JONAH’S GOD II

“...for I knew that you are a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and you relent from the destruction.” Jon 4:2

Jonah is the most missionary book in the Old Testament. It portrays a side of Jehovah that was alien to the average Israelite of that day. Quite typical of human nature, the Israelites had taken the symbolic sacrificial system instituted by Moses and have, over centuries, converted it to a religion in itself; at the same time presuming themselves as the only people worthy of God’s love.

They got so embroiled in the bloods and the grains, the rules and regulations, the prohibitions et al, that they forgot the true nature of the God they were serving.

Yet in that same Old Covenant YAHWEH describes Himself as, “The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth” (Ex 34:6).

The Psalmist said of Him, “For you, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive; and abundant in mercy unto all them that call upon you... full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in mercy and truth” (Ps 86:5,15).

Unlike his contemporaries, Jonah knew something about God’s heartbeat. In our opening text, he explains that he avoided Nineveh, not because he was afraid to die, but because he knew that if they repented of their wicked deeds of idolatry, bloodshed and plunder, YAHWEH would forgive them; even if said wickedness was against His people Israel. (Jon 4:2)

This was a radically different perspective of Israel’s God. Yet this was what He was all along, (Mal 3:6). This was the God that men like Abraham, Moses and David worshipped; this was Jonah’s God.

Even in the Church today, many are still yet to meet this God. They run away from Him and dread coming close because of their filthiness and unworthiness.

They have a picture of an austere and unsmiling God who is out to get them for their sins. But God, who at many times and in various manners spoke in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Has in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, (Heb 1:1,2). And the picture we get of Him from His Son is of a loving father who is “longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance”. (Lk 15:11-32; 2Pe 3:9).

Have you met Jonah’s God, or are you still running away?

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus Name.

GREG ELKAN

JONAH’S GOD

“And he said unto them, I am a Hebrew; and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, who has made the sea and the dry land.” Jon 1:9

The rebellious prophet Jonah thought to flee from obeying God’s command to him to go to Nineveh and boarded a ship headed as far away as possible: to Tarshish, in Spain. 

When God caused a storm to threaten to destroy his ship, everyone in the ship but Jonah called to their ‘god’ to save them. This of course was to no avail until it was discovered that Jonah’s God was the cause of the storm.

We notice that, when he was confronted, Jonah introduced his God as “The God of heaven, who has made the sea and the dry land.”

Jonah was in essence saying that this God is not some local deity that is worshipped by a small nation in one corner of Palestine. No, this God is the God of ALL. Don’t call Him my God, because He is your God as well.

In this 21^st century world of scientific breakthrough and enlightened reasoning, touting one’s persuasion as “agnostic” or “atheist” is increasingly becoming popular and rejecting the existence of a ‘Creator’ is seen as a mark of intellectual sophistication.

Today, belief in an intelligent designer to the cosmos (as opposed to chance evolution) is synonymous to bigotry, archaism and scientific illiteracy. Indeed, any attempt to push one belief system at the exclusion of another is considered insular and intolerant. Especially if it is Christianity, which, the erudite scholars would be glad to tell you, was founded on mythology, superstitions and outright fabrications.

However, when we go out to evangelize, we’re not trying to push our idea of ‘God’ down other people’s throats. We’re actually, and literally, talking to them about their God and about their Creator.

It is somewhat naïve and childish for a man to suppose that skilful and systematic disproof of the existence of a Creator makes said Creator to vanish out of existence. We will all stand before our Maker one day... whether we believe in Him or not.

Jonah clearly understood this power and sovereignty of God over all of nature and all of humanity and spoke accordingly! The heathen sailors of his ship (and, subsequently, the idolatrous Ninevites) exhibited some intelligence that the intellectuals of this generation need to imitate: when confronted with a message from your Creator, acknowledge it and don’t presume you can wish it away.

 “Again, he limits a certain day, saying in David, Today, after so long a time; as it is said, Today if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts”. (Heb 4:7)

 “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men”; (2Co 5:11)

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus Name.

GREG ELKAN

JONAH: THE BOOK, THE MAN, THE STORY

“Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying...” – Jon 1:1-

To say that the book of Jonah is unique, even among the books of the Bible, would not be an overstatement. For a so-called Minor Prophet, his story is quite popular. Many a Christian may look at you cluelessly if you ask them about the contents of the book of Nahum, or Zephaniah. But even atheists will attest to being familiar with “Jonah”.

It’s a book of ironies and contradictions.

It’s supposedly a prophetic book, yet it has only one prophetic message; and even that consists of just five words (3:4).

In books like Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the prophet obeys God’s orders and goes to prophecy to God’s disobedient people. In Jonah, this is reversed. The prophet is disobedient and his audience, who aren’t even God’s covenant people, are penitent.  

In this book, idolatrous sailors are religious and seek God’s intervention, while the Hebrew prophet is rebellious and flees from God.

The eponymous author is not any less unusual.

For an Old Covenant prophet, he demonstrates a familiarity and knowledge of Jehovah that was way ahead of his times.

Some believers say that they prayed to God and He refused to answer them; in Jonah, it is the LORD who is talking to Jonah while the weird prophet refuses to answer. His book even ends with a question mark! Who ends a book with a question mark?

Yet despite all of these strangeness, (or maybe because of it), the book of Jonah remains one of the most moving books of the Old Testament. It’s a book worth reading over and over again.

Like Ecclesiastes, it seems to pride itself in its ability to shock its message into the reader: the message of the universal love of God for all mankind. Of God not being a respecter of persons. And of the certainty of God’s forgiveness to anyone whatsoever that comes to Him.

And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that hears say, Come. And let him that is thirsty come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. (Rev 22:17)

 

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus Name.

GREG ELKAN

THE ALMIGHTY OBEY-ER? (Prayer Pt5)

Prayer and Faith are Siamese twins. It’s essentially impossible to have one without expressing the other. Unfortunately, because of that close kinship, they’re both susceptible to the same kind of diseases: the properties that make them virtues, also make them vices.

David said in Ps. 38:25 that, “For in you, O LORD, do I hope: you will hear, O Lord my God.”

I believe the wording of this prayer of faith is a good portrayal of the attitude a believer should hold when praying.

Many of us Pentecostals and Charismatics have turned God into a jukebox that will play the desired music as long as you insert the right amount of coins. It may be in the form of “I believe it, that settles it”, or other said gimmicks that we do to ostensibly ‘cage’ God or put Him in a corner, (if you don’t do this God, that means your word is not true”), etc.

There’s this general teaching of ours that, if you pray to God and nothing happens, then “give a sacrificial seed”, and if nothing still happens, “Praise and dance around Him for 10 hours”, and if nothing happens...

This picture of an Almighty God who can, but WON’T until you throw something His way is beginning to look more like the exacting idols the missionaries asked my forefathers to stop worshipping centuries ago.

Like the power inherent in faith, things happen when we pray. But that does not make God our personal Santa Claus or Genie, waiting on us to grant our each and every wish.

He is still “the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; Who only has immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man has seen, nor can see...” (1Ti 6:15-16).

Prayer doesn’t make God our puppet, prayer is a request, a plea to Him to interfere into our realm to change things to the way He wants them to be in the first place(Mt 6:10).

That is why I admire David’s wisdom when he cried, “For in you, O LORD, do I hope: you will hear, O Lord my God.”

As much as he was making an imperative request, he still addressed God in 3 different ways that alludes to His total power and sovereignty: LORD, Lord and God.

To a devout Jew as David, those were heavy terms. YHWH (the self-existent and eternal one), Adonai (Master, Owner, Lord), and Elohim (God, the covenant creator of all things).

Whenever we pray in faith like David in this psalm, lets make sure the gravity of his choice of words do not get lost in translation.

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus Name.

GREG ELKAN

PRAY WITHOUT SEIZING? (Prayer Pt4)

You must have heard the phrase, “prayer doesn’t change God, it only changes you”. I’m always cautious when I hear ‘godly’ statements that were not actually stated by God.

Statements like these thrive because they contain partial truths. We know that prayer doesn’t change God, (even though many still believe the purpose of prayer is to make God ‘change his mind’, as if that will be a good thing (see Jer 29:11)). We also know that persons who pray extensively do change over time. But reducing prayer to simply a mystical metamorphosing mechanism is like saying the purpose of rain is to ‘clean people up’.

Throughout scriptures, when people prayed, they prayed so that things would happen. Whether it be David, Abraham, Isaac, Moses, Samuel or the rest of the prophets; whenever they prayed to heaven they expected to see change on earth.

The psalmist in Ps 65:2 calls God “thou that hearest prayer...” When we pray just for the sake of it, without expecting anything specific to happen, we may be trying to play it safe, fearing lest we be disappointed.

But our Lord said, “I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” (Lk 11:9)

Going through the motions of prayer daily without expecting anything to happen but feeling religious nonetheless isn’t doing you a favour and isn’t giving glory to God either.

God’s not going to slap you for asking ‘too much,’ in fact, James says we should ask because God is “generous and enjoys giving to everyone”  (Jas 1:5 ERV).

He did qualify this statement however. He said “But when you ask God, you must believe. Don't doubt him. Whoever doubts is like a wave in the sea that is blown up and down by the wind. People like that are thinking two different things at the same time. They can never decide what to do. So they should not think they will receive anything from the Lord.” (Jas 1:6-7 ERV)

Yesterday, we said it’s good to Pray Without Ceasing, today we’re saying it’s not good to Pray Without Seizing. When you go to the Throne Room of God to make a petition, you must seize it before coming back. God’s not going to toss your answer back at your head on your way down. So if you’re not holding it on your way down, you’re not holding it!

 Our Lord explains it better,

Therefore I say unto you, whatever things you desire, when you pray, believe that you will receive them, and you shall have them. – Mar 11:24.

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus Name.

GREG ELKAN