Jonah (Letter 32, Larry Crabb’s 66 Love Letters)

Yield to God’s Plan; God Will Not Yield to Ours

C.S. Lewis said “The conclusion I dread is not So there’s no God after all but So this is what God’s really like. Deceive yourself no longer.”

As we grow up spiritually, we can no longer celebrate a God who always tucks us into a comfortable bed with the promise of another fun day tomorrow. At that point, our days of naive worship and shallow but exciting intimiacy are over.

C.S. Lewis also said, “Go to God when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed shut in your face, and a sound of bolting and double-bolting on the inside. After that, silence.”

When our life hits a bump that God could smooth but doesn’t, will we continue to think He should surrender His wisdom to ours and do what we think is best?

Book Name: JONAH – From Ray Stedman

Click here for entire Bible Summary from Ray Stedman

JONAH: The Reluctant Ambassador

Then came the great storm and the mariners cast him into the sea, and a great fish swallowed him.
The second chapter is his prayer to God to get him out of the belly of the fish. The fish got a terrible stomach-ache and vomited him up on the land.

The Ninevites were brutal and godless and sinful – and Jonah hated them and wanted more than anything else to see Nineveh destroyed. Yet when God told him to go announce to Ninevah its destruction, he fled to Tarshish.

And even after his trip in the living submarine he was still reluctant. He still did not very much want to deliver this message, but he remembered the fish’s belly and he went.

He said to Nineveh, “Forty more days and your city will be laid waste. Forty more days and God is going to destroy this city.”

Amazingly the city listened and repented and was spared.

As Jonah was a sign to Nineveh, so the Son of Man will be a sign to this generation.

There are some interesting historically-verified incidents of men who have been swallowed by fishes, very much like Jonah was and survived.

Jonah was angry with God that God spared the city.

Is there an awful lot of Jonah in us?

We sing of God’s tender grace and his mercy and his compassion, but we avoid saying anything to those who are perishing.

JONAH – David Jeremiah (Understanding the 66 Books of the Bible)

Key thought: We must never run away from God’s devotion to evangelism, His compassion for souls, or His direction in taking the Gospel to the nations.

Key Verse: I cried out to the Lord because of my affliction, and He answered me. Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and You heard my voice. Jonah 2;2

Key Action: Go wherever the Lord sends you without hesitation or vacillation.