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- [00:04]
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Hey, good people, this is Torre Roberts. Blessings to you and welcome to the ONE Podcast. I'm excited that you're here. ONE is a community of dynamic and vibrant thought leaders, preachers, teachers, and just a community of wonderful people all together. And we're excited to bring you this weekly podcast from our services from ONE in la. If you haven't been the One, I encourage you to check it out. You can go to One the Word one O N E online and find out all about the service times and all about the teachers and all the philanthropic things that we have going. I believe you're going to be blessed to be a part of it. And speaking of being blessed, we're getting ready to get into a teaching right now that I believe is going to bless you. So tune in, enjoy, and I'll be back with you at the end.
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We're going to start our journey today in the Book of Jonah. Feel like the title preached itself. I didn't even say nothing. I'm going to read verses one through three and then I'm going to let everybody have a seat. Says now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it, for their wickedness has come up before me. But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. And so he paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. Here we are declaring what a mighty God we serve. This gentleman's doing something different. I can't wait to unpack him today. Father, I thank you that you have level set the expectation for what revival is going to be. I thank you that our spirit has been quickened. I thank you that discernment has been heightened. I thank you that expectation has been expanded. And that, Lord, the manifestation of who you are, the fresh essence of who you are, is about to become even more apparent in a way we could not possibly imagine. Not just for us, but for this very creation that you allowed us to have dominion in. Father, do what only you can do and allow us to be not only partner, but also witness to what it is you do. In Jesus name. Amen. Please be seated. Mighty servants of God. I think I'm gonna start calling everyone that from now on. Mighty servants of God. I dare you to address everybody you see on your way in the church. Hello, Mighty servant of God. Just hearing it ought to make your spine give your back some alignment. Mighty servant of God. Dominion is an interesting thing to establish because it's a mindset first and then a heart posture. And so just saying that to somebody plants that seed. Maybe I am a mighty servant of God. You never know what you could do with an encounter. This encounter I found so fascinating, I just jumped right in. I didn't give you all a title or anything. The title for this message, his mercy endures. His mercy endures. If we have something for our Abundance series, we can call this the Abundance of Mercy. Now, I want you to follow me in this journey through the book of Jonah. We're going to go through it very swiftly because what you will see is how God's mercy continues to be consistent throughout the entire book. It is the thread that allows this encounter to resonate so much with us in the spirit. But I also want us to understand that Jonah, as he makes his way through, gives us a bit of an insight to who we can be if we're not careful. I want to teach mercy, and I'm going to get to mercy, but. And I also want us to be very mindful as we are seeing the things that Jonah does. The heart posture and the mindset of Jonah. I like to look at this book as a warning sign because he gives us insight to what can happen when we receive a word. But our heart isn't conditioned to fully bring the thing to exactly how it's supposed to take place. I'm preaching before I'm preaching. So this first passage we have where we see Jonah, he has been tasked with going to the great city. Now, Jonah has been given the assignment to prophesy, to speak to Nineveh, which is known as this great city. And he gets this assignment. And I, just as I was reading this over and over and over to study this, I noticed the very first verse says, the word of the Lord came to Jonah. So he gets a word and it says, arise, go to Nineveh, cry out against it, for their wickedness has come up before me. So he's being sent to go speak to this city because the state of Nineveh has gotten to the point where it has not only gotten gotten God's attention, he has decided something needs to be done, something needs to be done now. So he sends a prophet with a word to the city. And this is very important because this sets the stage for revival. Revival starts with a word, and we see this prophet and his job is to take the word of God and go where God sends him and say what God tells him to say. He literally has got one job, not a side hustle. This is all he does. And as God assigns him, according to the anointing that is on him, Jonah decides he wants to do something different. If we are going to thrive in this thing called revival, it is essential that when we receive a word from God, we immediately have to lock in our obedience muscle. We have to engage our obedience muscle. Watch this. Engage our obedience muscle, even as our feelings about what he said are trying to keep us from doing what he's told us to do. If there is one thread throughout Jonah, it's that he got a word and then he would feel how he felt about the word. And I'm not saying to ignore the feeling. In fact, what you should do is address the feeling. Don't bury the feeling, because God knows you're feeling it. We are fooling absolutely no one when we receive a word from God. And in our spirit, we don't agree with it, but we pretend that he won't see it. And so we just begrudgingly go through life pretending as if it's okay and God is looking at you like it's not okay. The one thing I never saw in the entire book of Jonah, I would encourage that you study it, is he never goes to God and speaks on how he feels. So this first three, first four verses. First three verses. Excuse me. Jonah is sent out and he decides he doesn't want to go. Not only does he not want to go, he takes it to the next level. He decides he's going to go in the opposite direction of where he's supposed to go. I looked this up on a map, and it made me laugh even more. The place he was supposed to go was roughly 550 miles from where he was by land. About 550 miles, you know, two or three days journey, he decides to go in the opposite direction, 2,500 miles by sea. The math was just not mathing for me. I can't imagine having a word and feeling so upset about this word that I'm willing to go further away from his presence than to do the thing he called me to do. It would have been different if he sat still. But he got himself up. The Lord told him to arise. He arose. He just arose and went that way instead of going this way. And he decides to take himself on a journey. And watch this. He paid a fare. Family disobedience is expensive. When you are in the midst of revival and you are hungry for a word, disobedience is expensive. It will cost you time, it will cost you effort. Because as you study in Jonah, he eventually has to come back the way he left, make up the distance and still go where God sent him to go. And he didn't get his money back. Disobedience is expensive. But Jonah decides his anger, which we're going to revisit, his anger at what it is God was calling him to do, got to him so much, he thought it was worth paying the price of disobedience. So he decides to pay this fare and he moves on. He gets on a boat and they make their way to this really rich and nice place called Tarshish. They are on their way. God says, oh, you think you're going somewhere, huh? Let me take you on a journey. And a storm shows up and totally starts to tear this poor little boat apart. And as the boat is starting to come apart, there are men, there's a crew on this boat, and they're wondering, why is this happening to us? I found it so fascinating that Jonah thought that his disobedience was going to be only associated with him. He thought he was the only one who was going to suffer the consequences of his disobedience. And so now he's on a boat with a crew full of people who have no idea where this storm came from. They also do not know God. One of the things, as you read about this crew is they at some point start to call out to their gods because they can't figure out what's going on. At this point, whatever God you got, call on him, her, it, that, whatever, just try to make this thing stop. And so his disobedience also connected to the fact he thought that their ignorance of who he was and their ignorance of his calling was going to shield them from consequences. So now people who have no reason to be in a storm are in a storm because they are connected. They are in the presence of disobedience to God. When we have a word and we are in the midst of revival, it is bigger than us. And so it's not enough to say, I need to get this word so I can be in alignment. I need to make sure I obey this word because I don't want to bring a storm to people who don't deserve it. Because there are people connected to my life whether I know it or not. And it's life or death for them whether they know God or not. But because I know God and they don't, it's even more important for me to honor the word and the direction that I receive. Receive because I'm responsible. They don't know him like I like that, but I do. So he hops on this boat with a bunch of people who are non believers. And now they're in a storm, wondering, where did this come from? And as they start to deal with the storm, I love the first thing that they do. They. They start to look around and see what's going on. And they say, hey, there's a guy downstairs. We don't know him very well. He's asleep. Go get him. Cause they've all been praying to their gods and the storm is still raging. So they call him. They go downstairs and they say, hey, you have a God. Pray to him. Pray to whatever God you have. Because we've all prayed to ours and nothing has happened. I'm gonna go to verse six. So the captain came to him and said, what do you mean, sleeper?
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Arise.
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They keep telling Jonah to arise. There's something on that word arise in this. For whatever reason, instead of arising, he keeps choosing to sit in disobedience. So they keep telling him, arise, call on your God. Perhaps your God will consider us so that we may not perish. I'm going to skip down to verse eight. Then they said to him, please tell us, for whose cause is this trouble upon us? This is what I love. What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you? This is very important. These are great things to know about ourselves when we receive a word, where do I come from? Where am I going? Who is the one who sent me? Because either way, you're going to find yourself in a storm. But if you don't know what direction you're supposed to be going in, if you don't remember what it is that sent you, if you don't remember who it is that sent you, if you don't remember your mission and your purpose, you will find yourself in a storm with a whole bunch of questions. And people connected to you who should not be suffering are suddenly suffering. I promise you, this word will get exciting in about 21 minutes. So he starts asking all the questions of this man. Where do you come from? What is your country? What people are you? And he says to them, I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of Heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. At least he knew. And the minute this comes forward, this is when the shift takes place. Once he owns who, he is allowed, this is when the shift takes place. Because from this moment forward now, decisions need to be made. Wait a minute. This is your God that has us in this storm. Oh, you need to handle this. Do something. So he says, listen, I'm skipping down. I'm paraphrasing. He says, this is what you've got to do. I know you guys are not going to be very excited about this, but you got to throw me over the boat. These people said, no, because here's the thing. If they throw him over the boat and he drowns, they're already in trouble and they've done nothing. They're innocent and in a storm. So in their mindset, we didn't do anything, and we're in a storm, and now you want us to throw you over to drown? Oh, no, we're doing none of that. So they decide to do the opposite of what Jonah tells them to do, just as Jonah, when he received the word from the Lord, chose to do the opposite of what the Lord told them to do. And it got Jonah in trouble. And so now the people receive a word from a prophet, and instead of doing what the prophet says to do, they decide to do the opposite of what the prophet tells them to do. And now they find themselves in an even bigger storm than they were in before. Disobedience is expensive. He says, throw me over the boat. They said, no, we're not going to throw you over the boat. We're going to row back to land. We're going to use our minds. I know we've received a word from the man of God, but we're going to use what we think to do because we know better. We know how to handle the sea. And we've got 40, 11 gods that we pray to. And somehow we arrived at the conclusion of that we should go back to land. The storm gets worse. And finally, verse 14. Therefore, they cried out to the Lord and said, we pray, o Lord, please do not let us perish for this man's life. And I love. They cleared this up. Do not charge us with innocent blood. Don't blame us. Your man told us what to do. For you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you. They're in a storm. They just met God, 0.5 seconds to go, and already they're saying, whatever this is, this is according to your will. Whatever this storm is, it's according to your will that's important for us to remember if we're going to be in revival, if we're going to thrive in revival. When we receive a word and we see that which is Taking place. We have to have the mindset and the spirit of. I may not agree with it. It does not make sense to me, and I don't. But whatever. I see whatever's taking place in front of me, I have a word. And now I know this is according to your will. So they picked up Jonah and threw him in the sea. And the sea ceased from its raging. This is my. I love this part. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly and offered a sacrifice to the Lord and. And took vows. Jonah tried to run away from his assignment from saving Nineveh. He winds up on a boat full of non believers and winds up saving people. Anyway. This is what I call his mercy endureth. I got a prophet who refuses to prophesy. I got a boat full of people who worship idols, and they all get saved anyway. His mercy endures. So they finally get their mind right, they throw him in the boat. And people who have no business worshiping and vowing who God is suddenly know who God is. Even when he was out of assignment, Jonah was still in assignment. When I say his mercy endures. Because when we read the book of Jonah, eventually, not to get ahead of myself, but I'm about to do it anyway. Nineveh repents. And everybody says, wow, look at what happened. Because we think of Nineveh and how this great place suddenly came to know God and they all repented. But we forget about the people on the boat who were worshiping idols and other gods who left a storm praising the Lord. If we as believers could be so blessed to leave a storm and praise the Lord. So they wind up having a salvation experience. And this is based on his disobedience. God is saying, look, you're disobedient. I told you where to go and I told you what to say. You did the opposite of it and you're still going to save people. That's Mercy. He's got a boat with a disobedient prophet and people who are idolaters. And they all remain saved and alive. Mercy. I'm going to skip down Jonah, chapter two. Please study this on your own. Jonah is in the mouth of a fish. They throw him over the boat. God says, okay, I'm not going to drown you because I have an assignment in you. I know you disobeyed, but I gave you an assignment. I'm not going to drown you. I have an assignment in you. Someone needs to catch this right now. I understand that you found yourself in the middle of a storm of your own doing, but I have an assignment in you, so I'm not going to drown you. I'm going to put you in a place where you may not be able to move as freely, but I'm not going to drown you. You're gonna find yourself in a space that is containing you, but it will not consume you. I'm gonna have you in a place that's dark, but I'm gonna show you my light. I'm still going to use you, even in your imperfect, disobedient misunderstanding, in your feelings, in your anger, in your feels. Stay. I have an assignment in you, so I won't drown you. Everything else in the space I put you in was eaten up and digested and consumed. But you're in there praising me. That's chapter two. Study it on your own time. So I want to fast forward to chapter three. Now it says chapter three, verse one. Now, the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time. Second time. Thank you. I was gonna say it. If you don't recognize that a second chance is his mercy. Listen, I've been saved a long time, but me getting saved was my second chance. And every time I get a chance, I say, lord, thank you for your mercy. Because I know very. I'm very well aware of what my life was like with the first chance when I did it my way. A second chance is mercy. So this prophet gets a second chance. The fish spits him out on land. Now, the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, arise. Go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it. The message that I tell you, I love this. I love this whole thing. He goes and he preaches the message. Now this is the thing I love. It says, approximately 122,000 people get saved. That's not even counting the people on the boat. 122,000 people get saved. And this was a place that was so wicked, it got God's attention. God said, I gotta send my word. I gotta send a prophet. This place is wild. Do you want to hear this great, great preaching that this prophet Jonah did that managed to get 122,000 people saved? This incredible speech that he gives, this is all he said. Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. Done. What? Eight words from a grumbly prophet who was disobedient? A grumbly prophet who just got spit out of a fish. Eight words and probably didn't even say it with a nice tone. 122,000 people saved. Because it wasn't about him and what he Said it was about the Spirit of God that was with him when he said it. It's one thing to get the word, it is another thing to arise and go, but you have to remember who is going with you. So when Jonah says these words, it is the Spirit of God that falls and and convicts this entire place. Whether Jonah wants it to happen or not. This is mercy. Not only is he disobedient, but he then arises and gives a grumbly word. And God still says, my work needs to be done here. Says, I'm going to go down to verse 10. Then God saw their works, because at this point, the King of Nineveh tells everyone, we are going to what fast. We are going to mourn for who we were, and we're going to fast because we need to reset from who we were so that we can now be moving forward in who are we? We are. We have received a word. And that word, along with the Spirit of God, has begun a transformation. And in order for me to have that transformation be complete, I need to fast reset, reload, and move forward with the acknowledgement that I just received a second chance. I'm in the mercy of God. God sees this, saw their works, that they turned away from their evil, turned from their evil way, and God relented from the disaster he had said he would bring upon them. And he did not do it. His mercy endures. But then we look a little further down in chapter four, and this is where I want to get to the warning about Jonah. Jonah finds himself so angry at what is taking place. Jonah 4:1. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly and he became angry. Wait a minute. You were on a boat that should have killed you. You survived, and a bunch of people on the boat got saved. God saves you. He keeps you on the mission that you tried to screw up. He still uses you. 122,000 people get saved and he's mad. This is the warning I want for all of us. This is the cautionary tale I want for us to have. Salvation is breaking out. But because he hasn't gotten his heart right, he is missing the blessing of salvation. He has missed the fact that he has played a part in getting over 122,000 people saved. God used him. We be all like, let him use me, Lord. Let him use you, Lord. Please use me. Use me. Use me however you see fit, Lord. Use me. But how many times when we are used, do we actually take the time to acknowledge what he did through us and say, thank you, God, for using Me, even when I was not as qualified as I believe I was, or as deserving as I thought I was, or when I know my heart wasn't right about the thing you told me to do, but it still prospered anyway. I love this cautionary tale because Jonah is showing us what happens when we keep a grudge against God. And in revival, grudges cannot survive because the revival is going to happen. But when we should be shouting amen and hallelujah for a city or a state or a nation or a people who get saved, who we felt in our judgment should not have been saved, we're mad that they got saved. Jonah is pointing out a very critical, critical part of who we are as human beings, which is what we have to make sure we are acknowledging what little grumbly parts we have when God gives us an assignment we don't like. Because we think every assignment that God gives us we're gonna like. When we say, ooh, Lord, I want an assignment, we think it's an assignment that we're gonna want to do. So in our minds, there's the thing we want to do. And then we put a little God glaze over it and say, lord, use me how you see fit. And then he says, how I see fit ain't the way you like me to use you. And then we have a Jonah anger problem. Because the Jonah anger problem is when you can watch a city and stand, and you'll see later on, he actually. He's so angry with God, he leaves the city, he goes and sits on a little perch like a little mad bird. Little angry bird. Thank you. He sits on a perch, and he's looking at this city that has been saved. Can you imagine what 122,000 saved people, freshly saved, look like in a city? God allows him the vantage point to see an expanse of salvation. And he's mad because it didn't go the way he wanted it to go, because it didn't go the way, in his opinion, it should have gone. Watch this. Because it went against his judgment. And so Jonah has a perch of anger literally sitting in his anger. And. And he's so angry, he's so inflamed that he cannot see salvation even though it's in front of him, and he was a part of it. And the reason I have been so burdened with this word is because this is not what should be happening in revival. Revival means I get a word. No matter how uncomfortable that word is, I receive that word. Me and God have a conversation about that word. Global family. Come with me, Lord. You're asking me to do something I don't want to do. I don't like that I have to do it. Can you show me my heart and expose that bitter root so I can unearth this bitter root? Because this bitter root will cloud my vision. And when your will comes to pass, because I. I can't stop your will when your will comes to pass. Thank you. I want to be able to praise and have joy and have a hallelujah and have a testimony. So now God can pick me up from Nineveh and put me on a ship the right way and send me all throughout lands as he did with the apostles. And now I have a testimony of his glory. I have a testimony and an understanding of who he is. I don't do it angry, fam. This is quick and we're done. Obedience. Yes. But we have to understand his mercy in God. And when we grasp how much his mercy endures, it means we have to deal with whatever that thing is that means we think it has to go a certain way because his mercy endures when it's his way. Please stand. I want to make this as quick as possible right now, in the midst of revival. I don't want any of us going into revival without acknowledging the one who gives us the power, the one who allows us to experience the mercy of God. And that one is the man named Jesus. Jesus is the ultimate example of mercy because he knows exactly who we are, and he died for us anyway. He went through a brutal death for us. If you would like to start a life where the bitter roots are exposed and Jesus walks with you in the healing of those bitter roots so that you can perform the assignment God has called for you to perform and actually enjoy it. If you want to start a life with Jesus, Jesus is not your Lord and Savior. And you want to declare it today, you want to walk with him right now, go ahead and just put your hand up. Global family, I want you to put your hand up as well. I see you. I see you. God has an assignment for you, and he wants to use you. And this is the first step in allowing him to do that. I see you. Here's what we're going to do, and I'm going to make this very quick. I have this one person whose hand is up. Can we all stretch our hands towards her? Oh, we got another one. Who? Who we missing right there? Okay. If you got two hands, stretch them. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you've allowed for this moment. In the midst of revival for two new people to come to know who you are. And I pray, Father, that as they walk along with you, their eyes will be opened, their ears will be open, their hearts will continue to be purified as they walk along with you. Jesus. Thank you Jesus, for dying for them, for sacrificing yourself for them, for allowing them to know your mercy endures as they walk in this new second chance that you've blessed us to have. In Jesus name, amen. Hey, can we shout a second chance praise?
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Hey, family. Well, I pray that you were just as blessed by this teaching as I was. I'm just so grateful again to be a part of a dynamic community full of love, full of revelation and wisdom. One has been a movement that's been blessing people for over two decades, and I'm so glad that you got an opportunity to experience it. I also have a podcast called the called it's right here on wherever you're listening to this Spotify or Apple or wherever you're listening to this podcast, you can just look up the call T H E C A L L E D with myself, Ture Roberts. This is designed for entrepreneurs, leaders and business people. It's a weekly podcast and it will bless you. But hey, I enjoyed having you here. Meet us here next week. Check out the call. Much blessings to you. We'll catch you next time.