SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11//2025 :15 AM
My
Worship Time Focus: PT-4 “The Final Admonition”
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference: Jonah
4:9-11
Message of the verses: ““Then God said to Jonah,
“Do you have good reason to be angry about the plant? And he said, “I have good reason to be angry,
even to death.” Then Yahweh said, “You
had pity on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came to be overnight. So should I not have pity on Nineveh, the
great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left
hand, as well as many animals?”
I ended yesterday’s SD with the
following: “The Lord reinforced His indisputable case by providing five
features that reveal His compassion on Nineveh as far superior to Jonah’s pity
for the plant.” I will not begin to look
at these five features through the pen of John MacArthur.
“First, the significance of the city
far surpassed that of the plant. By
reminding the prophet that Nineveh was the great city, God declared to
Jonah that Nineveh had far greater value than any plant. Earlier in the book, the Lord described
Nineveh as “the great city” to declare His intention to reach the
Gentiles (1:2) and to assert the value He placed on the souls residing there
(3:3). If Jonah, who did nothing to
nurture the plant, could have pity on a piece of vegetation, then surely God
who created the inhabitants of this great city was entitled to show pity for
their eternal souls. Unlike Jonah’s
pity, which was based on what the plant had done for him, God took pity on the
Ninevites despite their actions against Him.
“Second, the size of Nineveh’s
population was numerically far greater than a solitary plant. Jonah was
distressed over a single shrub, but God declared that there are more than
120,000 people in the city. Since
the 120,000 referred specifically to children (see below), the population of
the city was actually far higher, likely around 600,000. In terms of sheer quantity, God had far more
warrant to take pity on Nineveh than Jonah had to show sympathy for one plant.”
I will have to wait to find out how
MacArthur explains that there were 120,000 children in the city with a total
population of around 600,000 in Nineveh.
Spiritual Meaning for my Life today: God cares for all people,
and saves those He has chosen to save, something hard for my mind to
understand, but God cares for all people by giving them food to eat, and air to
breathe, and we can see that He certainly cared for the people of Nineveh.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I continue to trust the Lord in the way that
He is handling the treatment that my wife in receiving, knowing that He is in
control.
11/30/2025
8:29 AM
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