Jonah and the Ninevites

When thinking of the story of Jonah and the whale found in the book of Jonah in the Bible, one thinks about how God gave Jonah a second chance to obey His command to go to Nineveh.  But, there is actually two stories of redemption and second chances. Let’s start with the first story…

God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh to tell them about His  judgment of them and to warn them that He is going to destroy their city because of their wickedness.  The Assyrian people were known to be fierce warriors.  They beheaded the men of a conquered city and piled the head’s at the entrance to the city as a calling card.  They raped and killed the women and children.  They would bury men alive up to their necks and place a stake through their tongues and into the ground.  The Assyrians were Israel’s worst enemy.  Is there any wonder why Jonah had no love for these people and didn’t want to go and tell them God’s message?

Most people know the rest of the story.  Jonah flees in the opposite direction and hitches a ride on a ship going to Tarshish, thousands of miles away from Nineveh.  On the way, the ship encounters a horrible storm and Jonah volunteers to be hurled into the sea after confessing his transgression to his shipmates.  He’s swallowed by a great fish and remained in its belly for three days after which he was vomited out.  As a side note, Jonah’s desperate prayer and confession, while in the fish’s belly, found in Jonah 2 is beautiful.  He sees the error of his way and heads back to Nineveh.

Here’s where we get the second story of second chances.  Jonah tells the Ninevites of God’s judgment of their wickedness and because of his obedience, the Ninevites repent of their ways and turn to God, thus being saved from God’s destruction of their city.

God gave both Jonah and the Ninevites a second chance.  There is nothing you can do that would make God stop loving you.  He offers second chances even when we think we don’t deserve them.  Read the book of Jonah; it will probably take you 15 minutes at the most.  If God is willing to give vicious murderers and disobedient prophets a second chance, He’s willing to give you one too.

When God saw what they had done and how they had put a stop to their evil ways, he changed his mind and did not carry out the destruction he had threatened. – Jonah 3:10

How Can We Expect God’s Continued Blessing Over Our Lives If We Disobey Him?

Deuteronomy 28:1-14 shows the blessing of obedience,

“If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully keep all his commands that I am giving you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the world. ²You will experience all these blessings if you obey the Lord your God:

 ³ Your towns and your fields
      will be blessed.
 ⁴ Your children and your crops
      will be blessed.
   The offspring of your herds and flocks
      will be blessed.
 ⁵ Your fruit baskets and breadboards
      will be blessed.
 ⁶ Wherever you go and whatever you do,
      you will be blessed.

 ⁷ “The Lord will conquer your enemies when they attack you. They will attack you from one direction, but they will scatter from you in seven!

 ⁸ “The Lord will guarantee a blessing on everything you do and will fill your storehouses with grain. The Lord your God will bless you in the land he is giving you.

 ⁹ “If you obey the commands of the Lord your God and walk in his ways, the Lord will establish you as his holy people as he swore he would do. ¹⁰ Then all the nations of the world will see that you are a people claimed by the Lord, and they will stand in awe of you.

 ¹¹ “The Lord will give you prosperity in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you, blessing you with many children, numerous livestock, and abundant crops. ¹² The Lord will send rain at the proper time from his rich treasury in the heavens and will bless all the work you do. You will lend to many nations, but you will never need to borrow from them. ¹³ If you listen to these commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today, and if you carefully obey them, the Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you will always be on top and never at the bottom. ¹⁴ You must not turn away from any of the commands I am giving you today, nor follow after other gods and worship them.

Deuteronomy 28:15-29 shows the curse of disobedience,

¹⁵“But if you refuse to listen to the Lord your God and do not obey all the commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come and overwhelm you:

 ¹⁶ Your towns and your fields
      will be cursed.
 ¹⁷ Your fruit baskets and breadboards
      will be cursed.
 ¹⁸ Your children and your crops
      will be cursed.
   The offspring of your herds and flocks
      will be cursed.
 ¹⁹ Wherever you go and whatever you do,
      you will be cursed.

 ²⁰ “The Lord himself will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration in everything you do, until at last you are completely destroyed for doing evil and abandoning me. ²¹ The Lord will afflict you with diseases until none of you are left in the land you are about to enter and occupy. ²² The Lord will strike you with wasting diseases, fever, and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, and with blight and mildew. These disasters will pursue you until you die. ²³ The skies above will be as unyielding as bronze, and the earth beneath will be as hard as iron. ²⁴ The Lord will change the rain that falls on your land into powder, and dust will pour down from the sky until you are destroyed.

 ²⁵ “The Lord will cause you to be defeated by your enemies. You will attack your enemies from one direction, but you will scatter from them in seven! You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. ²⁶ Your corpses will be food for all the scavenging birds and wild animals, and no one will be there to chase them away.

 ²⁷ “The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, scurvy, and the itch, from which you cannot be cured. ²⁸ The Lord will strike you with madness, blindness, and panic. ²⁹ You will grope around in broad daylight like a blind person groping in the darkness, but you will not find your way. You will be oppressed and robbed continually, and no one will come to save you.

And, it continues on with the curses through the end of the chapter; to verse 68!  But you get the idea.  Not obeying our Heavenly Father causes us whole lotta trouble.  And we wonder why our country is in such a mess!

Basically, until Deuteronomy 5, where God gives Moses the Ten Commandments, God’s people were without law.  They just knew what right and wrong was.  The Israelites have been wandering in the desert in their disobedience, worry, and doubt that God can deliver them to the Promised Land; the land flowing with milk and honey.  Had they just listened to God, just had faith that He would lead them into the Promised Land, the land He promised them, they would have arrived after a short journey of about a week or two.  Instead, their disobedience kept them wandering the desert for 40 years!!!  “Oh, God, your voice frightens me, so talk to Moses instead.”  “Oh, God, we’re hungry.”  “Oh, God, we’re sick of the manna you gave us to eat.  We want some meat.”  And on and on and on.  They certainly were a grumbling mass of humanity.  So, Moses gets the Ten Commandments from God and comes down the mountain after a wonderful time of fellowship with God to find that the faithless Israelites are dancing around a golden calf.  Their faith is so little that they have Aaron make a golden calf for them to worship.  And all those that did, failed to see the Promised Land.  Those Ten Commandments are the first law that the Israelites get.  But still, they can’t even keep those laws.

By the time Jesus comes around, the Pharisees have over 600 laws to obey.  No wonder they got caught up in legalism.  The Pharisees try to trick Jesus by asking which of those over 600 laws was the most important.  And what does He say?  He abbreviates the Ten Commandments by taking all 10 of them and making them into two.  He says in Matthew 22:34-40, ³⁷ Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.” 

How can we expect God to bless the United States when we can’t even obey The Great Commandment, which I will paraphrase in even simpler terms:  Love God and Love Others?  Are we so blinded that we can’t even see our disobedience?  If we would just turn our eyes back to our Lord and Savior so that we can receive the blessings that He has made available to us, perhaps we would be a blessed nation again.

2 Chronicles 7:14 calls us back to our Father’s arms:  ¹⁴ Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.

Changes Are Coming…Maybe?

So, I was in church this morning and I got a what I believe is a very strong word from God about my future.  I’m not going to tell you what it is, because I’m waiting for confirmation from my husband and my parents.  I didn’t tell them what it was either.  I don’t want to influence their prayers.  And…I need to know the answer by next week.  Talk about pressure.It’s just interesting, because I haven’t had something like this happen to me before.  I’m really interested to find out if this is a real word.  This is the first time I’ve asked God to confirm His will for me.  The first time I’ve asked Him for a “billboard”.  It’s like asking for a sign, but bigger.

Whatever the answer is, it’s all good.  I want to know and I want to know what’s right.  What God wants for me, since He only wants what’s best and His best is better than anything I can ever imagine.  I just want to be obedient.

So, if you think about it this week, I covet your prayers for God’s will in my life.  I’ll let you know next week.