Acceptance Of Our Sin
6/2/18
It has been a human concept to believe that as the knowledge of a disobedient act comes to light a relief occurs when the truth is finally revealed. However, it is the resulting consequence of such disobedience that continues its course and results in a varied array of discipline. Humans tend to forget that God deals with the entire act of disobedience which includes the overall scene and not just the individual act itself. Even after guilt is admitted the consequences of such actions by us still have to be dealt with, a process sometimes agonizing out for years at a time. God is in the restoration business, but that does not mean God is a sugar daddy in the sky and will wipe away all bad deeds before they come to materialization. God loves His children more than we can ever deserve to be, which places more truth behind the concept of obeying His Ways first instead of later down the road.
Oh, how we would love to go back and change some of the things we did in our past so that we could skip all of the tense times of captured lies and pain. I know that while I stayed away from the major stupid issues that many teenagers and young adults do and then have to face, I cannot say that I was not immune to such issues and trickery. I also have to admit that I was frustrated at the fact that parents knew something was amiss before I got home from a night out with my friends, but when I look back at this process and time in my life I must contend that it was a direct sign that God was watching over me no matter what I was running from or doing at that moment. He had a reason for this overseeing and He continued the appropriate channels when it came to my parents knowing of my actions.
Today, I thank God every moment that I can for His protection all throughout my younger years for I now recognize that there were many forces in the spiritual realm that wanted my life out of the way so that the message that God had for His people today would not be heard. The ridiculous things that I tried when I was younger would not have taken my life but I could have placed myself in a place where others could have carried out that process. What I did not understand at the time was that the message that God had for people at the time was begin given by my father and it was the message of repentance and restoration. It is this message of repentance and restoration that our enemy does not want out and he will do anything in his legal authority to prevent the Truth from coming to light, including allowing contracts to be placed upon the messenger’s son. Pop did not alter his message to the people of the church nor did he allow Satan to threaten our family and get away with it spiritually, but my disobedience continued and at some point in time I had to be removed from the situation for my own protection. While my actions were clearly inappropriate at the time did not mean that my parent’s ministry had to cease, nor was my time in recovery and restoration any shorter either.
What God is trying to tell us through my example is that even though the ministry of one is being revealed to those who need to hear it, it does not mean that others that reside closely with obedience will not face some type of trials as well. I was out of bounds in my walk with God and justifying sin in my life instead of ridding myself of it thus allowing the spirit realm to be made evident in ways that were not settling. God gives us a picture of this type of event in Jonah and how things can go array when the person who has a direct mission and statement from God runs and hides from their responsibility. It is never a pretty sight for anyone around a person who is running from God, for their lives are subjected to many things that they may or may not understand. It is this process that many of those who are considered innocent in that specific course who question “why” things occurred in that manner, but we need to know that this process is all part of God being just to those that are guilty and that is innocent, God plays no favorites when it comes to disobedience.
One of the age-old questions is why God allows the just to be punished along with the unjust, and while we can give specific answers about how God is perfect in all ways, it still confines our hearts and minds to exactly why things occur to good people while the wicked run free on many levels. One of these days maybe God will provide us an example that we can fathom this holy principle and understand its truth more than we can today but as for this moment, we have an example from Jonah that should grab our hearts enough to give us a direction and a directional explanation for this massive question. Jonah 1:14-16 gives us a picture of a consequential result of one man’s disobedience to God. He personally runs from God and places himself in a setting where others who do not know anything about him are present. This passage also gives us a picture of how many might react to such travesty for they give up and do not understand exactly what is going on around them. It is easy to give up on God at this point after realization has occurred, but it is the fact that the men began to trust God for an outcome is the point in which God takes charge and is present as the storm continues and then subsides.
The principle here runs parallel with Nineveh and thus is presently accepted as a consequence of Jonah’s disobedience. When God gives a command He does so in holy truth, purity, and faith in those who He gives the principle to, which means that if we do not fulfill the principle then everyone around us will be in peril just as the directed principle applied to the ones who it was made and directed to. The word that God gave to Jonah for the people of Nineveh was to stop the lifestyle that they were currently living within, to repent and to turn their hearts back to God. If they did not then God was basically going to wipe them from the face of the earth because of the sin that they had allowed to infiltrate and thus accept as their standard. The people of Nineveh were living in a state of sin which means they were living willingly in a life of disobedience. So, why would God deal with the potential recipients of His destruction any different than He would the person who He told to tell the people about their disobedience, who was in turn in the same condition of disobedience as the people who he was supposed to warn? The answer to that question is none at all. God would have to deal with Jonah in the same manner as He would the people of Nineveh, for we cannot forget that God is a true and holy God and a just God for all, as it is per His definition. It is this principle that God will adhere to when He must take action against any nation who has been called by His name to serve as a voice for His repentance and restoration process, in other words, unless we the USA do not turn our hearts back to God, watch out!
In this study of Jonah, we are now at the point where the men of the ship are at the exhaustive stage of their survival. Their immediate surroundings are not getting any better and every effort that they have known to do to save the ship has failed. Verse 14 tells us that once this doomed realization had set in, they began to pray to God and to ask that He save their innocent blood from the one man’s iniquities. They admit that the storm that they were going up against was from God in response to the disobedient actions of Jonah to which they did not want to be held accountable for on any level. So, while they may have not completely understood why their next step would be important to their lives, they agreed at some point to adhere to what Jonah had said for them to do in order for the storm to cease. In many eyes, casting a man overboard in order to “save” the others is a heinous act and one that should be tried in an international court of law, but when God is at the helm of anything, one must always consider His point of view first.
Jonah 1:15 states: “So they took up Jonah and cast him forth into the sea: and the sea ceased from her raging.” As this verse takes place the men have recognized that the storm had its beginning for a specific reason and that there was an answer for that beginning and they took advantage of such beginning and ended their portion of the storm. We will notice that Jonah did not resist their actions and allowed the men to toss him overboard without incident. We understand now that Jonah had received this word from God and that it would be appropriate if they would toss him into the result of his disobedience. Jonah was facing his disobedience as the source and not as a victim and it was the identical type of disobedient behavior that he was supposed to address in Nineveh, so basically he was demonstrating to God his obedience now by being thrown into the storm. It is at this point where Jonah separates himself from the present day Church in the fact that he now understands and accepts his disobedience as sin and knows how to correct the setting. He has misled the innocent and has confessed his sin over their possible demise, an act that today’s Church refuses to acknowledge.
How can the act of tossing a man overboard be any sign of a good thing? The next portion of verse 15 states that as soon as they did such a thing the seas calmed and the storm subsided. Anytime a person understands that sin controls their lives and then confesses it to God and to mankind, the setting changes and God can operate as He first projected. Jonah understood that he was the reason for the calamity that all of them were in at that moment and Jonah also understood that he needed to rid the sin in his own heart just as God wanted him to tell the people of Nineveh about what was in their hearts. So, Jonah knew he had no choice but to rid himself of the setting before any claim could return to the area and it is precisely why Jonah mentioned the remedy a few verses before but as any good human would do, the men tried everything else before listening to the drastic repentance process that God requires for our lives. It is difficult sometimes to know exactly why God allows such events to occur but as we ponder that question we must also take into consideration just how deep we dig our hearts into our own worlds and while digging, shovel God right out of our foundation.
Verse 16 tells us that as soon as the seas were calm the men of the boat began praising God and thanking Him for the appearance of salvation from the seas. The men made vows to God and even held a sacrificial ceremony in appreciation of what had just occurred. Many thoughts can run through our minds as this verse completes but one thing should stick out and serve as a huge heart reminder as that is this: we must understand that the pattern of disobedience is set into motion at the moment we make the decision to disobey God. This type of setting, Jonah 1:1-16 occurs every time we not only disobey God but anyone who is in authority over us. If humans make bad decisions then it is our responsibility to correct them not point fingers and then do nothing about the patterns in motion. There is no way possible for us to escape the fact that we have faults and that sometimes we make terrible decisions, but take it from Jonah when we realize that our pride and status have got in the way of our purpose it is time we rid ourselves of such devastating plagues and return to the main course of truth that will lead us to life, both eternal and physical.
It was a difficult decision Jonah made for himself but he did so in the realization that he was the reason for the immediate issues surrounding everyone in the boat. God had sent Jonah on a specific mission to a specific place for a specific reason. Jonah was God’s messenger that was on a mission and it was imperative that he fulfill his mission for there were many eternal lives’ at stake. It was Jonah’s decision to run instead of going where he was needed, he did his own thing and made his own determinations and interpretations about what God had spoken to him to complete. Until Jonah truly realized the danger that the people of Nineveh were in and what about to come to their lives through what his own eyes were witnessing, he was in total rebellion and thus out of the will of God. Not only was the life of Jonah in danger but the innocent people around him were as well, for they too needed to know God and to understand His love for their existence but why should such terrible conditions occur in order for their salvation and repentance to occur?
That question is easy to answer but difficult to follow through with. What Jonah did took courage and through this selfless act of his repented for what he had done against God and went against all human morality. It is not normal for someone to throw another human overboard and I pray that God never asks anyone else to do such an act, but it is that type of change and repentance that the Church needs in order for her to once again perform the mission that is so vital to the dying world. Jonah accepted the fact that he had sinned against God and the mission that He sent him to do, and it is our responsibility Church, to understand that we are playing the role of Jonah today. We are asleep in the bottom of the boat and the waves are crashing in all around us. The storms are great and are minute by minute growing in size and in intensity. The world is doing everything it can to secure their survival but the one with the mission to end such storms is fast asleep.
We are asleep because we have chosen to accept the ways of the world (running from God) instead of completing the truth of what God wants His people to know. Our mission has been compromised through our own selfish actions and comfortable ways of existing, but that is about to change if we do not stand up and say throw us off the boat for we know that it is our fault. We have stood around and displayed our crucifixes to the storm and cried our lifeless prayers for the storms to stop, but now the world laughs at us and mocks us as we interact with the people in the boat. It is not difficult for us to see what Jonah did, how he responded and what he had to do in order to correct the situation. Church, we can still correct the situation before the storm overtakes us and sinks the boat and many who are in that boat. But the world does not know why the storm is raging so, and the only way that they shall know is if we demonstrate the act of true repentance first. Repentance is the key to salvation and we have no better example of such drastic stoppage than the act of Jonah. How important is this act by Jonah today? Jumping ship or having the sinners throw one overboard is a drastic measure and it should be the same type of act when we separate ourselves from such world.
God is good all the time and He is faithful to heal our lands if His people only repent and call upon His name for salvation. God has given this nation many warnings in the past that should have grabbed our attention concerning the direction and condition of our national spiritual hearts but we have ignored it up until this moment. Church, we too have ignored God’s warnings and have failed to recognize them as such, thus inviting more danger into our shores. It is the desire of God to heal our hearts and to see His children live in total harmony and prosperity with all, but that condition shall never be observed unless we turn ourselves over to God. Let us jump overboard and allow God to take away all of the filth in our hearts, our whale may be large but the process of restoration will be well worth it. Jonah did a good job of accepting his sin and we should do a very similar procedure as he, we may not have to jump ship but God may one day bring the waters to our own shores instead if we are not willing to repent completely. Oh, we still have so much to learn from Jonah.
DLB
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