Praise the Lord. He is the Lord of lords and the King of kings. While I was visiting England I had the privilege of attending a very special Sunday evening worship service on July 18 with our friend Sue Clyde. It was held in one of the village parishes (Church of England) in Sussex. She was a member of the worship and praise band that was in charge of evening worship. It was a glorious evening of worship. The church was full of people attending from various area churches. The speaker for the service was Canon Andrew White, rector of the St. George's Church in Baghdad (Church of England), known as the Vicar of Baghdad.
It was a very moving service as Canon White spoke and shared about the work of the Gospel in Baghdad. He shared that St. George's church is alive with the ministry and power of the Holy Spirit. Over 5000 people are involved there in ministry and mission in a given week. In the face of daily shootings and frequent bombings, the ministry of the church continues to flourish in its outreach and witness. He shared that out of 5000 people who belong to the church 95 were killed last year in bombings and shootings. He also said that this year they baptized 17 new believers, out of whom 15 have been gunned down. Despite the dangers and challenges, Canon White serves the Lord with joy and obedience. He is fearless, faithful, and above all fervent in faith and love.
Prior to becoming active in ministry, Canon White was a medical doctor who graduated from Cambridge. The Lord then called him into the ministry of the Gospel. He is married and has two sons, but his wife and sons live in the UK for security reasons, while he lives in Baghdad. On top of all the other challenges which he faces daily, Canon White was diagnosed recently with MS, though he never mentions his illness. He just shared about the faithfulness of Jesus. I share the story of Canon Andrew White in part because Jonah, the runaway prophet, was sent to Ninevah, which in modern times is known as Mosul , a famous city in Iraq.
From JONAH 3:10 we read, “When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, He had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction He had threatened.” We would expect that the repentance of the people of Ninevah would have pleased Jonah, yet just the opposite is true. In fact, "Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry"! Jonah, after all the events and hardships that he endured, reverted to his old attitude and way of thinking. Jonah 4:2, "He prayed to the LORD, ‘O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.’ "
Some people see God as a harsh tyrant, who cannot wait to send people to hell. Others see him as a benevolent and indulgent old father figure. Both are light years away from the way God truly presents Himself in the Bible. God is immensely serious about sin and about salvation– the cross of Jesus is the greatest proof of that! Jonah knew God’s nature, but he did not like the fact that God had mercy on the Ninevites. His old fears and prejudices flared up again.
Jonah's response is indicative of the fact that the best of men are men at best. All are still sinful and inconsistent. "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." The Bible doesn’t record the failure of men and women in order that we can point a finger of shame, but so that we can learn about human nature, our nature. We have to be constantly on guard! Never think that sin is totally tamed during our lives! We must never think that sin has been conquered in our lives. When we see others fall we should never say or even think that it will never happen to us. Sin, apparently dormant, can and will lash out and bring us down if we become complacent.
A major idea we can take from Jonah’s failure is that this does not mean that his previous sorrow and repentance inside the sea creature were not genuine, or that Jonah was hypocritical. It was real.
The Apostle Paul highlighted this inner warfare in Galatians 5:16, when he said, “…the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.” This, in fact, is the common experience of every born-again believer. The truly amazing fact is that God still chose to use Jonah in spite of his spiritual fragility. RT Kendall says, "We may see that God can use men that are still frail. It shows also how one may still have problems, maladies, infirmities, weaknesses – even after seeing God work."
We must not think that everyone whom God has greatly used is perfect or without problems. We should not try to escape God's call upon us by thinking that because of our problems and weakness God can’t use us. We all have our spiritual blind spots or "issues". What God looks for is not total perfection but a desire to be pure and to do His will. When God uses men and women for His purposes He does it in such a way that it is clear that it’s not due to our power and worthiness, but by His power and worthiness.
God understood Jonah, remembering Jonah was but dust and caught up in a spiritual downward spiral of his own making. John Calvin commented ‘– the faithful often in a distressed state of mind approach God with a desire to pray, and…their prayers are not wholly rejected, though they are not altogether approved and accepted.’ Though Jonah was perplexed and troubled, he brought his thoughts to God. God forgave the sin in his prayer and saw the struggling heart of His child. God does care; He has mercy. He desires sinful people to turn back to Him.
One of Michelangelo’s paintings in the Sistine Chapel in Rome is called, ‘The Prophets and Apostles’. In this work Michelangelo sought to capture all the faces of the OT prophets and the NT apostles. Art critics have suggested that out of all the faces the artist painted none had a more radiant face than Jonah. Michelangelo was convinced that Jonah did ultimately repent and become a communicator of grace to his own nation through his book and through his preaching as a prophet of God.
In Christ,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vO_bKR2Wzhk
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