You think that when you sin, when you disobey God, you think that when you sin,

when you disobey God, or try to run from Him, you're the only one affected, we'll

think again. Today on Truth for Life weekend, we'll get a closer look at the ripple

effect of disobedience as we examine Jonah's attempt to outrun his call to preach to

the Ninevites. Alistair Begg is teaching from the first chapter in the book of Jonah,

verse 4 through 17.

If you have sailed and you haven't particularly enjoyed sailing, as when you fly, if you

do not particularly enjoy flying, as a passenger, at the first indication of turbulence or discomfort,

one of the things that you tend to do is to look at the eyes of the crew members, to

look at the gaze of those who are assisting within the cabin and if possible, listening

on the headphones to get a flavor for what's going on in the cockpit itself. And the one

thing that you want to know as a passenger is that as far as the professionals are concerned,

everything is A.O.K. Everything is completely under control. Now, verse 5 is clear. It is

not that one of the two of the sailors was unsettled by what was going on, but we're told

that all the sailors were afraid. Now, the evidence of their fear, they're in verse 5,

is made obvious. First of all, we're told that they were crying. They were crying out

each to his own God. In the polytheism of the day, these sailors would have had particular

gods for particular duties and they would also have had particular gods for particular

locations. And so one of the games that they played or one of the necessities that they

had was in trying to make sure that they dialed in the right God for the right situation.

And if we had gone on board at this particular moment in time, we would have found all of

this cacophony of sound as the various sailors were all crying out to the particular deities

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