Thursday, June 11, 2009

Dealing with Offense part 3

1 The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: 2 "Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me." 3 But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish.



Today I want to look at someone who did things the wrong way. Everyone knows the story of Jonah being swallowed by the whale and how God rescued him, and a few people know why he was in the whale in the first place. But do you know why he was running from God? You may have guessed from the title, but he was OFFENDED!!! God wanted him to go and preach in the one place that Jonah hated more than anything else. We don't understand slavery and oppression like he was going through, but we do understand what it's like to get picked on.

I think Jonah knew God, and knew that He would punish people who did evil. In fact, the only thing that was keeping Jonah going was knowing that God would punish the people of Ninevah for all of the horrible things they had done. I wonder if he often prayed for the destruction of that city. I bet he did. So imagine his surprise when one day God tells him to go to Ninevah and preach repentance. He didn't want them to repent, he wanted them to SUFFER!!! So instead of following God's plan, he decided to try and avoid God, and because of that He was swallowed by a whale.

The moral of todays story? Let go of your offenses and listen to God, or you might end up somewhere you don't want to be.

-Jeff-

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