Excerpts Taken From R.T. Kendall's Book Jonah

Jonah


 Jonah 1 : 1-3

Why should I choose the book of Jonah to inaugurate this ministry?  The book of Jonah is one of the most relevant books for the present time.  First of all, it is analogous to the modern church.  It presents a story that ominously parallels the situation at the present time.  I am referring to the church, speaking generally.  The church today is in retreat.  It is not really in the battle.  The church has an inferiority complex and, like Jonah, who ran toward Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, has determined to run from God and go in another direction.  The church has done this: the church has been given a message to preach but is not preaching it.  The church has been in rebellion to the revealed will of God and has missed her calling.  The church has looked to Tarshish and not Nineveh.  The church is like Jonah who paid the fare to sail on the ship going in the opposite direction from what God demanded.  The church has spent its energy, its time and its money on the wrong things.  The church at the present time is like Jonah, asleep in the sides of the ship while the world is tossed in unprecedented bewilderment.  The world is afraid - the church is asleep.  The world asks questions- the church has no answers.


What is missing in the church today is the note of authority.  The word of authority is not here; the church has lost it and the world outside has rejected the church.  The church has ceased to command the respect of the world; the church has ceased to command the respect of the world; the church has lost its authority because it is not preaching the message that God gave her to deliver to that world.  Thus what is missing today is a word of authority; a word from beyond; a word not from a man, not what man can produce but that word that comes from beyond, from God to man.  This generation has witnessed, by and large, an anthropocentric gospel, a man-centred gospel, and the world does not respect the church.  The reason is, the church is like Jonah, running from God.




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