SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/29/2025 9:27 AM
My Worship Time Focus: “A Remorseful Monarch”
Bible Reading and Meditation Reference: Jonah 3:6
Message of the verses: “Then the word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, laid aside his mantle from him, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat on the ashes.”
I have been writing about how Jonah went through the first part of the city of Nineveh, and as he did this speaking of the doom that was about to come upon the city, the word reached the king of Nineveh, possibly either Adadnirari III or Ashur-dan, as we looked at this in the introduction to Jonah. The truth is that Johan did not need to seek an audience with the king; rather, his judgment message traveled by the word of mouth and so it reached (this word means literally, “touched, struck”) the king, both in his ears and in his heart, and we know that it was the Holy Spirit of God who caused this to happen. Though removed from the mundane activities of his subjects, the king soon heard about this Hebrew prophet whom God had miraculously delivered from the sea and then subsequently deployed to Nineveh with the word of destruction.
Now when the message of God gave Jonah to preach broke through to the courts of the palace, it struck the king and he immediately carried out four actions, and we will look at them in a moment, but first I want to go back to how the word got to the king as it must have been that he heard of what happened to Jonah, that is the fish swallowing him and then spiting him out. This kind of news would have been something that these heather Ninevites would have liked to hear because of the fact that it was a difficult thing to believe, and yet here comes the very prophet whom it happened to. I have mentioned that it is the belief of John MacArthur that the giant fish spit Jonah out back where he had came from and not in Nineveh, and not just because MacArthur wrote this in his commentary do I believe it, but it does make more sense to me that having Jonah spit out near Nineveh. At least his sea voyage would have been less eventful than the first one.
The first action was that he arose from his throne. Rising up conveys urgency to respond in a swift and decisive way. Now rising up conveys urgency to respond in a very rapid and decisive way. Now for the king to rise from his throne it was a very significant thing to do. Sitting on a throne represented a posture of dominance and control, unthreatened by any challenge and poised to give Judgments and orders and an example of this comes from Deut. 17:18; 1 Kings 1:17, 35; 2 Kings 11:19; 13:13; and Ps. 47:8. However the warning from God had so gripped the king’s mind that he physically stood up in order to take some action. The Lord had earlier commanded Jonah to arise and go to Nineveh seen in Jonah 1:2; and 3:2. Ironically, while Jonah initially arose to disobey the message from God, this Gentile monarch immediately arose to obey God, which displayed submission to the Lord.
Now I am going to save the other three actions for my next Spiritual Diary.
Spiritual Meaning for My Life Today: When I realize that the Lord is leading me to do something, then I must do it right away, and not be like what Jonah did and run from what He desires me to do.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord to guide my wife and I on getting the treatment that she needs to help her in this battle with cancer that she is going through, and by doing what we believe God desires for her to do it will bring glory to the Lord, which is what we desire to do.
10/29/2025 9:51 AM
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