David Jeremiah - Running from God (01/28/2026)
This sermon kicks off a series on Jonah, highlighting it as a real historical story backed by Jesus' own words. God calls Jonah to preach repentance to hated Nineveh, but Jonah runs away, boarding a ship to Tarshish. David Jeremiah stresses that fleeing God's call leads to storms and discipline, yet God offers second chances through grace.
I'm going to tell you right up front, Jonah is one of my favorite books. It's one of those books that it starts with a mystery and it gets resolved in four chapters. And that's kind of a good thing. So I hope you'll be with us in these days ahead. Believe it or not, there are 10 messages on Jonah from four chapters in the Bible. So we're going to dig deep and find out what God wants us to know from this incredible book. Frank Abagnale Jr. was a teenager in the mid-1960s when he ran away from home in New Rochelle, New York. He had no money, no plan. He made a desperate decision. He said if the world rewarded confidence, he was going to borrow some of it. And what followed was one of the most famous crime stories in American history. By his own account, Abagnale spent years on the run, cashing forged checks and assuming false identities. He posed as a Pan Am pilot. He flew for free and stayed in hotels on the airlines tab. He pretended to be a pediatrician in Georgia, then a lawyer in Louisiana. And he was always staying one step ahead of the law.
Eventually, it all caught up to him. In 1969, he was arrested in France, served six months in a French prison, and six more in Sweden, and then was extradited to the United States, where he was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison. Yes, you're right. The movie is Catch Me If You Can, one of my all-time favorite movies. Years later, Abagnale turned his story into a movie and a career. He would speak about fraud prevention and consulted for businesses. And we don't know whether every detail of what he said happened to him really happened or if it was embellished, but he consistently described his life on the run as empty, exhausting, 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. And 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, some upfront information that will help you understand what kind of book this really is. First of all, it's a short book. As I mentioned, the book of Jonah is only four chapters, 48 verses. You can read it in five minutes, and I've tried it, and you can do it.
It's a surprising book. Jonah is the only prophet in the Bible that God sends to a foreign nation outside of Israel. God sends him to people Jonah doesn't like in a place Jonah doesn't want to go. It's a simple book. Most prophetic books in the Bible contain long speeches, powerful oracles from God. But Jonah's book is different. He only has one very short message, just eight words in the Hebrew language, and yet that one short message created perhaps the greatest revival the world has ever known. It's a sincere book. It's emotionally real. Jonah is the only prophet in the Bible who gets angry when people get saved. Instead of celebrating God's mercy, he resents it. And it's a strange book. I mean, really, the book is full of unforgettable things like a great fish that swallowed a man, animals in sackcloth, a vine that grows up overnight, and a little worm that destroys it in one day. Finally, it's a structured book. There's one word that keeps showing up in the book of Jonah. When I alert you to it, you'll see it when you read the book this week. It's the word great. There was a great city, a great storm, a great fish, a great fear, and a great mercy. And that word shapes the story.
What Makes the Book of Jonah Unique in the Bible?
The book is divided in half. The first two chapters deal with Jonah running away from God, and the last two chapters deal with Jonah returning to God. We get to follow his round trip all the way through. The book will take us beyond the borders of Israel to an enemy city. It will take us into a violent storm, 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. The book does not wrap everything up at the end and leave us with a here's-what-you-do-now package. The book ends with a question, which turns the spotlight from Jonah to us. So over the next weeks, we're going to slow down in this short book and listen carefully, not just to what Jonah says, but to what God is saying through him to us. So let's get started, first of all, with the description of Jonah. Before we look at the first four verses, we need 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 someone slipped into the Scripture when no one was looking? Whether you know it or not, it's one of the most battled books in the Bible. Scholars have written on how Jonah was a fanciful story that couldn't be true. Whoever heard of a great fish that swallowed a man? How could you ever believe that? If you believe that, I got a bridge I want to show you.
It is sometimes referred to as the Achilles heel of the Bible. There's a wonderful story about a little girl who was the valedictorian of her class in a Christian school. And she enrolled in a secular college. And when she got to college, she discovered what a lot of young people discover is that some of her professors were not friendly toward the Bible, in fact, critical of it. One day in class, the teacher asked, how many of you believe in the reality of Jonah? And she was the only one who raised her hand. Immediately, the teacher turned his full attention on her, belittling her faith and asking her all kinds of questions like, why in the world would you believe such a fanciful book? And the girl said, well, my parents taught that book to me when I was young, and I heard about it in Sunday school, and my pastor taught about it, and it's in the Bible. Well, the teacher would have none of it. She said, I can't believe you're so naive. I don't know how you're gonna get through this college if you believe in Jonah. How in the world could you ever believe that? And the little girl said, well, I'll tell you one thing. When I get to heaven, I'm gonna meet Jonah, and I'm gonna talk to him, and I'm gonna ask him all your questions. And the teacher said, what if Jonah isn't in heaven? And the little girl said, then you can ask him. I like that story, don't you?
Jonah was not a fictional character or a symbolic figure. Jonah was a real prophet who lived about eight centuries before Jesus, and he is anchored in real history. The Bible mentions him first in 2 Kings 14. There he is identified by name, family, hometown, and historical setting. We are told 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. Here's what the Scripture says, Jeroboam restored the territory of Israel from the entrance of Hamath to the Sea of Arabah, according to the word of the Lord God, which was spoken through his prophet Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet who was from Gath-hepher. The details matter. The place was specific, the time, 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 an uncommon person with an uncommon name. His name means dove, a symbol often associated with peace. How fitting that God would choose a man with the 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 historic person.
Why Did Jesus Reference Jonah as a Real Person?
But if you think the Old Testament is clear, wait till you turn to the New Testament. Let me say this as clearly as I can. You cannot believe in Jesus if you don't believe in Jonah. Because Jesus believed in Jonah. I'm not just saying this. I can prove it to you. Jesus didn't think Jonah was a made-up story. Jesus talked about Jonah as a real person who actually lived. In Luke chapter 11, people were asking Jesus for a sign to prove who he was. And in Luke 11:29 and 30, he said this. 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. Then in Matthew 12, Jesus went even further. You know this verse. He said, for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Listen carefully. Jesus tied his own 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 can we know that he's right about eternal life? That's not possible, because Jesus is the Son of God. He is a perfect and truthful witness. And he said, Jonah was real. That's enough for me. I hope it's enough for you too.
So I'm not going to teach Jonah as some allegory or some fictional illustration in the Bible. I'm going to teach it as a true story, because that's how Jesus treated it. And I want to be like him. The description of Jonah. Now we began the story in verses one and two of the first chapter with the direction to Jonah. The Bible says, the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, arise, go to Nineveh, that 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 is only one word of prophecy in the entire book, and that is the message Jonah preached to the Ninevites in chapter 3. This is really the story of Jonah's involvement with God. Right in the beginning, we were given Jonah's marching orders. The direction was clear. In fact, it was threefold. God said to Jonah, I want you to do three things. Arise, go, and cry out against the Ninevites. God did not say, Jonah, we're thinking about doing a campaign over in Nineveh. What do you think? He didn't say, could you give me some input on the cultural significance of a Jewish prophet going over there? He didn't ask Jonah's opinion. He simply said to Jonah, listen carefully. I've got three things for you to do. Arise, go to Nineveh, and cry out against it.
How many of you wish God would be that direct with you? I mean, sometimes we don't know what God wants us to do for sure. Wouldn't it be good if he just said, one, two, three, here's what I want you to do today. Well, if you read the Bible long enough, it gets close to that. But Jonah got it straight from God. Now, before we talk about his disobedience, you need to understand why he didn't want to do what God wanted him to do. You see, 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 Assyrian people. Nineveh was the capital city of Assyria, as I said. And it was an enormous city, home to hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps one of the first megacities in the ancient world. And it was heavily fortified, powerful, feared. Nineveh sat near present-day Mosul, Iraq, placing it right in the heart of what is now the Middle East. And the people of Nineveh were idol worshipers. History tells us that they were also exceedingly wicked people, so wicked that their sin came up before God. Verse 2 says, their wickedness arose before God, literally arose into the nostrils of God.
Why Did Jonah Hate the People of Nineveh?
Assyria was one of the cruelest, most vicious, violent empires of the ancient world. Its kings recorded their victories by boasting of planes covered with corpses and cities burned to the ground. Enemies were mutilated. Families were forced to parade with the severed heads of their loved ones in their hands. And prisoners were tortured and flayed alive. The history of Assyria has been described as gory and blood-curdling a history as ever has been. And God said to Jonah, Jonah, I've had enough. Go and cry out against them. By chapter 3, we hear the message Jonah was sent to preach. Verse 4 tells us, And Jonah began to enter the city on the first day's walk, and he cried out and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh will be overthrown. Now turn with me in your mind to chapter 4. I'll put it on the screen so you don't have to find it. Here, Jonah explains why he refused to go to Nineveh. Jonah 4:2. So he prayed to the Lord, and he said, Lord, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore, I fled previously 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, I knew it. I knew if I went over there and preached, you might forgive them. And I did not want that. I did not want them 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. I wonder, has God ever asked you to do something you didn't want to do? Well, I mean, maybe he asked you to speak to that impossible person at work and tell them that God loves her at work. You don't love her. Really? But you know God does, and you know you're supposed to speak to her. Now you understand Jonah a little better. He understood the instructions perfectly. They were unmistakably clear. But the Bible tells us Jonah would have none of it. The disobedience of Jonah was mighty. We come to that disobedience. Notice, 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. In my notes, I have colored the two phrases, and they're on the screen. What was Jonah doing? He was running from the presence of the Lord. Now, that's kind of dumb. Twice in this verse, we're told, he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord. The psalmist says, Where can I go from your spirit, Lord? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend into heaven, you're there. If I make my bed in hell, behold, you're there too. Some of you are running from God. You came to church today, but you're running from God, and it's a thankless task. Because everywhere you go to get from God, he's already there, waiting on you. He's the omnipresent God.
I want you to notice something about Jonah's disobedience. First of all, it was deliberate. Jonah was deliberate. 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, he had some options. I mean, he could have just 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 that if he was not going to go where God sent him, he would go as far away as possible. And that is why he headed for Tarshish. You see, Tarshish represented the furthest Western destination known in Jonah's day. Some believe it was in Spain. Others placed it along the Western Mediterranean. Wherever it was, in Jonah's mind, it meant one thing. It was the farthest possible place from where God had called him to go. So Jonah didn't just disobey God in a small or passive way. God said, Jonah, I want you to go here. And Jonah said, I'm going there. And that's rebellion. And we still see it today. God gives direction. Instead of 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 with national pride. He knew what the Assyrians had done to his people, and he cared more about his nation than he cared about God's instruction.
Why Can't You Run from God's Presence?
I mean, it's easy to fall into that. We love our country, and rightly so. But listen to me, men and women. Our loyalty to God must always come first. Jonah got his priorities mixed up. His disobedience was deliberate. Next, his disobedience was a deceived disobedience. The Bible said he went down to Joppa, and he found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it. The thing I've written down here is that Jonah was deceived in his disobedience. That almost always goes along with refusing to do what God tells you to do. Let me put it simply. There will always be a ship waiting to take you away from the Lord. Always. Instead of going to Nineveh, Jonah went down to Joppa, a coastal city port, and it was about 75 miles south of his hometown, and he went there to get on a ship. When he arrived in Joppa, there was a ship headed for Tarshish. That detail is important because ships did not run on schedules in those days. They arrived and departed when their business was finished. Jonah could easily have seen that ship and thought to himself, now this must be the will of God. He's got a ship all ready for me. Not normal here, just waiting on me. Everything is lining up. You think I'm making fun of that? I'm not making fun of it because I hear that argument a lot. Well, Pastor, I know it's not God's will, but I got there, and it just seems so right. It just seems so right to me, Pastor.
Well, I don't care what it seems like. If it's not right, it's not right. If it's in the Bible and it says, no, don't do that, and you think you can find a way to make yourself comfortable doing what God says don't do, you're just fooling yourself. You're being deceived like Jonah was. Jonah was not being guided by obedience. He was being guided by circumstance. And circumstance really can be misleading. When we are running from God, it is easy to mistake an open door for God's approval. Jonah had a choice. On one side were his circumstances. On the other side was the clear word of God. God had already said, arise, go to Nineveh. That instruction could not have been clearer. We must never allow our circumstances to override God's word. God's will and God's word always agree, even when they appear in a conflict from human perspective. In those moments, the tension is not with God, but with our understanding. And when someone chooses not to go God's way, the world will always provide an easy alternative, a ship ready to sail in the opposite direction. And so Jonah got on board. Jonah was deliberate in his disobedience. He was deceived in his disobedience. And he was doomed in his disobedience. Jonah 1:3 says, So he paid the fare and went down to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.
Now, this whole book is about how much it cost Jonah to take the trip to Tarshish. And he paid a lot. Jonah paid a heavy price to be disobedient. Some of you could stand up and testify and say, you know what, pastor? I tried to run away from God. Let me tell you what happened to me. Let me tell you what took place in my life when I was running from God. Here's something interesting. The ship to Tarshish only went one way. There's no record of it ever coming back. The ships that take you away from the presence of the Lord are usually one-way journeys until God intervenes and brings you back some other way. And what a way did he bring Jonah back. I wrote something in the margin of my Bible when I was reading Jonah some years ago. I remembered it this week. Here's what I wrote down. Every time Jonah moved away from the presence of God, the direction was down. Notice this as you look at your Bibles later today. He went down to Joppa. He went down into the ship. They threw him down into the sea. He went down into the deep. He went down into the belly of the fish. And the fish went down to the very depths of the ocean. Many of you already know this. When you walk away from the presence of the Lord, the direction is always down, down, down. Jonah is about to find out just how far down that path can take you.
What Happens When You Disobey God's Call?
So, in the outline, Jonah was deliberate in his disobedience. He was deceived in his disobedience. He was doomed in his disobedience. And number four, he was disciplined for his disobedience. Remember where Jonah is at this point. He's running from God. He's on the ship. He thinks he's safe. He's headed toward Tarshish as far away as he can get. In his mind, Nineveh is behind him, and he doesn't have to think about that anymore. He thinks he's safe. Have you ever pictured God watching all this from heaven, almost as if he were leaning over the railing, looking down and saying, Jonah, what are you doing? And then God acts. The Bible tells us that the Lord sent a great wind on the sea. God simply spoke, and the calm was gone. And the sea erupted, and the storm rose with such violence, the Bible says it looked like the ship was going to be broken in half. You see, you can't run from God. When you do, you're not running toward freedom. You're running toward a storm. The storm was not an accident, men and women. It did not come from bad weather or poor timing. God sent the storm. And the same God who told Jonah where to go now stood in his way. And there's both good news and bad news in that, really. The bad news is this. There's no place where you can be safe if you're running from God. He controls the wind. He controls the sea. He will find you. He's the hound of heaven.
But here's the good news. Doesn't this also show you how much God loved Jonah? God used the wind. He used the waves. He would even prepare a great fish to bring his prophet back to himself. You know, there's a verse in the New Testament. I thought about this this morning. It's not in my notes, but it's in Hebrews. It says, Whom the Lord loves, he chastens. Sometimes if you're going through some hard things, you need to stop and ask yourself, Is God trying to talk to me? It might not always be that. Sometimes you just go through stuff. But sometimes the things you go through are God's way of yelling at you to tell you you're going in the wrong direction. Wake up. Get back. Do the right thing. God does this because he's the God of the second chance. One of the reasons I love this book so much is because the second half of the book says this, And the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time. Oh, my goodness. How many of you are glad that God doesn't give up on us when we mess up the first time? The word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time. The book of Jonah is really a story about second chances. Jonah failed the first time, but God isn't finished with him. God would give him another opportunity, but not before he worked on his heart. Jonah's got some difficult days ahead of him before he gets to the second chance.
Because if God had just left Jonah again without changing him, he would have made the same mistake all over again. And that is how God works with us as well. Sometimes people sail along on what feels like a calm, pleasant sea. They think they're getting away with something. I've seen this story played over and over again and more recently than you can believe. They think they're out running God. They think the wind is never going to get them. And then the wind shifts and the storm rolls in and they discover that God will not ignore deliberate rebellion forever. For a child of God who is out of fellowship with him, life becomes deeply uncomfortable. You see, before knowing Christ, you didn't fully understand joy, peace, or fellowship. But once you knew it, once you chose to go south and God told you to go north, life became miserable. I don't think there's any more miserable person on the face of this earth than a backslidden Christian. God will keep applying pressure. He will do whatever is necessary till you listen to his voice and come back to him. And that's what the book of Jonah says. It reveals the incredible love of God for stubborn people who sometimes have to learn everything the hard way. God is going to take Jonah through the process.
How Does God Give Second Chances Like Jonah?
I don't want to get ahead of the story, though I'm tempted. But do not miss the central message of this book. It's about love, grace, and faithfulness of a sovereign God. He knows you by name. You belong to him. And he takes care of his own. And if necessary, he will use whatever means it takes to bring you to a place of surrender to his will. On September 11, 2001, Janelle McMillan was working on the 64th floor of the World Trade Center. And when the first plane hit, she began descending the stairs with hundreds of others. Then the North Tower collapsed. Concrete and steel buried her under layers of debris. She couldn't move her legs. The air was heavy with dust and smoke and fires burned all around. She drifted in and out of consciousness, unsure if anyone would ever find her alive. In the darkness, she prayed. She told God that if he saved her, she would give him her life and do his will. And hours later, a rescuer cut through the rubble, grabbed her hand and said, Janelle, I've got you. And she became the last living person pulled from ground zero after 27 hours. Later, she said, being under the rubble, I knew that I had given my life to Jesus Christ that day. I'd made that commitment with God that I would change my life and do his will. I think I'm here to tell a story and to do the will of God as well.
Many women, God doesn't always use a storm like Jonah's or a collapse like Janelle's to get our attention. Sometimes he just uses ordinary moments or quiet interruptions. But the question is always the same. And here's the question. Will you run from God or will you return to God? That's what the book of Jonah is all about. And for some of you here today, that's a powerful question. I told Brian after the first service, I feel like some days I'm wrestling with the souls of men and women in this church. I'm actually in a wrestling match with your soul. Will you return or will you just keep walking away? Ultimately, the answer will be experienced. And my prayer for you is no matter how far you may think you have moved away from God, come back to him. Don't keep walking away from him. You can't run from God, men and women. God is everywhere and he will never let you go. So make the decision. I want you to be in chapters three and four, returning to God, not in chapters one and two, running away from God. And that's my prayer for you today. Let's bow together. Someone here today, Father, needed to hear this message and it penetrated their heart. And right now, they're a bit uncomfortable because they know it is God's word speaking to them. Not David Jeremiah, but the word of God. Would you accomplish your purpose in that life? Whether it's one or two or a dozen, however many it may be.
So that those who may be not going God's direction will return and begin to walk with him again. I'm going to do something I very seldom do here. I'm going to ask everyone to keep your head bowed and your eyes closed. And I'm going to ask this question. How many of you here today would say to me, Pastor Jeremiah, that sermon, boy, that hit me hard because I'm not returning to God. I'm running from him. And would you pray for me today? Would you just lift your hand up and let me see it? I see some hands. Yes. I see your hand in the middle here. And I can't see really well upstairs, but God does. He sees your hand. Father, each one here who responded in a moment is a candidate for your grace. Surround these sweet people with your grace and forgiveness and mercy. Give them the courage to do whatever they need to do to do the right thing and to be obedient to your instruction. Lord, it's not usually that we don't know what to do. Sometimes we know what to do. And like Jonah, we don't want to do it. Give us the desire to do your will so that we may know your peace and your joy. And we'll thank you in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen.