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A 15-minute podcast of Bible teaching, Monday - Friday, by the President and Editor of the Sword of the Lord Publishers, Dr. Shelton Smith.
Show Notes: Jonah, a chosen prophet of the Lord, heard the word of the Lord, but his response was “No, I can't do that!” He ran to Joppa and boarded a ship bound for Tarshish. But the Lord hurled a powerful wind over the sea, causing a violent storm that threatened to break the ship apart. Jonah 1:4 The Lord's sovereign eye was on Jonah, and a powerful storm was sent. The sailors cried out to their gods and began throwing cargo into the raging sea. They woke Jonah from a deep sleep and implored him to call on his god (perhaps he would hear and save them).Jonah answered, “I am a Hebrew, and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land.” Jonah 1:9 Jonah admitted that he was running from the Lord. He told the sailors to throw him into the sea. Then the winds and violent storm will cease. Then the sailors picked Jonah up and threw him into the raging sea, and the storm stopped at once! The sailors were awestruck by the Lord's great power, and they offered him a sacrifice and vowed to serve Him. Jonah 1:15-16Head to Heart:These verses prompt us to reflect on God's attributes. He is holy, righteous, and just. He measures our decisions and actions by His mercy and grace. His scales of justice are so different from the reality of this world. The Lord is worthy of our adoration, praise, and wonder. Let's worship Him today! Praise You in the Storm - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02D5ui_eXdg&list=RD02D5ui_eXdg&start_radio=1
00:00:00 Jonah 1 – Jonah Fleeeth to Tarshish and is Cast Into the Sea00:02:28 Jonah 2 – The Prayer of Jonah and His Deliverance From the Fish00:03:39 Jonah 3 – Jonah Preacheth unto Nineveh and the City Repenteth00:05:04 Jonah 4 – Jonah Repineth at God's Mercy and is Reproved by the Gourd
What happens when God asks you to do something—and you run the other way?In Part 2 of our study through the book of Jonah, Reagan Kramer dives into Jonah 1 and the powerful story of a prophet who heard directly from God but chose to go in the opposite direction. As Jonah boards a ship for Tarshish, a violent storm reveals something deeper: we cannot escape God's purposes, and our disobedience can affect the people around us.Reagan explores the sovereignty of God, human free will, spiritual warfare, salvation by grace through faith, and the difference between following God's leading and trying to live life in our own strength. She also examines the fascinating biblical practice of casting lots and why, after Pentecost, believers have the Holy Spirit to lead, guide, and give wisdom.Most importantly, this episode challenges us to look honestly at our own lives. Where might God be asking you to obey, but you are hesitating, hiding, or going the opposite direction? Reagan shares personal stories of moments when the Holy Spirit prompted her to reach out, encourage someone, or share what God had placed on her heart—and the unexpected blessing that came through obedience.In this episode:Jonah's decision to run from God's callingThe storm God used to get Jonah's attentionWhat biblical sovereignty meansGod's sovereignty and human free willWhy we cannot save ourselves through good worksJonah sleeping through the stormThe significance of the sailors calling out to their godsCasting lots in the Old TestamentWhy believers have the Holy Spirit to lead and guide themJonah's calling to bring the message of God to NinevehHow disobedience can cause us to miss opportunities to be a blessingLearning to recognize and respond to the Holy SpiritThe freedom and blessing found in obedienceReflection question:Where have you made it all about yourself and potentially missed the blessing God has called you to be a part of?How long are you going to say no to God? What consequences will you face?Have you thanked God for His mercy and grace over your life?Get your Bible, read Jonah 1, and join Reagan as we continue uncovering the revelation, freedom, and wisdom found in God's Word.Find more from Revelations Podcast hosted by Reagan Kramer: Website | Instagram | Apple Podcast | YoutubeBecome Part of Our Mission! Support The Revelations Podcast:Your support fuels our mission to share transformative messages of hope and faith. Click here to learn how you can contribute and be part of this growing community! This Episode is brought to you by Advanced Medicine AlternativesGet back to the active life you love through natural & regenerative musculoskeletal healing: https://www.georgekramermd.com/
This sermon examines the character of Jonah in the first chapter of his book, highlighting the tension between his divine commission and his subsequent flight to Tarshish. The central message addresses the spiritual danger of disobedience, illustrating how a 'down-slidden' state erodes a believer's communion with God and their compassion for others. Through the narrative of the storm and the sailors' reaction, the text contrasts Jonah's hollow profession with the genuine fear and repentance displayed by the Gentile crew. The preacher emphasizes that while God chastens His children, He also uses their failures to reveal His sovereignty and mercy, ultimately pointing to Christ as the greater Jonah who appeases God's wrath. The sermon concludes with a call for believers to recover from spiritual decline through reverent fear, sacrificial praise, and resolute vows to live consistently with their faith.
Jonah | Should I Not Have Compassion?Lesson Two | Fast AsleepScripture: Jonah 1:4-10Show Notes: The opening words of the book of Jonah are, “The word of the Lord came to Jonah,” and they should have prompted this prophet to tune in, listen carefully, and prepare to obey.Jonah, a prophet who knew better than anyone that God is the Creator of the sea and sky, still believed he could go somewhere God's presence and call wouldn't reach him. But he was mistaken!He booked passage on a sailing vessel to Tarshish, a city in the exact opposite direction from Nineveh. Scripture tells us three times in this chapter that he was fleeing "from the presence of the Lord."Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. Jonah 1:4-5Jonah slept through a storm that terrified everyone else on the ship. Running from God doesn't bring peace. It brings a false calm that masks real danger.Head to Heart Remember that running doesn't put you beyond His reach. God met Jonah in the storm and provided for him even in his rebellion.Whatever you're fleeing from right now, the Lord will not stop pursuing you. That's mercy, not mere correction.SONG:God of Wonders - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJy2Pk5ewSI&list=RDpJy2Pk5ewSI&start_radio=1
https://wels2.blob.core.windows.net/daily-devotions/20260922dev.mp3 Listen to Devotion [Jonah] prayed to the LORD, “Isn’t this what I said, LORD, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing 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. Now, LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.” Jonah 4:2-3 Too Much Grace Jonah was a messenger God sent to Nineveh, a city known for its wickedness, cruelty, and immorality. Jonah’s message was, “God is going to destroy Nineveh because of your wickedness.” Jonah was from Israel, a nation that witnessed that wickedness firsthand. You would think he would be eager to go and tell them that God was going to destroy them. But instead, he ran the other way. After Jonah fled, was swallowed by a fish, and was spit out on the shore, he finally went where God told him to. And when he preached, something amazing happened. The people were sorry for what they did and prayed for God’s mercy. When he saw this, God decided not to destroy them. Instead, he had mercy on them. And Jonah’s reaction? “It’s not fair. I knew you weren’t going to punish them. That’s just the kind of gracious, compassionate God you are. You show too much grace.” Do we ever think like that? Wickedness spreads like an unstoppable virus. It infects our schools, our communities, even our families. We experience hatred and hurt from other people. And hatred grows in our hearts against them. We don’t want to forgive, and we don’t think God should either. But if God’s grace had limits, if there are things God won't or can’t forgive, will he forgive me for holding a grudge or harboring hatred in my heart? Will his grace reach the selfish corners of my heart that only God can see? Praise God that his grace is for all! It is never too much. It is just what we need. Because of God's grace, we are forgiven. That’s great news to hear and to share! Prayer: God, thank you for loving and forgiving me in your amazing grace. Amen. Daily Devotions is brought to you by WELS. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.
https://wels2.blob.core.windows.net/daily-devotions/20260922dev.mp3 Listen to Devotion [Jonah] prayed to the LORD, “Isn’t this what I said, LORD, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing 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. Now, LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.” Jonah 4:2-3 Too Much Grace Jonah was a messenger God sent to Nineveh, a city known for its wickedness, cruelty, and immorality. Jonah’s message was, “God is going to destroy Nineveh because of your wickedness.” Jonah was from Israel, a nation that witnessed that wickedness firsthand. You would think he would be eager to go and tell them that God was going to destroy them. But instead, he ran the other way. After Jonah fled, was swallowed by a fish, and was spit out on the shore, he finally went where God told him to. And when he preached, something amazing happened. The people were sorry for what they did and prayed for God’s mercy. When he saw this, God decided not to destroy them. Instead, he had mercy on them. And Jonah’s reaction? “It’s not fair. I knew you weren’t going to punish them. That’s just the kind of gracious, compassionate God you are. You show too much grace.” Do we ever think like that? Wickedness spreads like an unstoppable virus. It infects our schools, our communities, even our families. We experience hatred and hurt from other people. And hatred grows in our hearts against them. We don’t want to forgive, and we don’t think God should either. But if God’s grace had limits, if there are things God won't or can’t forgive, will he forgive me for holding a grudge or harboring hatred in my heart? Will his grace reach the selfish corners of my heart that only God can see? Praise God that his grace is for all! It is never too much. It is just what we need. Because of God's grace, we are forgiven. That’s great news to hear and to share! Prayer: God, thank you for loving and forgiving me in your amazing grace. Amen. Daily Devotions is brought to you by WELS. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.
https://wels2.blob.core.windows.net/daily-devotions/20260922dev.mp3 Listen to Devotion [Jonah] prayed to the LORD, “Isn’t this what I said, LORD, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing 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. Now, LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.” Jonah 4:2-3 Too Much Grace Jonah was a messenger God sent to Nineveh, a city known for its wickedness, cruelty, and immorality. Jonah’s message was, “God is going to destroy Nineveh because of your wickedness.” Jonah was from Israel, a nation that witnessed that wickedness firsthand. You would think he would be eager to go and tell them that God was going to destroy them. But instead, he ran the other way. After Jonah fled, was swallowed by a fish, and was spit out on the shore, he finally went where God told him to. And when he preached, something amazing happened. The people were sorry for what they did and prayed for God’s mercy. When he saw this, God decided not to destroy them. Instead, he had mercy on them. And Jonah’s reaction? “It’s not fair. I knew you weren’t going to punish them. That’s just the kind of gracious, compassionate God you are. You show too much grace.” Do we ever think like that? Wickedness spreads like an unstoppable virus. It infects our schools, our communities, even our families. We experience hatred and hurt from other people. And hatred grows in our hearts against them. We don’t want to forgive, and we don’t think God should either. But if God’s grace had limits, if there are things God won't or can’t forgive, will he forgive me for holding a grudge or harboring hatred in my heart? Will his grace reach the selfish corners of my heart that only God can see? Praise God that his grace is for all! It is never too much. It is just what we need. Because of God's grace, we are forgiven. That’s great news to hear and to share! Prayer: God, thank you for loving and forgiving me in your amazing grace. Amen. Daily Devotions is brought to you by WELS. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.
Jonah 3:10 - 4:113:10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that 3he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.4 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. 2 And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. 3 Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” 4 And the Lord said, “Do you do well to be angry?”5 Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city. 6 Now the Lord God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. 7 But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.” 9 But God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” And he said, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.” 10 And the Lord said, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. 11 And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”Sermon QuestionsRead Jonah 4:1-4. Jonah's surface anger was at Nineveh, but the real anger was at God ("for I knew..."). When you get angry, what is usually underneath it? What did you snap at this week, and was it really about that?God asks Jonah, "Do you do well to be angry?" and doesn't hand down a verdict. Why might God have chosen a question? When has a question, not a rebuke, exposed something in your own heart?The sermon said anger is like a root that becomes a shoot and then a tree, and that we tend to dismiss it as a small flesh wound. Where have you seen your anger grow over time, and how has it affected people you love?Who are your "Ninevites," the people you've decided don't deserve grace? What makes it hard to want mercy for them?The sermon said that "you will never give grace to your Ninevites until you realize that, before a holy God, you were a Ninevite yourself." Jonah rested on a hill to watch judgment, while Jesus was lifted up on a hill to take it. How does the cross change the way you see the people you're angry with?Optional challenge to close: Name your Nineveh this week, and do one small, deliberately kind thing for them, not because they've earned it but because you didn't earn what Jesus gave you. Check in on how it went next time you meet.
https://wels2.blob.core.windows.net/ece-devotions/20260921ECME.mp3 Listen to Devotion When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened. But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord, “Isn't this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing 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. Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.” But the Lord replied, “Is it right for you to be angry?” Jonah 3:10-4:4 Grace is Amazing I have a confession to make: I am a true crime junkie. I love a good story about a terrible criminal who gets caught by law enforcement, is found guilty by a jury of his peers, and ultimately pays the price for his crime. Justice is served, and the bad guy gets punished. It's so satisfying by worldly standards. It's fair. Now imagine that a criminal is on trial for a crime and that all the evidence lines up nice and neatly. There is no reasonable doubt as to who did it and why. The case seems open-and-shut to all those witnessing the trial. Then the judge does something unprecedented. He stands and announces to those present, “This criminal has admitted his guilt and said he is sorry. He is forgiven and free to go.” This scenario is laughable in our society. Our justice system cannot and will not work this way. That would not be fair! No one should get to just walk away after breaking the law. Chaos would ensue and the public would simply not stand for it. In Jonah chapter 4:1-11, the prophet Jonah has just left Nineveh. He had confronted the people about their sin, as God commanded him. Jonah had told them of the of the consequences God had in store for them. The people of Nineveh responded by repenting; they turned from their sin and fasted to show their sorrow over their sin. The looked to God for mercy. In his great love and compassion, God “relented and did not bring on them the destruction He had threatened,” as we read in chapter 3:10. What an ideal outcome to Jonah's mission for the Lord! But Jonah disagreed. In Chapter 4:1, we read, “But to Jonah this seemed very wrong and he became angry.” Jonah was looking for justice to be rained down on the sinful people of Nineveh. Even though he knew that God is gracious and compassionate, Jonah went outside the city, sat down, and waited to witness God's wrath. To Jonah, that would be only fair for such a sinful city. God is not fair by our human standards. What an incredible blessing that is! If God were fair, there would be no Savior, no forgiveness, and no hope of heaven. If God were fair, hell would be our only future. It's what each of us deserves because we are unable to meet the standard of perfection that is required by our almighty Creator. But that's why God's grace is amazing. Thanks be to God that his love and compassion are so big that he sent His Son to be punished in our place! Prayer: Dear God, Your love for us is so much bigger than we could ever ask or imagine. Help us always to remain thankful for your grace. Help us to forgive others when they sin against us in the same way that you forgive us. Grant us the ability to teach our students to forgive and forget in the spirit of your grace so that they, too, can live your example. In your name we pray. Amen Early Childhood Ministry Educator’s (ECME) Devotions are brought to you by WELS Commission on Lutheran Schools. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.
Finishing the Story Pt. 3 – Weak When Strong By Louie Marsh, 9-20-2026 1) The Kingdom of God is wherever Jesus is LORD. "18He said therefore, "What is the kingdom of God like? (Luke 13:18a, ESV) The Kingdom of God in the New Testament refers to the sovereign rule, reign, or kingship of God—His active, dynamic authority exercised over creation, human lives, and history—rather than primarily a geographical territory or political state. It is the central theme of Jesus' preaching and teaching. · Different kingdoms – different RULES. 2) The Kingdom of God appears WEAK. "31He put another parable before them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. 32It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches."" (Matthew 13:31–32, ESV) 3) The Kingdom of God is strong through WEAKNESS. "8Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 9But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12:8–10, ESV) · The Kingdom is this way so that only God is GLORIFIED. "8For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. 9Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead." (2 Corinthians 1:8–9, ESV) 4) The Kingdom of God always PREVAILS in the end. …but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches."" (Matthew 13:31–32, ESV) "18And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." (Matthew 16:18, ESV) 5) Where do I go from here? · I must have faith in small BEGINNINGS. "8" 'I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name." (Revelation 3:8, ESV) The mustard seed symbolizes how the kingdom of heaven starts small and seemingly insignificant. · I should prepare to be FRUSTRATED. "1But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. 2And he prayed to the Lord and said, "O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. 3Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live." 4And the Lord said, "Do you do well to be angry?"" (Jonah 4:1–4, ESV) · Remember in the Kingdom I need faith and PATIENCE:. Just as the mustard seed requires time to grow, believers are encouraged to have faith and patience as they witness the unfolding of God's kingdom in their lives and communities.
Season 24: Jonah | Should I Not Have Compassion?Lesson One - Go To NinevehWatch us ONLINE! Click here!Show Notes:Jonah contains one of the Bible's shortest prophecies, spoken by an unlikely, rebellious prophet. To begin this new season, “Should I Not Have Compassion?” we will share key background information about the book of Jonah.Nineveh was not the capital of Assyria, but it became Assyria's glorious capital 60 years later, under King Sennacherib around 700 BC.However, Assyria was Israel's brutal enemy, a nation known for cruelty and violence. Nineveh was a massive, important regional city. Jonah wasn't merely avoiding an inconvenient assignment. He was being asked to deliver a message of mercy to people he likely believed deserved judgment rather than grace.The word of the Lord came to Jonah, son of Amittai: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before Me.” But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. Jonah 1:1-3Song: All Because of Mercy - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6t-JDBZvoyc&list=RD6t-JDBZvoyc&start_radio=1
The Gospel is one of the most disorienting parables Jesus ever told. A landowner keeps going out throughout the day, hiring workers even at the eleventh hour, and pays everyone the same. The all-day workers grumble. The landowner responds with what may be the sharpest question in any of the parables.Track One brings us the manna in the wilderness — daily bread, given as needed, no more, no less. Track Two brings us Jonah's anger at God's mercy toward Nineveh, and the book's astonishing final image: God's concern for a great city and also its animals. The Epistle gives us Paul from prison, torn between longing for Christ and remaining for the sake of the churches — with the famous line, “for me to live is Christ and to die is gain.”For preachers continuing a series: last week's parable of the unforgiving servant exposed what we do when we forget the scale of mercy we have been shown. This week's parable of the vineyard workers exposes what we do when we cannot bear that mercy being shown to others. The Matthew arc keeps turning the mirror slowly.Photo by Tim Mossholder on UnsplashThe ReadingsExodus 16:2–15First Reading (Track One) — Manna in the WildernessSummaryThe Israelites, only weeks out of Egypt, complain against Moses and Aaron. They would rather have died in Egypt where they had food than starve in the wilderness. Moses hears the complaint as ultimately directed at God, not at him. God tells Moses that bread will rain from heaven — each family gathering just what they need for the day. That evening, quails cover the camp; in the morning, a fine flaky substance appears on the ground. The people look at it and ask, “What is it?” Moses tells them: it is the bread the Lord has given you to eat.Key Ideas for Preaching* The people's complaint is honest. They are hungry and afraid. It is easy to preach against them for lacking faith, but that misses what the text is doing. God does not scold them; God feeds them. Where in your congregation have people been shamed for honest complaint when what they needed was bread?* The manna comes daily. Not weekly. Not monthly. Daily. And no one can hoard it — later verses tell us it spoiled when they tried. What might it look like to preach a faith that is fed each day, not stockpiled?* The people's first response to the bread is “what is it?” They do not recognize it. God's provision does not always come in a form we would have anticipated. Where in your congregation might people be missing manna because they were expecting something else?Significant Cautions* Do not preach the manna in a way that shames people who are food insecure. The text is about God's provision to people who genuinely did not have bread, not a metaphor for what to do when a delivery is late.* “Daily bread” is a phrase Jesus takes up in the Lord's Prayer. That connection is worth noting, but the manna story stands on its own.Psalm 105:1–6, 37–45The Psalm (Track One) — God's Provision in the WildernessSummaryA section of the great remembering psalm, now focused on the exodus and wilderness. God brought Israel out with silver and gold. God spread a cloud for covering, gave quails and bread from heaven, opened the rock so water gushed out. God brought the people into the promised land. The closing is a single hallelujah.Key Ideas for Preaching* The psalm remembers not just the dramatic deliverance but the daily provision — quails, bread, water from a rock. God's care for the people included every meal. What might your sermon do with a picture of God's faithfulness that includes the ordinary?* The psalm's mode is remembering. The Israelites are being asked to keep the story alive across generations. Where in your congregation is the practice of shared remembering going quiet, and how might this psalm invite its recovery?Significant Cautions* The psalm's cheerful retrospect flattens a lot of pain in the wilderness generation's experience. Do not preach the calm summary as if it were the whole truth of what those people lived.Jonah 3:10–4:11First Reading (Track Two) — Jonah's Anger at God's MercySummaryGod sees that Nineveh has turned from its evil ways, and God does not destroy the city. Jonah is furious. He prays a bitter prayer: this is exactly why I fled to Tarshish in the first place — I knew you were a gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. Jonah asks God to take his life. God asks, “Is it right for you to be angry?” Jonah goes outside the city and sulks. God provides a bush for shade, which Jonah loves. Then a worm attacks the bush; it dies; Jonah is again ready to die. God asks: is it right for you to be angry about the bush? And the book ends with God's question, unanswered: you are concerned about a bush; should I not be concerned about a great city with more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who do not know their right hand from their left — and also many animals?Key Ideas for Preaching* Jonah's honesty is remarkable. He does not pretend his anger is righteous. He says plainly: I ran away because I knew you would show mercy, and I did not want you to. Where in your congregation has anger at God's generosity been hiding, unspoken, behind more acceptable feelings?* Jonah's theology is not wrong — his summary of God's character (gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love) is exactly right. What has gone wrong is that he does not want that God to be that God toward these people. What does it look like to preach a Jonah-shaped hypocrisy — the theology we affirm about God we do not want extended to certain neighbors?* God's argument at the end is unforgettable. You cared about a bush you did not plant. I care about a city with a hundred and twenty thousand people. And also many animals. That final phrase is a stunning small note. God's concern is bigger than the human world. Where in your congregation has God's concern been imagined as narrower than the text describes?* The book of Jonah ends on God's question, unanswered. The reader is left to answer it themselves. What might your sermon do with the fact that Jonah is silent at the end, and we are asked to speak in his place?Significant Cautions* The book of Jonah is often preached as a story about a big fish. Do not spend the sermon on the fish. The fish is a subplot; the point is God's mercy toward people Jonah wanted destroyed.* Do not use Jonah as a stand-in for Judaism (a common Christian misreading). Jonah is a specific prophet with a specific problem, and the book is Israel's own honest self-critique. Handle carefully.Psalm 145:1–8The Psalm (Track Two) — Gracious and MercifulSummaryA psalm of praise. Every day I will bless you. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. One generation shall laud your works to another. The psalmist meditates on God's greatness and steadfast love. The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love.Key Ideas for Preaching* “One generation shall laud your works to another” — the psalm assumes praise is handed down. Where in your congregation is the passing-down going quiet, and how might your sermon speak to grandparents, parents, and young adults about it?* The psalm's picture of God — gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love — is the same picture Jonah quotes bitterly. The psalmist praises what Jonah resented. What does it look like to preach the difference between celebrating God's mercy and hating that God's mercy extends to others?Significant Cautions* “Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised” has been used as an empty affirmation. Handle the language so that it lands as specific, not generic.Philippians 1:21–30The Epistle — To Live Is Christ; Live Worthy of the GospelSummaryPaul writes from prison, torn between two things he wants. For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain. If he continues in the body, he will keep laboring fruitfully for the churches. If he dies, he will be with Christ, which is far better. He is hard pressed between the two, but thinks it more necessary for him to remain, for their sake. So he expects to stay — for their progress and joy in faith. Meanwhile, he asks them to live in a manner worthy of the gospel: standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind, not intimidated by opponents. And he names something surprising: they have been granted the privilege not only of believing in Christ but of suffering for him.Key Ideas for Preaching* Paul's ambivalence is remarkable. He is not pretending to want death for spiritual show, nor pretending he does not want to be with Christ. He holds both honestly. What might your sermon do with a picture of Christian maturity that includes real desire for what comes next without contempt for what is now?* “In a manner worthy of the gospel” is not a call to moral perfection. Paul's specifics are relational — standing side by side, striving with one mind, not intimidated. Where in your congregation has “worthy of the gospel” been reduced to personal morality when Paul was describing communal courage?* “The privilege of suffering for him” is easy to skip past. Paul is describing suffering not as punishment but as proof that we belong to Christ. This is dangerous language when misused. But rightly heard, it names something real about what discipleship costs. Where has your congregation been surprised by suffering it did not expect its faith to cost?Significant Cautions* “To live is Christ, to die is gain” has been quoted in ways that shame grieving people for their grief. Paul is not saying we should not mourn death. He is naming his own particular readiness in a particular moment.* “The privilege of suffering” has been badly misused — again, to justify staying in situations of abuse and exploitation. Paul is talking about the cost of his own faithful witness, not endorsing anyone else's mistreatment.Matthew 20:1–16The Gospel — The Workers in the VineyardSummaryA landowner goes out early in the morning to hire day laborers for his vineyard. He agrees with them on a wage — a denarius, the usual day's pay — and sends them to work. He goes out again at nine, sees others idle in the marketplace, and hires them, promising to pay them what is right. Same at noon. Same at three. At five o'clock — one hour before the workday ends — he goes out again and finds still more people standing around. He hires them too. When evening comes, he tells his manager to pay everyone, beginning with the last hired. Each five o'clock worker receives a denarius. So do the three o'clock, noon, and nine o'clock workers. So do the workers who have been there since dawn. They grumble against the landowner: these last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat. The landowner responds: friend, I have done you no wrong. You agreed to a denarius. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or is your eye evil because I am generous? So the last will be first, and the first will be last.Key Ideas for Preaching* The landowner keeps going back out. He does not stop hiring at nine or at noon or at three. He keeps going out to find people who are still standing idle. This is not a story about a landowner who accidentally overpays some latecomers. This is a story about a landowner who has been actively seeking workers all day. What does it mean for your congregation to hear that God is still going out, still seeking, still bringing people in — even at the eleventh hour?* The all-day workers' complaint is understandable. They worked longer; they should be paid more. Their argument is not stupid. It is what almost anyone would say. The parable is not shaming them for the logic; it is inviting them into a different kind of accounting. Where in your congregation has fairness-as-comparison quietly displaced generosity-as-gift?* The landowner's question — “is your eye evil because I am generous?” — is one of the sharpest in the parables. In the ancient world, “an evil eye” meant envy — the kind of envy that grows dark and pained when it sees someone else's good fortune. The workers' pain is not really that they were paid too little; the landowner has just proven they were paid what was promised. Their pain is that other people were paid what those people had not earned. What might your sermon do to help a congregation notice their own comparison patterns without shaming them?* “The last will be first, and the first will be last.” Read alongside the rest of the parable, this line is more of an invitation than a threat — a reframing of what it means to be first at all. God's economy is not a race with winners and losers. It is a vineyard with an unexpected wage. What would change in your congregation if that were actually believed?Significant Cautions* The parable is often preached as if the all-day workers are simply villains. They are not. They are people who have been treated with real fairness (they got what they agreed to) and are struggling with the disorienting sight of generosity toward others. Preach with compassion.* Do not press the parable into a political program about labor economics or wage policy. It is a parable about the kingdom of God, not a policy paper. This does not mean it has no political implications — it does — but do not reduce it to those.* “The last will be first” has been misused as revenge language against successful or established Christians. That is not the parable's tone. The landowner is not humiliating anyone; he is redefining what first and last mean.Thematic ConnectionsThe Gospel is the natural center — a parable about God's disorienting generosity and what it exposes in us.On Track One, the manna in the wilderness pairs with the Gospel in a specific way. Both texts are about God's daily provision — bread each morning, a denarius at the end of the day. Both refuse the logic of stockpiling. And both assume that God's generosity is not measured by our labor. The manna comes freely; the denarius comes freely.On Track Two, Jonah's anger at God's mercy pairs directly with the all-day workers' grumbling. Both stories name the same spiritual problem: it is one thing to celebrate God's generosity toward us, and another thing entirely to accept it being extended to people we did not think deserved it. Jonah names it in his prayer; the workers name it in their grumbling. The invitation of both texts is the same — to let God's generosity expand rather than contract our own hearts.Philippians 1 sits inside the day as a picture of what it looks like when Paul's own life is shaped by this kind of generosity. Paul is torn between two goods — being with Christ and remaining for the churches — and lets his life be shaped by what is best for others, not what is best for himself. That is what generosity of spirit produces.Psalm 145's picture of God — gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love — is the same picture Jonah quotes bitterly. Both readings hold up the mirror: what we praise about God, do we resent in God when it extends to those we did not choose?For preachers continuing a series: last week the parable of the unforgiving servant exposed what we do when we forget the scale of mercy we have been shown. This week the parable of the vineyard workers exposes what we do when we cannot bear that mercy being shown to others. The Matthew arc keeps turning the mirror slowly. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lectionarypro.substack.com/subscribe
In this episode of Intermittent Fasting Stories, Gin talks to Cindy Tarshish from Minnetonka, MN.Join Gin in the new Fast Feast Repeat app for The Grown-Up Year: 52 Weeks to Listen, Play, and Nourish, as well as a growing collection of intermittent fasting resources. Go to app.fastfeastrepeat.com to join us or go to the App Store and download the Fast Feast Repeat app, available for both iPhone and Android.Are you ready to take your intermittent fasting lifestyle to the next level? There's nothing better than community to help with that. In the Delay, Don't Deny community we all embrace the clean fast, and there's just the right support for you as you live your intermittent fasting lifestyle. You can connect directly with Gin in the Ask Gin group, and she will answer all of your questions personally. If you're new to intermittent fasting or recommitting to the IF lifestyle, join the 28-Day FAST Start group. After your fast start, join us for support in The 1st Year group. Need tips for long term maintenance? We have a place for that! There are many more useful spaces beyond these, and you can interact in as many as you like. Visit ginstephens.com/community to join us. An annual membership costs just over a dollar a week when you do the math. If you aren't ready to fully commit for a year, join for a month and you can cancel at any time. If you know you'll want to stay forever, we also have a lifetime membership option available. IF is free. You don't need to join our community to fast. But if you're looking for support from a community of like-minded IFers, we are here for you at ginstephens.com/community. Cindy is an expert in the Americans with Disabilities Act, and she works with agencies, employers, and people with disabilities. Cindy shares her journey from diet brain to calm weight maintenance, highlighting how intermittent fasting transformed her life without the need for costly programs or restrictive rules. Cindy found success by tuning into her body's signals instead of following the latest diet fads. She explains how she has maintained her ideal weight for nearly four years—despite life's chaos, travel, and temptation—by embracing flexibility and listening to her body's needs. Gin and Cindy discuss common misconceptions about fasting, they explore how real food and food quality matter more than calorie counting, and they also uncover the importance of ditching diet brain for good. Cindy shares how her approach supports mental wellbeing, body acceptance, and long-term health—without obsessing over every calorie or food noise. At the end of the episode, she tells new IFers not to compare themselves to others, but instead know that this is your journey. Join Gin in the new Fast Feast Repeat app for The Grown-Up Year: 52 Weeks to Listen, Play, and Nourish, as well as a growing collection of intermittent fasting resources. Go to app.fastfeastrepeat.com to join us or go to the App Store and download the Fast Feast Repeat app, available for both iPhone and Android.Get Gin's books at: https://www.ginstephens.com/get-the-books.html. Good news! The second edition of Delay, Don't Deny is now available in ebook, paperback, hardback, and audiobook. This is the book that you'll want to start with or share with others, as it is a simple introduction to IF. It's been updated to include the clean fast, an easier to understand and more thorough description of ADF and all of your ADF options, and an all new success stories section. When shopping, make sure to get the second edition, which has a 2024 publication date. The audiobook for the second edition is available now! Join Gin's community! Go to: ginstephens.com/communityDo you enjoy Intermittent Fasting Stories? You'll probably also like Gin's other podcast with cohost Sheri Bullock: Fast. Feast. Repeat. Intermittent Fasting for Life. Find it wherever you listen to podcasts. Share your intermittent fasting stories with Gin: gin@intermittentfastingstories.comVisit Gin's website at: ginstephens.com Check out Gin's Favorite Things at http://www.ginstephens.com/gins-favorite-things.htmlSubscribe to Gin's YouTube Channel! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_frGNiTEoJ88rZOwvuG2CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
God Empowers the Weak (2) (audio) David Eells, 9/9/26 God wants us to trust Him alone. (Jer.17:5) Thus saith the Lord: Cursed is the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. God calls this “departing from the Lord” when you trust in the arm of the flesh. That's departing from the Lord. When you do it the way the world does it, when you don't have any difference, any separation, any sanctification between you and the world, that's departing from the Lord. (Jer.17:6) For he shall be like the heath (or like a tumbleweed) in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, a salt land and not inhabited. (7) Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose trust the Lord is. (8) For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, that spreadeth out its roots by the river, and shall not fear when heat cometh, but its leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit. Now that sounds like the wilderness that's coming, doesn't it? And he's telling you who will make it through and prosper and be blessed going through it. It's the person who puts his trust in the Lord. But the person who trusts in the “arm of the flesh” is going to be blown away like a tumbleweed. That's why we're preparing to get in the Ark now. There's a flood coming that's going to take a lot of people away and it's not only the fault of the teachers, but the people who listen to them because it's the easy way. There's no death-to-self in it; there's no becoming like a child in it. God is preparing to show you there's a difference between His method and the method of the world. (2Ch.16:11) And, behold, the acts of Asa, first and last, lo, they are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel. (12) And in the thirty and ninth year of his reign Asa was diseased in his feet; his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians. (13) And Asa slept with his fathers, and died in the one and fortieth year of his reign. (14) And they buried him in his own sepulchres, which he had hewn out for himself in the city of David … What offended God here is that Asa sought his help from the physicians and not from the Lord, meaning that there is a difference. But Asa's problem was not in just that area. He began to trust in the arm of the flesh in so many things. When Asa ruled over Judah, Judah was at war with the northern 10 tribes. (2Ch.16:1) In the six and thirtieth year of the reign of Asa, Baasha king of Israel went up against Judah, and built Ramah, that he might not suffer any one to go out or come in to Asa king of Judah. (2) Then Asa brought out silver and gold out of the treasures of the house of the Lord and of the king's house, and sent to Ben-Hadad king of Syria, that dwelt at Damascus, saying, (3) [There is] a league between me and thee, as [there was] between my father and thy father: behold, I have sent thee silver and gold; go, break thy league with Baasha king of Israel, that he may depart from me. Judah was bribing the Syrians to break their league with the northern 10 tribes of Israel, so that they could whip them. Well, Asa made a big mistake because he robbed God in order to bribe these people. He looted out of the Lord's treasuries and hired himself some insurance. He took God's money to do this. And you know, we do the same thing a lot of times. If the enemy seems too big, many times we'll take God's money to try to whittle him down a little bit. That's not permitted, and God rebuked Asa for it. In the first place, Asa was bowing down to the god of fear because the enemy was bigger than he was. But throughout history, the enemy was always bigger than God's people when they won, so he shouldn't have bowed down to fear in the first place. In the second place, Asa should not have used God's money. Did you know that all of your money is God's money? It's not our money, so Asa shouldn't have used God's money to buy insurance against his enemy or to strengthen himself against his enemy. But he didn't know God's plan. God had a great plan. (2Ch.16:4) And Ben-Hadad hearkened unto king Asa, and sent the captains of his armies against the cities of Israel (the northern 10 tribes); and they smote Ijon, and Dan, and Abel-maim, and all the store-cities of Naphtali. (5) And it came to pass, that when Baasha heard thereof, that he left off building Ramah, and let his work cease. (6) Then Asa the king took all Judah; and they carried away the stones of Ramah, and the timber thereof, wherewith Baasha had builded; and he built there with Geba and Mizpah. Look! He had success! He bribed the Syrians to break their league with his enemy and it worked. You'd say, “Well, he accomplished what he wanted to do. In a way, he won the war.” Asa used God's money to do something that worked; he hired insurance and it worked, but God didn't see it that way. (2Ch.16:7) And at that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah, and said unto him, Because thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and hast not relied on the Lord thy God, therefore is the host of the king of Syria escaped out of thy hand. You see what God was planning? He had planned to give to Judah both Israel and Syria. He was going to let Judah conquer both of them. Instead, Judah got worried, and they bribed Syria to break their pact with Israel, so that they would only have one to conquer. However, God said, “You've made a mistake. I was going to give them both to you. It would have cost you nothing and I was going to give them both to you.” That's the way it is when we run for our insurances and our assurances of the world in our strengthening ourselves. See, God wants to give it all to us. Look. (2Ch.16:7) ... Because thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and hast not relied on the Lord thy God, therefore is the host of the king of Syria escaped out of thy hand. (8) Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubim a huge host, with chariots and horsemen exceeding many? yet, because thou didst rely on the Lord, he delivered them into thy hand. (9) For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect towards him. Herein thou hast done foolishly; for from henceforth thou shalt have wars. Do you understand what God was saying here? He was saying, “Look, if you'd have done it My way, you wouldn't have had to conquer this problem again. This would have been the end of it. But, okay, since you did it your way, you're going to have wars from here on.” So we won't necessarily have to fight if we just do it God's way the first time. God would have given the whole enemy, vastly outnumbered as Judah was, He would have given all of them to Israel, but Judah used money to make themselves strong. God gives you His help for free, but the alliance that you make with the world using your money is costing you something. When you make yourself strong with the strength of the world with your money, which is really God's money, it is taking from God. Think about that now. It's not your money; it's God's money. You're taking God's money and you're giving it to the devil's kingdom to make yourself strong against an enemy that God would give you anyway and give you for free. An alliance with the world is not God's method, and it wasn't His plan for Asa. That was Asa's problem. Asa had fallen into this trap of putting his trust in the arm of the flesh and it made Asa angry when God rebuked him. (2Ch.16:10) Then Asa was wroth with the seer, and put him in the prison-house; for he was in a rage with him because of this thing…. Many of God's people are doing the same thing with their money when they bow down to the gods of insurance. What are you doing when you buy insurance? Isn't it because you don't believe the Word of God? “Oh, we need insurance,” you say. Oh, really? Think about why we need insurance. Is it not because you trust the security insurance companies provide with their large financial reserves? You're trusting in them in case something happens, as if God isn't on His throne. God knows things are going to happen. He also knows He's going to provide. So what you're doing is robbing God's money and giving it to another god. I've hardly ever seen a greater miracle than when God told me to get rid of my insurance. And, let me tell you, when I called my insurance man and got rid of my house and car insurance, it really shocked him. But I don't think it was maybe a week or two later that I saw one of the biggest miracles I've ever seen, and God proved to me that dropping my worldly insurance was His way for me because He blessed me so abundantly. I had pulled my car into this little old quickie supermarket and gone inside when I heard this big crash. The whole front of the store, all the glass in front of the store, just shook. A car had run up in that parking lot and slammed right into my car, and I had just gotten rid of all of my insurance. It slammed right into my little Datsun station wagon that wasn't but a little tin box anyway. I knew something had happened when I looked out of that store, but when I went outside, I tell you what, I was just totally awed by the power of God. This big old Buick had just wrapped itself around the corner of my Datsun station wagon. I mean hit it right on the plastic tail lens of my Datsun, and it just notched the front of that Buick from top to bottom. The hood, the grille, the bumper- they were all caved in about a foot. The plastic tail lens of my Datsun had caved in that car from top to bottom. It was an old Buick, too – an old heavy car built like a tank; hit my car and it literally wrapped around my car. When I went outside, the driver had backed up about a foot and was out there looking at it with his eyes just as big as saucers. I said, “Oh, man!” If I hadn't seen that, I'd have never believed it because it just totaled out the whole front of his car. And there wasn't a scratch on my car. While he was standing there looking at it, I took my thumbnail and I scraped the paint off of the plastic tail lens where his hood hit my wrap-around tail lens on the corner of that Datsun station wagon. That was the only mark on my car! No, he couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it, either. But you see, I didn't have any insurance. I'd put myself in the hands of the Lord. You know, I'd become like a child, in a way, because I put myself in the hands of the Lord. Now we have to obey the law, but at this time in Louisiana, we didn't have to have any insurance, and I didn't have any insurance. Nobody ever collected off of me, but boy, I collected off some other folks. I don't say that to be bragging; I'm just saying God did miracles for me because of that. In every way that I didn't have insurance, He was my assurance. Well, I wasn't even thinking right when I saw this; I was just awed. I mean, the guy got in his car and took off, and after he left, I thought, “Boy, I missed the best chance in the world of witnessing to somebody,” so I jumped in my car and caught him at the next red light. I got out and I witnessed to him. I told him that was God! I said, “God did that because I didn't have any insurance.” When I said, “It's a miracle,” he said, “It must be.” I remember the first thing he said when I went outside and looked at the car. He said something like, “Boy, they sure must build them better than they used to.” You know that was totally stupid. His car would have cut a path right through the middle of my car, and he wouldn't have been scratched. It would have been the other way around. Those old Buicks were tough, and mine you could dent with your elbow. A Datsun station wagon? You could knock the car tail lens out with your elbow. I'm telling you there's just nothing there. This was one of those positions I was put in where I was made so weak and the situation I was facing was so strong that it was totally ridiculous. But I'd just gotten rid of all my insurance. When you put yourself in the hands of God, He takes that very seriously. Whatever you do and however it turns out, when you put yourself in the hands of God, you're going to be the blessed one. Another time when I got in a wreck, God didn't protect my vehicle, but I was so glad He didn't. I had a little Toyota truck that I loved. I was going down the interstate on my way to work, and I saw the car in front of me slowing down. The whole line of traffic was slowing down because somebody was stopped in the middle of a bridge, and I was slowing down, but the fourth guy back was looking off down the river instead of looking at the bridge, and he just scooped us all up. Bang! Bang! Bang! It was just one right after another. Well, the guy in front of me was hurt really badly. He had slammed into the steering wheel, and it jammed up in his chest, and he had lung blood just gushing out of his face. I've shot enough deer to know that it was lung blood. It was bright red because it has a lot of oxygen in it. So I got up in his cab, and I pulled him out, and I laid him down on the concrete there beside his truck, with his head on the curb like it was a pillow. And the lung blood literally piled up from the road up to his face. That's how it was coming out of him. It came out jelly-like. I'm just telling you what a miracle God did. I knelt down there right beside him, and I prayed for him, and I commanded him to be healed in the name of Jesus. There were people all around me just looking at me doing that. Then the medics came and put him in the ambulance. I immediately left there and went home to call the hospital, and they told me there was nothing wrong with that man. The nurse said, “We turned him loose. He went home.” I said, “Lady, if you'd seen the pile of blood out there on the concrete, you'd know there was something wrong with him.” She said, “Well, I don't know, maybe he had a scratch in his nose or something, but there was nothing wrong with him we could see. We turned him loose and he went home.” Praise the Lord! Now, even though my truck was totaled out and at that time I didn't have any insurance, I got my truck fixed, and I still had $1500 in my pocket. It was a real blessing. I wouldn't have missed it for anything. Not only that, what really tickled me the most was this: While I was standing there beside the highway with that man's blood on my arms from picking him out of the cab, somebody from work also came by. It was a Christian guy and he knew I'd preached walking and speaking faith. He saw me standing there with that blood on my arms and said to me, “You'd better go to the hospital.” I kept saying, “There's nothing wrong with me,” but he thought I was speaking faith. He insisted, “You better go to the hospital!” I told him again, “There's really nothing wrong with me,” so he drove off, and he went and told my boss. When I got to work, he and my boss and a bunch of people were standing around waiting for me. They were giving me the once-over with their eyes. They were looking me up one side and down the other, and I told them, “Look, I told him there was nothing wrong with me. It wasn't me. It's the other guy who got hurt. There's nothing wrong with me.” It was really hard to convince them. They thought I was just speaking faith. Well, anyway, that time God fixed my truck. The next time, of course, we didn't have any insurance either and God bought my house with their insurance money. He plundered Egypt right on down and bought my house and car with their insurance money. You know, even in our ignorance, sometimes God blesses us, right? Sure, there is a worldly method that can bring success. Didn't Asa get success by bribing Assyrians to break their pact? But God didn't agree with his method. Asa's method worked. He conquered his enemy and, in fact, it broke the war off totally. But even though it was successful, Asa used God's money to do it. He used God's money to buy insurance. God didn't agree with it. This is not to condemn anybody. This is just so that we know for the future what God can do. God doesn't appreciate insurance because it's a false god. It's something that we're counting on for our salvation in the future. And here's something we really ought to think about: Suppose things come on us because we have insurance. I'll give you a good example that just stuck with me so well, which the Lord showed me. When I worked at Exxon, I was working with this guy on pumps in the field; his name was Melvin. One day we were working on this old slurry pump. It's an old crude pump. Crude is real bad about staining. It's almost like paint. If it gets on you, it will stain you almost permanently. And so I was working with him on this old pump, and the gauge on the top of the pump showed that it was empty, no pressure. The bleeders were open to make sure that there wasn't pressure, that when we broke into it, we wouldn't come into pressure. The bleeder was plugged and the gauge was broken, so when we were breaking into this thing, we were breaking into a pump that had pressure on it, and it was pressurized crude oil. So, he and I were working on the head of this pump and we'd taken all the bolts out, but the gasket was holding the head stuck onto the thing. I tapped on it a little bit, but it wouldn't break loose, and Melvin was standing right there beside it. I walked away from the pump to get a bigger hammer so I could rear back and hit that plate and it would break the gasket surface. The minute I walked away, the thing popped off and blew crude all over him. Just all over him. Now I'd been talking to Melvin about the Lord a lot. In fact, he'd been converted to the Lord by my testimony to him. But he said, “You planned that, didn't you?” It was like I just walked away and all of a sudden BOOM! and it was crude oil all over him. He was black from top to bottom, clothes and everything. And he said, “Well, don't worry about it; I have a change of clothes in my locker.” I said, “Oh, that's the reason you got it and I didn't get it. I don't have a change of clothes.” So God knew I couldn't afford to get that way because I didn't have a change of clothes. You get the point? Melvin prepared for a disaster and he got one. He had full faith that he was going to have one, and he got what he believed for. See, we don't realize that God is sovereign. If we prepare or we insure for disaster, He can bring one. Sometimes we think, “Oh, thank God I prepared!” But actually, we could have brought on the disaster in the first place. Melvin and I left this pump, and after he had changed his clothes and everything, we went to another pump. This is a very rare thing. Well, believe it or not, this other one was the same kind of pump, and almost the same thing happened. And I was standing right beside him this time, right beside him when the flange broke open. It was amazing to me how two things in a row could happen like this. The flange broke open and it squirted out of one place from that thing and drowned him from top to bottom with crude oil. But just before this happened, Melvin said, “You're never gonna get me like that again.” I said, “Melvin, you better watch those positive statements. God is listening.” We left right there and went over to work on this other pump. Sure enough, we had checked that one even with a rod, but evidently it was plugged up somewhere else- the bleeder with a rod and everything- and the plate just backed up just a little bit. It squirted a stream and hit Melvin and squirted him from top to bottom with crude oil. I said, “I told you about those positive statements, Melvin.” This was the second time. It was a good thing he was a good-natured guy, and he really was, but he got it twice in a row. Well, I'm sure he learned something from that because it was impossible for something like that to happen twice. It was just impossible for us to be working on the same kind of equipment because we worked on everything from turbines to motors to pumps to drivers, and here we were working on a reciprocating pump. There weren't even that many of them out there, and we worked on one right after another, and he got it on both. God takes offense when you insure yourself, and when you do, He causes you to lose the battle. In the last case we looked at, it seemed like they made the right decision because what Asa did worked. The only thing is, he robbed God by trusting in a false god. God even gave Asa temporary victory in it, but then the prophet came and prophesied to him that he wasn't going to get out of wars because of that. In other words, he didn't do it right that time, so another war was coming. We have to understand that if we don't do it God's way, we haven't gotten out of anything. Another trial just like it is right around the corner because these trials are put there for us to be overcomers and to overcome something in us that's wrong. And trusting in the world is wrong. It's offensive to God. (2Ch.20:35) And after this did Jehoshaphat the king of Judah join himself with Ahaziah the king of Israel; the same did very wickedly: (36) and he joined himself with him to make ships to go to Tarshish; and they made the ships in Ezion-geber. (37) Then Eliezer the son of Dodavahu of Mareshah prophesied against Jehoshaphat, saying, Because thou hast joined thyself with Ahaziah, the Lord hath destroyed thy works. And the ships were broken so that they were not able to go to Tarshish. (21:1) And Jehoshaphat slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David…. So we see that Jehoshaphat lost his life because of his insurance, and Asa lost his life because of his insurance. They trusted in something other than the Lord. You know, our help does not come from anything that we can do or anything that we can eat. (Exo.15:26) … I will put none of the diseases upon thee, which I have put upon the Egyptians: for I am the Lord that healeth thee. Help comes from God. Divine help comes from God. It doesn't come from anything we can eat. In fact, whatever you eat, God says it's good and to be received with thanksgiving, if it is sanctified through the Word of God and prayer (1 Timothy 4:4,5). See, God sanctifies your food. He makes it what you need. Whatever you eat, God will make it what you need, if you sanctify it through the Word of God in faith. As a matter of fact, I want to show you something. See, there are all kinds of insurance. We think, “Well, we're not getting enough vitamins.” That's not what the Bible says. Now we're not putting anybody under laws about vitamins; this is just an example. (1Ti.4:1) But the Spirit saith expressly, that in later times some shall fall away from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons, (2) through the hypocrisy of men that speak lies, branded in their own conscience as with a hot iron; (3) forbidding to marry, [and commanding] to abstain from meats…. Why do they command to abstain from meats? Because they say they're unclean. They say they're not healthy. Why does the world say that pork, for instance, is not healthy? Because they have statistics to prove that pork is not healthy. But who is that talking about? It's talking about the world. We are not the world. The statistics that work for them don't work for us. Paul says this is a doctrine of demons to us. Now, they have the statistics to prove that for the lost world, pork is not a healthy meat, but that's not us. Read what it says to Christians. We are the ones who are delivered from the curse. They are not delivered from the curse. We are delivered, so he calls it a doctrine of demons “to abstain from meats, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by them that believe and know the truth” (1Ti.4:3). See, if you know the truth, you can eat those meats because you're free from the curse, if you know the truth. If you really believe what he's saying, you can do this; it will have no bad effect upon you. He said they are “created to be received with thanksgiving.” God created them for that purpose for those who love the truth and know the truth. Only those people won't be hurt. These doctrines of demon teachers are going to tell you they're not all good; some of them you better stay away from, and they take that from Old Testament doctrine about unclean meats. But what did those unclean meats signify? Remember that Peter saw the unclean animals coming down out of Heaven on a sheet (Acts 10:11,12) and God said, “rise, Peter; kill and eat (Act.10:13). (14) But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common and unclean. (15) And a voice [came] unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, make not thou common.” And God did this to Peter three times (Acts 10:16) to make sure he got the point. The sheet came down out of Heaven. God said, “What I make clean, don't you make unclean.” Then three men showed up at his door, inviting him to come and preach the Gospel to the Gentiles (Acts 10:19). And when Peter went before the Gentiles, he said he perceived that they were acceptable to God (Acts 10:28) because of the revelation he had just received about the unclean animals. You see, men are beasts. Gentiles represent unclean animals in the Scriptures. We're not to partake of unclean animals. If you listen to unclean people, to Gentiles, pagans, their thinking gets into you and, in a way, you're eating what they're saying. Jesus said you're supposed to eat of His Body (John 6:51). His Body is clean. His Body represents the Word, right? He was the Word made flesh. If you eat His body, it goes into you and becomes you. It becomes a part of you. If you do that with an unclean person, you partake of their thinking, their word; it goes into you, and it still becomes a part of you. So God said not to partake of these unclean people, whom the unclean animals represented. That's the revelation that God gave to Peter. (1Ti.4:4) For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected…. Nothing. Because He said it's good. If God said it's good, it's good: “What I make clean don't you make unclean.” Remember what God said to Peter. “If I say it's clean, it's clean.” In fact, when the disciples were talking about eating only certain things, Jesus said, “not that which entereth into the mouth defileth the man; but that which proceedeth out of the mouth, this defileth the man (Mat.15:11). (18) But the things which proceed out of the mouth come forth out of the heart; and they defile the man. (19) For out of the heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, railings: (20) these are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not the man.” Out of his thinking are unclean thoughts. These defile man. It's not what he eats or his unwashed hands. It's what comes out of your mouth, what comes out of your thinking, that defiles you. Worry about that. Don't worry about eating pork is what He's saying here. (1Ti.4:4) For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, if it be received with thanksgiving: (5) for it is sanctified through the word of God and prayer. It is to be received with thanksgiving, for it is sanctified through the Word of God and prayer. “Sanctified” means “set apart unto God.” Can the world do that? No, they're under the curse. They can't do that. Jesus told the disciples, And into whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you (Luk.10:8). (Eat what is put before you.) (3) Go your ways; behold, I send you forth as lambs in the midst of wolves. (7) And in that same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they give: for the laborer is worthy of his hire. Go not from house to house. (8) And into whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you. (1Ti.4:6) If thou put the brethren in mind of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Christ Jesus, nourished in the words of the faith, and of the good doctrine which thou hast followed [until now:] (7) but refuse profane and old wives' fables…. And that's what these rules of men are. “Don't do this, don't do that; take this and take this,” and all that other garbage. That's not God's plan. That's just like the insurance. That is going after other gods. That's putting your trust in other things. You don't need that. Where does our health come from? It comes from the fact that Jesus became cursed for us so that we could be blessed (Galatians 3:13,14). He bore the whole curse. If I'm blessed and He took all of my curse, then I have to be healthy. I have to be delivered. That's where my faith should be. I am healthy. I don't have to go looking for health by listening to a bunch of quacks who think this drug or this herb or this vitamin is going to heal or keep me. No, that's just crazy, and it's just not Biblical. Our health comes from what Jesus did on the cross. It's something that you accept because of what happened; it's past tense. But people don't believe that's enough, so they think, “I have to do something else to get health. The cross is not enough. Jesus is not a good enough provider, so I'd better get insurance.” Stop and think about these things we're doing. We are trusting in false gods. It is offensive to God. Insurance is common sense to the world, but look at how many times the insurance is the very thing that caused God to bring the curse. And everybody says, “Oh, praise God! Thank God I had that insurance!” No. The curse came because you have insurance. Read here carefully and see if you get the point Jesus is making. (Mat.16:5) And the disciples came to the other side and forgot to take bread. (They didn't provide for themselves.) (6) And Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. (7) And they reasoned among themselves, saying, We took no bread. (8) And Jesus perceiving it said, O ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves, because ye have no bread? (9) Do ye not yet perceive, neither remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets ye took up? (10) Neither the seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many baskets ye took up? Do a little arithmetic in your mind here to figure this thing out. (11) How is it that ye do not perceive that I spake not to you concerning bread? But beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees? (12) Then understood they that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. See, before we look at this carefully, what was the teaching of the Pharisees and the Sadducees? Their teaching was the Law, salvation by works. In everything, salvation was by works to the people under the Law. Now, the disciples thought, “Well, we don't have provision, we didn't bring bread. We should have stored up some bread and brought it with us.” That was what they were thinking, but Jesus wasn't talking about that. He said, “Don't you remember the five loaves of the 5000 and how many baskets you took up?” And that was 12. Remember, there were 5000 people to feed. They had five loaves to feed them, and after the miracle, they took up 12 baskets of leftovers. That's a miracle, right? Jesus wants you to compare these two miracles. In the next miracle, He says, “the seven loaves of the 4000.” There were fewer people to feed and they started with more to feed them. They had seven loaves and the baskets they took up were only seven. In other words, when they put in more, God put in less, and there was less left over. Jesus is saying to the disciples, “Look at these two miracles carefully. Don't you remember? When you didn't put in, God made a bigger miracle. When you put in, God made a lesser miracle and there was less left over. Understand the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. They think it's by their own strength.” And that's how the Law worked, by the way. God just gave them the Law and said, “Okay, you keep it or else.” The strength of the Law was the individual's own strength. But what Jesus was saying is, “Don't worry because you didn't bring bread. God's still here. This is not a problem. Don't you understand? Don't you remember what happened?” Look, when you put in less, God puts in more. The less that you have to put in, the more God puts in to show you that it was Him. But the more you put in, the less God puts in. It's that way in everything. The more of self that goes into something, the less of God is going to be there. We must decrease so that He may increase. Remember John the Baptist? (Joh.3:30) He must increase, but I must decrease. That's the truth. That's for all of us. The more we decrease, the more God will increase. Remember, God wants salvation to be by grace – unmerited and unearned, not of your wisdom. (Ephesians 2:8). God is not dealing with us the way He deals with the world. Don't look at the world and think that's the way God wants to deal with you. The world is totally different. He wants all of our salvation, deliverance, prosperity and blessing to come by grace. It has to come freely and trusting in the promise of God. He's called us out of this world (1 Peter 2:9) and He's dealing differently with us. When this life is over, we're going to see how great God is and how little we are. This is the whole point. (Rom.4:4) Now, to him that worketh, the reward is not reckoned as of grace, but as of debt. See, if you could earn it, God would owe it, but God will not permit that. Think about it again now. “To him that worketh, the reward is not reckoned as of grace, but as of debt.” That's your works, right? This salvation would not be by grace. You'd be making your way to Heaven and God would owe it to you. Think that's ever going to be possible? It's not possible. He's sovereign and He's not going to permit it. Even where God permits the world's works to save them, He won't permit your works to save you. (Rom.4:5) But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness. You see, God calls a person righteous because they walk by faith. (Rom.4:17) (As it is written, A father of many nations have I made thee) before him whom he believed, [even] God, who giveth life to the dead, and calleth the things that are not, as though they were. (18) Who in hope believed against hope, to the end that he might become a father of many nations…. See, it looked hopeless. God made a promise and then He waited 40 more years until Abraham and Sarah were ancient, when it couldn't possibly come to pass. God waited because, if He had done it right there, everybody would have said, “Oh, it's possible; maybe Abraham did that.” No. God waited until Abraham couldn't do that, and then God brought it to pass to prove it was Him. He wanted all the credit. In our circumstances, it may also become increasingly impossible. Don't lose faith, because the more impossible it gets, the more possible it is for God. Why? Because when you're in the position of weakness, that's what God likes. It's where He wants you to be. It's where He gets all the credit for the miracle, and He looks greater in the eyes of the world when these great things happen. (Rom.4:18) Who in hope believed against hope, to the end that he might become a father of many nations, according to that which had been spoken, So shall thy seed be. (19) And without being weakened in faith he considered his own body now as good as dead (he being about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah's womb; (20) yet, looking unto the promise of God, he wavered not through unbelief, but waxed strong through faith, giving glory to God, (21) and being fully assured that what he had promised, he was able also to perform. Now, there was one time when Abraham and Sarah decided to have a little insurance (Genesis 16) and God permitted them to do that, but ultimately, it brought a great curse upon his seed. God's plan and what He is doing is so wonderful. You should have more courage and more faith when things get impossible, because every time in the Bible, that's where they were when the miracle came. Be encouraged when you see the odds against you, as the world calls it, because that's when they're in your favor.
Psalm 48 1 Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised in the city of our God! His holy mountain, 2 beautiful in elevation, is the joy of all the earth, Mount Zion, in the far north, the city of the great King. 3 Within her citadels God has made himself known as a fortress. 4 For behold, the kings assembled; they came on together. 5 As soon as they saw it, they were astounded; they were in panic; they took to flight. 6 Trembling took hold of them there, anguish as of a woman in labor. 7 By the east wind you shattered the ships of Tarshish. 8 As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God, which God will establish forever. Selah 9 We have thought on your steadfast love, O God, in the midst of your temple. 10 As your name, O God, so your praise reaches to the ends of the earth. Your right hand is filled with righteousness. 11 Let Mount Zion be glad! Let the daughters of Judah rejoice because of your judgments! 12 Walk about Zion, go around her, number her towers, 13 consider well her ramparts, go through her citadels, that you may tell the next generation 14 that this is God, our God forever and ever. He will guide us forever.
Given it's one of the most famous stories in the Bible, if not literature, Jonah's story needs little introduction.But most people who know that Jonah is swallowed alive forget that he not only accomplishes his mission, but brings about the largest mass conversion in the Bible.Much of it while absolutely furious!Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicOriginal cover art by Lisa GoffE: contact@whollybuyable.comX: Wholly Buyable Podcast
Wednesday, August 26 2026 | Pastor Jason Wallace | “Some storms are not attacks to rebuke; they are consequences telling us to change direction!” - Pastor Jason WallaceNow the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me. But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. But the LORD sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken. Jonah 1:1-4 KJV
What do you know about God? And how has it affected your life? It is one thing to know that Jesus saves, but have you trusted Jesus as your Saviour? It's on thing to know Jesus forgives, but have you forgiven others? How much of what you know about God has affected your life in such a way, that others would say that you are a Godly person, or a person who loves Jesus and keeps His commandments? Jonah knew a whole lot about God, but his heart was NOT aligned with God. Jonah 4:1-4 (KJV) But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. 2 And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. 3 Therefore now, O LORD, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live. 4 Then said the LORD, Doest thou well to be angry?
“I can never escape from your Spirit! I can never get away from your presence! If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to the grave, you are there. If I ride the wings of the morning, if I dwell by the farthest oceans, even there your hand will guide me, and your strength will support me.” (Psalm 139:7–10 NLT) One of God’s perfections is His omnipresence. He is present everywhere all the time. The psalmist captured the essence and implications of God’s omnipresence when he wrote, “I can never escape from your Spirit! I can never get away from your presence! If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to the grave, you are there. If I ride the wings of the morning, if I dwell by the farthest oceans, even there your hand will guide me, and your strength will support me” (Psalm 139:7–10 NLT). If we extend that line of reasoning, it’s not hard to see that the omnipresence of God can be comforting or frightening, depending on your perspective. If you’re not right with God and you’re trying to get away from Him, His omnipresence creates a huge obstacle. The Old Testament prophet Jonah could testify to that. God gave Jonah an assignment that Jonah found distasteful. The Lord wanted Jonah to warn the Ninevites that His judgment was coming if they didn’t repent. Jonah balked at the mission because the Ninevites were the enemies of Israel. He didn’t want them to repent. He was rooting for God’s judgment on them. So, he went down to Joppa and boarded a ship headed for Tarshish, away from Nineveh and presumably away from God. But you know how the story ends. Jonah recognized the error of his ways and repented in the belly of a giant fish. Because God was there, too. There’s an obvious lesson in there for anyone who’s trying to run from God. That is, you’re wasting your time and energy. It can’t be done. No matter where you go, God will be waiting for you. You can’t escape His presence. On the other hand, if you’re walking with God, you’ll find great comfort in the knowledge that you’re never alone. When you face fiery trials, when you go through times of difficulty, when you have to weather life’s storms, God is with you every step of the way. David memorably celebrated God’s presence in Psalm 23: “The Lord is my shepherd; I have all that I need. He lets me rest in green meadows; he leads me beside peaceful streams. He renews my strength. He guides me along right paths, bringing honor to his name. Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me. Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me” (verses 1–4 NLT). You never need feel lost, scared, abandoned, or alone. If you’re walking with God, He will never leave you. Reflection question: When do you most appreciate God’s presence? Discuss Today's Devo in Harvest Discipleship! — The audio production of the podcast "Greg Laurie: Daily Devotions" utilizes Generative AI technology. This allows us to deliver consistent, high-quality content while preserving Harvest's mission to "know God and make Him known." All devotional content is written and owned by Pastor Greg Laurie. Listen to the Greg Laurie Podcast Become a Harvest PartnerSupport the show: https://harvest.org/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Revelation 20:1-6 And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season. And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. We stand here at one of the most majestic peaks in all of Scripture. After the seals have been broken, the trumpets have sounded, and the vials of wrath have been poured out, after the beast and the false prophet have been cast into the lake of fire, the Spirit of God draws back the curtain on a scene that every believer's heart has longed for since the garden of Eden was lost. Here is the literal, earthly reign of the Lord Jesus Christ for a thousand years. Here is the fulfillment of promises given to Abraham, to David, and to the prophets. Here is the answer to the prayer that has ascended from the lips of the saints for two thousand years: “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” This passage is not a puzzle to be solved by clever allegorizing. It is a plain declaration of what God has determined to do. Let us take the text as it stands, in the order in which the Spirit has given it, and let the Word of God speak for itself. I. The Binding of the Ancient Enemy (vv. 1–3) John says, “And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.” Notice carefully that this is not the Lord Jesus Himself who descends; it is an angel. The Greek word is angelos, a messenger. One angel is sufficient. The same Lord who once cast a legion of demons into a herd of swine with a single word now commissions one of His messengers to seize the chief of all rebels. The dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan—four titles piled one upon another so that there can be no mistake about the identity of the prisoner—is laid hold of and bound. The Greek verb for “laid hold” is krateō, meaning to seize with power, to take firm grip. The great chain is not a figure of speech for the restraining influence of the church or the gospel; it is a real instrument of restraint in the hands of a real angel. He is cast into the bottomless pit—the abyssos, the same abyss from which the demonic locusts of chapter 9 emerged. The pit is shut and sealed. The purpose is stated with crystal clarity: “that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled.” Six times in this chapter the Holy Spirit uses the expression “a thousand years” or “the thousand years.” The Greek is chilia etē. When the Spirit repeats a number six times in the space of a few verses, He is not inviting us to spiritualize it away. He is underscoring its importance. The binding is for a definite period of time. After that period Satan “must be loosed a little season.” The word “must” (dei) indicates divine necessity. God's program requires it. There is no room here for the idea that Satan is already bound in some limited sense. If he is bound now, then the nations are not being deceived, and the New Testament itself becomes nonsense when it warns us that the devil walks about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8), that he is the god of this world who blinds the minds of them that believe not (2 Corinthians 4:4), and that the whole world lies in the wicked one (1 John 5:19). This binding is future, personal, complete, and temporary. It is the necessary prelude to the kingdom. No kingdom of righteousness can flourish while the great deceiver is free to work his will among the nations. II. The Resurrection and Reign of the Saints (vv. 4–6) John continues, “And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them.” Who are these who sit upon the thrones? The text itself identifies them in two groups. First, the souls of those who were beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God. These are the martyrs of the tribulation period who refused the mark of the beast. Second, those who “had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands.” These are the faithful who endured to the end. Together they “lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.” The Greek word for “lived” is ezēsan, an aorist tense that points to a definite act of coming to life. This is the first resurrection. The rest of the dead—the unsaved—do not live again until the thousand years are finished. Then comes the solemn declaration: “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.” Here is the double blessing: they are priests and they are kings. As priests they have access to God and offer spiritual sacrifices of praise. As kings they share the governmental authority of the Son of David. This is not a spiritual reign in the hearts of men; it is a reign with Christ upon the earth. The text says they reigned with Him. The location of that reign is fixed by the entire prophetic program of the Old Testament. III. The Character of the Millennial Kingdom Described in the Old Testament The book of Revelation is indeed a book of signs, symbols, and numbers. Yet the Holy Spirit has not left us to guess at the meaning of the thousand-year reign. He has given us page after page in the Old Testament that describe the activities of that kingdom in language so plain, so geographical, so political, and so material that only a determined refusal to accept the plain sense of Scripture can turn them into mere spiritual ideals. Let us listen carefully to the prophets as they describe what the saints will be doing and what the earth will be like during those thousand years. Isaiah 2:2–4 declares: “And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” Here the saints, under the direct rule of the Messiah, will see the law go forth from Jerusalem. The nations will stream to Zion to learn the ways of the Lord. The saints will participate in the administration of that perfect justice. War will cease. The instruments of destruction will be converted into instruments of agriculture. Isaiah 11:1–10 continues the picture: “And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD; And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the LORD: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears: But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea. And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious.” The saints will live in a world where the curse on the animal creation is lifted. The knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth. The Messiah will rule with absolute equity, and His people will share in that rule. Children will play safely. Nature itself will be at peace. Isaiah 65:17–25 adds further detail: “For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people: and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying. There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed. And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of the LORD, and their offspring with them. And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent's meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the LORD.” Longevity returns. A person who dies at one hundred is considered a child. The saints will build and inhabit, plant and eat the fruit. Their labor will not be frustrated. Prayer will be answered immediately. The elect of God will enjoy the work of their hands for the full thousand years. Micah 4:1–4 echoes Isaiah: “But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it. And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the LORD of hosts hath spoken it.” Every man under his own vine and fig tree—personal security, private property, and peace. The saints will enjoy this rest. Zechariah 14:8–11, 16–21 describes the geographical and religious center: “And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be. And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one. All the land shall be turned as a plain from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem: and it shall be lifted up, and inhabited in her place, from Benjamin's gate unto the place of the first gate, unto the corner gate, and from the tower of Hananeel unto the king's winepresses. And men shall dwell in it, and there shall be no more utter destruction; but Jerusalem shall be safely inhabited. … And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles. And it shall be, that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain. And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come not, that have no rain; there shall be the plague, wherewith the LORD will smite the heathen that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles. This shall be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all nations that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles. In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses, HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD; and the pots in the LORD's house shall be like the bowls before the altar. Yea, every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah shall be holiness unto the LORD of hosts: and all they that sacrifice shall come and take of them, and seethe therein: and in that day there shall be no more the Canaanite in the house of the LORD of hosts.” Jerusalem will be the political and spiritual capital of the world. The saints will go up year by year. Nations that refuse will be disciplined with drought. Holiness will characterize even the ordinary utensils of daily life. Psalm 72 is a portrait of the righteous King's reign: “Give the king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness unto the king's son. He shall judge thy people with righteousness, and thy poor with judgment. The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, by righteousness. He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor. They shall fear thee as long as the sun and moon endure, throughout all generations. He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth. In his days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth. He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth. They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him; and his enemies shall lick the dust. The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him. For he shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy. He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence: and precious shall their blood be in his sight. And he shall live, and to him shall be given of the gold of Sheba: prayer also shall be made for him continually; and daily shall he be praised. There shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon: and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth. His name shall endure for ever: his name shall be continued as long as the sun: and men shall be blessed in him: all nations shall call him blessed.” The saints will share in this universal dominion. They will see the poor delivered, the oppressor broken, and the earth productive under the King's blessing. Ezekiel 40–48 describes in exhaustive detail a temple, a priesthood, a sacrificial system, and the division of the land among the tribes. The prince will have his portion. The saints from every nation who have part in the first resurrection will serve as priests of God and of Christ in that restored order. The glory of the Lord will fill the house. Living waters will flow from under the threshold, healing the Dead Sea and bringing life wherever they go (Ezekiel 47). These are not vague spiritual principles. They are concrete, measurable, geographical, agricultural, political, and religious realities. The saints will reign. They will judge. They will teach. They will worship. They will enjoy the fruit of the earth. They will see nature restored. They will watch the nations come up to Jerusalem year after year. They will experience longevity, security, and the absence of war. This is the kingdom the prophets saw. This is the kingdom John saw. This is the kingdom that lasts a thousand years. IV. Why the Thousand Years Must Be Taken Literally Why do we insist that this reign is literal rather than a mere figure of speech? Because the plain sense of Scripture demands it, and every alternative interpretation collapses under the weight of the text itself. First, the number is repeated six times with deliberate emphasis. If “a thousand years” is only a symbol for a long time, then why does the Spirit carefully distinguish “the thousand years” from “a little season” that follows? Symbols do not require such chronological precision. Second, the binding of Satan is described with concrete details—an angel, a key, a chain, a pit, a seal. If these are symbols, then the resurrection of the martyrs in the same paragraph must also be symbolic, and the second death must be symbolic. But the second death is clearly the lake of fire (Revelation 20:14; 21:8). Consistency requires that the first resurrection and the thousand-year reign be just as real. Third, the Old Testament promises to Israel of a restored land, a Davidic King on a literal throne in Jerusalem, and a time of national and universal blessing have never been fulfilled. The amillennial view spiritualizes them into the church age. The postmillennial view postpones them indefinitely into a golden age produced by human effort under the gospel. Neither does justice to the land promises, the throne of David, or the geographical center of Zion. Only the premillennial view allows the promises to mean what they say: a future, earthly, theocratic kingdom under the personal rule of the Messiah, with resurrected saints sharing that rule for a thousand years. Fourth, the sequence of events in Revelation itself is chronological. Chapter 19 ends with the beast and false prophet in the lake of fire. Chapter 20 begins with the binding of Satan. Then comes the thousand years. Then the loosing of Satan. Then the final rebellion. Then the great white throne. To rearrange this sequence into a spiritual present or a progressive ideal is to do violence to the order the Spirit has given. Fifth, the first resurrection is called “the first.” If the only resurrection is a general one at the end of time, then there is no “first.” The text insists there is a resurrection of the righteous that precedes the thousand years, and a resurrection of the rest of the dead that follows it. This matches the “resurrection of life” and the “resurrection of damnation” of John 5:29, and the order of 1 Corinthians 15:23–24—“Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming. Then cometh the end.” While Revelation is filled with signs and symbols, the substantiation from the Old Testament gives the premillennial understanding a weight of evidence that no other view can match. The same Spirit who inspired the prophets inspired John. The same Spirit who described the kingdom in Isaiah and Ezekiel and Zechariah now places that kingdom after the return of Christ and before the final judgment. The only logical view that fits the literal and plain sense of the whole of Scripture is that the thousand years is a real period of time during which the Lord Jesus Christ reigns personally and visibly upon the earth, and the resurrected saints reign with Him. V. The Practical Word for Our Hearts What does this mean for us who live in the present age? It means that history is not a meaningless cycle. It is moving toward a definite goal—the personal return of the King and the establishment of His kingdom. It means that every act of faithfulness, every refusal of the world's mark, every testimony for Jesus, is preparing us to sit on those thrones. It means that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed. It means that the same Lord who was once crowned with thorns will one day be crowned with many crowns, and we shall see Him face to face and reign with Him. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over such a one. Priests of God and of Christ—access into the very presence of the throne. Kings who shall reign with Him a thousand years—and then forever. The angel has the key. The chain is ready. The thrones are prepared. The King is coming. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
In this sermon on Jonah 2, Pastor Jared Richard draws a compelling parallel between Jonah and the prodigal son of Luke 15, calling Jonah "the prodigal prophet." Like the younger son who wanted the blessings of the father without the father himself, Jonah fled the presence of God, convinced that life in Tarshish would be better than obedience in Nineveh. But God, like the waiting father in the parable, graciously allowed Jonah to discover exactly where that road leads — not to freedom, but to death. Every step of Jonah's journey was downward: down to Joppa, down to the ship, down into the sea, down toward Sheol. And it is in that descent that God gets Jonah's attention, using the very real prospect of death to awaken the prophet to his desperate need for the only One who can truly save. Pastor Jared traces three movements in Jonah's journey — from life to death, from the ship to the fish, and from west to east — each one carrying a lesson God wants not just Jonah, but all of us, to learn. The fish was not a punishment; it was a rescue. And the three days Jonah spent inside it were not wasted — they were sanctifying, humbling the prophet and preparing him to embrace the mission he had been running from. Jonah's psalm ends with the declaration, "Salvation belongs to the Lord" (Jonah 2:9), a truth that cuts both ways: we cannot save ourselves, and we cannot withhold from others the grace that has been so freely given to us. Pastor Jared closes with a challenge to the church — having received the grace of God, will we now declare that same grace to the broken world around us? WE'D LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU! Take a moment to fill out our digital connection card here: https://www.bayleaf.org/connect We hope you enjoy this programming and please let us know if there is anything we can do to be of service to you. ONE CHURCH. TWO LOCATIONS. ONE MISSION. Bay Leaf at Falls Lake: 12200 Bayleaf Church Road, Raleigh, North Carolina 27614 Bay Leaf at 540: 10921 Leesville Rd, Raleigh, NC 27613 SERVICE TIMES Come join us on Sundays at Bay Leaf at Falls Lake (8:30 AM or 11:00 AM) or at Bay Leaf at 540 (10:00 AM) CONTACT www.bayleaf.org (919) 847-4477 #BayLeafLife #Worship #Inspiration
We begin with a pronouncement against Tyre, an island city that served as profitable port which traded in luxurious goods. Tyre established a trading colony called Tarshish (thought to be in modern-day Spain) which boasted impressive ships. Assyria attempted to take Tyre a number of times, but it was Nebuchadnezzar who first infiltrated the island city, followed by Alexander the Great who destroyed it. The following chapters in this episode concern God's judgment of the whole earth, a judgment brought about by the sin of mankind. Though celebration will come to an end for a time, God will eventually prepare a feast for the peoples of earth and death will be destroyed forever. Keep your ears open for messages of resurrection as we read. Isaiah 23 - 1:03 . Isaiah 24 - 4:30 . Isaiah 25 - 9:16 . Isaiah 26 - 11:58 . Isaiah 27 - 16:00 . Psalm 140 - 19:08 . :::Christian Standard Bible translation.All music written and produced by John Burgess Ross.Co-produced by the Christian Standard Bible.facebook.com/commuterbibleinstagram.com/commuter_bibletwitter.com/CommuterPodpatreon.com/commuterbibleadmin@commuterbible.org
Give the King Your JusticeOf Solomon.72 Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to the royal son!2 May he judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice!3 Let the mountains bear prosperity for the people, and the hills, in righteousness!4 May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the children of the needy, and crush the oppressor!5 May they fear you[a] while the sun endures, and as long as the moon, throughout all generations!6 May he be like rain that falls on the mown grass, like showers that water the earth!7 In his days may the righteous flourish, and peace abound, till the moon be no more!8 May he have dominion from sea to sea, and from the River[b] to the ends of the earth!9 May desert tribes bow down before him, and his enemies lick the dust!10 May the kings of Tarshish and of the coastlands render him tribute;may the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts!11 May all kings fall down before him, all nations serve him!12 For he delivers the needy when he calls, the poor and him who has no helper.13 He has pity on the weak and the needy, and saves the lives of the needy.14 From oppression and violence he redeems their life, and precious is their blood in his sight.15 Long may he live; may gold of Sheba be given to him!May prayer be made for him continually, and blessings invoked for him all the day!16 May there be abundance of grain in the land; on the tops of the mountains may it wave; may its fruit be like Lebanon;and may people blossom in the cities like the grass of the field!17 May his name endure forever, his fame continue as long as the sun!May people be blessed in him, all nations call him blessed!18 Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things.19 Blessed be his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory!Amen and Amen!20 The prayers of David, the son of Jesse, are ended.+++For more information about this group, please visit their website at reformationboise.com. Every weekday at 3:30 am and 7:30 am you can listen to The Gospel for Life on KSPD 94.5 FM and 790 AM Boise's Solid Talk in the Treasure Valley, Idaho, USA.If you have a question, comment, or even a topic suggestion for the Pastors, you can email them. If you enjoy The Gospel for Life, please give us a rating and leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts. That helps us a lot!Phone: (208) 991-3526E-mail: thegospelforlifeidaho@gmail.comPodcast website: https://www.790kspd.com/gospel-for-life/to donate on line https://www.reformationboise.com/donate
Pastor Jared Richard opens Bay Leaf Baptist Church's new series through the book of Jonah by grounding the entire story in who God has revealed himself to be — "merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love" (Exodus 34:6-7). Against that backdrop, Jonah's shocking rebellion becomes all the more striking. Called by God to arise and go to Nineveh, the great and wicked Assyrian city, Jonah instead flees west toward Tarshish — as far from God's presence as he can get. His resistance is both personal and national: he fears for his life among a brutal enemy people, and he simply does not want God to show mercy to those he considers undeserving of it. Yet even in Jonah's running, God is relentlessly at work. He hurls a great storm upon the sea, and through a series of providential events, the pagan sailors end up hearing about the one true God, crying out to him, and worshiping him — the very thing Jonah was commissioned to bring about in Nineveh. Pastor Jared uses this irony to press a convicting question upon the congregation: are we, like Jonah, willing to receive God's mercy but reluctant to declare it to others? As those who have been rescued from the storm of God's judgment through the death of Christ — the greater Prophet who willingly offered himself and was thrown into the sea of condemnation so that our waves of judgment might cease — we have been commissioned by the Word himself in Matthew 28:18-20 to go and make disciples of all nations. The call to saturate North Raleigh with the gospel is not a program; it is obedience to the same commission Jonah tried to outrun. WE'D LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU! Take a moment to fill out our digital connection card here: https://www.bayleaf.org/connect We hope you enjoy this programming and please let us know if there is anything we can do to be of service to you. ONE CHURCH. TWO LOCATIONS. ONE MISSION. Bay Leaf at Falls Lake: 12200 Bayleaf Church Road, Raleigh, North Carolina 27614 Bay Leaf at 540: 10921 Leesville Rd, Raleigh, NC 27613 SERVICE TIMES Come join us on Sundays at Bay Leaf at Falls Lake (8:30 AM or 11:00 AM) or at Bay Leaf at 540 (10:00 AM) CONTACT www.bayleaf.org (919) 847-4477 #BayLeafLife #Worship #Inspiration
This Sunday, Andy Keppel will conclude his series on Jonah. If you'd like to read ahead, here's the text of Jonah 4: 4 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. 2 And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. 3 Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” 4 And the Lord said, “Do you do well to be angry?” 5 Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city. 6 Now the Lord God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. 7 But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.” 9 But God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” And he said, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.” 10 And the Lord said, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. 11 And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”
Preacher: Kathy Maskell Jonah 4:1-4 But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the LORD, "Isn't this what I said, LORD, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing 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. Now, LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live." But the LORD replied, "Is it right for you to be angry?"
Jonah 1:1-7 (KJV) Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me. 3 But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. 4 But the LORD sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken. 5 Then the mariners were afraid, and cried every man unto his god, and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten it of them. But Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship; and he lay, and was fast asleep. 6 So the shipmaster came to him, and said unto him, What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not. 7 And they said every one to his fellow, Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us. So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah. Jonah 1:12 (KJV) And he said unto them, Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you: for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you.
Thanks for joining us this Sunday! We hope you are blessed by the service today.When we think about the story of Jonah, it is easy to view the great fish as Jonah's punishment. Jonah disobeyed God, ran in the opposite direction, and was thrown into the sea. Then, “the LORD provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights” (Jonah 1:17). But the fish was not simply a punishment for Jonah's rebellion. It was something God arranged, prepared, ordained, and orchestrated for a purpose.God was willing to discipline Jonah because He wanted to teach him, bring him to maturity, and redirect his life. The great fish was uncomfortable, frightening, and probably the last place Jonah ever imagined himself being, but it was also evidence of God's mercy. God had not abandoned Jonah, even after Jonah deliberately disobeyed Him.The first reason God prepared the great fish was to rescue Jonah from drowning. Jonah had been thrown into the depths of the sea, surrounded by waves and tangled in seaweed. He described himself as being as far down as a person could go, with the gates of death closing behind him. Yet in the middle of his distress, Jonah cried out to God.Jonah prayed, “I was as far down as a body can go, and the gates were slamming shut behind me forever, yet You pulled me up from that grave alive, O GOD, my God!” Jonah may have thought his life was over when he was thrown into the sea. He may have even believed dying would be better than obeying God and going to Nineveh. But when death became a reality, Jonah called out for help, and God heard him.Why would God rescue someone who had been so deliberately disobedient? Because Jonah had been called by God, and he had not yet completed his assignment. God still had unfinished business with Jonah. His calling was not only to preach to the people of Nineveh. Jonah was also being called to know his God, trust Him, and submit to His will.We should ask ourselves the same question: What unfinished business do we have with God? There may be something He has asked us to do that we have avoided, delayed, or refused. We may think we have successfully escaped the assignment, but God is often still working behind the scenes to bring us back to the place where we are willing to listen.The second reason God prepared the great fish was to return Jonah to Nineveh. God did not change Jonah's mission simply because Jonah ran from it. Jonah's disobedience created a detour, but it did not cancel God's purpose for his life.God knew what was best for Jonah, and He also knew what was best for the people of Nineveh. It was best for everyone involved that Jonah lean into the hard thing, obey God, and go where he had been sent. Jeremiah 29:11 reminds us that God knows the plans He has for us, plans to give us hope and a future. His plans may lead us into uncomfortable places, but He sees what we cannot see and knows what our obedience can accomplish.When God has a purpose for our lives, He will continue working to accomplish it. That does not mean we have no choice or responsibility. It means God loves us enough to pursue us, correct us, and redirect us when we begin moving away from His will. Jonah ran, but God continued calling him back.The third reason God prepared the great fish was to reach Jonah's heart. God designs classrooms for His students that are attention-getting. Jonah's classroom was dark, slimy, filled with digestive acids and decomposed sea life, and constantly in motion. It was an almost unbearable situation, but it was the place where God finally had Jonah's undivided attention.Our classrooms may look different, but the lesson can be the same. Sometimes we find ourselves in a situation where we feel as if something has to change. We have tried to fix everything in our own strength, followed our own plans, and exhausted every option we can think of. When we finally reach the end of ourselves, we become ready to listen and learn.God was doing major surgery on Jonah's heart. When we are on the operating table of God, our response must be prayer. Jonah had passed up numerous opportunities to pray. He did not pray when God first gave him the assignment. He did not pray before boarding the ship to Tarshish. He did not pray while the storm threatened everyone around him. It was not until Jonah ended up in the belly of the fish that he finally called out to God.We often do the same thing. We try everything in our own strength until we realize that we cannot do it, and then we pray. We wait until we hit the wall or reach rock bottom before turning to the One who has been there the entire time. The important part of Jonah's story is that Jonah did pray. In his distress, he called out to God, and God answered him.The fish was not proof that God had rejected Jonah. It was proof that God was not finished with him. What looked like the end was actually God's rescue plan. What felt like punishment was also protection, redirection, and an opportunity for Jonah's heart to change.Whenever we run from God's call or His commands, we can be certain that He will work to redirect us back into His will. Jesus said in John 6:38, “For I have come down from heaven to do the will of God who sent Me, not to do My own will.” As followers of Christ, that should also be the desire of our hearts. Instead of waiting until we reach rock bottom, we can choose today to pray, listen, and submit to God's will.The question is not simply whether Jonah escaped the sea. The deeper question is whether God reached Jonah's heart. Perhaps the uncomfortable place you are facing is not evidence that God has left you. It may be the very classroom He is using to rescue you, redirect you, and teach you to trust Him.
In this Bible Story, Jonah is appointed to preach to the great and wicked city of Nineveh. However, Jonah's hatred is deep so Jonah runs from the will of God and boards a ship towards Tarshish. God sends a storm to catch up to Jonah, and Jonah is taken by the sea. In the deep, he's then swallowed up by a large fish, and remains in its belly for three days. This story is inspired by Jonah 1-2. Go to https://www.BibleinaYear.com and learn the Bible in a Year.Today's Bible verse is Jonah 1:2 from the King James Version.Episode 143: Jonah, now on dry land, is once again confronted by the voice of God telling him to go to Nineveh. Though it was not his desire, he obeyed. When he finally arrived he gave a sermon and left to watch the city burn. However, to his amazement, the entire city of Nineveh, even their king repented. Furious at this change of events, Jonah, sulked outside the city cursing God for his goodness and mercy. In reply, God gives both him and us a lesson of what it means to have mercy and love what God loves.Hear the Bible come to life as Pastor Jack Graham leads you through the official BibleinaYear.com podcast. This Biblical Audio Experience will help you master wisdom from the world's greatest book. In each episode, you will learn to apply Biblical principles to everyday life. Now understanding the Bible is easier than ever before; enjoy a cinematic audio experience full of inspirational storytelling, orchestral music, and profound commentary from world-renowned Pastor Jack Graham.Also, you can download the Pray.com app for more Christian content, including, Daily Prayers, Inspirational Testimonies, and Bedtime Bible Stories.Visit JackGraham.org for more resources on how to tap into God's power for successful Christian living.Pray.com is the digital destination of faith. With over 5,000 daily prayers, meditations, bedtime stories, and cinematic stories inspired by the Bible, the Pray.com app has everything you need to keep your focus on the Lord. Make Prayer a priority and download the #1 App for Prayer and Sleep today in the Apple app store or Google Play store.Executive Producers: Steve Gatena & Max BardProducer: Ben GammonHosted by: Pastor Jack GrahamMusic by: Andrew Morgan SmithBible Story narration by: Todd Haberkorn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
This week the News has yet again been filled with stories about the US’s attacking Iran.There have been reports of consecutive nights of airstrikes happening on Iran since President Donald Trump declared the temporary ceasefire agreement was "over".The US is said to be hitting key infrastructure and its reported that airports, bridges and water utilities in parts of the country have been hit.
Run for the Hills! On this episode, we sit with Eugene Peterson and Jonah, listening to what they have to teach about God's grace, death and resurrection, threshold experiences, believing Jesus is God versus encountering him, and much, much more! What does pastoral ministry look like in Jonah's disobedience and obedience to God's call? What would a "Church of St Jonah" look and sound like? What is it about God's love for sinners that drives us away from God? When will this episode description end? SHOW NOTES: Under the Unpredictable Plant: An Exploration in Vocational Holiness https://amzn.to/3VXD1XT Conversations with Rev. Eugene H. Peterson https://www.doxology.us/return-to-conversations-with-rev-eugene-h-peterson/ More from 1517: Give to the June 1517 Podcast Network Fundraiser! https://donate.overflow.co/1517/cash?config=2026-podcast-network-fundraiser Support 1517 Podcast Network https://www.1517.org/podcast-fundraiser 1517 Podcasts: http://www.1517.org/podcasts 1517 on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@1517org 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/channel/1517-podcast-network/id6442751370 1517 Events Schedule: https://www.1517.org/events 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education: https://academy.1517.org/ What's New from 1517: The Turk at the Door by Adam Francisco https://shop.1517.org/collections/coming-soon/products/9781964419947-the-turk-at-the-door Luther and the Lion: A Narnian Catechism by Samuel Schuldheisz https://shop.1517.org/products/9781964419985-luther-and-the-lion By Water and the Word by Brian Thomas https://shop.1517.org/products/9781967920013-by-water-and-the-word Being Family by Dr. Scott Keith https://shop.1517.org/products/9781964419961-being-family More from the hosts: Donovan Riley https://www.1517.org/contributors/donavon-riley Christopher Gillespie https://www.1517.org/contributors/christopher-gillespie CONTACT and FOLLOW: Banned Books Wiki https://bannedbooks1517.org Email mailto:BannedBooks@1517.org Instagram (1517)https://www.instagram.com/bannedbooks1517 Facebook https://www.facebook.com/BannedBooks1517/ Twitter https://twitter.com/bannedbooks1517 Instagram (1517) https://www.instagram.com/1517org X/Twitter (1517) http://twitter.com/1517 Facebook (1517) http://www.facebook.com/1517org PODCAST: YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BannedBooks Rumble https://rumble.com/c/c-1223313 Odysee https://odysee.com/@bannedbooks:5 Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/banned-books/id1370993639 Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/2ahA20sZMpBxg9vgiRVQba Overcast https://overcast.fm/itunes1370993639/banned-books MORE LINKS: Tin Foil Haloes https://t.me/bannedpastors St John's Lutheran Church (Webster, MN) - FB Live Bible Study Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/356667039608511 Donavon's Substack https://donavonlriley.substack.com Gillespie's Sermons and Catechesis https://outerrimterritories.com Gillespie Coffee https://gillespie.coffee Gillespie Media https://gillespie.media
In this Bible Story, we say goodbye to the Prophet Elisha and the end of the era of kings. The nations of Judah and Israel continue to wrestle with God. Soon, a great threat would arise to take Israel captive. This was a threat they were not prepared for.This story is inspired by 2 Kings 13. Go to https://www.BibleinaYear.com and learn the Bible in a Year.Today's Bible verse is 2 Kings 13:19 from the King James Version.Episode 142: Jonah, a questionable prophet of God, heard the word of God telling him to go to Nineveh and confront the people about their sins. Jonah, giving in to his pride and disgust for the people of Nineveh, said no and immediately boarded a ship headed for Tarshish. While the ship was sailing a deadly storm came upon them and Jonah found out that he could not run from God, and was swallowed by a fish.Hear the Bible come to life as Pastor Jack Graham leads you through the official BibleinaYear.com podcast. This Biblical Audio Experience will help you master wisdom from the world's greatest book. In each episode, you will learn to apply Biblical principles to everyday life. Now understanding the Bible is easier than ever before; enjoy a cinematic audio experience full of inspirational storytelling, orchestral music, and profound commentary from world-renowned Pastor Jack Graham.Also, you can download the Pray.com app for more Christian content, including, Daily Prayers, Inspirational Testimonies, and Bedtime Bible Stories.Visit JackGraham.org for more resources on how to tap into God's power for successful Christian living.Pray.com is the digital destination of faith. With over 5,000 daily prayers, meditations, bedtime stories, and cinematic stories inspired by the Bible, the Pray.com app has everything you need to keep your focus on the Lord. Make Prayer a priority and download the #1 App for Prayer and Sleep today in the Apple app store or Google Play store.Executive Producers: Steve Gatena & Max BardProducer: Ben GammonHosted by: Pastor Jack GrahamMusic by: Andrew Morgan SmithBible Story narration by: Todd Haberkorn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Psalm 139 Part 2: The God Who is EverywherePsalm 139:7-12 | Week 2 of 4: Psalm 139 Following last week's look at the God who fully knows us, this message explores David's question: "Where can I go from your Spirit?" Through three extremes: the heights of heaven, the depths of the sea, and the darkness of hiding. David discovers there is nowhere anxiety, suffering, or shame can take us that God has not already gone before us. Weaving in Jonah's flight to Tarshish and the story of Jesus seeking out the Samaritan woman at the well, the sermon lands on verse 10's tender promise: "Your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast." Whether we're wrestling with fear of the future, isolation in dark seasons, or shame that makes us want to hide, God isn't waiting for us to find our way back, He's already pursuing us with grace. The message closes reflectively, inviting the congregation to simply rest in being held and pursued.
“Mercy for Monsters”Jonah 1:1-171 The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”3 But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.4 Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. 5 All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship.But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. 6 The captain went to him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us so that we will not perish.”7 Then the sailors said to each other, “Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity.” They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. 8 So they asked him, “Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What kind of work do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?”9 He answered, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.”10 This terrified them and they asked, “What have you done?” (They knew he was running away from the Lord, because he had already told them so.)11 The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, “What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?”12 “Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” he replied, “and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.”13 Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before. 14 Then they cried out to the Lord, “Please, Lord, do not let us die for taking this man's life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, Lord, have done as you pleased.” 15 Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm. 16 At this the men greatly feared the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to him.17 Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.CONNECT WITH USIf you have any questions or would like to get to know us further, head over to https://www.triumphlbc.org/connect and fill out our online connection card.ABOUT TRIUMPHTriumph wants to see the life and message of Jesus transform your heart, home, and city. To learn more visit https://www.triumphlbc.org/
Preacher: Caleb Maskell Jonah 1:1-16 The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: "Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me." But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish . He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the LORD. Then the LORD sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. The captain went to him and said, "How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us so that we will not perish." Then the sailors said to each other, "Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity." They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. So they asked him, "Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What kind of work do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?" He answered, "I am a Hebrew and I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. " This terrified them and they asked, "What have you done?" (They knew he was running away from the LORD, because he had already told them so.) The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, "What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?" "Pick me up and throw me into the sea," he replied, "and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you." Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before. Then they cried out to the LORD, "Please, LORD, do not let us die for taking this man's life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, LORD, have done as you pleased." Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm. At this the men greatly feared the LORD, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows to him.
Thanks for joining us this Sunday! We hope that you experience God and the Holy Spirit through the message today!Running From GodJonah Series | Part 3B | July 12, 2026The story of Jonah is one that many of us know well. God called Jonah to go to Nineveh and preach against its wickedness, but instead of obeying, Jonah boarded a ship headed in the exact opposite direction."The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: 'Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.' But Jonah ran away from the LORD..." (Jonah 1:1-3)Jonah's assignment was intimidating, but his greatest mistake wasn't fearing Nineveh. It was fearing his assignment more than he feared God. As Pastor reminded us, "A fearful assignment from God is not as fearful as God Himself."Jonah's response to God's call revealed three things about his heart. First, he disobeyed God's clear direction. Second, his disobedience was deliberate. He wasn't acting out of confusion or misunderstanding. God had given him a specific word, yet Jonah intentionally chose another path. Finally, Jonah became deceived in his disobedience. Like many of us, he likely rationalized his decision and convinced himself that running was somehow the better option.Too often, believers determine what is right based on their circumstances rather than on God's Word. The world encourages us to follow our feelings and do what seems best for us, but followers of Christ are called to live differently. God's will isn't something we redefine to fit our comfort. When He speaks clearly, our responsibility is to obey.The book of Jonah is also a powerful reminder that disobedience always carries a cost. "When we walk away from the revealed will of God, there's always a price to pay." Sin rarely destroys everything overnight. Instead, its consequences accumulate over time, much like wages earned little by little. Every compromise leaves its mark, and eventually we realize we've paid far more than we ever intended.Even when God forgives us, the consequences of our choices often remain. As was said during the message, "When we live a life outside of God's will, there is always scar tissue left from sin that often complicates our lives from that point on." God's grace is abundant, and His restoration is real, but disobedience often leaves damage that must still be healed. Forgiveness removes our guilt before God, but it doesn't always erase the earthly consequences of our choices.When Jonah boarded the ship, he may have thought he had escaped God's call, but God had no intention of abandoning him. Scripture says, "Then the LORD sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up." (Jonah 1:4)The storm wasn't an act of revenge. It was an act of mercy.As Jonah was heading farther away from God, "The Lord was following him every step of the way." Pastor pointed out that "God used a storm to begin His rescue of this disobedient prophet." Every wave, every gust of wind, and every terrifying moment was part of God's gracious pursuit. He could have simply allowed Jonah to continue running, but instead He intervened because He loved him too much to let him destroy himself.That same truth applies to us today. Sometimes we mistake God's discipline for His anger when, in reality, it is evidence of His love. "He loves us too much to just sit back and watch us suffer in sin." Sin has consequences built into it. Eventually it leads to misery, brokenness, and emptiness. God often allows storms to interrupt our lives because they become the very thing that wakes us up and draws us back to Him.One of the saddest pictures in this passage is Jonah sleeping in the bottom of the ship while everyone else fought for survival. The sailors were terrified, but Jonah had become so comfortable in his disobedience that he slept through the storm. "Jonah was so comfortable in sin that even signs that God might be angry with him weren't enough to even get his attention."That should cause every believer to pause and ask an honest question: Have I become comfortable with sin?Not every storm is God's discipline, but sometimes He uses life's disruptions to expose what has quietly taken root in our hearts. The frightening reality is that we can become so accustomed to our spiritual condition that we fail to recognize when God is trying to get our attention.The beautiful truth throughout Jonah's story is that God never stopped pursuing him. Jonah ignored Him. Jonah deliberately ran from Him. Yet God continued pursuing him with relentless grace. He orchestrated the wind, stirred the sea, and later prepared the great fish. Everything God did was designed to bring Jonah back.As Pastor said, "You can ignore Him and you can even deliberately reject Him, but He will never stop pursuing you."The message also challenged a common misconception many people have about Christianity. Running from God isn't determined by where you are physically. "You can run from God inside the church as fast as you can outside the church, because running from God is a matter of the heart." It's possible to attend church, know the right language, and look like a believer while still resisting God's authority in your life. God isn't simply interested in outward appearances. He desires hearts that are surrendered to Him.As the storm intensified, the sailors desperately searched for the reason behind it. They questioned Jonah because they wanted to understand what had gone wrong and how it could be made right. Their concern wasn't just for Jonah's sake. His choices had placed everyone on the ship in danger.That leads to one of the most sobering truths of the message: "Your storm affects all of us." We often convince ourselves that our private sins only affect us, but they never do. Our obedience blesses the people around us, and our disobedience impacts them as well. Our families, our friends, our church, and even those who barely know us can experience the ripple effects of the choices we make.The invitation from God is the same today as it was for Jonah. Stop running. Whatever seems to be waiting for you in your own version of Tarshish isn't better than God's plan."Don't run from Him. Whatever you think is going to be better in Tarshish, you're wrong."The safest place Jonah could have been was not on a comfortable ship headed in the direction he wanted to go. The safest place was in the difficult city where God had called him.The same is true for us.There is nothing better than being in the center of God's will. Even when obedience feels difficult, it is always the place where God's presence, peace, and purpose are found.
Preacher:Kathy Maskell Jonah 1:1-16 The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: "Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me." But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish . He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the LORD. Then the LORD sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. The captain went to him and said, "How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us so that we will not perish." Then the sailors said to each other, "Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity." They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. So they asked him, "Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What kind of work do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?" He answered, "I am a Hebrew and I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. " This terrified them and they asked, "What have you done?" (They knew he was running away from the LORD, because he had already told them so.) The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, "What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?" "Pick me up and throw me into the sea," he replied, "and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you." Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before. Then they cried out to the LORD, "Please, LORD, do not let us die for taking this man's life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, LORD, have done as you pleased." Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm. At this the men greatly feared the LORD, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows to him.
Lutheran Preaching and Teaching from St. John Random Lake, Wisconsin
READINGMatthew 9:14–26 (NKJV)14 Then the disciples of John came to Him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but Your disciples do not fast?”15 And Jesus said to them, “Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. 16 No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse. 17 Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”18 While He spoke these things to them, behold, a ruler came and worshiped Him, saying, “My daughter has just died, but come and lay Your hand on her and she will live.” 19 So Jesus arose and followed him, and so did His disciples.20 And suddenly, a woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years came from behind and touched the hem of His garment. 21 For she said to herself, “If only I may touch His garment, I shall be made well.” 22 But Jesus turned around, and when He saw her He said, “Be of good cheer, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And the woman was made well from that hour.23 When Jesus came into the ruler's house, and saw the flute players and the noisy crowd wailing, 24 He said to them, “Make room, for the girl is not dead, but sleeping.” And they ridiculed Him. 25 But when the crowd was put outside, He went in and took her by the hand, and the girl arose. 26 And the report of this went out into all that land.READINGIsaiah 23:6–14 (NKJV)6 Cross over to Tarshish;Wail, you inhabitants of the coastland!7 Is this your joyous city,Whose antiquity is from ancient days,Whose feet carried her far off to dwell?8 Who has taken this counsel against Tyre, the crowning city,Whose merchants are princes,Whose traders are the honorable of the earth?9 The Lord of hosts has purposed it,To bring to dishonor the pride of all glory,To bring into contempt all the honorable of the earth.10 Overflow through your land like the River,O daughter of Tarshish;There is no more strength.11 He stretched out His hand over the sea,He shook the kingdoms;The Lord has given a commandment against CanaanTo destroy its strongholds.12 And He said, “You will rejoice no more,O you oppressed virgin daughter of Sidon.Arise, cross over to Cyprus;There also you will have no rest.”13 Behold, the land of the Chaldeans,This people which was not;Assyria founded it for wild beasts of the desert.They set up its towers,They raised up its palaces,And brought it to ruin.14 Wail, you ships of Tarshish!For your strength is laid waste.
Reformed Brotherhood | Sound Doctrine, Systematic Theology, and Brotherly Love
In this episode of The Reformed Brotherhood, Tony Arsenal walks through Jonah 1–2, focusing on the remarkable prayer Jonah offers from the belly of the great fish. Far from a simple morality tale, the Book of Jonah presents a complex, deeply theological portrait of a disobedient prophet who nonetheless clings to the Lord in his darkest moment. Tony explores the Hebrew literary features that shape how we read Jonah's prayer, the doctrine of divine sovereignty as it operates through human agency, and the rich typological connections between Jonah and the death and resurrection of Christ. Most importantly, the episode grounds Jonah's experience in the Westminster Confession's teaching on sanctification — offering genuine hope to believers who feel buried under besetting sin, assuring them that salvation, from beginning to end, belongs entirely to the Lord. Key Takeaways Jonah is not the hero of his own story — he functions more as an anti-hero whose failures actually make him a more useful and relatable example for ordinary believers. Divine sovereignty operates through, not apart from, human agency — the sailors freely threw Jonah overboard, and yet Jonah rightly says God cast him into the deep; both are simultaneously true. The sequence debate in Jonah 2 matters theologically — whether Jonah prayed before or after being swallowed affects how we read the book; reading it as a strict cause-and-effect sequence risks turning the gospel into a quid pro quo transaction with God. Jonah's "yet I will see your holy temple" is a confession of eschatological faith — in the midst of near-certain death, Jonah expresses confidence not merely in earthly rescue, but in his ultimate destiny as one of God's people. The deep is a Genesis image — Jonah's descent into the primordial waters deliberately echoes the formless void of Genesis 1 and the undoing of creation in the flood, placing his experience within the grand arc of biblical cosmology. Jonah is a prophetic type of Christ's death and resurrection — his three days in the belly of the fish, his descent into the pit, and his emergence onto dry land anticipate and foreshadow the resurrection, as Jesus himself confirms in Matthew 12. Sanctification is real but imperfect — drawing from Westminster Confession Chapter 13, Tony argues that the up-and-down nature of Jonah's spiritual life is not an aberration but a description of the normal Christian life, in which the flesh and spirit remain in perpetual war until glory. Key Concepts Eschatological Faith in the Pit One of the most striking moments in Jonah's prayer is his declaration in 2:4 — "Yet I shall again look upon your holy temple." Tony argues that this is not merely a hope of physical rescue and a return to Jerusalem. Jonah believed he was dying. The waters had closed in to take his life; he was being dragged into underwater trenches that the ancient Semitic mind associated with the very gates of Sheol. In this context, Jonah's declaration is better understood as eschatological faith — a confession that even if God takes his life in judgment, he will still see the Lord face to face in the heavenly temple. It mirrors Job's cry, "Yet in my flesh I shall see God," and anticipates the kind of faith that says, with the father in Mark 9, "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief." Sovereignty and Human Agency Working Together Tony uses Jonah's descent as a teaching moment on the Reformed doctrine of concurrence — the truth that God's sovereign decree and human free will are not in competition but operate simultaneously on different levels. The sailors made a free, agonized decision to throw Jonah overboard; and yet Jonah rightly attributes his casting into the sea to God himself. Tony draws the parallel to Joseph's words to his brothers in Genesis 50: "You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good." This is not a philosophical sleight of hand. It is the consistent testimony of Scripture that God governs all things — including the underwater currents that dragged Jonah to the ocean floor — without reducing human beings to puppets or eliminating their moral responsibility. Sanctification Is Real, Imperfect, and Guaranteed Perhaps the most pastorally significant thread of the episode is Tony's application of Westminster Confession Chapter 13 to Jonah's experience. Jonah makes genuine progress in faith — his prayer is theologically rich and demonstrates real trust in God — and yet he almost immediately slips back behind the curve, making vows the sailors had already made before him, and later in chapter 4, sulking over a dead plant. Tony refuses to read this as a failure of the text. Instead, it is the text faithfully portraying the reality of sanctification: real throughout the whole person, yet imperfect in this life, with an irreconcilable war between flesh and spirit. The hope is not that we will finally overcome that war on our own, but that through the continual supply of the sanctifying Spirit of Christ, the regenerate part will overcome. Salvation — including sanctification — belongs entirely to the Lord. Memorable Quotes Jonah is constantly behind the curve, but for this little moment, for this glimpse in the very center of the book, the pinnacle of the book is Jonah finally catching up to the sailors. All outside visible indicators said he was going to die and he was going to hell. Yet he trusted in the Lord that he would see his holy temple again. God redeems our life from the pit. From the very depths of hell itself, he snatched us like brands from the fire. Full Transcript [00:00:08] Tony Arsenal: Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it. For their evil has come up before me." But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord. [00:01:24] Storm and Sailors [00:01:24] Tony Arsenal: But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up. Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his god. And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep. So the captain came to him and said, "What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call out to your god. Perhaps the god will give us a thought that we may not perish." And they said to one another, "Come, let us cast lots, that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us." So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. Then they said to him, "Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation, and where do you come from? What is your country, and of what people are you?" And he said to them, "I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land." Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, "What is this that you have done?" For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them. Then they said to him, "What shall we do to you that the sea may quiet down for us?" For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. [00:02:36] Cast Into Sea [00:02:36] Tony Arsenal: He said to them, "Pick me up and hurl me into the sea. Then the sea will quiet down for you. For I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you." Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to get back to the dry land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them. Therefore they called out to the Lord, "O Lord, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not on us innocent blood. For you, O Lord, has done as it pleased you." So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea. And the sea ceased from its raging. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. [00:03:15] Fish and Prayer [00:03:15] Tony Arsenal: And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, saying, "I called out to the Lord out of my distress, and he answered me. Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice. For you cast me into the dep-- into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me. All your waves and billows passed over me." Then he said, "I am driven away from your sight. Yet I shall look again upon your holy temple. The waters closed in over me to take my life. The deep surrounded me. Weeds were wrapped around my head." At the root of the mountain I went to the land, whose bars closed upon me forever. Yet you brought my life up from the pit, O Lord my God. When I-- when my life was fainting away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you into your holy temple. Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love. But I, with a voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord. [00:04:23] Jonah Not the Hero [00:04:23] Tony Arsenal: And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land Jonah is an interesting book because, as I commented a year ago, Jonah is not necessarily the hero of the story. Uh, if anything, he is kind of the villain in, in some senses. But nevertheless, I think as we'll see today, Jonah still gives us a good example to follow in a sense, and that I think is really the centerpiece of this prayer, is that even as Jonah's going through all of this, his prayer is still remarkably filled with faithful sayings and trust in the Lord. We learned early on in Jonah that Jonah was a prophet during the time of the kings. Uh, he, uh, he seemed to have been a sort of a court temple. He was in the presence of the kings in Jerusalem itself, and he received a calling from the word of the Lord, and this phrase, "the word of the Lord," seems to imply a pre-incarnate, uh, visible manifestation of the second person of the Trinity. So we're not just talking about a, a disembodied voice. We're not just talking about some sort of sense or impression, but the word of the Lord itself, himself, came to give Jonah this mission, to give Jonah this task, to commission him as a prophet to Nineveh. And Jonah gets up and says, "No, thank you," and he goes the opposite direction. We see in that first section there the repeated phrase, "He goes to Tarshish. He boards a ship in Tarshish." The author here, who we, we think is Jonah, is hammering that he did not go where he was supposed to. He went the opposite direction. He went to Tarshish instead of Nineveh, which is 180 degrees the other direction from, uh, from Nineveh on the map. And he boards the, he boards the ship in order to flee the presence of the Lord. He pays, probably buys out the entire ship itself. He pays the fare for the whole ship, and the Lord hurls a great wave, uses the language of weapons. He hurls this storm like a spear. He weaponizes nature itself to correct and chastise and judge Jonah for his disobedience We get to verses seven through 17, and everyone on the boat is crying out to their chosen deity except Jonah. Jonah is asleep in the hold of the ship, oblivious to everything, totally dead to the world and dead to his Lord. The sailors begin to seek divine li- divine wisdom after they wake Jonah. He comes to the deck of the ship, and they cast lots to identify by divine, uh, revelation, sort of a strange practice in the Old Testament or the old, uh, world. Divine revelation that shows them Jonah is the source of this wickedness that is being wrought upon them, at least their impression of it. So they ask Jonah, "Who are you? Tell us who it is that has caused this great calamity." And he says emphatically, "A Hebrew am I." He identifies himself with God's people, and he says, "The Lord is my God, and he made the heaven and the earth and the sea." There's no small amount of irony, and it explains why the sailors are so afraid when he says that God created the heavens where the storm was. He created the sea where they were about to die, and he created the dry land where they were trying to get to. And so this one phrase that Jonah uses almost casually demonstrates that the Lord has total and utter sovereignty over what is going on, which is a theme that we'll see come back again and again through the book The sailors say, "Well, what do we do about this?" And Jonah says, "Throw me into the ocean, because I know that if you do so, then the storm will calm down and you will be saved." Whether he knew this because he's a prophet and it had been revealed to him, or whether he just was surmising that this was the case, we don't know. But the, uh, sailors are hesitant to do so, and we talked about how it was a little bit strange that these, uh, pagan sailors from cultures that d- had no qualms about human sacrifice were suddenly, uh, unwilling to throw Jonah over the sea a- as a, an appeasement offering to this Lord. And we came to the conclusion that they had been regenerated. They had come to faith in this God who created the heavens and the sea and the dry ground. And so they knew intrinsically that this was wrong, that there was a moral imperative not to do this. So they tried to row back to the land. They jettisoned all of their, uh, all of their goods, all of their cargo. They were making for land as best they could, and when it finally became clear that they couldn't do this, they sought the Lord's mercy in saying, essentially, "We don't understand how this is, but please don't put this man's blood on us, because you, Lord, have done as you please," right? The sovereignty of the Lord again comes to the forefront. They finally cast Jonah into the sea, and this is, this is important. They cast Jonah into the sea, and then they worship, they vow vows, and they vow to sacrifice. They offer sacrifices. They seek the Lord, they acknowledge his s- his sovereignty, and they worship him with what they have left. And then rounding out the chapter, the Lord appoints a great fish to come and swallow up Jonah. And we talked about how this, this swallowing of Jonah, although our popular children's books and VeggieTales and other stories we might read to our kids paints the fish often as the vehicle of judgment, it's actually a vehicle of deliverance for Jonah. There's this interesting grammatical feature that happens where in 1:17 the fish is masculine. The, the, the gender of the word is masculine, and then when we get to 2:1 it switches over to the feminine, almost as if to indicate that the whale was pregnant with Jonah, that Jonah was in the whale and was about to be reborn into the world in a new way And that brings us to our passage here today. [00:10:21] Sequence Debate [00:10:21] Tony Arsenal: I'm gonna read, uh, 1:17 even though that's a little bit outside of our scope. I'm gonna read it along with 2:1 to, to make the point here. It says, "The Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the whale, of the fish three days and three nights. Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish." When you look at the Hebrew text, 1:17 is actually verse 2:1 and 2:1 is then 2:2 and so on and so forth. In the original Hebrew mindset of how this book goes together, these two things were linked together, him being swallowed by the whale and being in the belly of the fish and then him praying was linked together in this sequence. There's a feature in the Hebrew that's called a vav consecutive. You don't need to remember that. Nobody is gonna care about that. But it's, it's a little grammatical feature where it adds this little character to the front of the verb and it indicates a sequence. It's the narrative storytelling. When you look at Genesis 1 it's, "And then God said, 'Let there be light,' and then there was light." It tells you the sequence of events. Sometimes it indicates that it is a strict sequence of events. This happened and then that finished and then the next thing happened and then that finished. And many of the commentators use this passage to justify a perspective of Jonah where Jonah is this rebellious, stubborn prophet who holds out his stubbornness until the very last minute. He's swallowed by the whale, he's getting digested by stomach acid and he sort of finally relents to the Lord and cries out for deliverance and the Lord acquiesces in response to his prayer. That's certainly a possible interpretation. There's lots of good reasons in the, the text here to think Jonah was kind of a chucklehead and was not paying too much attention to what the Lord had for him The other option is to see this as a way for the author of the text to situate this prayer in contrast to other prayers that are not necessarily talked about directly in this text. And I'm gonna take that later view here, and I think it's important. This makes good sense of the text, and we'll explain exactly why that is when we get to the next little section here. But it also protects us theologically if we understand it this way. Jonah is already a book, uh, as I've alluded to, that tends towards a sort of crass moralism or fabulism. We tend to read it as sort of an allegory of if you do the wrong thing, God punishes you, and when you finally do the right thing, He blesses you. And there's a certain level of common grace wisdom to that approach, right? The whole book of Proverbs is-- are these proverbial sayings that if you do this, then the God-- then God will do this. If you raise up your children in the way they will go, they will not depart when they are older. But we also learn in the Book of Job and the Book of Ecclesiastes that those proverbial sayings, although generally true, it's not a magic formula. And so we have this tendency to read Old Testament literature as though it was this sort of like equation, that God punishes us when we're bad. He, uh, He relents from His punishment when we say we're sorry, and we have to be careful about that. If we understand what I'm about to teach from the next section here, that this is not a strict sequence of events, that Jonah began praying before he was swallowed by the whale, and this is simply recording the prayer that was actually within the whale. It helps protect us from seeing Jonah in this sort of quid pro quo, this for that kind of thing. I think we should simply understand this as saying Jonah was in the water, he got swallowed by the whale, and then when he was in the whale, he prayed. It doesn't say anything about whether he was overly stubborn or whether his stubbornness held out. It simply tells us that he was in the pray-- in the whale when this prayer occurred [00:14:23] Sheol and Descent [00:14:23] Tony Arsenal: He says in verse two, he calls out to the Lord out of his distress. He, and God answers him. Out of the belly of Sheol, Jonah cries, and God hears his voice This here tells us that he began praying, right? He was in the water, he was in the deep. All of this descriptive language we're gonna see later on about how deep he was, how quickly the current took him. He was wrapped up in seaweed, his life was fading from him. It was in the midst of all of that that he cries out in his distress. It's a pretty distressing situation. And Jonah, like all of us would, like even most atheists would, cries out to the Lord, even just out of instinct. I think it's kind of crazy for us to think that this man who's now been cast overboard and is being swept to the bottom of the ocean is sure he's gonna die. Somehow, he overrides all of his instinct and his entire life teaching and refuses to pray to the Lord. It just doesn't make sense, and it doesn't make sense of what the text presents here Jonah was in the belly of Sheol. He was in the very, the very womb of Sheol. And there is this interesting contrast that he goes from the belly of Sheol into the belly of the whale. This phrase, the belly of Sheol, is probably roughly equivalent to our phrase about being at death's door, right? It, it may or may not come from some sort of Mesopotamian, um, mythology. It may be a phrase of sort of co-opted into Hebrew, kinda like our phrase at death's door is actually co-opted in from Greek mythology, where there were actually literal doors to the underworld, and people would go there and when they were about to die. Jonah's point is that this was not a small thing. When we watch VeggieTales, he gets thrown in the water, and, like, 13 seconds later, the, the whale comes up and takes him. Jonah was swept down into the water almost supernaturally quick. He was drawn down to the very bottom of the ocean. We talk about the miracle of him surviving in the whale, and it was miraculous for sure, but the miracle of him being swept to the bottom of the ocean and not being crushed by the weight of the water, by the pressure, is equally miraculous. It's no more difficult for God to do that than it is for Him to preserve him in the whale or to raise Jesus from the dead or to create everything from nothing He finally starts to catch up with the pagan sailors. A theme in Jonah is that everyone around Jonah who shouldn't know any better somehow gets to the right conclusion before he does, right? The sailors begin to worship the Lord. They recognize this is divine wrath while Jonah is still asleep in the hold. Later, we'll see that, uh, the, the Ninevites recognize God's mercy and grace and thank Him for it, and Jonah is still mad because the plant he was sitting on d- uh, dies, right? Jonah is constantly behind the curve, but for this little moment, for this glimpse in the very center of the book, the pinnacle of the book is Jonah finally catching up to the sailors. [00:17:34] Sovereignty Explained [00:17:34] Tony Arsenal: He recognizes that it was God who cast him into the depths. This teaches us something about the doctrine of sovereignty and how it relates to human freedom, right? We, we often ask the question, what, what causes rain? Well, you can answer that by saying tiny particles of dust collect water in the air, and once they have enough weight, they fall out of the sky 'cause the air can't hold them up anymore. That's true, and it's good, and that's what nature teaches us. It's also equally true that God causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike, and those two things are not contradictory. So when Jonah says, "You cast me into the sea," he's recognizing, like Joseph does in the Book of Genesis, that what the sailors in this case meant for good but what the brothers meant for evil, God purposed and caused for good. What the sailors did by their own volition, their own free will, they exercised their own, uh, autonomy in the, the horizontal sense to cast Jonah into the sea, God also cast him into the sea As I said, the text here uses language that we may not catch in our English translations to indicate that it's not just the sea here that's the problem. God's sovereignty continues to affect and act on Jonah. The word that we read here as the, the water or the flood, other places refers to the current of a river. The, um, the Euphrates itself is sometimes referred to this, the large- sort of the largest river apart from the Nile that the Egyptian or the, um, Israelite mind would have is the Euphrates, right? This underwater river, this underwater current, the undertow sucks him to the bottom of the ocean. It's like if you're swimming at the beach at the ocean and you get caught in the undercurrent. There's not a lot you can do about it. Y- sometimes even the strongest swimmers can't overcome this, and Jonah in all of his Middle Eastern robes, all of this stuff, probably with all of his baggage, his, his own equipment, things he had on him, is caught in this undercurrent that sucks him to the bottom of the ocean. And it's not just below the surface of the water. He's dropped down into the heart of the sea, the very core. We're seeing this language of him being pulled to the depths. In, in chapter one he goes down, down, down, and now he's being drawn into the belly of the ocean, into the pit of Sheol, into the heart of the waters The picture here is that Jonah doesn't just get thrown in the water and sink. He is actively pulled down to the bottom. This is not just a judgment where perhaps he can swim to the top. Just as the mariners hopelessly tried to reach land, Jonah would've been hopelessly trying to swim against this. We don't actually have any indication he tried, but had he tried, there would've been no chance He goes on to say that the God's breakers and his waves roll him. This is the picture we see if you ever watch surfing competitions on the ocean, where a surfer will get hit by the wave and he just gets rolled over and rolled over and rolled over, and it can be incredibly dangerous. That's why they have like the little lifeguards on the jet skis that zip out there to get them. Because when you get caught in that breaker, you just get rolled over and rolled over and rolled over, and soon you lose track of which direction is up, and even if you did, you couldn't get out This process is not just the forces of nature doing what they do. This is, again, the Lord weaponizing the forces of nature to execute judgment on Jonah This tumultuous and supernatural rapid descent showed Jonah that this is not only the moment in which God wanted to take his life, but was actively casting him away from the g- from the presence of the Lord [00:21:47] Yet I Will See [00:21:47] Tony Arsenal: It says here, um, in verse four, Jonah says, "I am driven away from your sight If you do a word study on this, you start to see that Jonah is pulling language from the creation account. He's pulling language from the fall. He's pulling a lot of language from Genesis itself. He's also pulling from the Psalms, which are pulling from the Genesis account. This word driven away could also be tran- translated as banished. He's cast out of the presence of the Lord. Just as in Genesis 3, we read, "God drove the man out at the east of the Garden of Eden. He placed cherubim and flaming swords." He drove the man out. Genesis 4:14, Cain says, "You have driven me away from the ground." And in Jonah 1:3, we see that Jonah was trying to get away from the presence of the Lord. And I wonder if there was this moment where he goes, "Ooh, I guess I got what I was looking for." Now, the second half of Jonah f- 2:4 here does something a little bit weird, and it's hard to translate. I think we should be honest at times. Hebrew is a language that in some senses is mysterious to us at times. There are still parts of the Hebrew Bible that we're not always 100% sure of. This verse here could be translated... In, in Hebrew it's just a statement. It's, "I, um, I shall again see the holy temple, or your holy temple." How that fits into the text itself is tricky. Some read it as, uh, as a question. "How shall I see your holy temple?" It's actually a statement kind of reaffirming the doubt and the fear and the idea that God was banishing him Most translations translate it as sort of a contrast. He says, "I was driven away from your sight, yet I shall again look on your holy temple." The force of this is even though you're driving me away, even though you're casting me out of your presence, I have faith, I have confidence that I will again see your holy temple The question here, and this is where I think Jonah becomes our example It's certainly possible that Jonah was asserting his belief that he would be rescued from this calamity and he would make his way back to Jerusalem and he would return to the holy temple. I think that what he says in the rest of this, he's recounting what he was praying. What he was praying in this context is not that he would return to the temple. He was confident God was taking his life. He says in verse five, "The waters closed in over me to take my life. The deep surrounded me. Weeds were wrapped around my head." The other way that the phrase holy temple is used in the Old Testament is to refer to the place that God lives in heaven. Jonah was asserting faith that even though he was being cast out of the presence of the Lord in this life, even though he was being justly punished for his sin, even though he was about to enter the belly of Sheol and to enter the pit, the very abyss, that he would see God again in His holy temple. This is a statement of Jonah's belief in his own destiny as one of God's people, destined to be saved by faith in God. In this moment, Jonah trusts the Lord despite all of the appearances that God was out to get him It's not all that different than when we read in Mark chapter 9, where this father brings his, uh, demon-possessed child to Jesus, and Jesus says, "I can heal him." And he says, "If you can do anything, Lord," I'm paraphrasing here. He says, "If you can do it, please, Lord." And he says, "If? All things are possible for me." And the father desperately cries out, "Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief." It's this raw, unfiltered statement of just the human condition on this side of glory, right? I believe in the Lord, but there's always that little part in the back of my head that isn't sure, because we're never going to be perfect. Now, I've said before, and, and this is becoming my new catchphrase, I think, I'm not here to rob you of your assurance of faith. Our, our confession, the Bible, this church, our Reform, broader Reform tradition, the assurance of faith of the Christian is the rightful possession inheritance of every person in this room who trusts the Lord. But it is a reality that at times that assurance is shaken. And if there's ever a time for your assurance to be shaken, it's when you're being dragged to the bottom of the ocean, right? One of the words in here, I don't have it-- I don't actually have it in my notes for some reason, but one of the note, words here, uh, s- about the roots of the mountain, I believe, in the next verse. It's not just that he was dragged to the bottom of the ocean. This word root of the mountain is like the word that's used to cut. He's not just being dragged to the bottom of the sea, he's being dragged to the bottom of a deep sea crevasse. He's literally being pulled into the pit, right? Many, uh, in the ancient Semitic world would have seen these underwater pits. They would have theorized or thought about these underwater crevasses as the actual entry into Sheol. And Jonah sees himself being drawn down into these things. Yet, he believes he will see the good presence of the Lord We read a similar statement, I won't, uh, I won't make us go there for time. We read a similar statement in Job. Job goes through this long speech about all the things that God has done to him, and at the very end of it, he says, "Yet I will see the Lord with my eyes, and he will stand up next to me on, on the earth." Right? Even though Job was going through this unimaginable grief, and we know that Job didn't deserve it in the strict sense, he still was saying, "I'm gonna be destroyed. God is shooting arrows at me," right? "His sword is in my side. He's targeting me. He's sending hornets after me." All of these terrible, vibrant images that he's using to show what God is doing to him, and yet he still trusts. I would say that he trusts that he would see the Lord in the flesh. This is not only Jonah's faith, it's a-- or Job's faith, it's a prophecy of Christ This is alien to our modern mindset. We've been talking about this in the Psalms. Weston's been leading us through the, the lament Psalms We often think that suffering and trials and difficulties are the opposite of blessing and favor. And we might recognize that in some sort of way that in God's economy, one thing leads to another. And again, there's an element of truth to that. James says, "Count it all joy when you face trials of every kind." He's not saying that the trials you're facing are in themselves joyful. You don't have to love when you get sick. You don't have to, you don't have to man up and put a smile on or s- pull yourself up by your bootstraps or whatever analogy you wanna use. It's okay to be sad when bad things happen. It's actually good, right? If we're to weep with those who weep, there's an element of sadness that must come with that, not to mention the one who's weeping is not chastised. But the idea that that only leads to this, that that's just one step in the chain, that's not really the mindset the Bible has. All across the Psalms, in the lament Psalms, all across the prophetic literature, the Book of Lamentations, Habakkuk has this long prayer at the end that's very similar, the entire Book of Job, suffering and sanctification, trials and joy and restoration, they're all sandwiched right there, and there is usually this statement in the middle of it that God will do what is right This is Jonah's example for us, and what an example it is. We'll talk in a little bit about all the ways that this whole scenario is typological of Christ. We'll, we'll get to that. But just for a minute in the middle of this book, Jonah is not such a bad guy. And it's because he still has all his faults that he can be this example for us [00:30:26] Genesis Deep Imagery [00:30:26] Tony Arsenal: As though it wasn't clear enough, Jonah in verse five says that the purpose of the waters closing over him was explicitly to take his life. He's now in the belly of the sea. He's being dragged down to the very roots of the mountain, to the very core of the earth in his mind. He, he thinks he's going to hell in the, the Hebrew mind. There's both this idea that God is dragging him to hell in a very real sense. The Hebrew mind, Sheol was a physical place that people went to, and we learn more about it and that becomes clarified as revelation is progressive, not contradictory, but as, as it's clarified But he uses this word deep, and this is where he's drawing again from Genesis. Genesis 1:2, he says, "The earth was without form and void. The darkness was over the face of the deep." The deep is this sort of like unformed chaotic water. It's what exists before God makes everything orderly and good. And in the fall, and especially in the flood in chapter seven, uh, chapter seven verse 11, the f- the flood itself is a sort of undoing of the order. God opens the floods from beneath, from the bottom of the earth, from the wellspring of the deep, as well as the chaotic waters from outside the firmament, and it all pours back in together and the entire world becomes again this deep, primordial, chaotic water And just as in Genesis God separates the land, in, in Genesis 7 or in Genesis 8, he separates out the land by drying it up, drying up the water. We also see that Jonah has this trust that he will return to the dry land. Again, he's the God of heaven and sea and dry earth. We could even read this phrase, depending on the context, as the abyss, which is this, a- again, is some borrowed language from Greek here that the Hebrews use. But it's this deep, watery, murky place th- full of shadows and darkness. Sounds familiar, I think, right? Christ says that those who are apart from him who refuse to obey will be cast into the outer darkness. This is the imagery that Jonah is seeing. All outside visible indicators was that he was gonna die and he was going to hell. Yet he trusted in the Lord that he would see his holy temple again Apart from God's gracious intervention, Jonah was right. So although God is the one that's bringing him to the depth, bringing him to the pit, dragging him down, using the very currents of the sea, weaponizing these underwater currents that only thousands of years later do we understand, and even then only this much, he also graciously rescues him from this by miraculously appointing a whale or a great fish who comes and swallows Jonah, takes him whole, and keeps him there in his own belly, keeps him there in her own womb when we get to chapter 2. In chapter six, or in verse six, Jonah makes this pivot. Again, he says he's brought to the very bottom of the sea, to the roots of the mountain, which is these deep underwater trenches. He conceptualizes himself now in this locked city behind bars. Again, this jail imagery, this pit imagery, it's all meant to evoke this idea of the final punishment of the wicked. This place of murky, gross water, this place of darkness and, uh, limitations of freedom, he's being taken there. This is the section here where people would actually argue that Jonah dies. He actually dies and is resurrected when he's swallowed by the whale. This comes from language where it says God does not prevent him from going to the pit. God actually draws him to the pit and then raises his life up from the pit. Now, I'm not convinced, um, that we should think that Jonah actually died. I don't, I don't think that the text fully supports that. But it certainly is using this imagery [00:34:45] Christ Typology [00:34:45] Tony Arsenal: This is where we get to some typology about Christ. This is where Jonah really shines as a prophet. Sometimes people wonder why the Book of Jonah is considered a prophetic book, and this along with it is part of that. Jonah, although the sign of Jonah in Matthew and in the other Gospels refers to the belly of the whale, that just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights, so also Christ will be in the heart of the earth, the pit, for three days and three nights. When we're talking about typology, we can't get too tripped up on the details. We're not talking about strict allegory where this figure is that person and this signpost represents that thing. This isn't Pilgrim's Progress or Chronicles of Narnia, which is not allegory, but it's similar. Topology functions often on sort of these big picture concepts, right? Although there are some typological references that are super detailed, there are also some that are just sort of evocative The idea that Jonah died and was raised to life and sort of incubated in the earth, in- incubated in the whale and sort of reborn into the world, that certainly sounds a lot like a picture of the resurrection And I think we should see it that way. When Christ says that the sign of Jonah is roughly His resurrection, He is tying it to the three days and three nights, but He's not limiting to that Jonah comes to this pivot, and now he starts to reflect on the context of his deliverance. This whole s- this whole prayer should be seen sort of in the light of the thanksgiving psalms. There's a situation in which Jonah is in, and then God rescues him, and he begins to praise him for it. There's elements of lament, but it's really a thanksgiving psalm that he's drawing on here or that he's, he's writing In 2:7, Jonah is either dead or he's actively dying. I don't know about you, but if you've ever, uh, dove into a pool and got a little deeper than you thought you were, and you-- there's that, like, two seconds before you get to the top where you're sure the lights are going out and you've really only been underwater for, like, 45 seconds, but everything in you tells you if you don't get there, you're gonna die. Every instinct you have is to scramble for the surface. Think about how long it took Jonah to be dragged to the bottom of the ocean. Even at this accelerated pace, we're talking about a long time. And we have no reason to believe, and lots of reasons to think otherwise, Jonah was not preserved from the pain and the terror and the difficulty of feeling like you're drowning because he was drowning. He was without oxygen. His life was fading away. And it is in this context of him being on the brink of death, at death's door, in the belly of Sheol, being drawn into the very pit itself, that his prayer reaches the Lord in His holy temple. Right? This gives further evidence to the thought that Jonah is not talking about the temple in Jerusalem. There was, there was theology, and I, I think it's fine theology, that God lived in the temple in a special way. This is the reason that Daniel faces Jerusalem when he prays. There is a sense in the Old Testament that God's special place of presence is the temple in Jerusalem, and that the prayers of the people physically go to that place to be received by God. But Jonah doesn't know which direction the temple is. He's underwater. He's been tossed around by breakers. He has no sense of geography at this point He knows that his prayers are reaching the Lord in his heavenly temple. And they reach him in his heavenly temple just as his life is being lost in the pit. And it is from this moment that God raises him to life, or preserves his life, depending how you read it, and appoints the well to come reach him And some read this next verse as a little bit of a step back for Jonah, and it may be. [00:39:02] Vows and Idols [00:39:02] Tony Arsenal: He reads, "Those who pay vain regard to i- regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love. But I, with the voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. And what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord." Jonah didn't see the sailors on the ship vow their vows and offer their sacrifices. That happened after they threw him into the pit and the current sucked him under So we may read this with a little bit of a, "Thank God I'm not like that tax collector," kind of a lens. And there's probably some wisdom for us in that, to recognize that Jonah still hasn't quite gotten there. But it's also very common in the Old Testament to recognize that God treats His people differently because they are different. God brings people to a place of sanctification, and through that process of sanctification, they cease to worship vain idols. And it is absolutely true that those who worship vain idols forfeit their hope of steadfast love from the Lord. That's straight out of the Ten Commandments, right? He visits the iniquity of, specifically of idolatry. He visits the iniquity unto the children to the third and fourth generation. But for those who love the Lord, He loves them with a steadfast love unto thousands We can recognize in Jonah that although he had made great progress in faith, that he still wasn't there yet. And we can recognize that in him because we can recognize that in ourselves. Jonah is the example in this because he is not perfect, because he has not arrived, 'cause he doesn't do a 180 about-face and get everything right going forward We can read this in light of Jonah in chapter four, where he takes big steps back Or we can read this as the regular up and down progress of sanctification in the life of all believers everywhere It is also ironic again, we're back now to Jonah being a little bit behind the curve. He was sent to Nineveh to evangelize the heathens, some of the worst enemies that Israel was going to face, and he ignores that call. And he, instead of going to Nineveh, he goes to Tarshish. He goes the opposite direction, and he does something that would be unthinkable to most Israelites. He goes out on the open ocean. That's just insanity to someone living in the ancient world He should have recognized that the sailors were fearing the Lord when they refused to throw him overboard. I think we all have a sort of innate sense when someone's behavior suddenly changes, and I think most of us, and not in some sort of strange, kooky, charismatic sense, but I think most of us can sort of go, "I think I know why that is." Right, when you, when you see someone at work that suddenly stops lying about everything and stops backbiting and stops taking credit for other people's work, and then you find out a little while linger- longer that they've come to faith in Christ, if we're being honest, we're not all that surprised. But Jonah doesn't get it. Jonah here promises the same things that the sailors already did, so now we're again back behind the curve [00:42:37] Sanctification Confession [00:42:37] Tony Arsenal: To wrap this out, I, I wanna, um, I wanna ground this in something that I think is really vital for us to understand. As I said, Jonah is an example to us because he demonstrates the limited nature of sanctification, but he also demonstrates in a certain sense the fact that sanctification is real and has real effects. So this is a little out of the ordinary, but grab your Trinity Hymnal from the pew in front of you. If you happen to have a copy of the Confession, you could use that if you'd prefer. But open with me to page 927 I have, um, I've been, uh, broadly Reformed most of my Christian life and didn't realize it until I got to seminary. And since I discovered the Westminster Confession of Faith a decade ago, it's not new, uh, not new to me, um, I realized how valuable this resource was. This is essentially a search engine without the internet. And so I wanna just read a little bit out of chapter 13 here, which is our Confessions chapter on sanctification. I'm not gonna read the whole thing, but the, the first, uh, the first section here essentially says that sanctification is real, and it happens throughout the whole person. We talk about total depravity, and there is a sense in which the Christian remains totally depraved after regeneration, in that there still is, there still is corruption within our entire being, uh, that is depraved. There's also an equal sense in which we can say we are totally sanctified in Christ because sanctification is throughout the whole man in which we are renewed after the image of God. So that's section one. And then section two says, "This sanctification is throughout," again, throughout the whole man, "in the whole man, yet imperfect in this life. There abiding still some remnant of corruption in every part, whence ariseth a continual and irre- irreconcilable war, the flesh left lusting after the spirit, and the spirit lusting after the flesh." Now, that may feel like just a crushing burden if you stop reading there, but it lines up with our experience, right? This is Paul in Romans 7, "The good things I wanna do, I do not, and the bad things that I, I kn- I do not want to do, I somehow do. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." We shouldn't read that as though somehow our spirits are purified entirely and our bodies are what's really causing us to sin. This is a picture of the spirit being, uh, our, our spiritual part of us. The part of us that's regenerated is willing, but the part of us that remains corrupt is our flesh And our confession goes on to say, "In which war, although the remaining corruption for a time may much prevail, yet through the continual supply of strength from the sanctification- sanctifying spirit of Christ, the regenerate part doth overcome." And so the saints grow in grace, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. This is revolutionary in our broader evangelical world. The storybook Bible, Jonah did a bad thing and he gets punished, and he did a good thing and so he gets better, cannot understand this concept. This is why I think we have to be so careful when we choose what books to give to our little ones, right? I, I make jokes about VeggieTales. I loved VeggieTales when I was in VeggieTales age range. I probably would sit down and watch VeggieTales with Augie when he gets old enough. But we have to be so careful not to let those messages come to our children, or to ourselves for that matter, uninterpreted by the scriptures first and foremost, and our Reformed tradition that we all believe. Amen. [00:46:49] Assurance in the Pit [00:46:49] Tony Arsenal: This is vital for us When all is said and done, salvation, whether we're talking about justification, sanctification, glorification, resurrection, all of the different stages and phases of our salvation, it is entirely of the Lord. And it's for this reason that Jonah says, "I, with a voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will pay." Salvation belongs to the Lord So this is the application of the sermon, loved ones. No matter how close to or actually into the pit itself we have fallen The, the chapter on assurance of faith, I won't go there, but the chapter in our confession on assurance of faith is very honest with us that our assurance will be shaken, and at times we may not feel as though we have any assurance at all But even when we have fallen that deep into the pit of despair, even when we feel as though we are in the very depths of hell No matter how much our spiritual or physical life is fainting away as we starve for spiritual breath, as we feel that impulse in us that recognizes we're moments away from losing the faith entirely. No matter how much the remnants of corruption in every part swirl around our heads like seaweed, how often do we feel wrapped up in sin? Whatever it is, I don't need to get specific 'cause I'm sure all of you are thinking of something in your head right now that has been swirling around you for years. Maybe it's months, maybe it's years. Maybe you've never felt, since coming to Christ, you've never felt like it wasn't wrapped up around you like seaweed. Besetting sin is something that we need to be serious about, and it's a good cause for us to think hard and deep about our status as Christians, and to go to our pastor and seek the elders' assistance in this. But besetting sin is not, is not a mark that excludes you from, from Christianity. Right? We're justified by faith alone, in Christ alone, by His grace alone. Not because we've overcome our besetting sin alone, right? That's not one of the five solas God redeems our life from the pit. From the very depths of hell itself, he snatched us like brands from the fire And though it is the case that we often are shaken, and at times God, just as he let Jonah, he let Jonah go to Tarshish. God had every ability to stop him from doing a stupid thing, and sometimes he does that, right? I'm sure there's plenty of times we can think about in our lives where we were heading towards sin and God just pulled a U-turn on us, and we are thankful for that. But there are times that he does not, and he lets us, he lets us do that. He lets us suffer the consequences, and he does that to chastise us and bring us back to him And even in the context of that, it is through this continual supply of the sanctifying Spirit of Christ, right? [00:50:19] God Beautifies His Bride [00:50:19] Tony Arsenal: Christ was anointed by the Holy Spirit from the womb beyond measure. That's in the Book of John. There was never a time where Christ did not have the totality of the infinite sanctifying Spirit of the God, of God. We do not have the totality of the sanctifying Spirit of God. Now, we can get into a discussion after the service about divine simplicity and all the complexity of that, but the reality is that God sanctifies us more and more and more, and He does it by giving us the Spirit more and more. Might be more accurate to say He gives more of us to the Spirit. He gives us to the Spirit more and more. He gives us to Jesus more and more. We are Christ's inheritance. We are His bride. And just as the bride, as they're approaching the wedding, is made more and more beautiful, they start their, their beauty treatments weeks and months ahead of time, right? They're already making their hair appointments. They're already doing what they need to do to feel as beautiful as they can and to be as beautiful as they can on their wedding day. If that's the way we treat human weddings; guys do it too, just not as much. If that's the way we treat human weddings, how much more does God treat the heavenly wedding of His Son to His beloved bride? He's beautifying us, Church. Doesn't always feel like it. Doesn't always look like it, but He is.
പ്രതിസന്ധികളുടെ നടുവിലെ ദൈവിക സമാധാനം | Calm In The Middle Of Chaos | Malayalam Christian Message | Br. Damien Antony | Morning Glory 1950 | 20 June 2026നിങ്ങളുടെ ജീവിതത്തിൽ ഇന്ന് വീശിയടിക്കുന്ന എത്ര വലിയ കൊടുങ്കാറ്റ് ആയാലും അതിന്റെ മുകളിൽ അധികാരമുള്ള യേശു ഇന്ന് നിങ്ങളുടെ വഞ്ചിയിലുണ്ട്; ഭയപ്പെടേണ്ട!Christians face severe spiritual warfare, unexpected trials, and life-threatening storms even while operating completely within the perfect will of God. Obedience to the divine calling does not grant immediate immunity from environmental turbulence or emotional distress. The biblical narrative in Mark 4:39 explicitly proves that disciples encounter violent tempests and raging waves while executing the direct commands of Jesus Christ. Storms manifest predictably during critical seasonal transitions, spiritual growth spurts, acts of absolute obedience, specific divine assignments, or periods of dangerous disobedience, much like the prophetic flight of Jonah toward Tarshish.ദൈവവചനത്തിൻ്റെ അനുഗ്രഹങ്ങൾക്കായി Blessing Today ചാനൽ ഇപ്പോൾ തന്നെ Subscribe ചെയ്യൂ! ✨പുതിയ വീഡിയോകൾക്കായി Bell Icon അമർത്തുക.
This is a story of Jonah is about obedience. It's about someone who loves God, someone who has been used by God in great ways, and someone who wants to serve God with all of his heart. It's a story about a man who hears from God. But the big point of this story is that it's a man who doesn't want to do what God is asking him to do. Instead, he runs away.Main Points:1. The Old Testament story challenges us because there is a little of Jonah in us too. We are sometimes conflicted. We can struggle with some of the things God says. We read His Word and He asks certain things of us and we don't always like what we read. 2. Jonah is called by many the “reluctant prophet.” I think that's an appropriate nickname. But we can't be too harsh on Jonah because we too are often reluctant to obey God. Sometimes, we too would like to get on a ship and go the other way instead of obeying Him.3. There are so many things God will say to us as we follow him. He is shaping us. He is molding us. He is making us more like Jesus. He is deepening and maturing our faith but it requires obedience. It requires us to be willing and to cooperate with his Word.Today's Scripture Verses:Jonah 1:1-3 - “The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.” But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.”Psalm 139:7-8 - “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.”Quick Links:Donate to support this podcastLeave a review on Apple PodcastsGet a copy of The 5 Minute Discipleship JournalConnect on SocialJoin The 5 Minute Discipleship Facebook Group
What if you're more upset by God's mercy toward others than grateful for His mercy toward you? Pastor Dave reveals how Jonah—despite being rescued by God's whale-sized grace—still pouted when enemies received forgiveness instead of judgment. Through dramatic modern whale encounters and sobering global statistics, Dave challenges us to examine our own hearts: are we celebrating when people repent, or secretly hoping God will "get them"? This convicting message exposes how spiritual seniority doesn't equal spiritual maturity and calls us to break the cycle of offense. Don't miss this chance to let the whale spit you back where God wants you—free from bitterness and ready for His purposes!4 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became angry. 2 So he prayed to the Lord, and said, “Ah, Lord, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish; for I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm. 3 Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live!”4 Then the Lord said, “Is it right for you to be angry?”5 So Jonah went out of the city and sat on the east side of the city. There he made himself a shelter and sat under it in the shade, till he might see what would become of the city. 6 And the Lord God prepared a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be shade for his head to deliver him from his misery. So Jonah was very grateful for the plant. 7 But as morning dawned the next day God prepared a worm, and it so damaged the plant that it withered. 8 And it happened, when the sun arose, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat on Jonah's head, so that he grew faint. Then he wished death for himself, and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”9 Then God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”And he said, “It is right for me to be angry, even to death!”10 But the Lord said, “You have had pity on the plant for which you have not labored, nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night. 11 And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left—and much livestock?”
What if you're more upset by God's mercy toward others than grateful for His mercy toward you? Pastor Dave reveals how Jonah—despite being rescued by God's whale-sized grace—still pouted when enemies received forgiveness instead of judgment. Through dramatic modern whale encounters and sobering global statistics, Dave challenges us to examine our own hearts: are we celebrating when people repent, or secretly hoping God will "get them"? This convicting message exposes how spiritual seniority doesn't equal spiritual maturity and calls us to break the cycle of offense. Don't miss this chance to let the whale spit you back where God wants you—free from bitterness and ready for His purposes!4 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became angry. 2 So he prayed to the Lord, and said, “Ah, Lord, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish; for I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm. 3 Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live!”4 Then the Lord said, “Is it right for you to be angry?”5 So Jonah went out of the city and sat on the east side of the city. There he made himself a shelter and sat under it in the shade, till he might see what would become of the city. 6 And the Lord God prepared a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be shade for his head to deliver him from his misery. So Jonah was very grateful for the plant. 7 But as morning dawned the next day God prepared a worm, and it so damaged the plant that it withered. 8 And it happened, when the sun arose, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat on Jonah's head, so that he grew faint. Then he wished death for himself, and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”9 Then God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”And he said, “It is right for me to be angry, even to death!”10 But the Lord said, “You have had pity on the plant for which you have not labored, nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night. 11 And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left—and much livestock?”
Share a commentGod tells Jonah to get up and go preach to Nineveh, and Jonah does what many of us do when obedience feels impossible: he runs. The command is simple and unmistakable, but it's also unsettling, uncomfortable, and risky. That tension launches a deeper look at God's will and why clarity doesn't always produce compliance.We dig into what Nineveh really was: the capital of Assyria, infamous for violence, cruelty, and spiritual darkness. When you understand the historical reputation of Nineveh, Jonah's resistance stops looking like a childish tantrum and starts looking like raw dread and moral outrage. God doesn't soften the assignment or pretend it will be safe. He names the wickedness and still says, go speak.Then we follow Jonah down to the docks and out toward Tarshish, the farthest opposite direction he can find, and we draw out three lessons that hit home today: disobedience always points you the wrong way, it costs more than you planned, and the “perfect timing” that makes sin feel easy can be part of the trap. We also connect Jonah's three imperatives to the many imperatives of Christian life like following Christ, speaking truth, giving generously, and staying alert.If you've ever tried to outrun a hard calling, this will feel uncomfortably familiar. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs a nudge toward obedience, and leave a review with the hardest “go” you've ever been asked to say yes to. Learn more: https://www.wisdomonline.org/Support the show
“Then the LORD spoke to Jonah a second time: ‘Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh, and deliver the message I have given you.’” (Jonah 3:1–2 NLT) Most believers have reasons not to evangelize. Some of these reasons might even seem compelling or legitimate. “I don’t want to make the friendship weird or awkward.” “I’m afraid I won’t be able to answer people’s questions.” “I don’t want to become a person that other people avoid.” The Old Testament prophet Jonah had some pretty compelling reasons not to evangelize. At least, he thought they were compelling. He’d been given an assignment that no prophet in his day would have been excited about. God had called him to preach His Word in Nineveh, which was one of the most wicked cities on earth. The Ninevites were the enemies of Israel. Other prophets had warned Israel that one day the Assyrians would overtake them, and Nineveh just happened to be the capital of Assyria. Jonah likely reasoned, “Wait a second! If I go and preach to them, they might repent. And if they repent, then God will spare them, and they will conquer us. But if I don’t preach to them, they won’t repent, and God will judge them. That will be one less enemy we have to deal with.” So, Jonah tried to go in the opposite direction. He went down to Joppa, boarded a ship, and set sail for Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord. He would have saved himself a lot of trouble if he had remembered the words of David, “I can never escape from your Spirit! I can never get away from your presence!” (Psalm 139:7 NLT). You probably know the rest of the story. God sent a great storm that threatened the lives of everyone aboard the vessel. Jonah admitted that he was the cause of the storm and was tossed overboard: “The LORD had arranged for a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was inside the fish for three days and three nights” (Jonah 1:17 NLT). Jonah repented, and the great fish—likely a whale—vomited him up on shore. “Then the LORD spoke to Jonah a second time: ‘Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh, and deliver the message I have given you’” (Jonah 3:1–2 NLT). This time, Jonah did what God had called him to do. God helped him recognize what all believers need to understand: The work of evangelism is far more important and pressing than any discomfort we may experience or any objections we may have. We’ve been called to share the gospel, even with people we may not like. Nonbelievers aren’t the enemy; they’ve been taken captive by the god of this world to do what he wants them to do (see 2 Timothy 2:26). Until the end of our lives or until the Lord returns, our job is to reach them with the Good News of Christ. Let’s embrace the work God’s given us so that others may experience His forgiveness, salvation, and love. Reflection question: What seemingly compelling reasons might keep you from sharing the gospel? The Harvest Crusade is coming to Angel Stadium on July 11! Stay updated on all important event details. — The audio production of the podcast "Greg Laurie: Daily Devotions" utilizes Generative AI technology. This allows us to deliver consistent, high-quality content while preserving Harvest's mission to "know God and make Him known." All devotional content is written and owned by Pastor Greg Laurie. Listen to the Greg Laurie Podcast Become a Harvest PartnerSupport the show: https://harvest.org/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Share a commentGod tells Jonah to get up and go preach to Nineveh, and Jonah does what many of us do when obedience feels impossible: he runs. The command is simple and unmistakable, but it's also unsettling, uncomfortable, and risky. That tension launches a deeper look at God's will and why clarity doesn't always produce compliance.We dig into what Nineveh really was: the capital of Assyria, infamous for violence, cruelty, and spiritual darkness. When you understand the historical reputation of Nineveh, Jonah's resistance stops looking like a childish tantrum and starts looking like raw dread and moral outrage. God doesn't soften the assignment or pretend it will be safe. He names the wickedness and still says, go speak.Then we follow Jonah down to the docks and out toward Tarshish, the farthest opposite direction he can find, and we draw out three lessons that hit home today: disobedience always points you the wrong way, it costs more than you planned, and the “perfect timing” that makes sin feel easy can be part of the trap. We also connect Jonah's three imperatives to the many imperatives of Christian life like following Christ, speaking truth, giving generously, and staying alert.If you've ever tried to outrun a hard calling, this will feel uncomfortably familiar. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs a nudge toward obedience, and leave a review with the hardest “go” you've ever been asked to say yes to. Learn more: https://www.wisdomonline.org/Support the show
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