SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/10/2025 9:53 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 “A Hope-Filled Confidence”
Bible Reading and Meditation Reference: Jonah 2:5-7
Message of the verses:
“Water encompassed me to my very soul.
The great deep surrounded me,
Weeds were wrapped around my head.
I went down to the base of the mountains.
The earth with its bars closed behind me forever,
But You have brought up my life from the pit, O Yahweh my God.
While my soul was fainting within me,
I remembered Yahweh,
And my prayer came to You,
To Your holy temple.
This morning I want to continue to look at this rather long section from the verses above, as we look to see what happened to Jonah after he was thrown off the ship by the new believing sailors. I really don’t believe that Jonah had died in the ocean after he entered it, but I do remember that the Lord Jesus Christ references the prophet Jonah as he was three days in the belly of the fish, and that the Lord would be three days in the grave. I have also mentioned that the three days did not mean three 24 hour days as Jesus was buried towards the end of the day that He was crucified on and then spent the next day, and probably the following day when He was raised from the dead, so as far as how many hours He was in the grave it would be a lot less than 72 hours, which was in my opinion as far as Jonah’s time in the belly of the great fish similar.
Here is how Jonah describes God’s intervention as he said, “You have brought up my life from the pit.” Now this expression brought up reverses all the statements of going down (cf. Jonah 1:3, 5; 2:6a), which marked Jonah’s destructive spiral of disobedience, and there was a number of those seen in the first chapter. For Jonah to be brought up signaled a divine reversal of his downward spiral, as if God had raised him from the dead, something I spoke of at the beginning of this SD. Now the pit referred to the grave and was a common euphemism for physical death and entrance into the afterlife. Now the notion of coming up from the pit carried overtones of resurrection (cf. Job 33:30); “To bring back his soul from the pit, That he may be enlightened with the light of life.” In fact, this language closely parallels the anticipation of Christ’s resurrection found in Psalm 16:10; “For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol; Nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay.” This can also be seen in Acts 13:35; “"Therefore He also says in another Psalm, ‘YOU WILL NOT ALLOW YOUR HOLY ONE TO UNDERGO DECAY.’” Luke, the author of Acts has used Psalm 16:10 here in the book of Acts, as he copied it from that Psalm. Now throughout this book, Jonah alluded to another Old Testament passages about the hope of resurrection and the future work of the Messiah. Through Jonah, like the Apostle Paul, had the “sentence of death” (2 Cor. 1:9). The deadly and impossible nature of his circumstances put God’s power of resurrection on vivid display, and this just shows the power of God as it is no problem for Him to raise people from the dead, and even transfer people who are alive into heaven as He did two times in the Old Testament, and will do once again at the rapture of the church, the event that will end the church age. Now I will quote a paragraph from John MacArthur’s commentary as I finish up this SD.
“Jonah then identified the object of his hope when he exclaimed, ‘O Yahweh my God,’ The penitent prophet knew that, while he had fled from God on the sea, the Lord had come to him in the sea. He responded by exclaiming the covenant name Yahweh, acknowledging God’s perfect faithfulness (cf. Ex. 34:6-7); Pss. 36:5); 136), unchanging nature (cf. Heb. 13:8; Rev. 1:4-5), and unwavering commitment to His promises (cf. Gen. 12:1-3, 7; 15:5, 18-21; 17:4-8; 22:17-18; 26:24; 28:13-14; 35:11-12; Mic. 7:18-20). The prophet understood from the rescue that Yahweh was truly his God, and he responded by expressing his love for Yahweh, and his submission to Yahweh’s divine authority. By experiencing God’s discipline and deliverance, the prophet who had feared God in name only (Johan 1:9) now responded with genuine reverence and affection.”
Lord willing I will finish this section in tomorrow morning’s SD.
Spiritual meaning for my life Today: Seeing God’s forgiveness in the life of Jonah, and using discipline in the life of Jonah I can see God’s love and His desire to use Jonah in evangelizing the Ninevites.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Seeking to do the will of God as I go through this very difficult time in my life due to the cancer that my wife is now experiencing.
10/10/2025 10:25 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment