Headquarter Happenings

“And he said unto them, I am an Hebrew; and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land. . . . Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.” (Jonah 1:9, 17)

Jonah had not counted on the fish.
His decision had been made some time before arriving at the Joppa seaport. He had caught a whiff of divine mercy in the assignment and simply was not going to Nineveh to preach. So he purchased the passage and settled down for the journey across the Mediterranean. About the time a few dark clouds began to roll in, Jonah was starting to yawn. Soon he was sound asleep.

That was until the shouts of the incredulous captain burst into his dreams, rebuking him for such gross negligence, and ordering him to join the rest of them in their pleas for supernatural help. When the sailors’ lots sniffed him out as the culprit, Jonah was hit with a torrent of desperate questions. His blunt answer made their blood freeze.

He was a Hebrew, running from the God of heaven, the One who had made the sea and land.

Notice that there was nothing wrong with Jonah’s theology. He was absolutely right. But his attitude remained one of defiance, determination, and resignation. That’s why he calmly suggested that they sacrifice him to the waves. He was totally ready to die in his stubbornness. So, against their desire but desperate to save their lives, they picked him up and heaved him overboard.

Jonah thought it was over. He expected a few seconds of flight, then the splash and shock of cold water, followed by the natural struggle to breathe . . . But wait! Yuck! What was this? Why wasn’t he dead? What was this nasty slime and putrefying stench?!

He was inside God’s surprise.

Actually, Jonah didn’t really dwell on the nauseous odor in his submarine room, but it doesn’t take very deep logic to imagine how it was. The Lord was making sure Jonah’s return to the mission was also a lesson on how miserable life can get for rebellious children.

Yes, the prophet knew a lot of truth about Jehovah. He knew that He created the world and chose Abraham to father the nation of Israel. Yet his Biblical knowledge had not made him wise, which is why he never expected to survive the dive. He still thought he could challenge the will of God and get away with it, refusing to be drawn into the fragrance of God’s grace towards the wicked city.

His smelly experience is graphic instruction for us. With online search engines, digital libraries, and audio sermons at our fingertips, we live surrounded by more Bible information than any generation before us. But we all have Jonah’s stubborn heart beating in our chests, along with the smooth skill of deceiving ourselves to sleep while going away from God’s will for our lives.

May the Lord help us to honestly seek His will.

Dear Father, please give me a heart that obeys Your desires, not just a mind that knows Your attributes. May the aroma of Your goodness always be enough to move me in whatever direction You lead. Amen.

“Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. . . . But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” (Isaiah 43:10, Acts 1:8)

How beautifully the Holy Spirit weaves His themes in and out of Scripture, causing them to emerge in different centuries of the sacred story, each time according to His wise purpose.
The wording of Isaiah’s verse is so close to that of Acts 1:8 that there can be little question about their being close spiritual cousins. The exact details are different but the living thrust of both passages is a divine mission for every true believer in God.

We are to be His witnesses. For the people listening to the prophet, the message was to boldly display the solid case for His eternal Being. They were to show off the perfect trail of prophecy. Since forming the nation, Jehovah had sent Israel a continuous stream of fulfilled prophecies, spanning everything from international politics to personal blessings. The evidence was irrefutable.

In comparison, the argument for any idol of any nation of the world was ludicrous. Various times throughout the book, Isaiah pokes fun at the whole idea of manmade images and the utter absurdity of them being able to foretell anything.

Centuries later Doctor Luke recorded the precise last words of Christ before His ascension. Surely he knew that anyone familiar with Isaiah’s writings would quickly make the connection. The charge was pretty much the same, only here in the New Testament the grace of Jesus and the goal of worldwide evangelism were more clearly seen.

All of the redeemed were now officially called to join the witness stand. The followers of Jesus were to share the overwhelming testimony of His life and identity as Savior of the world.
However, the courtroom was not a specific building or place. It was much larger than that. It was the entire earth! Christians were to scatter to every corner of the globe to witness of the greatest truth mankind could ever know.

As back in Isaiah’s time, these godly people had a thick dossier of proofs. Miracle after miracle, fulfillment after fulfillment, many visual confirmations of His resurrection . . . all stacked up to certify Him as the One and only Messiah.

Perhaps the astonishing question for all of us should be: Why does God even stoop to give us this honor? I really don’t think we could understand the full answer.

We have no inherent right to be such royal ambassadors. We are mere clay, completely unworthy of having the divine image imprinted on our souls or being selected to represent the invisible Lord before a lost world.

But in His amazing grace, the King has chosen us to tell each generation that He was, and is, and always will be. We are living monuments of His love, and are expected to share with any soul who will listen, that He is God.

Dear Father, very often I have been silent about You, both in actions and speech. For many around me, I may be the closest one in Your family they will ever meet. Please help me hold the banner high and boldly show them that You are the true God, and that You came to die for their redemption. Amen.