Hello my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
July is officially hurricane season and already hurricane Beryl has been a category 4 storm roaring across the warm waters of the lower Caribbean. I grew up in that part of the world so I have many memories of great storms thrusting palm trees through the sky like toothpicks or small mountain streams turned into flash floods tearing down the mountain side taking everything in its path.
For that reason it’s not difficult for me to imagine the great storms described in the Bible, like the one we’re looking at these days in about the year 759bc as it raged on the Mediterranean Sea. Or at least it did, until sailors from a nearly destroyed ship finally threw one of their passengers, Jonah, overboard, at his insistence, into the crashing waves. Why would they do that? Because Jonah admitted he was the cause of the storm and their near demise! He was running away from God and God was chasing after him!
Within seconds Jonah disappeared in the waves and the sailors presumed him dead. Within minutes the storm subsided and I wonder if those sailors scanned the wave tops looking for a floating body? But alas while there was a great deal of debris floating, for they had jettisoned all the ship’s cargo, no floating Jonah was seen anywhere! Do you remember WHY Jonah’s body was not found?
Yesterday I left you INSIDE a specially God created very large fish which had swallowed Jonah whole and alive when those sailors threw him overboard in the storm! Jonah himself recorded his story, found in the Bible in the book which bears his name. Most of the second chapter of Jonah is his record of the prayer of desperation which he prayed from INSIDE that huge fish, trusting that God could both see and hear Jonah even though far down underwater inside a fish! Now maybe you are among those skeptics who aren’t quite ready to accept this story as factual or even scientifically possible.
One of the great things about the Bible is that it presents to us many great accounts of events which took place centuries ago and we are challenged to believe what we cannot historically prove with tangible evidence. This is one of those events. No one took a picture and Jonah did not bring anything back with him from inside that fish which would validate his preposterous claim of spending three days INSIDE a large fish underwater! However, Jonah survived this remarkable experience and not only told many people, but wrote it down as an autobiographical recounting of one of the great events in the history of the Middle East!
Jonah’s cry to God from inside that great fish gives us a glimpse into his sense of helplessness, regret and fear. Jonah prayed: “You hurled me into the depth, the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all Your waves and breakers swept over me. The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head…” (Jonah 2:3-5) We can easily hear Jonah’s sense of hopelessness as the vastness of the seas engulfed him.
But Jonah was a worshiper of the Almighty, Holy, Merciful God of Israel and it appears Jonah knew Israel’s history well and the long list of events which have proved God’s love and God’s seeming never-ending patience and mercy for Israel. So it appears Jonah quickly realized the fact that he had not drowned nor been eaten and chewed up by any of the great sea creatures; thus Jonah concluded God had provided a fish capable of keeping Jonah alive for a while! And Jonah prayed, renewing His allegiance to God, requesting forgiveness for having run away from God and placing himself available upon God’s mercy.
I wonder how many of us have experienced God’s mercy, my “Walking with Jesus” friends? From a dark place which felt far from God we’ve reached out to God desperately hoping God had just a little more undeserved mercy for us?
Jonah prayed: “I have been banished from Your sight, yet I will look again toward Your holy Temple…You, LORD my God, brought my life up from the pit. When my life was ebbing away, I remembered You LORD and my prayer rose to You, to Your holy temple.” (Jonah 2:3,7) Right here and now how are you echoing Jonah’s words as you remember times in your life when you’ve cried out for God’s love and mercy?
Perhaps you have traveled, as I have, to many countries around the world where devout people light incense and stand or even bow in front of man-made images of Buddha or any of the thousands of Hindu lifeless idols; or other idols fabricated by craftsmen. When you see this, what do you think?
As Jeremiah the Hebrew prophet declared: “…they cut a tree out of the forest and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel. They adorn it with silver and gold, they fasten it with hammer and nails so it will not totter. Like a scarecrow in a melon patch their idols cannot speak, they must be carried because they cannot walk… But the LORD is the true God, He is the living God, the eternal King… God made the earth by His power, He founded the world by His wisdom and stretched out the heavens by His understanding…” (Jeremiah 10:2-12)
These are the truths Jonah was wrestling with in the belly of that great fish and I see Jonah made two great decisions and declarations. First the foolishness of those who bow before worthless, man made idols. And secondly, his re-commitment of himself to God. Jonah said: “Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them. But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to You, O God. What I have vowed I will make good. I will say, “Salvation comes from the LORD.” (Jonah 2:8,9)
My friends, have you experienced God RESPONDING to your cry for His help? Do you remember HOW God responded to you and how you felt after God’s rescue? Jonah wants us to know God once again did a great miracle for him. From how many fathoms down in the depths, that great fish began an uprising, perhaps much like a great humpback whale, and as that great fish crested up from the waves, it spat Jonah out and Jonah washed up on dry land, cleansed by the ocean water from where he had been these past 3 days! (Jonah 2:10) I wonder what picture comes into your mind of what Jonah must have looked and smelled like after that ordeal?
Now Jonah doesn’t tell us where he washed up on shore but it appears to me it was back very near Joppa where he started his run away from God. By the way, did you know my friends this account is NOT the first mention we have of this seaside town, Joppa? 200 years before as King Solomon prepared to build his palace and the great Temple in Jerusalem, timbers were needed in abundance and the King of Lebanon agreed to supply Solomon’s with logs from the forests of Lebanon, floated by sea down to Joppa, from which they were carried inland to Jerusalem, an overland journey of about 50 miles from Joppa to Jerusalem! (2 Chronicles 2)
Perhaps you remember Joppa is also famous in the New Testament, as the place where the apostle Peter was when servants of Cornelius, the Roman centurion, came inviting Peter to Caesarea to explain the Gospel of Jesus to Cornelius and his household. (Acts 10) Do you find it fascinating my friends how God can accomplish great things for His kingdom in a one place over a long, long period of time? Solomon’s experience in Joppa was about 950bc. Jonah’s about 759bc and Peter’s about 30ad, and if you travel to Israel today, the seaside town of Joppa is basically a suburb of the sprawling city of Tel Aviv! And have you ever sought to know the spiritual history of your city or town, my friends?
I don’t know how or how long of a process it was for Jonah to clean himself up from his ocean experience, nor do I know exactly where Jonah was when he heard God’s call again.
But God’s call did come to Jonah for God had not given up on Jonah and God knew that Jonah now had a heart overflowing with gratitude for life and a willingness to join God in what God was doing. So tomorrow we’ll look at Jonah’s second call from God and how he responded. For today, here’s a song to help us thank God for His endless mercy. Are you grateful?
Today’s Scripture: Jonah 2:1-3:1.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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