Jonah Part 1

"Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me. 3 But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD."  Jonah 1:2-3  NKJV

Over the coming week, let's explore the book of Jonah and dig our way through the chapters and see what we find.

The book of Jonah is about the will of God and how we respond to it. It is also a book about the love of God and how we share it with others. God gave Jonah a direct order,"Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me." Jonah's response is classic, he totally refused and fled to Tarshish. When you think about it, Jonah's response is unbelievable and yet, we may have done this from time to time. Many's the time when God is wanting us to change a particular thing in our lives but, we refuse. Something's in life, we don't want to change so we disobey. I remember when myself and Hazel, my wife, were at a particular bible college. We met a guy there who told us that God had wanted him to go into prisons and preach Jesus. However, he had refused. Following a holiday abroad, somebody had placed some drugs in his luggage and customs found it. He was arrested and spent a little time in prison. He was eventually cleared of this. But the fact was, God had had His way, the guy had begun preaching in the prison. He went on to have a prison ministry. Amazing. So before we judge Jonah, let us consider this.

Nineveh was a great and powerful city in the Assyrian Empire full of evil people with evil practices who thought nothing about torturing and eventually killing someone. Possibly the thought of preaching there brought a fear for his life, so the rebellious Jonah went the opposite way to God's direction. Alternatively, may be he didn't want to preach to the Ninevites because they may repent and get saved. Jonah felt that they needed to be punished for their behaviour and possibly destroyed. 

What about you? We've probably all had a 'Nineveh' type of thing in our lives at some stage. It may have been in the style of being bullied. Perhaps you were humiliated by this bully and suffered a great deal. How would you feel initially, about praying for this person/s and telling them about Jesus? You may be ok about it but then again, the thought of it may provoke a feeling of revenge. Think about the atrocities of WW2. How did they feel towards the torture, pain and killings that they had to suffer through. Would they have liked to go to their very own 'Nineveh' and preach to them. One can see Jonah's point. However, it was still disobedience to God.

The thing is, when we disobey God, it's possible that He will send something along the way to get us to change our minds. With Jonah, it was a great wind (v4). With the chap we met, it was a spell in prison. Jonah had checked on a boat trip to get away from the LORD. Surely He knew this was impossible. The storm threatened to sink the vessel and the crew were very scared. Eventually, Jonah was honest with them, he knew this great wind was from God. Therefore, he told the crew about his disobedience and suggested that they throw him overboard and the sea would remain calm. Reluctantly, they did this and peace came to their situation. More tomorrow!

If you don't know Jesus or, have fallen away, why not say this prayer right now:

'Lord Jesus, I have sinned and I ask you to forgive me and be my Lord and Saviour. Please come into my heart, fill me with Your Spirit and give me a brand new start today.

In Jesus' Name. Amen'

Copyright 2024 Grahame Howard.                                

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