WHERE ARE YOU GOING? – JONAH - LESSON 1
“What Is Your Fear Factor?”
Kay Arthur, Teacher
What is your fear quotient? To what degree do you fear God? You know, when you open the word of God, and you look up the word “fear,” you see over and over and over again that fear is connected to wisdom. It is clear from God’s word that the two go together. Let’s look at it.
Go to Job 28:28, an awesome, awesome verse in which God is speaking, and as God speaks, this is what He says. (28) “And to man He said, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom;’” [This is what God says, “The fear of the Lord (the fear of Him); that is wisdom.”] “‘and to depart from evil is understanding.’” [Of course, evil would be anything that would go against God.]
Go to Psalm 111:10. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;” [You see the very same words.] “A good understanding have all those who do His commandments;” [In other words, if God commanded you to do something, and you do it, then it shows that you have a good understanding of who God is. Because, what does it mean to fear God? To fear God means to respect God. It means to trust Him. It means that you honor God as God. In other words, you know who He is, and knowing who He is, you treat Him according to who He is, and that you take Him at His word. You trust God, so that when God speaks, whatever He says, you believe it.] (10) “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And to depart from evil is understanding, and a good understanding have all those who do His commandments; His praise endures forever.”
Look at Proverbs 1:7. Proverbs is a book of wisdom. When you read it, it is the Proverbs of Solomon (now there are other Proverbs added near the end of the book, but it is the Proverbs of Solomon) who was the son of David. We know from Proverbs that David sat his son on his lap and taught him the fear of the Lord.
(7) “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;” ([In other words, if you want to know things, then you are going to know them because you honor God, because you respect God.] “Fools despise wisdom and instruction.” [So the fear of the Lord has to do with wisdom. The fear of the Lord has to do with instruction, or obedience to His commandments.]
In Proverbs 9:10, we see the statement again. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” [Do you think God wants us to get the point? Do you think He wants us to understand? Wisdom is taking knowledge and acting upon it. Wisdom is knowing how to behave, how to handle the situations of life.] (10) “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. (11) For by me (wisdom) your days will be multiplied, and years of life will be added to you. (12) If you are wise, you are wise for yourself, and if you scoff, you alone will bear it.” [In other words, if God says something, and you don’t listen, and you don’t fear Him, and you don’t respect Him, then you are going to bear the consequences. So we see that the fear of the Lord is something that every person should possess, and that this is where wisdom comes from.]
Now in the light of that, I want us to read Jonah 1:1-9. I am going to read them to you to put you into the context. I love this book. I thought, “Why don’t I teach this book more often?” because it is so awesome. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and it is obedience to the commandments of the Lord. (1) “The word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai saying, (2) ‘Arise, go to Nineveh the great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me.’” [So here is the word of the Lord that has come to a man who is the son of Amittai, whose name is Jonah, and he is told to go to Nineveh. Now where is Nineveh? Nineveh is about 550 miles northeast of Samaria. If he walked 15 to 20 miles a day, it would take him one month to get there. So the Lord has given him a command. He’s told him where to go, and He has told him that he is to cry against Nineveh.](3) “But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. So he went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarshish, paid the fare, and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.” [Now he is going in the opposite direction, and some people believe he is going toward Spain. We know that he is going to go by sea. He is not going to go by land to Nineveh. We also know that Nineveh was the capital of Assyria. It was a great, great city. We know later on, from the prophet Nahum that Nineveh is going to be destroyed by God. But this is years before this prophecy from Nahum ever comes. So Jonah gets on a ship, and he goes to Tarshish. As he goes to Tarshish, he thinks he is fleeing from the presence of the Lord. This must be a man who has no fear of God whatsoever. If the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, if the fear of the Lord is understanding, if the fear of the Lord is to keep His commandments, this man must not have any fear of the Lord. Yet why would God choose him, if he didn’t fear God, to tell him go to Nineveh, and to cry against that great city?]
(4) “And the Lord hurled a great wind on the sea and there was a great storm on the sea so that the ship was about to break up. (5) Then the sailors became afraid, and every man cried to his god, and they threw the cargo which was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone below into the hold of the ship, lain down, and fallen sound asleep. (6) So the captain approached him and said, ‘How is it that you are sleeping? Get up, call on your god. Perhaps your god will be concerned about us so that we will not perish.’” [Does he have a fear of God? Yes, “Call on your god.” He doesn’t know who it is, but, “Call on your god.” There is a respect and a trust of God, “so that we will not perish.”] (7) “And each man said to his mate, ‘Come, let us cast lots so we may learn on whose account this calamity has struck us.’” [So what do these men know? What do these men understand? These men understand that calamity is coming because of disobedience, that there is something wrong, and this is why the calamity has come.] “So they cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. (8) Then they said to him, ‘Tell us, now! On whose account has this calamity struck us? What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?’ (9) And he said to them, ‘I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land.’” [Now, does he have that right? Did we come into existence because God made us? Did we come into existence because God made the dry land and God made the sea? Yes, he has that straight. The problem is that his fear quotient is not coming out well.] What do I mean by all of this? When I talk about his fear quotient, I want you to know this: if you take the circumstances of life, and you divide them by the number of times that you live in the fear of the Lord, how well would you do? Here is a man that says he fears God. Here is a man who says he fears God, and knows that God is the creator. Yet, what is his fear quotient? In the circumstance of life, is he getting a high rating? Or is he getting a low rating? You and I know that he is getting a low rating. So the question is, what can we learn, what can you and I learn from these two chapters. As I prayed, and said, “Okay, God, they have studied this. They know all these things. They know that Jonah was a prophet of the Lord. They know this from 2 Kings 14:23-27. They know that he lived during the reign of Jeroboam II, who was king of Israel. They know that the time of Jeroboam II was a time of great prosperity. They know that this man was living under a king that really didn’t fear God, and yet, because God was God, and because God was compassionate, God was allowing Jeroboam II to prosper. God was allowing the southern kingdom under king Uzziah to prosper during this time. So it was a good time in Israel. It wasn’t a bad time to get on the road and travel 15 to 20 miles, and spend a month going up to Nineveh. We also know that Shalmanezer IV was king of Assyria at this time. We know that it was a time when Shalmanezer was not attacking. It was a time when they were so strong that they were militarily secure during this time. So there wasn’t a fear there. So what is it with Jonah? If the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; if the fear of the Lord is to depart from evil; if the fear of the Lord is to obey the commandments of the Lord, why is he failing? When we look at this, and when we go through and we look at this passage from the aspect of the fear of the Lord, I think we can learn a lot of things for our own life.
I want to give you ten principles, from Chapters 1 and 2, on the fear of the Lord—ten questions that I pray God will use to penetrate your heart, and, in a sense, sober you up, so that you come out 100% in your life when it comes to the fear of the Lord. #1. Do you fear God, but not enough to obey Him when you don’t want to? In other words, do you say, “I know who God is. I belong to Him. He’s my Father, but I’m sorry, I am just not going to obey Him in this.” Do you say you fear God, but it is not enough to obey Him when you don’t want to obey Him.
Look at Jonah 1:2-3. “Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me.” [Now is that logical? Is that something that God has a right to tell a prophet to do? Yes, because what is a prophet? A prophet is a spokesman from God. It’s in their job description, to speak for God. It is in their job description to warn people to flee from the wrath of God. It is in their job description to tell people to repent. So God is saying, “Okay, My prophet, this is what I want you to do.” But what do you see?] (3) “But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.” [From the face of the Lord. Can you flee from the face of the Lord? No, but this is fleeing, so to speak, from the place of obedience. So he fears the Lord God who made the heavens and earth and dry land, but does not fear Him enough, he does not respect Him enough, he does trust Him enough to get on his feet and walk to Nineveh, and cry against that city. He goes in the opposite direction.
I want to ask you a question: Is there any time in your life where God has told you, “This is what I want you to do?” It’s not that He has given you a direct revelation out of heaven, but it’s simply the fact that this is what is written in the word, you know it’s written in the word, and yet you don’t want to do it. What is it that God has said to you, or God has said to me? “I want you to do, I want you to go, I want you to do this for Me.” And we say, “No.” It may be uprooting ourselves; it may be moving to another city; it may be going and speaking to a person; it may be forgiving someone, but we don’t want to do it. Yet we know it is very clear in the word of God—but we don’t want to do it.
#2. Is your fear of God weak enough to think that you can disobey and get away with it? You see, it is one thing to say “No” to God, but it’s another thing to think that you can say “No,” and get away with it. (3) “But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish… So he went down to Joppa (Joppa was the seacoast port), and found a ship,” [It is wonderful to stand in Joppa (it is a beautiful little city now, right along the Mediterranean Sea), and to recall what Jonah did, and how he got on that ship. That is not so beautiful, but it is putting it all together.] “paid the fare, and he went down into it to go to Tarshish from the” [He wants you to get this. He thinks he’s fleeing from the…] “presence of the Lord.” [So what does he think? He thinks that he can go to Tarshish and get away with it. He thinks that, although he is a prophet, and this is in his job description that God can tell him what to do, that he can turn around and walk in the opposite direction, and get away with it. I want to tell you something: there is a verse in the Scriptures, and it says, “Be ye sure your sins will find you out.” Why will your sins find you out? Because God is Holy, because God is God, because He can be trusted to stand by His word, and watch over His word to perform it. He’s the One who says, “Be ye sure your sins will find you out.” This is a message that needs to go over the airways; this is a message that needs to go out in conversations; this is a message that needs to be heralded over and over and over again—our God is a Holy God! He reigns supreme; His sovereignty rules over all, and every single human being is accountable to Him, and if you do not live according to His statues and according to His precepts, you will suffer the consequences. You cannot disobey God and get away with it.
#3. Is your fear of God weak enough to allow you to sleep through calamity? Look at vv. 4-6. “And the Lord hurled a great wind on the sea” [Haven’t you stood in awe at God, as you’ve looked at Him, as you have looked at the things that He did in just these short four chapters?] “The Lord hurled a great wind on the sea and there was a great storm on the sea so that the ship was about to break up.” [Why? Because you can’t disobey God and get away with it.] (5) “Then the sailors became afraid, and every man cried to his god, and they threw the cargo which was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone below into the hold of the ship, lain down, and fallen sound asleep.” [There is a calamity going on, and where is Jonah? He is in bed. His faith is so weak that he sleeps through calamity.] (6) “So the captain approached him and said, ‘How is it that you are sleeping? Get up, call on your god. Perhaps your god will be concerned about us so that we will not perish.’”
If you would review history, and you would look at the history of the church in the midst of certain eras of time, you would see that sometimes the church was strong, or there were strong men who really feared God who would stand for what was right, and proclaim what was right, and not fear the face of man, while others slept. I want to ask you a question. Where were the Christians in the United States of America during World War II when Hitler was systematically exterminating the Jews? Where were the Christians? We were asleep. Our faith was so weak, our fear of God was so weak, that we would not stand up, we would not rise up. Did you know that shiploads of Jews came to our shores, and we turned them away and sent them back? Where were we? Where were the Dietrich Bonhoeffers? In Germany, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose fear of God outweighed his fear of man, whose fear of God was so strong that he would not sleep, that he would not be silent, as the Germans went into the churches, and put swastikas behind the pulpits and over the altars. Bonhoeffer would have none of it, and he died in prison; but he died a valiant warrior. He was a man who feared God.
Now let me ask you a question? What’s wrong in our nation? What goes against the word of God? What’s very clear that goes against the word of God? Abortion goes against the word of God. Immorality goes against the word of God. Homosexuality goes against the word of God. Homosexual marriages go against the word of God. Where are you? Are you asleep? Have you crawled in bed, and said, “O, this is awful,” and pulled the covers up over your head, and thought, “I’m going to sleep until it passes.” You may sleep—until it is your daughter, or your son, or your husband, or your wife. You see, if I fear God, I’m going to be God’s man. I’m going to go to the Nineveh’s, so to speak, and I’m going to cry out against the wickedness. But what did Jonah do? He takes off; he’s wrong-way Jonah. “Whoa, Jonah, you’re going the wrong way. Not only that, but you are sleeping. You are sleeping.”
This even comes down to the basic level of human relationships. When everything is not right in a relationship, what do you do? Do you fear God so much that you go to God, and you ask Him for wisdom, and you ask Him what you are to do? And then, whether the other person is going to understand or not, you’re going to do it? You’re not going to just get into bed, and cover up your head, and wish it would go away. That’s not the way God operates. God has answers for us; God has solutions. God has ways that we are to live. Go through the book of Proverbs, and you’ll find in the book of Proverbs (you can read one chapter of Proverbs for every day of the month, unless it is a 30-day month. Then you can read 30 and 31 in one day), and it has the answers to our relationships. It is the book of wisdom; it is the book that tells us about the fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom, and it gives us understanding.