The Old Testament Book of Jonah is not the story of a great fish.

It is the story of a great God.

In a world on the verge of judgment and desperate for a spiritual awakening,

it holds a message we all need. Salvation is of the Lord.

Join us in the book of Jonah today as we study God's Word with Scott Pauli.

In our last study, we began to talk about the presence of the Lord that is found in the Book of Jonah. It permeates the book, of course, as we see the entire story from start to finish,

but it is of note that in Jonah chapter 1 in verse number three,

Jonah is fleeing from the presence of the Lord. How sad, how senseless to run from such a good

God. I mean, honestly, there's a miserable insanity to sin, isn't there? That's why prodigals have

to come to themselves, because there's a blindness to it.

There is an ignorance to it that we would think our way is better than gods, that we would run

from the goodness of our great God. I want to talk to you more about the presence of the Lord.

And let's begin here. What is the presence of God connected to in life? Well, first of all,

the presence of God in our life is always connected to the Word of God. We observed already that

Jonah began this way. Now the Word of the Lord came unto Jonah the Son of Amatai saying. So notice,

please, that the Word of the Lord and the presence of the Lord here

are synonymous. What is Jonah running from? He's literally running from God's word. Someone said

that the Bible will either keep you from sin or sin will keep you from the Bible. There's a lot of

truth in that. Look, people don't want to read the Bible. They don't want to hear the Bible.

They certainly don't want to hear it preached when they're not right with God

because it convicts, it reproves, it rebukes us.

Remember, the book of James says it's a mirror that shows us ourselves.

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