SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/18/2015
9:59 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
The Jew becomes a curse instead of a
blessing
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Jonah 1:4-10
Message of the
verses: “4 The LORD hurled a great
wind on the sea and there was a great storm on the sea so that the ship was
about to break up. 5 Then the sailors became afraid and every man cried to his
god, and they threw the cargo which was in the ship into the sea to lighten it
for them. But Jonah had gone below into the hold of the ship, lain down and
fallen sound asleep. 6 So the captain approached him and said, "How is it
that you are sleeping? Get up, call on your god. Perhaps your god will be
concerned about us so that we will not perish." 7 Each man said to his
mate, "Come, let us cast lots so we may learn on whose account this
calamity has struck us." So they cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. 8
Then they said to him, "Tell us, now! On whose account has this calamity
struck us? What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your
country? From what people are you?" 9 He said to them, "I am a
Hebrew, and I fear the LORD God of heaven who made the sea and the dry
land." 10 Then the men became extremely frightened and they said to him,
"How could you do this?" For the men knew that he was fleeing from
the presence of the LORD, because he had told them.”
This is the second sub-point under the first main point
from Dr. Wiersbe’s outline that he entitled “Rebellion” and it covers the
entire first chapter of the book of Jonah.
We must first answer the question “why did God call the
Jews?” For a part of the answer we must
go back to the book of Genesis and chapter twelve and we will look at the first
three verses: “1 Now the LORD said to
Abram, "Go forth from your country, And from your relatives And from your
father’s house, To the land which I will show you; 2 And I will make you a
great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing;
3 And I will bless those who bless you,
And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be
blessed."” We see here that
God would call Abraham to begin the nation of Israel and it began with the
miracle of he and his wife Sara having a baby when Abraham was 100 years old,
and Sara was ninety years old, well past the time when a woman can have
children. God called Abraham so that the
line of the Messiah would go through his family, and he also called Israel to
be a blessing to the other nations. Back
in Genesis 3:15 we see the first promise of a Messiah to come into the world,
and as stated He will come through the line of Abraham, eventually through the
line of Judah and then the line of David.
The Jews were to be a blessing to those around them, but they got their
assignment from the Lord way out of balance as they thought more highly of
themselves believing that those who lived around them that were not Jews were
way below them and so they had little to do with them, and we see that Jonah
had these same feelings, all of which were wrong.
Because the Jews were out of the will of God, as Jonah
was here they brought trouble instead of blessing, and Abraham did this
twice. First when he went to Egypt out
of the will of God and brought back Hagar whom Abraham would father the Arab
nations through her, and another time while in Egypt he lied about who his wife
was, so we see that when the Jews were out of the will of God that they would
bring trouble to others, including themselves.
Dr. Wiersbe points out in an endnote that when the Jews were out of the
will of God by killing Jesus that the Gentiles received salvation as Paul
writes in Romans 11:11 and following.
Dr. Wiersbe writes concerning Johan:
“Johan brought trouble to a boatload of pagan sailors because he
fled. Consider all that Jonah lost
because he wasn’t a blessing to others.”
In verse four we see that Jonah lost the voice of God as
we do not read that the Word of the Lord came to Jonah, but that God brought a
great storm onto the sea where Johan was at in the hold of the boat asleep. God was no longer speaking to Jonah through
His Word, but was speaking to him through His works, getting his attention that
way. We know that everything in nature
obeys God as we could see that in the life of Jesus while He was on earth as He
walked on the water, and calmed a storm just by speaking to it.
Let’s look at 5b “But Jonah had gone below into the hold
of the ship, lain down and fallen sound asleep.” We can see that from this portion of verse
five that Jonah lost his spiritual energy as he was sound asleep in the boat
that was being ravaged by a great storm.
Proverbs 24:33 says “"A little sleep, a little slumber, A little
folding of the hands to rest.’”
Jonah also lost his power to pray, but the sailors had
not trouble praying to their heathen gods, and even asked Johan to call on his
God. Jonah was the one man on the boat
who knew the One True God and he was asleep.
This reminds me a bit of what Jesus’ disciples were doing and Jesus told
them “37 And He came and found them
sleeping, and said to Peter, "Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep
watch for one hour? 38 “Keep
watching and praying that you may not come into temptation; the spirit is
willing, but the flesh is weak."”
Jonah would have to confess his sins to the Lord before he could begin
to pray about the situation, but he did not want to do this at this time: “If I regard wickedness in my heart, The Lord
will not hear (Psalm 66:18).”
We can see in verses 7-10 that Jonah lost his testimony
and this was a sad thing on his part as God had given him a direct commandment
and because he did not like what the Lord was going to do through him, he failed
to complete his task. Jonah’s name means
dove which means peace and he was not living up to that name. Dr. Wiersbe points out “Johan’s fathers name
was Ammitai, which means ‘faithful, truthful’ something that Jonah was not.”
Dr. Wiersbe concludes:
“Johan had already told the crew that he was running away from God, but
now he told them he was God’s prophet, that God who created the heaven, the
earth, and the sea. This announcement
made the sailors even more frightened.
The God who created the sea was punishing His servant and that’s why
they were in danger.”
It is easy to criticize Johan when we read his story, but
as we go through this story there may be times when the Lord will cause us to
think and see things we are doing that are similar to the mistakes that Jonah
was doing.
11/18/2015 10:37 PM
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