SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/26/2025 9:49 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “Jonah’s Detainment”
Bible Reading and Meditation Reference: Jonah 1:17
Message of the verse: “And Yahweh appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights.”
This verse is very scary to me, to think that Jonah was alive in the stomach of this great fish all that time, being confined in there for three days and three nights is a frightening thing indeed. Now when I compare this verse with the burial of the Lord Jesus Christ they are certainly similar in the length of time that was spent in the fish and in the grave. Now I have read and studied much about how these three days can be counted, and I have come to the conclusion that any part of a day, even a very small part of a day can be called a day, so I don’t believe that the three days would constitute three 24 hour days as both Jonah and the Lord Jesus Christ could have gone into the fish and into the grave near the end of the first day and be counted a day, and likewise at the end of those three days could also have been less than a 24 hour day, so in conclusion these three days could have been as short as 26 hours, and I am not saying that I how long both were there, one in the fish and One in the grave.
John MacArthur begins this section by writing “When Jonah was hurled into the sea, he undoubtedly assumed he would die. It seems that was what he desired. But that was not what the Lord had purposed. Instead, to save Jonah’s life, Yahweh appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah. The use of God’s covenant name Yahweh again emphasized the Lord’s faithfulness as He continued His sanctifying work in the life of His wayward prophet. To that end, the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah and prevent him from drowning. The word appointed can mean to count or apportion something valuable, whether that be food (Daniel 1:15) or one’s days (Job 7:3). Yahweh sovereignly appointed the fish by carefully selecting and assigning a particular sea creature to be at the predetermined place at precisely the right time. Throughout the book, the Lord would also employ other objects from nature to instruct and refine Jonah—including a plant (Jonah 4:6), a worm (4:7), and the wind (4:8). God appointing came as a repeated reminder to the stubborn prophet that his life and ministry depended fully on the Lord’s sovereign mercy (cf. Rom. 9:16; Eph. 2:10).” Let us now look at these two verses beginning with Rom. 9:16:
“So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.”
1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: Now as I look at these verses in Ephesians it is a great reminder of what I was before the Lord saved me, and how awful that I was in the eyes of God, and yet because of His great love and mercy He saved me on the 24th of January, 1974, and my life has never been the same as it is now my desire to serve Him each and every day of my life that the Lord has given to me.
My Steps of Faith for Today: It is the desire of my wife, and me also, that the Lord would open for us a place near Tampa Florida for her to receive treatment on her cancer. We believe that this place would be better suited for her treatment than the one that she is about to begin her chemo treatments near our home. It is my prayer that this will happen.
9/26/2025 9:26 AM
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