JONAH comes to two conclusions from his traumatic experience, which was both physical and spiritual. The first one is contained in the verse before us in this sermon, and is concerned with the awful condition of those who have no true faith in God. The second he expresses in verse 9 and this expresses the blessing he knew through knowing God.

Most people in the world have some sort of religion. The sailors with whom Jonah had sought to escape from God had a religion. When they found themselves in great danger they prayed to their gods (Jonah 1:5). It is rare to find someone who has not faith of any kind. They call themselves atheists or agnostics, but even in our western culture with all its secularization, this is still rare. Even people who have no fixed religion usually have religious or spiritual views which govern their thinking and living. The fact is that these days people are turning to all sorts of different cults and philosophies to fill the gap in their lives which god consciousness in all of us leaves. The trouble is that all such are in a condition which forfeits grace as Jonah says here, and we all need grace before God.

NATURE OF IDOLATRY.

The first thing we need to understand is the nature of idolatry, what it really is. When we think about idolatry we think of people who have images which they worship as God. Our minds think of objects of wood, stone or metal which have been crafted by human hands, and then treated as having divine qualities, and those who have made them turning to them in their need. Such practice we know is folly, and so we despise idolatry as nonsense. However idolatry is a much more embracing concept than this, though it includes this. Idolatry is any view about God, and faith, which corrupts the true nature of God as he has revealed himself in the Bible.

We all have some conception of God, and there is a deep urge within us which needs God, but we can't know God truly unless he reveals himself to us. This he has graciously done in the Scriptures. The existence of God, and something of his power and glory can be deduced from creation and philosophic thinking of life, but we can't really know God. The fact is that human beings were created by God for himself but due to human rebellion against God, which is recorded for us in the opening chapters of Genesis, we have died spiritually and lost the knowledge of God. Because of this mankind's search for God has led to all sorts of darkness concerning God, all of which are in the nature of idolatry. All false views of God and the worship which goes with it diminishes the glory of God, and is an offence to God, and is in the nature of idolatry. God expresses his hate of idolatry in the first four commandments in the Decalogue.

From this we can now appreciate that every form or error from the revelation of God in the Bible is another form of idolatry. Idolatry not only includes all religions other than the faith of the Bible, but also all deviations from the true revelation of God given in the Bible. Heresy of any kind is a form on idolatry. It is perverting the image of God, and so an insult to God. From this we can see that we can be worshiping God supposedly as a Christian, but because we are coming to him in a way that is not true to his revelation in the Bible, we are in fact worshiping an idol, and not God.

DEVOTION OF IDOLATRY.

Jonah expresses something about idolatry which makes it so dangerous. He says that people cling to idolatry. There is power in idolatry but a dangerous one because it holds people in darkness and slavery. The trouble with idolatry is that people are worshiping what they suppose to be God, and worshiping in a way they suppose is true worship, and because of this they cling to it.

If a person has no faith whatsoever, then they are in a more free condition than one who has a faith, but the faith is wrong. Devotion is a very powerful thing, and idolatry has devotion and in many cases deep devotion.

Take for example a person who is supposedly worshiping God in the form of one of the many religions in our world today. If you tell them they are committing idolatry they are grievously offended. They are quick to resist any suggestion that their faith is false, and given the opportunity may well resist the religion of Christ by force and violence.

Idolatry holds people in the prison of darkness because the darkness is perceived as light. This is seen specially in the various deviations from the faith of the Bible which we see in the visible church. Take the Church of England for example. There are so many different interpretations of what Christian worship is, and so many different views of the nature of God. There is much in common and this clouds the issue as to what is tending to idolatry. The trouble is that whatever brand of Anglicanism that is espoused it produces great devotion and so the evil binds a person. They cling to it.

WORTHLESS IDOLS.

The trouble is that idols, of whatever kind, are worthless. They are unable to achieve the purpose of religion and faith, which is to reconcile a person to God, and bring a person into favour with God and to know God.

If religion does not reconcile us to God, then we are still under the displeasure of God, and our souls are in everlasting danger. This is the horror of idolatry. All our lives we may be thinking that we are heirs of heaven when in reality we are heirs of death and hell.

These days people get very irritated at doctrinal definitions. It is felt that such attention to doctrine divides and separates, and causes strife and divisions. It is felt that as long as we have a sincere faith, then all is well, and it is also believed that there are many facets of faith and all are true. On the other hand, though people feel that it is wrong to criticize the opinions of others, they still cling to their own view as that which saves, and so resist and even despise any suggestion that they are following an idolatrous from of faith.

Error is idolatrous because it diminishes God is some way, and denies his glory. Take for example the view that someone who is ordained is a priest in the sense of being a mediator before God, whether offering a sacrifice to God for the sins of the people, or re-presenting to God the sacrifice of Christ on behalf of the people. Such view and practice blasphemes against Christ, for it suggests in some way that his eternal priesthood is defective or insufficient, because it needs the augmentation of a human priest. However people do not see this, and even can't see it.

FORFEIT GOD'S GRACE.

The horror of idolatry is that it means a person forfeits the grace that could be theirs. The grace that is being referred to by Jonah is none other than the grace of God. It is that undeserved favour which God shows to sinners, but not to all sinners indiscriminately, but only to sinners who come to him with true repentance, seeking God's mercy towards them.

Here again we immediately meet a problem. The problem is that many see the grace of God as something that is poured out by God on all, and that God's mercy is such that it encompasses all. The idea that we can forfeit the grace of God is totally alien to their way of thinking. This thinking goes with the thought that God is love and therefore it is impossible for him to judge and cast a person into hell and everlasting pain. This view is based on another false view of God which is not according to the revelation of God in the Bible. God is said to be love to the exclusion of his holiness and the requirements of God's holy law. That God is love supersedes everything else in God in the thinking of such people. This is is another example of idolatry because it is a belief in God which is not a true god, but a god of the imagination, and what we would like God to be, which really is a god who will accept and love us and allow us to keep our sins.

Idolatry forfeits God's grace, not because God's grace is not available for them, but because it causes a person to come to God in a way that is not according to the way God has revealed in order for him to be gracious to a person.

Grace is God's undeserved favour to people who, because of their sins, are totally unworthy of God's favour. The grace of God is his undeserved favour towards those who deserve only his judgment and condemnation. Because of this God's grace is only poured out upon those who accept and acknowledge that they are unworthy of God's favour and deserve only his judgement. They are those who acknowledge that they are sinners before God and so deserve the judgement and punishment upon them from God which their sins deserve, and in the light of this come to God crying for mercy, and coming with sincere repentance for their sins, which is proved by their actions. Grace is not for those who will not face the fact of what sin deserves, and will not turn from their sins earnestly and sincerely.

If we forfeit the grace of God there is no hope for us. This is what Jonah is grieving over. The only way that we can be saved from sin's punishment and from everlasting death is by God's grace bestowed upon us. If we forfeit grace then we are destined for everlasting perdition.

The grace of God is not poured out by God easily. God's grace is only made available because of the great sacrifice God made when he gave his Son as a propitiation for our sins. The cost for God to bestow grace is the huge cost of the death of Jesus Christ, who took our sins in his body when he died on the cross, and bore their deserving in our place. Such cost can not be given if people will not admit their sin, and repent of their sin, and accept what their sin deserves from God.

Grace is still most wonderful. The wonder is that it pours out the love and forgiveness of God on all who truly repent and cast their souls upon Jesus. It is so powerful that, through Christ, God cancels the whole debt of our sins, whether they were committed in the past or will be committed in the future. Because of God's grace, the sinner is justified of all things, and stands always, in Christ, before God justified and accepted.

The tragedy of idolatry is that it forfeits all this blessing and leaves a soul in death.