Most people who do not want to listen to things about God or religion in general really know if they do they will have to change the way they look at things. They might even have to change the way they do things. To avoid this, they just stay away from God.
Jonah perhaps serves as the greatest example to be found of one who tried to “stay away from God.” You recall God sent Jonah to deliver to the people of Nineveh, he was to “cry out against their wickedness” (Jonah 1:2). Instead of doing what God wanted, Jonah chose to ignore God.
His ignoring God did not work out like he had planned. Instead he got to see what a great fish looks like from the inside out. It took something terrible happening for him to realize he could not just ignore what God wanted.
Some act just like Jonah. Some people do not to even believe in God. David said, “The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God” (Psalm 14:1).
Some people reject the evidence they see each day and choose to believe evolution, a false way of how man evolved from an ape. “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1).
God created man. He created the ape also, but they are different things.
Some folks simply refuse to obey God. The Bible has been given to man so man can know God’s love and God’s terms for forgiveness. James wrote, “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22).
Those who refuse to listen and obey God now will find one day that God will not listen to them. “Therefore it is come to pass, that as he cried, and they would not hear; so they cried, and I would not hear, saith the LORD of hosts” (Zech. 7:13).
Luke wrote of one who ignored God during his lifetime and realized too late what he had done. “And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.
“But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us that would come from thence” (Luke 16:23-26).
God’s word cannot be ignored. Every person one day will give an accounting. On that day it will be too late to change what one has done. One’s destiny in eternity is set by what is done here and now.
Jonah realized his mistake and was given opportunity to change. Why not take the time to study God’s word, believe it and obey it? God has blessed you with the opportunity to follow him.
You may ignore him today if that is your desire, but one day you will plainly see, “you cannot ignore God.”