matthew 12, 40 says, For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Jesus tied his resurrection to the reality of Jonah. Think about that. If Jonah didn’t happen, Jesus was wrong. And if Jesus was wrong about Jonah, how in the world could we ever trust him about eternal life? It’s not possible. Jesus is the Son of God. He was a perfect, truthful witness. And Jesus said that Jonah was real. And that’s enough for me. I believe Jesus. I believe the Bible. So I’m not going to teach Jonah as some allegory or some story that was made up to make the Bible more interesting or it’s like it was an illustration. I’m going to teach it as a true story because that’s how Jesus treated it, and that’s the truth. So that’s the description I wanted you to get. Now, let’s begin with the actual story itself. The direction to Jonah is in the first two verses of the first chapter. Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and cry out against it, for their wickedness has come up before me. The first thing you need to understand is that this is not a normal prophecy. In fact, there’s only one word of prophecy in the entire book, and that is the message Jonah preached to the Ninevites in chapter 3. Right at the beginning, we are given Jonah’s marching orders, the direction to Jonah from the Lord. And the direction was clear. In fact, there are three parts of God’s instruction. He said, arise, go, and cry out against Nineveh. These are commands. God did not say, Jonah, we’re thinking about doing a campaign over in Nineveh. What do you think? He did not say, could you give me some input on the cultural significance of a Jewish prophet going there? He did not ask Jonah’s opinion. He simply came to Jonah and he said, Jonah, listen up. I have three things for you to do. Arise, go to Nineveh, and cry out against it. How many of you wish God would be so direct with you? You know, sometimes we try to figure out what God wants us to do, and we’re not really clear because it’s caught up in the whole message of the Bible. But in this instance, God spoke to his prophet and gave him absolutely clear instructions as to what he should do. Now, before we talk about Jonah’s disobedience, I want you to understand why this assignment was so difficult for him and why he didn’t want to do it. Before Jeroboam came to the throne, Israel had been repeatedly attacked by the Assyrians. Nineveh was the capital of Assyria. Their armies invaded again and again, and as a result, there was deep bitterness between the Jewish people and the Assyrians. Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, and it was an enormous city, home to hundreds of thousands of people, maybe the first megacity in the ancient world. And it was heavily fortified and powerful and feared. In modern geography, Nineveh sat near present-day Mosul, Iraq, placing it right in the heart of what is now the Middle East. Now, the people of Nineveh were idol worshipers. According to this book they were also exceedingly wicked So wicked that their sin came up before God in fact the language of Scripture is vivid Assyria was one of the cruelest and most violent empires in ancient history its Kings recorded their victories by boasting of planes covered with corpses and cities burned to the ground and Enemies of the Assyrians were mutilated. Families were forced to parade with the severed heads of their loved ones. And prisoners were tortured and filleted alive. Their history has been described as gory and blood-curdling a history as ever was. The cruelest people in the world. And we see some cruelty in today’s world and some of the places we read about the beheading of people and things of that nature. But Assyria was way beyond that. And God said to Jonah, in effect, I’ve had enough. I want you to go and cry out against them. And by chapter 3, we hear the message that Jonah was sent to preach. Here’s what he preached. And Jonah began to enter the city on the first day’s walk, and he cried out and said, Yet 40 days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. Now turn with me to chapter 4, verse 2, and you will understand why Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh and why he refused to go. So he prayed to the Lord, and he said, O Lord, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled to Tarshish, for I know that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness, one who relents from doing harm. What is Jonah saying? He’s saying, God, I knew it. I knew if I went over there and preached, you would forgive them. And I did not want that. I didn’t want them to be forgiven and spared from judgment. I wanted them judged. I wanted them to feel the pain. I do not like them. God called Jonah to preach to the people he hated. And Jonah said, I’m not going to do it. Has God ever asked you to do something you didn’t want to do? Well, you haven’t been walking with him very long if it hasn’t happened. Has he ever asked you to speak to somebody at work that you don’t like? They need to be saved, but you don’t really know for sure whether you want them to be saved. Now you understand Jonah a little better. He understood the instructions he was given in verse 1 of chapter 1. He understood them perfectly. They were unmistakably clear, but the Bible tells us Jonah would not have it. the direction to Jonah. Notice thirdly, the disobedience of Jonah. So we come to the disobedience of Jonah. This becomes the foundation for the rest of the whole book. And verse three sets the stage for everything that follows. Here’s what it says. But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. Now that in itself is kind of foolish, isn’t it? Jonah is going to run away from God. How in the world do you run away from God? Twice in this verse it says that Jonah was fleeing from the presence of the Lord. And the psalmist asks the same question. He says, where can I go from your spirit, God? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend unto heaven, you’re there. If I make my bed in hell, behold, you are there. I kind of wonder today as I preach this message if there might not be somebody here who’s running away from God. God had his hand on your life telling you he wanted you to do something. You decided you’d run away. And it’s a thankless task. Everywhere you go, he’s already there when you get there. For he’s the omnipresent God. I want you to notice something about Jonah’s disobedience. First of all, it was deliberate. Verse 3 says, Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. When I say Jonah was deliberate in his disobedience, here’s what I mean. When God told him to go and preach to the people of Nineveh, Jonah had some options. He could have stayed right where he was. He could have simply said, no, I’m not going. You might even respect that kind of honesty. But Jonah did not stay put. He did not merely refuse. He decided if he was not going where God sent him, he was going to go as far away as possible. And that’s why he headed for Tarshish. You see, Tarshish represented the furthest Western destination known in Jonah’s day. And some believe it was in Spain. Others place it along the Western Mediterranean or the North African coast. But wherever it was, in Jonah’s mind, it meant one thing. It was the furthest possible place from where God had called him to go. Jonah did not just disobey God in a small or passive way. God said, Jonah, I want you to go here. Jonah said, I’m not going here, I’m going there. And that is rebellion. And we still see it today. God gives direction, and instead of simply ignoring it, people run the opposite way as fast as they can. Jonah understood his responsibility. He knew exactly what God had called him to do. Some believe his deeper struggle was national pride. He knew what the Assyrians had done to his people, and he cared more about his nation than God’s mission. We love our country, and rightly so, but our loyalty to God must always come first. Jonah got his priorities mixed up. His disobedience was deliberate. And then he was deceived in his disobedience. Jonah 1 verse 3 says, he went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish, and he paid the fare and went down into it. The second thing I’ve written down is that Jonah was deceived in his disobedience. That almost always goes along with refusing to do God’s will. Let me put it simply. There will always be a ship waiting for you to take you away from the Lord.
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There will always be one.
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The enemy of your soul is always going to make it possible for you to walk away from God’s will. But don’t do it. If you follow this story, you’ll find out. You’ll get back to where you should be, but it can be really painful. And you don’t want to ride in a whale if you can help it. So we’ll get the rest of this beginning message from Jonah 1, 1-4 tomorrow here on Turning Point. There’s a study guide for the book of Jonah. It’s a… Beautiful presentation of all the notes and outlines of the entire book. So if you ever want to study the book of Jonah in your small group, or maybe teach it on a Sunday night or whatever, here’s a good outline for you. Lots of notes, different places to look for additional material. And I think you’ll be blessed by the study guide. You can get that from davidjeremiah.org. Don’t forget… The calendar for the next year for 27 is available during the month of September, but you send a gift and ask for it and it’ll be on its way. We’ll see you tomorrow. Thank you so much for joining us.
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For more information on Dr. Jeremiah’s series, Jonah the Runaway Prophet, please visit our website where we also offer two free ways to help you stay connected. Our monthly magazine, Turning Points, and our daily email devotional. Sign up today at davidjeremiah.org slash radio. That’s davidjeremiah.org slash radio. or call us at 800-947-1993 ask for your copy of our 14-month 2027 calendar the light of the world and deepen your faith daily throughout the coming year it’s yours for a gift of any amount you can also purchase the jeremiah study bible in the english standard new international and new king james versions available in several attractive and resilient cover options Get all the details when you visit our website, davidjeremiah.org slash radio. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue the series, Jonah the Runaway Prophet, on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.
