WHAT IS YOUR EXCUSE?
The habit of making excuses prevents us from achieving our goals. One reason for making excuses is the fear of failure or the fear of the unknown. How can we get out of the habit of making excuses?
We are continuing our look at the love of God for us and his plan (his mission) to bridge the gap between him and us. His mission is to bring us back into a relationship with him. In bridging the gap between us and Him, He calls for us to become His disciples and members of his family. But it does not end with his call; a call without action from the one being called has no value. In this series, we look at the different excuses people use not to take action and what God expects us to do when He calls.
Review our past and present videos at SabbathSchoolDaily.com or visit my YouTube Channel, Sabbath School by Dr. Brenda Ware Davis
You also may obtain the study guide for this series at Sabbath.School or ssnet.org
Let Us Inviting God’s Presence:
Holy Father, we can find many excuses not to do the things you ask us to do: health, age, fear, you name it. Help us to put our excuses aside and take action. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
God’s Mission, My Mission
(Lesson 5)
Excuses to Avoid Mission
Part 1 of 6
Introduction
God chooses people to do special work for him. But we find that, as in the case of Jonah, not everyone is willing to serve God as Abraham was. Read the story of Jonah in Jonah 1–4 of the Old Testament.
God commands Jonah to warn the people of Nineveh, the capital city of Assyria. Nineveh was in what is now modern-day Iraq. On foot, the primary mode of travel in Jonah day, to go from Jerusalem to Nineveh, was no short distance. There was a significant distance between Jerusalem and Nineveh. Nineveh is 560 miles from Jerusalem. On foot, depending on the route taken, it could take a month or more to go from Nineveh to Jerusalem.
Different from Abraham, who obeys God’s call to go to an undisclosed location. Jonah refused to go to Nineveh; as a matter of fact, he ran in the opposite direction. He went to Joppa and got on a ship going to Tarshish, now southern Spain.
The journey from Joppa to Tarshish was 2,000 miles. On a ship, this trip would take a month or more, depending on the weather. So, instead of going to Nineveh as God had called him to do, Jonah uses the month that it takes to get to Nineveh to get away from going there.
Now, we must know that Jonah was a man of God. What was his excuse not to obey God and not go to Nineveh? What was his excuse not to answer God’s call?
Why does Jonah not respond, as did Isaiah in Isaiah 6:8 in which it says?
“Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?’ Then I said, ‘Here am I! Send me’ ” (Isaiah 6:8, NKJV).
Well, you see, the Ninevites had a bad reputation. They were known to be evil and cruel. They attacked Israel and Judah in the past. Now, in Jonah 2:1, God calls Jonah to go to Nineveh to warn these evil people of their coming doom and speak out against their wickedness (Jonah 1:2).
Notice in Jonah 1:2 that the words God uses to describe Nineveh are very much the same as what He uses to describe Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 18:20, 21.
Jonah 1:2
2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me.” (Jonah 1:2)
Genesis 18:20-21
20 And the Lord said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grave,
21 I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it that has come to Me; and if not, I will know.” (Genesis 18:20-21)
Both were wicked cities. Different from Abraham, however, Jonah had no love or compassion for these evil people.
But were the evil practices of the Ninevites a good excuse to refuse God’s call?
Was Jonah afraid? What can we learn from Jonah’s attitude and the excuses? Is fear a good excuse? Continue to Part 2 of this video: Our Excuses: Fear.
God’s Mission, My Mission
(Lesson 5)
Excuses to Avoid Mission
Part 2 of 6
Our Excuses: Fear
In the following scriptures, we can see that Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, was a force to be reckoned with. The relationship between Assyria and Israel was not good. Could this have been a good excuse for Jonah not to go to Nineveh?
Nahum 1:1 (Introduce the doom against Nineveh)
1 The burden against Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.
Nahum 3:1-4 (describes the wicked conditions and coming doom of Assyria)
1 Woe to the bloody city! It is all full of lies and robbery. Its victim never departs.
2 The noise of a whip And the noise of rattling wheels, Of galloping horses, Of clattering chariots!
3 Horsemen charge with bright sword and glittering spear. There is a multitude of slain, A great number of bodies, Countless corpses— They stumble over the corpses—
4 Because of the multitude of harlotries of the seductive harlot, The mistress of sorceries, Who sells nations through her harlotries, And families through her sorceries.
II Kings 17:5-6 (Describes the Assyria’s terrible attack on Israel)
5 Now the king of Assyria went throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria and besieged it for three years.
6 In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria took Samaria and carried Israel away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah and by the Habor, the River of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
II Kings 19:32-37 (God’s promise of deliverance of Jerusalem from Assyria)
32 “Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria: ‘He shall not come into this city, Nor shoot an arrow there, Nor come before it with shield, Nor build a siege mound against it.
33 By the way that he came, By the same shall he return; And he shall not come into this city,’ Says the Lord.
34 ‘For I will defend this city, to save it For My own sake and for My servant David’s sake.’ ”
35 And it came to pass on a certain night that the angel of the Lord went out, and killed in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when people arose early in the morning, there were the corpses—all dead.
36 So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went away, returned home, and remained at Nineveh.
37 Now it came to pass, as he was worshiping in the temple of Nisroch his god, that his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. Then Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place. (2Kings 19:32-37)
Nineveh was the capital of the city of Assyria. Assyria was the bitter enemy of Israel. Thus, Nineveh was no friend of Israel.
Besides fear, certainly, the relationship between Assyria and Israel must have played a role in Jonah’s reason not to go to Nineveh. But was this a good excuse?
The Assyrians were powerful and frightening, and Nineveh served as its capital.
It says in Prophets and Kings:
“Among the cities of the ancient world in the days of divided Israel one of the greatest was Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian realm. . . . In the time of its temporal prosperity Nineveh was a center of crime and wickedness. Inspiration has characterized it as ‘the bloody city, . . . full of lies and robbery.’
In figurative language the prophet Nahum compared the Ninevites to a cruel, ravenous lion. ‘Upon whom,’ he inquired, ‘hath not thy wickedness passed continually?’ Nahum 3:1, 19.”—Ellen G. White, Prophets and Kings, p. 265.
History tells us that the Assyrian King Sennacherib expanded the city of Nineveh. He built a very large palace in the southwest part of the city. The palace measured 1,650 feet long and 794 feet wide. The palace had at least 80 rooms. Sennacherib also built 18 canals. The canals brought water to Nineveh from as far away as 40 miles. Its massive size alone had to be intimidating.
The Assyrians constructed beautiful cities. But they were ruthless; they had no mercy when it came to their enemies.
As a matter of fact, Sennacherib had the nerve to brag about the horrible things he did to the Babylonians when he fought them. Sennacherib boasted that he filled the streets of Babylon with the dead bodies of its citizens. He killed the young and the old alike.
Scientists doing excavations found carved stones that show pictures of Assyrian soldiers starving with sharp weapons the bodies of their enemies.
Assyrians were not the ones you wanted to have as your enemy! The Assyrians had no problem using violence and cruelty against their enemies. They used more than excessive force to subdue those they disliked.
For sure, Jonah had to shake for fear at the thought of walking among the people of Nineveh. Certainly, this had to be a good excuse for Jonah not to go to Nineveh, or was it?
Though we may disapprove of Jonah allowing fear to excuse him from responding to God’s call, can we blame him if we do the very same thing? We often use fear as an excuse not to do what God has called us to do. But is fear a good excuse, especially if we claim to be members of God’s family?
But what if our excuse is due to a wrong view of God? What if our expectations of God are too low or our expectations of the outcome are different from what God expects? View the next video. Part 3: Our Excuses: False Views or False Beliefs
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