Now the word of Yahweh came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying,
Now when I was in Sunday school, the Sunday school teacher taught us that it was evil to go to shows. And they told us the story of the little boy who went by the theatre and saw on the marquis the show that was playing and oh he wanted to go in and see it. And he was tempted to go in and see it, but he knew that the Lord wouldn't want him in there, and if the rapture would come, if he were in there would surely not be taken. And I had that boogieman over my head when I was a child. And so he said, "Lord, if you wouldn't mind waiting outside, I'll be with You in an hour and a half," as though we can leave the presence of the Lord, or as though we do leave the presence of the Lord when we turn our backs upon God. Not so, I'm always surrounded by God no matter where I am. And I think that this is an important concept that we need to be aware of. I don't escape God.When Ben-Hadad was questioning his generals because of the apparent security leak... He had the same problems that Reagan had only of a different sort, because his generals said to him, "Listen, we're true to you. We're not leaking out this security information. The problem is there is a prophet over there in Israel and you can't even talk to your wife in bed but what he doesn't know what you are saying to her." Now how did the prophet know? Because God was revealing it to him. You see, you don't escape God. I don't care where you are. You cannot escape God.Now, it was a deceptive lie for Jonah to think that he could escape God. It was a deceptive lie to think that he would be better off running from God and running from the call of God. That was a deception and that was a lie. Many people live under that same delusion. "I would be better off if I could just escape the will of God for my life. I can determine what is best for me better than God can determine. I know what is better for the people of God than God does. If I go to Nineveh and preach the gospel to those Gentiles, if they believe and repent, then God being the softy that He is, being merciful as He is, will probably forgive them and not destroy them. And if they are not destroyed then they are apt to destroy our people. I'm not going. I'm heading for Tarshish. I'm going to get as far away from Nineveh as is humanly possible."So he went down to Joppa to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. And he got a ship and paid the fare; went down in the hull to flee from the presence of the Lord.