dondi
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Registered: 09-2006
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Jonah and the whale
This week, let us dive into Jonah and the whale. Now Jonah was a prophet, ooh ooh. ( Sorry, Veggietales referance.) He was given instructions to go into Nineveh and tell them about God.
What does he do?? He grabs a ship heading the opposite direction to Tarshish. Now why is it when we ask the Lord what to do we let ourselves do the thinking? God clearly tells Jonah to go to Nineveh, but he grabs the boat going the other way. Why even ask?
So, he gets on the boat and finds himself a place to sleep below deck. While he is sleeping away, a great storm breaks out on the seas. Now the sailors prayed to their gods during this time and threw any unnecessary weight overboard so they wouldn't capsize. In desperation, the captian asks Jonah to pray to his God for mercy during the storm.
When it just seems to get worse, the sailors cast lots ( gambled ) to see who was responsible for this storm and they drew Jonah's name. So Jonah tells them he is a Hebrew and he worships Yahweh ( Jonah 1:10 ). But when he tells them that God created the land and the sea, they were terrified.
When you read the text you can notice how people who worship other gods are amazed at our lack of faithfulness to the God whom we claim to be the God of gods.
Notice how the sailors tried to keep everyone safe and kinda didn't want to throw Jonah overboard.
Now what is great is in verse 16. Despite Jonah's unwillingness to do God's will there are many converts to Him. We will get to see them in Heaven and ask them what went through their minds at that time. To me that is cool.
So they throw Jonah over and God has brought a great fish to save him. Even in our bad times God is with us. Now ole Jonah is in this whale for 3 days and the Word of the Lord comes to him again. So the fish spits him out on land and he heads to Nineveh.
He gets there and doesn't give the praise chorus or any moving anthems. Basically he tells them they have 40 days till destruction. Now they believe him and turn to God for their needs. But does Jonah rejoice that there are many more added to the kingdom of God? No, he doesn't. I think Jonah was a sour person to be honest, but God takes all.
He leaves Nineveh and sets atop a mountain to watch them [ the Ninevites ] destroy themselves. But here's the kicker. They don't. So God grows a gourd to shade Jonah and he is still miserable, to the point of asking God to take him. So God sends a worm to eat the gourd and leave Jonah to the sun and wind.
Now what happened to Jonah? I really don't know. I think this was given to us as a reminder to take God's plan for us and rejoice in it. It may not seem a good plan at the time, but we don't know God's plan do we?
Last edited by FJRB, 12/3/2006, 2:51 am
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11/24/2006, 7:58 am
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