Good morning,
This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Thank you for praying for Laureen and her team, "The Continentals". They will be in Pennsylvania this weekend for four concerts, including one in the Allentown area tomorrow night. Sunita and Andy are planning to drive up from Washington to see Laureen. Jessica and Tom, from Philadelphia, will be joining Laureen, along with Sunita and Andy. Once again, it is a gentle reminder, that the Continentals will be in concert in Endicott on Monday October 12 at 7p.m. They will be at the First Presbyterian Church, on the corner of Grant Avenue and Monroe Street in Endicott. Those of you who live in the area , please join us. It will be great thrill and blessing. Please pray for our Television outreach this evening at 7 PM on Time Warner Cable Channel 4.
Praise the Lord for the Word of God. The Readings from the Epistles for the next few Sundays have been taken from the Book of Hebrews. The Book of Hebrews begins with these words, "In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets." The Bible contains 12 minor prophets, of which Jonah is the fifth. The minor prophets, listed in order are: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah. Jonah was the only rebellious prophet in the group, and he was probably the most succinct preacher to ever live. With a scant eight word prophecy (in English - five words in the original Hebrew), Jonah sparked what is arguably the most fruitful revival in all of history as the entire metropolitan area of ancient Nineveh repented. Jonah’s entire sermon to these people was "FORTY MORE DAYS AND NINEVEH WILL BE DESTROYED". – JONAH 3:4.
If you stop anyone in a Walmart parking lot and ask if they’ve ever heard of the story of Jonah and the Whale, they are likely to say, "Yes". The irony is, the book of Jonah is not about a whale. If it were not for 2 Kings 14:25, we would have no background on Jonah at all. Only is one Old Testament verse outside of his own book mentions him. JONAH WAS FROM GATH HEPHER. Gath Hepher means “the winepress of the well,” so apparently there was a winepress near a well in Jonah’s hometown, which is located just five miles southwest of Jesus’ home town of Nazareth.
Jonah is one of less than a handful of prophets to come out of Northern Israel. Almost all of Israel’s prophets, except Jonah and a few others, come from southern Israel. 2 Kings 14:15 tells us that...JONAH LIVED DURING THE REIGN OF JEROBOAM II of Northern Israel. It was a time of prosperity for the Northern Israelites. The empire of Assyria (which is modern day Iran) to their northeast was in a mild decline so the Israelites felt relatively safe, for a change. The Assyrians, whose capital was Nineveh, were legendary for their cruelty. Jonah and his people hated them.
If you understand that Assyria is modern day Iran, you can see how contemporary this story is. It’s about a Jew who fears Iranians because of their potential to attack and destroy the Jewish homeland. It is also the story of a God who loves Iranians. The book of Jonah is about God, and more specifically it is about His twin characteristics of greatness and grace.
The book begins with God telling Jonah to go, and ends with God telling Jonah that He cares for people. The book of Jonah is about two major aspects of God’s character, that make Him awe-inspiring and beckon to us to journey to Him and get to know Him. These characteristics are His greatness and His grace. THE BOOK OF JONAH IS ABOUT RESPONDING TO GOD’S GREATNESS AND GRACE.
God’s greatness is acclaimed throughout Jonah chapter 1. It begins with God directing Jonah to “Go to the GREAT city of Nineveh.” (Jonah 1:1) Chapter 1 ends with Jonah being swallowed by a GREAT fish. God could command Jonah because He IS great. He watches over the entire world and when one place needs the help of another, God is great enough to make it happen. God can command a fish to swallow Jonah because God made the fish and has the ability to grow the fish large enough to handle Jonah. God is great enough to speak the fish’s language, great enough to get it near Jonah, great enough to get it to swallow something it would never normally eat – So chapter one begins with God’s greatness and ends with God’s greatness. In the middle of the chapter, God generates a GREAT wind, which causes GREAT waves, and a GREAT fear comes upon the sailors. Yet, under all this greatness is God’s grace. You will not find the word "grace", but you will find God's grace in action. We see grace most clearly in chapters 3 and 4 as God has grace on Jonah that gives him a second chance. Then, He has grace on the Ninevites, as He forgives them when they repent. Again in chapter four, He has grace on Jonah, a strong-willed prophet who loves that God has been gracious to him, but hates that He’s been gracious to the Ninevites.
Though it is unspoken, God’s grace begins the book of Jonah. It’s because God is gracious that He called Jonah to warn the Ninevites. He wanted to give them a chance to respond to His grace. In chapter four, when the Ninevites were spared, Jonah said, “SEE! This is why I didn’t want to preach to them. I knew you were a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.”
All of life is about responding to a great and gracious God. We can respond to His grace by
Being obedient to Him,
- by worshipping Him,
- by changing patterns that are hurting us or others,
- by getting to know His people,
- and by trusting Him with our troubles.
In Jesus,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y01rx_XzQ34
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