Terry Virgo's Blog

How can you sleep?

God had told Jonah, ‘Go to Nineveh.’ Jonah responded, ‘Not likely! I’m off to Tarshish.’ Having secured his passage, he went below deck and promptly fell asleep.

Refuge in sleep
Tiredness can be perfectly wholesome, the natural result of hard work. At the end of a particularly demanding day, we fall into bed and sleep. That’s good and healthy. But we can also experience a tiredness that is not healthy, a sleep that says, ‘I can’t face reality any more. I can’t cope with the responsibility.’ Jonah had already run away physically. Now he was running away mentally. He lost all sense of purpose and along with it all sense of urgency. Dejected and weary, he crawled below deck and fell asleep.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus told the disciples to watch and pray, but they fell asleep. Probably they had simply had enough. Jesus had warned them about his death, and now the pressures were mounting. They must have thought, ‘we’re weary of all this. What’s the point? If Jesus dies what’s going to happen to us? It’s just too much for us to cope with.’ So they switched off and fell asleep.

There’s a tiredness which is based on escapism, one which turns on the television and says, ‘I don’t care what rubbish is on. I can’t bear facing reality.’ And when the head hits the pillow at night there’s a big sigh of relief: ‘I can turn my back on it! I can sleep!’

How many Christians suffer from lethargy and general aimlessness? We have a glorious commission – to tell the world about Jesus – but how often do we give the impression of having a vital sense of destiny? Forgetting God’s command to reach the nations, we simply adopt our own plans. We soon lose our sense of direction, get bored and ‘fall asleep’. So the world regards Christians as sleepy and irrelevant rather than provocative or prophetic.

Storm-tossed world
Suddenly a violent storm engulfed Jonah’s ship. Panic gripped the terrified sailors, who cried out to their gods to save them. Fearing that they would capsize in the gigantic waves, all hands were ordered on deck, and cargo was frantically thrown overboard.

Today the world is confronted by many terrible storms: moral storms, economic storms, ecological storms. People are tossed about by countless fears and countless social needs scream out for answers. Though modern man is better educated and informed than ever, he still feels overwhelmed by the enormity of the world’s problems. Just as Jonah’s companions called on their various gods, so society cries out to humanism, secularism, materialism. But, once tried, they are all found wanting. Now some are turning to occult or eastern religions – Islam, Hinduism, Hare Krishna, spiritualism, and so on. Not knowing who has the answer, each calls on his own ‘god’ for help.

Jonah’s shipmates didn’t realise it, but the one man who knew how to stop the storm was asleep. ‘How can you sleep?’ the ship’s captain asked him. ‘Get up and call on your god.’ Everybody else was doing what they could – praying to their gods, bailing out water, discarding cargo – but Jonah only slept. ‘Why don’t you join us in what we are doing?’ Backslidden Christians are often faced with the same sort of question by well-meaning friends and colleagues, but it’s pointless trying to ‘bail out the water’ when you, like Jonah, know the reason for the storm.

The moment Jonah was cornered he knew more about the weather conditions in the Mediterranean than the entire meteorological office of his day! The sailors may have calculated that certain winds had reacted with high and low pressure areas, and the result was a storm. But this backslider knew exactly what was happening. ‘It’s me,’ he told them. ‘I’m the cause.’

Backsliders who’ve been apprehended by God often know more about the situation than anyone else, whatever the specialists may say. The backslider on the verge of bankruptcy can call in an expert to help him save his business. The man might suggest, ‘Well, you should enlarge here and develop there, and you should work at cash flow. Then you’ll probably break through.’ Or to help save his crumbling marriage, he may consult a marriage guidance counsellor, who suggests, ‘If you stop doing this and do that instead, you’ll have a far better chance of pulling your marriage together.’ But in his heart the backslider thinks, ‘No. It isn’t any of that. God is after me.’

God has a heart for backsliders. He closes in on them, whispering through the storms, ‘I’m after you. You’ve run away from me, but I love you and I haven’t finished with you. I want you back with me again.’

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Jonah ran

Was God’s concern for heathen Nineveh too much for narrow-minded Jonah to take? Was the prophet alarmed at the prospect of preaching his uncomfortable message to the heathen? Whatever he felt, he ran. God had plans for Jonah, ‘but Jonah ran …’ (Jonah 1:3). I wonder how often this is the case with us. God had plans for Mike, but Mike ran … God had plans for Anne, but Anne ran …

God’s presence
Jonah ran from the presence of the Lord. Many people wonder if it is possible to run from God’s presence. I think the answer is both yes and no. ‘No’. David declares in Psalm 139: ‘Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there’ (vv. 7, 8). ‘I cannot run away from you’ he says. ‘It doesn’t matter where I go, I cannot escape from your presence.’ ‘Yes,’ he says in Psalm 51: ‘Do not cast me from your presence’ (v. 11).

Some Christians would simply quote the doctrine that God is omnipresent. Therefore, since God is everywhere, it is impossible to flee from his presence. So when they hear someone say enthusiastically, ‘We really felt the presence of God in the meeting this morning,’ they react matter-of-factly, ‘Well, he’s always there.’ Such dry application of doctrine provides a snare for the evangelical church, robbing us as it does of the anticipation of feeling God’s presence.

The mystery is that we can experience both God’s closeness and His withdrawal. One of Jesus’ names is Immanuel, which means ‘God with us’, but he didn’t say, ‘You will always feel my presence.’ He promised simply, ‘I am with you always’ (Matt. 28:20, NKJV).

Moses said to God, ‘If your presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here’ (Ex. 33:15). He wasn’t careless about the presence of God. He didn’t put his confidence in a passionless statement, ‘God is everywhere.’ In fact, God had just said that he would go with the people (33:14). But Moses wanted God to know how determined he was that his presence be manifest among them.

When Jonah fled from the presence of the Lord, he was escaping from the revealed will of God and was forsaking the enjoyment of his fellowship.

Amazing coincidence
The prophet went down to Joppa in search of a ship bound for Tarshish. On finding one he probably thought, ‘It was meant for me. What an extraordinary coincidence! What proof that I’m not off course after all.’ After paying his fare he went aboard. He failed to realise that the devil could have supplied a whole fleet of ships headed for Tarshish.

If Jonah had been listening to his conscience, he would have heard the words, ‘You shouldn’t be going this way.’ But he chose instead to take note of circumstances, and they seemed to suggest that he wasn’t on such a perilous course at all.

When you’re determined to go your own way, not only do you turn your back on the revealed will of God, you also become vulnerable to putting significance in coincidences. ‘I know my girlfriend isn’t a Christian yet,’ you say, ‘but look at how we were thrown together. We were obviously meant for each other.’ ‘My boss wants me involved in that business deal. I know it’s shady, but it’s come across my path in such an amazing way.’

Unlike Jonah, Paul was determined to do the will of God and therefore experienced his guidance. On one occasion he wanted to preach in Asia, but the Holy Spirit stopped him (Acts 16:6). A little later he tried to enter Bithynia, but again the Spirit said no (Acts 16:7) and drew him back into God’s will.

Rather than say naively, ‘It just opened up to me,’ begin to listen attentively to your conscience. Learn to detect the voice that says, ‘Keep away from that place,’ ‘Avoid a relationship with that person,’ ‘Don’t get into that,’ ‘The Spirit isn’t leading you there.’ Beware of ‘finding a ship’. It’ll only take you on a journey that you’ll later regret.

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Get a Bigger Vision

Today God would say, ‘It is too small a thing for you to give yourself only to the restoration of the church in your small corner of the world. I call you to be a light to the nations, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth. Don’t be so preoccupied with the 10% when the 90% outside need to hear my word.’

Beware introspection
Restoring the church is a worthy cause, but beware of introspection. ‘We had a beautiful time of worship this week. The music is coming together nicely. People are really opening up to one another now. Lots of hurts are getting healed.’ Rejoice that your church is no longer boring. Rejoice when God moves among you. Rejoice when relations, neighbours and friends are saved. But don’t become so totally preoccupied with the scrutiny of bells, tassels and pomegranates that you forget God’s vision for the nations.

Doubtless many aspects of New Testament church life still need to be recovered, but don’t grow stagnant and inward-looking, forgetting God’s great plan to reach all the families of the earth. It’s too small a thing to concentrate exclusively on restoring your little patch when God wants to lift your head, show you the harvest field, and send you to dying sinners with his glorious message of salvation.

Jesus isn’t just head over the church, be it local or universal. He said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me’ (Matt. 28:18). He’s head over all things (Eph. 1:10). He’s ruling as king over every nation at this very minute.

Beware categorisation
Don’t think, ‘That’s a Moslem nation; that’s a Hindu nation; that’s a Communist nation; and of course we’re a backslidden Christian nation.’ God thinks differently. While looking down on Nineveh, He didn’t say, ‘I’d be concerned if such wickedness were apparent in Judea, but what more can you expect from heathen Nineveh?’ Rather, when God saw how wicked the Ninevites were, he couldn’t stand it and sent someone to warn them.

When God looks down on any nation, he doesn’t simply view it as ‘heathen’ and quickly put it out of his mind. He sees the terrible contrast between rich and poor in India. He watches their idol worship. He observes China’s dreadful policy of infanticide and its soaring abortion rate. He knows about nations where people are torn away from their families, unjustly beaten and thrown into prison. He sees the ravages of AIDS in Africa. He notices the UK’s battered children and increasing crime rate.

God is saying, ‘Go!’ That’s what you have been called to do: to reach the nations – all of them! Jesus said, ‘This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations’ (Matt. 24:14). He said that we’d be hated by all nations (Matt 24:9) and that one day all the nations would be gathered before him (Matt. 25:32).

You could spend hours trying to work out the intricacies of various doctrines or church practices in an attempt to get all the details absolutely right. Indeed, there will always be something not quite perfect that will need your attention. But what about the world? The restoration of the church has consumed you, but now a new day is dawning. Whereas the word ‘church’ has stirred you, let the word ‘ nations’ burn in your heart – because it’s time to look at the harvest fields and it’s time to go.

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The Parochial Prophet

Up to this point in his life, the silence from heaven regarding the pagan world might have suggested that God was indifferent to it. But now, that silence was unexpectedly broken. Jonah, the parochial prophet, suddenly heard God telling him to leave his sheltered and comfortable life to cross the borders and preach God’s judgment to a people steeped in wickedness.

Wake up!
‘The word of the Lord came to Jonah’ (Jonah 1:1). A prophet is essentially someone who hears from God, and Jonah, although limited in his view, was a true prophet. He clearly heard from God. But how did he react to the command to go to Nineveh? Here he was, serving a local God, probably preoccupied with temple rituals – sacrifices and offerings, special days, priestly garments, pomegranates and bells. Maybe he thought that God wasn’t concerned about anything else. So long as the temple laws were followed to the letter, God would be happy.

I can imagine Jonah in the temple, meticulously examining the priestly garments, nodding approvingly and saying, ‘Yes, hanging on this robe are a bell, a tassel and a pomegranate.’ And I can imagine God calling,

‘Jonah!’
‘Yes, Lord?’
‘I want you to go to Nineveh.’
‘Yes, which Nineveh is that, Lord?’
‘The large, famous city. I want you to go to that Nineveh.’
‘Why, Lord?’
‘Because its wickedness has come up before me.’
‘Of course they’re wicked – they’re heathen!’

It must have been a staggering thought for Jonah – that God should care about heathen Nineveh, let alone want to say anything to it.

All, not One
In times of spiritual awareness, the Israelites knew that they were called to be a light to the nations. Abraham had been told, ‘All peoples on earth will be blessed through you’ (Gen. 12:3). And David, inspired by the Spirit, wrote, ‘Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession’ (Ps. 2:8). This was a Messianic psalm, but David would have identified with it. He knew that God’s purpose extended far beyond Israel to the nations of the world. Isaiah knew this too, since he made numerous references to God’s worldwide rule.

When Israel was spiritually low, the people forgot the breadth of God’s government and became introspective. So long as they kept their own house in order, all would be well. God would bless them. The heathen were ‘out there somewhere’, excluded from the promises and of no importance whatsoever.

But one Old Testament king once glorified God, saying, ‘His dominion is an eternal dominion; his kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him, “What have you done?”’ (Dan. 4:34,35). Clearly, this man knew that God ruled the nations. But who made this tremendous statement about God? Nebuchadnezzar – a pagan king.

God also ‘anointed’ Cyrus, and said of him, ‘He is my shepherd and will accomplish all that I please … [He will] subdue nations before him … I will give [him] the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places …’ (Isa. 44:28; 45:1,3). Hearing these words, the average Jew would have protested, ‘Cyrus is a heathen king; he doesn’t know God. He can’t be included in God’s plans.’ But God had other ideas.

He had these ‘other ideas’ for the Messiah too! His prophetic word to his Son was, ‘It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob … I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth’ (Isa. 49:6). God knew that the Jewish nation was backslidden and desperately needed restoration, but ‘Operation Israel’ was too small a project for Jesus! God wanted his Son to reach not a little corner of the world but all of it.

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Jonah: Fact or Fiction?

We don’t know much about the actual personalities of most Old Testament prophets, but God occasionally parts the curtains, permitting us to go behind the prophecies to meet the men themselves. So we see Moses agonising in prayer; Jeremiah protesting, ‘Lord, I don’t want to speak any more’; and Habakkuk wrestling over what is happening to his nation.

We’d expect the book of Jonah to follow a similar pattern: lots of emphasis on the prophet’s message with a few occasional glimpses of the man behind it. Not so here. The balance between ‘message and man’ is completely reversed. Jonah’s prophecy consists of eight words – half a Bible verse – and the rest of the four chapters unveil God’s work in Jonah’s life. The message, which the Ninevites eventually hear, represents only the tip of the iceberg. Action and attitudes outweigh words in this amazing drama.

Just too fantastic
Some people say that the story of Jonah must be a fable. ‘It can’t possibly be true,’ they declare. ‘The miracles are just too numerous and too incredible: the sudden storm; the fish swallowing Jonah; the prophet’s survival in its stomach; his exit onto dry ground; national repentance; the plant that springs up one day and dies the next. It’s all too much. Who could believe such a fantastic story?’

‘Maybe,’ they suggest, ‘it’s a parable, a learning aid concerning the people of Israel who disobeyed God and didn’t fulfil their calling to be a voice to the nations. God’s judgement came through Babylon, which swallowed Israel and, after seventy years, vomited it up onto dry ground.’ Such interpretations fall apart when you begin to investigate further. Myths don’t have fathers or addresses, and we read that Jonah was the son of Amittai (Jonah 1:1), that he came from Gath-hepher, and that he prophesied about the boundaries of Israel (2 Kings 14:25).

Jesus himself made it perfectly clear that Jonah was a real person by referring to the prophet in the same context as the historical Queen of Sheba, who came ‘to listen to Solomon’s wisdom’ (Luke 11:31). Jesus also endorsed the prophet’s story by reminding his hearers that the men of Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonah (Luke 11:32).

Gabriel came from heaven to tell us that ‘nothing is impossible with God,’ at whose command a virgin conceives; a blind man receives his sight; a rock produces water; the Red Sea parts; a storm is stilled; people are raised from the dead, and someone who is swallowed by a big fish lives to prophesy to a nation that repents and turns to God. As we follow Jonah’s story we’ll find that his very experiences contain a prophetic word for us today.

Don’t disturb me
Jonah lived at the time of Jeroboam II (2 Kings 14:25). During that king’s forty-one year reign Israel grew strong and prosperous. Indeed, no king after Solomon established such power as Jeroboam II, though he continued in the sins of Jeroboam I. In fact, Amos, the prophet who followed Jonah, prophesied against that whole generation for its greed and self-indulgence.

So life for Jonah must have been easygoing. A powerful king ruled over national prosperity. The nation’s borders were extending as Jonah had prophesied, but the people, rich and unrepentant, were still living sinfully. It was a dangerous time for a prophet: the temptation to settle down and simply enjoy everything must have been great.

Into this sleepy, complacent atmosphere the word of God suddenly came to Jonah: ‘Go to the great city of Nineveh’ (Jonah 1:2). All the other Old Testament prophets were called to remind Israel of its unique relationship with God and his law. Jonah, however, received an alarming and unparalleled command – ‘Go to the heathen.’

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Book Reviews

Planting Missional Churches
By Ed Stetzer

Ed Stetzer’s excellent book has the sub-title ‘Planting A Church That’s Biblically Sound and Reaching People in Culture’. He has done a fine job, both in terms of retaining Biblical soundness and also being phenomenally relevant to the culture. He has extraordinary hands-on expertise which has lead to all kinds of fascinating insights gathered from experience, but this book is much more than a simple ‘how to’ since it is a very disciplined work rooted in Biblical revelation as well as up-to-date relevance.

Thoroughly persuaded of the need for church planting, he writes essentially to the American market though his work is by no means relevant only there. Some of his details have a distinctly American feel, but there is so much in this book that will be of huge help to anyone engaged in church planting in the UK or, indeed, elsewhere.

His emphasis is that today’s church planter should be missional, incarnational, theological, ecclesiological and spiritual. He is abundantly clear that discipleship is the task of the New Testament Church and that every local church should be itself involved in further church planting.

He particularly ‘rings Newfrontiers bells’ when he urges the need for apostolic teams and argues that a number of co-workers joined Paul in his apostolic journeys. He goes on to point out that several churches were represented in his apostolic work and became responsible with him for the work. He even makes the strong argument that ‘not being represented in this venture constitutes a shortcoming in a local church; such a church has excluded itself from participating in the Pauline mission enterprise’. Local churches not caught up in apostolic advance have missed the point.

For Stetzer, the local church is a pumping missional machine making sure that it is very relevant to the modern culture and answering questions that the culture throws up but nevertheless being utterly rooted in Biblical revelation and never departing from Biblical truth in an endeavour to be culturally relevant.

This really is a fine book absolutely packed with extremely helpful material including a brief and helpful appraisal of post-modernism which is both succinct and insightful. In every way one feels that Stetzer is working hard to genuinely serve his reader and you would certainly be well served to get your own copy.

Magnifying God in Christ, New Testament Theology
By Thomas R Schreiner

This paperback summary of New Testament theology is a fascinating piece of work as it condenses his substantial 990-page hardback of identical title into a manageable paperback.

Initially I found the rather clipped style difficult to get into. In condensing his major work he has certainly cut away all excess material so that pure truth follows pure truth in very dense packaging.

Having said that, I have found reading the book became genuinely inspiring and helpful, although inevitably I discovered some areas of difference of opinion, particularly relating to the activity of the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless this is a thoroughly good work and if you want to study a serious New Testament theology without having to plough through hundreds of pages this is a paperback I’m very happy to recommend.

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