Most of the book of Jonah is about how much difficulty God had in getting His godly messenger Jonah to go the people of Nineveh. Jonah tried to run away from the presence of God. God brought a great wind and there was a great storm. The men on the boat decided that Jonah’s running away from his god was causing his god to make the great storm, so they threw him overboard.
The great fish swallowed Jonah and he was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights. Jonah prayed to God from the belly of the fish and God listened to Jonah and caused the fish to spit Jonah out of his belly.
God charged Jonah again to go Nineveh, and this time Jonah went. His message was simple: “In forty days Nineveh will be overthrown.” The Bible gives us no indication that the people of Nineveh rejected Jonah in any way or questioned his message. Why? God was already working in the hearts of the people of Nineveh convicting them of their sin and their need for repentance. Once God finally got Jonah to Nineveh, his work was very easy. The interesting part of this story is that God had more trouble getting godly Jonah to go than he did convicting the sinful hearts of the people of Nineveh.
This is true today in our lives. God is working in the
hearts and lives of many people with whom we will have contact today and
tomorrow. He convicts them of their sin; He makes them have special feelings in
their hearts for wanting to know more about a right relationship with God; He
prepares them for a messenger to come to them to help them. God is in the
business of preparing people to receive His message, and He is in the business
of calling out the messengers—but He sometimes has more trouble getting us to
go than He does in convicting the hearts of the lost.
God has ordained His Kingdom in such a way that human
instrumentality is indispensable—God uses people to reach people. He doesn’t
need us, but He has chosen to use us to carry His message to all those who have
never heard of the Good News of Jesus. How much trouble is God having with you?
1 comment:
Great word, Dad! Been enjoying catching up on your blog today- haven't looked at blogs in a while
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