Jonah

Many people know about Jonah and how God told him to go to Nineveh but he rebelled and got on a boat and headed for Tarshish running from God.  His mission was to go and preach to the Ninevites about their evil practices but he didn’t want God to show any mercy on them because he knew that God was a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and full of kindness and relenting over calamity.  These people were very ruthless and cruel people!  When they defeated a nation they would decapitate people and put their heads in front of the gates so everyone could see what a ruthless and cruel people they were.  

I don’t recall thinking about this before but it says nothing about fear here at all, it seems like Jonah had no fear of the people.  I guess maybe if you are thrown into the sea and a huge fish comes along and swallows you then ends up vomiting you out on dry land because God commands him to, I think you would be able to trust God to keep you safe.

Here is another thing I didn’t think about; Jonah was in a prison where death was inevitable if God didn’t intercede on his behalf.  When I think about this it reminds me of how each of us comes into the world.  We come into the world as prisoners of sin because we are born in sin and shaped in iniquity.  We are all born in sin with a sin nature so we are all slaves to sin.  We are all born dead in our trespasses and sin.

Many people think that Jesus came to make bad people good, but that isn’t why He came, no, Jesus came to make dead people live.  When we were born we were considered enemies to God and we were born spiritually dead without a chance of us being right with God in our sinful state.  But God in His foreknowledge knew this would be the case so He made a way where there was no way and He sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might have life and have it more abundantly.  He did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but through Him the world might be saved!!

Check out John 3:16-17, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”

Jesus came as a babe and they called Him Emmanuel, which is interpreted God with us.  Jesus was called many things, the Lamb of God, the Prince of Peace, the Lion of Judah, the Rose of Sharon, the soon and coming King.  And also the King of kings, and the Bridegroom, the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, along will other names.  I know Him as Savior and Lord and healer and

Provider and sustainer and El Shaddai!!  

Just like Jonah we are all in a prison, so to speak, because of our sin nature, waiting to die and then the judgement and if you have rejected Jesus and you die in that state of mind you will end up in a place of torment and suffering and pain called Sheol, which means Hell.  The difference between Jonah’s prison and the prison I am talking about is that Jonah was set free from his prison because he cried out to God in repentance, from the fishes belly, but the other prison, Sheol (Hell), is a place of everlasting punishment and torment where it is too late to repent and cry out to God!!  But as long as you are breathing it is never too late to repent in godly sorrow and cry out to God like Jonah did and ask Him to forgive you and to be your Lord and Savior.  I pray you will make this choice if you need to and that you will rejoice in what the good Lord has done for you!!  May the good Lord bless you and yours and may you have a super day!!  And don’t forget to thank and praise the Lord for He is worthy!!