Sermon Cloud

Scripture Reading: Romans 6

SIN MAKES YOU STUPID!

I've been studying the book of Jonah for the last couple of weeks and as I began to teach my way through it I came to this conclusion, Sin makes you stupid.

Jonah 1:1 And the Word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying,

• Jonah was God's man. He was used of God as a prophet as we see here and in 2 Kings 14:25, where he prophesied of the return of Israel to the greatest extent of its borders even in the midst of their rebellion.

• As a preacher of blessing, I am sure he was kind of a hero, he was probably on the cover of all of the Hebrew magazines, from Jewsweek to Shabat Illustrated.

• He was not a heathen or even a great sinner, he was a man of God.

• As we proceed to look at the fact that this book is about his sin as much as anything, this should cause us to see that we are just as susceptible to sin as the heathen around us.

• Paul tells the Galatians 6:1 Brothers, if a man is overtaken in a fault, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering yourself, lest you also be tempted.

• I have to ask, Have you ever done anything, I mean a sin, where after you had done it you just asked yourself, "What was I thinking?" "Why did I do that?"

• If you have children it's asking them why did you hit your sister? And they reply, I don't know?

• Jonah's issue was not just a onetime oops and immediate repentance either though. He went on to rebel even after he managed to submit to the original command.

• (story overview)

• He held on to his rebellion to the point where we see at the end of the book that he wanted to die rather than see God's will accomplished.

• Do you find that a bit scary? I DO!

• I have to ask myself, “Are there areas in my life where this is true? Am I so blind or self absorbed that I am unable to see how stupid I really am?”

• Look at what Jonah did.

Jonah 1:1 And the Word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their evil has come up before Me.

• Now, if anyone deserved God's judgment it was Assyria, they were nasty folks and God says here that there evil has come up before Him.

Jonah 1:3 But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. And he went down to Joppa. And he found a ship going to Tarshish. And he gave its fare, and went down into it, in order to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the LORD.

• After his acclaim I guess that he doesn't want to hurt his image. Preaching to Assyrians, You gotta be kidding! He had probably just gotten a really great sandal contract that was worth a million sheckles or something.

• Nineveh! - Nineveh was the capital city of the Assyrians. It was east of Israel. Today it would be in northern Iran, along the east bank of the Tigris river. Tarshish was on the southern tip of Spain, all the way to the end of the known world in the opposite direction

• This was the reason for Jonah's direct disobedience to God's command.

• Don't we always have a good reason to disobey God? Yeah right!

• The Assyrians. He truly hated them and was very prejudiced against them.

• He had good reason for this. The Assyrians were fierce warriors who had taken possession of the whole middle east.

• Their military tactics of basically bulldozing an army with iron chariots and then foot soldiers coming behind and hacking the survivors to bits was obviously very effective.

• People were then deported to foreign lands somewhere within the empire and rebells were impaled.

• These were the fiercest folks in middle east until the Persians finally broke up their empire.

• Okay, so Jonah did not have a sandal contract. Really, I think that the idea of Jonah's enemies repenting and being able to be used by God to spank His own disobedient people was in the forefront of Jonah's mind.

• Jonah prophesied under Jeroboam, a very wicked king. In 2 Kings 14:23 it tells us, “In the fifteenth year of Amaziah the son of Joash king of Judah, Jeroboam the son of Jehoash king of Israel began to reign in Samaria, forty-one years. 24 And he did the evil in the sight the LORD. He did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat who made Israel to sin.”

• This is the place where we see that sin makes you stupid. Though it seems that Jonah had good reasons for his desire to disobey God, it was just not the smart thing to do. But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. Jonah knew God. He knew the Psalms . Psalm 139:7 Where shall I go from Your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from Your presence? 8 If I go up into Heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. 9 If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the furthest parts of the sea; 10 even there shall Your hand lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me. 11 If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be light around me. 12 Yea, the darkness does not hide from You; but the night shines as the day; as is the darkness, so is the light to You.

• Have you ever done anything this stupid? I know I have!

• Circumstances have a lot to do with our stupidity.

• What makes a godly man who knows the will of God and the Word of God do something so contrary to what he knows? This is the question that I have to ask.

• I know that he is not a New Testament, Spirit-filled Believer, but he is a godly man, one who believed God.

• As a matter of fact, Jonah 4:2 tells us that the reason that he does not go is because he believes God and doesn't want God to forgive the Ninevites

• Sin is a powerful drug.

• It is pleasurable Hebrews 11:24 By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, ²⁵ choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, ²⁶ esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward.

• As a matter of fact it is addicting, Matthew 18:7 Woe to the world because of offenses! For offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes! ⁸ “If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life lame or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into the everlasting fire. ⁹ And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes, to be cast into hell fire.

• That sounds like dealing with an addiction to me. You have to make some changes in your life or sin will take you down!

• Talking about addiction, I know I have an audience that understands that subject here.

• In some ways I think that you all down here are kind of lucky. You cannot deny that you have a problem.

• Oh, you can be in denial about it, but it's obvious to everybody around you.

• "Normal" people can get by with their sin and maybe no one notices. They may never be confronted with it or if they are they may never pay attention to that confrontation.

• Jonah couldn't get by with his because God was doing an intervention on him.

So, where are you at in all of this? What has sin done to you?

• Ananias and Saphira lied to the Holy Spirit for some cash.

• Demas just took off because he wasn't having enough fun

• Balaam was more concerned with popularity and cash than with speaking the word of God and his donkey had to save his life from an angel that the Lord sent to take him out.

• You know, Balaam is a great example. He was a prophet of God and a heathen king wanted him to curse God's people. Balaam wanted to go so he could make a little side money and God said no, but Balaam kept asking and promising that he wouldn't do any thing if God would let him go.

• Sounds like a teenager who wants something and won't let up until he gets his way.

• Finally God lets him go and since he can't prophesy against them he teaches the foreign king to let the people of God marry the heathen women and corrupts them with idolatry and brings God's judgment on them and instead of being remembered as a prophet of God he is the example of a false teacher in the New Testament book of Jude.

• Ezekiel says (Ezekiel 14) that we set the idol (sin) up in our hearts, then we set it before our face and the we go after it.

• If we don't deal with sin in the first stage it will win this battle.

• That is what Jonah did. It started with an idea. "I don't want God to forgive the Ninevites."

• He made provision for dealing with his desire, He went down to Joppa and found a ship and paid the fare.

• Then he literally went right into sin, He went down into it in order to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.

• Let's make this more personal, I didn't want to get high/ drunk again, but I kinda did,

• So I went past the crack house / party store. I wasn't going in really, I just thought I would see if some of the guys or ladies were there.

• Once I got there I just went in. I don't know why I did that.

• It doesn't have to be about getting high though you know. We less notorious sinners can do the same thing with Chocolate cake, cigarettes, looking at a woman, just having a bad attitude. We set ourselves up all the time.

• James 1:12 Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. ¹³ Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. ¹⁴ But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. ¹⁵ Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.

We all have a problem with sin don't we? 1 John 1:8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰ If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.

• We do have this problem whether we want to admit it or not.

• Some of us have dealt with this issue. We are not perfect, but we know the power of sin and we know the penalty of sin.

• We know that God hates sin.

• I bet you knew that and even if you don't understand the Gospel I hope that you are grieved by your sin. I hope you hate it.

• The Gospel is all about sin.

• Jesus died for ___?

• Why did He do that?

Sin; the black background behind the diamond of the Gospel.