God is global, we should be too. Let's talk about it on this edition of Keylight. Hey, if you're into stuffy, turn off the radio now because this is Keylight. It's time to be honest, straightforward and street smile. Here's Steve Brown with the Teaching for today. Thanks, Mike. Now, if you were listening yesterday, I ended the broadcast by telling you the story of Jonah and incidentally, that's where we are in our Old Testament survey with the book of Jonah. Now, it's only four chapters, but as is true often, big things come in small packages, and that's certainly true there. Anyway, yesterday I was telling you the book of Jonah and then how angry Jonah was at the end, because God had blessed the people and stuff like that. And I said, if you've ever done that, God is an angry, but don't do it again. Now, let me say one thing before we begin the study today about what I said yesterday. But if you do it again, he still won't be angry. The issue is that the only people who get any better are people who know that if they don't get any better, God won't be angry at them, and we'll still love them. And we don't know exactly what happened to Jonah after this was all over. We don't know whether the reference early on in 2 Kings 1225 was pre-ar-post, but I suspect Jonah found out that God still loved him anyway. Now, if you were listening yesterday, we introduced the book of Jonah. We saw that there is a lot of controversy surrounding this particular book. Some people say that it's allegorical. Well, that sounds good until you look at it. It's got too many details to be just an allegorical or parable story. I believe that it's historical narrative, and I do that for two reasons. Jonah, it was an historical figure, as we said before, and Jesus made reference to him. We saw that there is an interesting two-part outline to these four chapters. Chapters 1 through 2. Jonah's commission is running. Chapters 3 through 4. Jonah's commission is obedience with an addendum of sin at the end. And then I took some time, if he able to broadcast yesterday to tell you the story of how God told Jonah to do something and he went in the other direction. I told him to go to Nineveh and Jonah went to Tarshish. We saw that God gets his way, and we don't get a vote, and he does as he pleases, and he does it right well. And so a fish swallowed Jonah, took him to the shores of Nineveh and deposited in there, and that's when Jonah, I mean, it'll do it for you. That's when Jonah decided to get obedient. Then he preached the shortest sermon, at least, Awakening's sermon, ever preached in the history of God's people. The people were offended, and Jonah was not happy with that. He went out and sat under a castor oil plant. And I remember my mother giving me that stuff, and I want you to know, those plants ought to die. Now, with all of that, that's preliminary stuff that we looked at yesterday as we introduced the Book of Jonah. Now, in a kind of cursory way, I want to see, look, at the three major themes in the Book of Jonah. And the first theme that you'll find overriding, the theme that's basic to everything that's going on here, is the universal concern of God. Now, if you had been a part of God's covenant people at the time of Jonah, you would have figured it's us. It's us only, and our God only. But we see here a real concern that goes beyond God's covenant people, even to the people of Nineveh. If Presbyterians are you sure that Jesus is one, and doesn't like Baptist and Lutherans and Anglicans, because you don't? Are you one who believes that all the sign gifts ended in the first century, and God can't possibly like Pentecostals and Charismatics, because you don't? Are you Pentecostal and Charismatic and are sure that unless somebody has the second working of grace in their life, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, that God is not that pleased, because you're not that pleased. The point is, God is universal, and He's universal in many ways. He's global in terms of the world, and He's global in terms of His understanding of His people and His love for them. F.D. Maurice said of Carlisle one time, he believed in a God who lived until the death of Oliver Cromwell. We're like that, too. We are so provincial about what we believe. We're so sure that we're right. We're so sure that there are certain kinds of people that God simply doesn't like. We put God into our little box, and anything that's out of that box could not possibly be the concern for God. The first missionary to India stood up and expressed his concern to a group of pastors, and one of the pastors said, Sit down, young man, if God decides to save the people in that place, He will do it without your help. God's concern has always gone out of the box as compared to our concern. Augustine was walking on a beach one time, he was meditating on the doctrine of the Trinity. If you've ever thought much about the doctrine of the Trinity, you know it's pretty complicated. You can hardly say anything about it. That isn't sort of heretical in terms of the historic heresies of the church. He was watching a little boy running with a sea shell pouring water into a hole that he had dug from the ocean. What are you doing? Ask Augustine. I'm putting the ocean in that hole. And Augustine said, I'm doing that too. Trying to get my finite mind and into it things which are infinite. God is big. Henry Russell was a Princeton astronomer. He used to lecture on the Milky Way woman asked if the world is so little and the universe is so big, how can we believe in a God who pays any attention to us? And Russell said, Madam, that depends on how big your God is. You know where I was this past weekend? I was in Philadelphia. You know what I was doing there? I was attending a meeting of Harvest USA. Do you know what they do? They deal with gays, with homosexuals, and people that are addicted to pornography. You say, Steve, what were you doing there? Because I began to realize that God loves some people beyond my particular circle. Now the people at Harvest USA do not compromise the truth of God's word, nor do I. But sometimes we live in our nice little church doing nice little things for a nice little God. And if you want that to change, read the book of Jonah. Here is God reaching out to people who had never heard his name, who worshiped idols, who did child sacrifice. And God said, I want you to go to Nineveh because my heart is in Nineveh. And then there's another major theme in the book of Jonah. And it's the theme of the provincial nature of man, especially believers. We do like it our way, don't we? We have among Presbyterians a principle called the regular-day principle. You say what's the regular-day principle? Well the regular principle means that we only do that which is taught clearly in Scripture. Now most people who believe in the regular-day principle do not change. And if you come and you sing a contemporary song in their church, they're going to say that that has brought dishonor to God. But in fact what we regulate is a worship service that was a part of the 17th century, not a part of the Bible, or we would do some dancing in church. We would get down in church. We would be people who did things different. George Whitfield was in Philadelphia one time and he looked up and he shouted out to God, God how many baptists are there in heaven? Then he looked at the gathered congregation and smiled and he said, God how many Presbyterians are there in heaven? And he smiled at the congregation. God didn't say anything. And by suspected George Whitfield lived today, he would say, God how many rock Christian musicians are there in heaven? And then Whitfield would smile at the congregation. He would say, God how many people who only sing traditional hymns are in heaven? And then he would smile at the congregation. And then he would say, God said, they're only Christians in heaven. It's very important that we as Christians recognize that there are people different from us who do it different from us and who belong to the kingdom. One time went around the world with Sam Rowan and Jim Price. We literally, this has been years ago, went around the world, visiting mission stations all over the world. Now, you need to know, I'm from the mountains of North Carolina and I'm not comfortable with cross-cultural anything. In fact, I don't like going to the corner drugstore. I'm not into cultural communication, cross-cultural communication. I'm not into people doing things different than the way I do it. And I remember so often, Sam Rowan saying to me, Steve, it's not wrong. It's different. God, I think, would say to all of us, hey, child, it's not wrong, it's just different. You think about that. I mean, listen, if you don't have our follow magazine, I'd love to send it to you. I wrote a piece called How to Be Christmas to the World, and Pastor P. Dalton wrote a wonderful thing you're going to like as the men of the church go, so goes the church. The magazine includes a question and answer column, devotional focus. My tenor area is there. The Poo pastor's conference information is there. 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