You Can Run, but You Can’t Hide
Preacher
Pastor Pat Taiwo-Oguntoye
Bible Reading
- Jonah 1: 1-16
- Luke 15: 11-21
Sermon
There was a young man who stood at the bar of a court of justice to be sentenced for forgery. The judge had known him since he was a child, for his father had been a famous legal light and his work on the Law of Trusts was the most exhaustive work on the subject in existence. “Do you remember your father?” asked the judge sternly, “that father whom you have disgraced?”
The prisoner answered: “I remember him perfectly. When I went to him for advice or companionship, he would look up from his book on the Law of Trusts, and say, ’Run away, boy, I am busy. ’ My father finished his book, and here I am.” The great lawyer had neglected his own trust, with awful results.
In Luke 15:20 it states that he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.
I want to boldly declare that our Father in Heaven is not like that great lawyer. Jesus won’t turn you away, but some just won’t stop running away, and that makes it difficult for God to bless you. The Lord has come to tell somebody, You can run, but you can’t hide! You are here for a reason, and God is getting ready to show you what that reason is.
In Mark 5v6 the man with the unclean spirit ran to Jesus it states “But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him”.
These two passages of scripture have something in common: The man with the unclean spirit, who lived in the tombs, ran to Jesus from a ways off. The father also runs to the prodigal from a ways off. They both run and when two people run to meet each other, they soon meet.
In the case of the man that was possessed, the bible states that, “When he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him. This gives us a symbol of the sinner’s place. The sinner was far off from Jesus Christ, but when the Spirit of Almighty God began to open up his eyes to his own true condition, he knew that one of his greatest difficulties in his way is the realization of his distance from his Savior. Something within him begins to cry, “O that I knew where I might find Him that I might come even to His seat.”
If you are looking at everything through the fog of your past guilt, then consequently everything looks dark and dreary to you. Everyone has a past, your past is always a testimony of who you used and also who you have become now. Perhaps you feel very far away from the Lord, Jesus is holding out hope to you. When your life is consumed by your fear and your doubt, you should know that there is a way back to Him.
My dearly beloved, as you reinforce yourself more with the word of God and be consistent, I pray that your answers will come speedily in Jesus mighty name, God bless you all.