THE CHURCH OF JONAH

“Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah . . . saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out [preach] against it, for their evil has come up before me” (Jonah 1:1-2, ESV).

Jonah’s response to the word of direction from the Lord was, “[He] rose to flee . . . from the presence of the Lord” (1:3). Jonah ran away and his flight took him in the exact opposite direction from where the Lord had instructed him to go. This is called backsliding!

Some critics dismiss the book of Jonah as a myth or an allegory and suggest that it not be taken seriously. They suggest that it’s a nice fun story for children but the rest of us are too smart to take the story of a man and a whale seriously. Their dismissal does not take into account the fact that the Lord Jesus referred to Jonah as a real person and as a prophet (see Matthew 12:39).

The book of Jonah tells of Jonah’s struggle to fulfill his calling as a prophet. The book also is a prophetic picture of the church of the last days and its struggle, and sometimes its failure to fulfill its calling.

I call the contemporary church in America the “Church of Jonah.”

Jesus gave His followers a very clear mandate before He ascended into heaven. “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15, NKJV).

We do a lot of things in the church world that He never told us to. We own buildings, we have choirs, we have schools, etc. Now, most of these things are not bad but He never left them as instructions, such as He did when He gave us the “Great Commission.”

I was brought up in a large church in Vancouver, Canada. Evangelistic Tabernacle was a megachurch long before that term was invented. At a time when most evangelical churches were small in attendance, our church was running 1200-1500. It was a church full of life in every area. One of the things that made “The Tab” the great church that it was is that it took seriously the “Great Commission.” This was a church that gave up to fifty percent of its annual income to missions.

Do you know the percentage of missions-giving right now among evangelical churches in North America? Perhaps you had better sit down before I tell you. Current statistics show that the average evangelical church gives between two and three percent of their income to missions. I find that both revealing and appalling!

Is it any wonder that the American church, as a whole, is in serious decline? That the blessing of God is off the church in North America? All the latest statistics show a decline in the percentage of evangelical Christians in the nation while at the same time there is a rapid growth, especially among young people, of those who are atheists or agnostics or have no interest in any type of religious faith. More churches are closing than opening and the number of people who actually profess Christ as Savior in America is in a downward spiral. The percentage of evangelicals who believe that the Bible is inerrant is now well under fifty percent.

It’s my personal opinion that the life of the Lord began to vacate the American church as it moved away from a firm stance on the fundamentals of the faith—and one of the predominant failures has been reneging on its mandate from the Lord on missions and evangelism. As the church left the fundamentals (in hunger for acceptance by the culture), it began to adopt the business models and marketing strategies of corporate America. There is nothing wrong with a well-run church or an aggressive advertising campaign, but when we water down the primary reasons for our existence and then attempt to replace the “presence of the Lord” with man-generated excitement and questionable doctrine, we are well on our way to becoming the Church of Jonah.

The Church of Jonah is a church in disobedience, a church that is attempting to replace God’s direction with man’s thinking. The Church of Jonah is a church with a disastrous end in sight.

But it doesn’t have to end in disaster and death. Jonah came to his senses and repented, and when he called out to God, God put him back on His path, and a tremendous spiritual awakening took place. It can be the same in America if the church awakens to its spiritual needs and repents.

I’m happy to say that not every church in America is a type of the Church of Jonah. Many fine churches are following the Lord’s instructions and are heavily involved in reaching the lost, both here and all over the globe. I’m also happy to say that as the decline in the American church has intensified, the commitment to world evangelization has picked up in the church all over the world—in Asia, in Africa, in South America. These Christians are successfully doing the work the American church has dropped.

Don’t be a part of the Church of Jonah! Find a church that is committed to being faithful to the Lord and is committed to reaching the lost, both here and overseas. In so doing, you will experience the life of the Lord flowing in you as never before.