John 3:3

John 1:9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
Genesis 1:1-5; John 1:1-5;1 John 1:1-7

John 1:10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.
Romans 1: 18-23

John 1:11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. Romans 2:1-12

John 1:12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,
13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. John 3:16-21

Romans 1:
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith."

Romans 9: 6 But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel,
7 and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but "Through Isaac shall your offspring be named."
8 This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.
9 For this is what the promise said: "About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son."
10 And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac,
11 though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad--in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls--
12 she was told, "The older will serve the younger."
13 As it is written, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."
14 What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means!
15 For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."
16 So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.

"When there's something in the Bible that churches don't like, they call it: legalism."

Leonard Ravenhill

The Golden Calf

Exodus 32:
1When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, "Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him." 2So Aaron said to them, "Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me." 3So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. 4 And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!" 5When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made proclamation and said, "Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD." 6And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.


From A W Tozer:

The idolatrous heart assumes that God is other than He is - in itself a monstrous sin - and substitutes for the true God one made after its own likeness. Always this God will conform to the image of the one who created it and will be base or pure, cruel or kind, according to the moral state of the mind from which it emerges....

The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him. It begins in the mind and may be present where no overt act of worship has taken place. 'When they knew God, 'wrote Paul, 'they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.'
Then followed the worship of idols fashioned after the likeness of men and birds and beasts and creeping things. But this series of degrading acts began in the mind. Wrong ideas about God are not only the fountain from which the polluted waters of idolatry flow; they are themselves idolatrous. The idolater simply imagines things about God and acts as if they were true.


Also from Tozer:

"I am a Bible Christian and if an archangel with a wingspread as broad as a constellation shining like the sun were to come and offer me some new truth, I'd ask him for a reference. If he could not show me where it is found in the Bible, I would bow him out and say, I'm awfully sorry, you don't bring any references with you"

Sola Scriptura

The Story of Jonah:God's Sovreignty Part 3 (Updated)

Jonah 4:
1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry.
2 And he prayed to the LORD and said, "O LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.
3 Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live."
4 And the LORD said, "Do you do well to be angry?"
5 Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city.
6 Now the LORD God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant.
7 But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered.
8 When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, "It is better for me to die than to live."
9 But God said to Jonah, "Do you do well to be angry for the plant?" And he said, "Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die."
10 And the LORD said, "You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night.
11 And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?"

At long last, my final installment on Jonah.

In my two previous posts I tried to show how Jonah's story apart from being just a kid's bedtime tale, it is in actuality the revealing of God's sovereign plan of salvation for the entire remnant of mankind, both jew and gentile.
Jonah learned through hardship and discipline that the election of the redeemed is entirely in the hands of God. We are often very harsh on Jonah and his attitude of rebellion, but we must remember that all that he went through was caused by the hand of God, and the Lord disciplines those whom He loves.We can then say with confidence, He loves Jonah.

In this final chapter of Jonah, that has a somewhat abrupt ending, we still see that despite God's taking him through the "spiritual woodshed", and despite the fact that he did ultimately walk in obedience to God's command, he is still having a problem with perspective.
Jonah tells the Lord that he is unhappy with the outcome, which happened to be an outcome that Jonah foreknew, i.e. that the gracious and loving God would cause Nineveh to repent, by faith through hearing the His Word proclaimed.
Jonah's "prayer" is dangerously close to words attributed to a wicked and slothful servant in Jesus' parable of the talents:

Jonah 4:for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.

Mat 25:
24 He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, 'Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed,
25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.'

To this statement the Lord could have given the same answer to Jonah, as the master did to the servant, which is; If you knew this, then you should have been faithful to the task that was given. God help us if when the Son of man returns He finds us to be faithless, i.e. lacking in obedience. Luke 18:7-8; James 2:14-26.

God asks Jonah, "do you do well to be angry?" and then proceeds to teach Jonah some heavenly perspective.
Jonah departs from the city and camps out to the east of Nineveh. His purpose is to see what, if anything, would happen to the city. He was most likely hoping the Lord would change His mind and give Nineveh a fire and brimstone type judgment.

The Lord "appoints" a gourd plant to grow and give shade to Jonah. Jonah is quite grateful for the shade.
However by the next morning the plant was attacked by a worm and it withers and dies. To add insult to injury, the sun begins to beat down on the hapless prophet and a scorching east wind begins to blow. Jonah is near collapse. Once again Jonah repeats his complaint. The same complaint that he spoke after Nineveh's repentance and salvation; "it is better for me to die than to live."
God repeats His question;"do you do well to be angry?"
Jonah's answer this time is ."yes I do well to be angry, angry enough to die."
The Lord gets right to the point:

10 And the LORD said, "You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night.11 And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?"

Jonah was angry over a plant that grew and withered out of his control. He did not labor over the plant, nor did he cause to to be, to begin with.
If Jonah could become concerned with a plant that was here today and gone tomorrow, then why should the Lord not be concerned over His creation, a creation that He spoke into existence and He labored over for six days.

Nineveh had a population of people that were in reality, ignorant of the things of God. They did not know their right hand from their left. They were helpless.

Matthew 9:36
When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

There was also the issue of "much cattle", but here again the Lord has sovereignty:

Psalms 24:
1 A Psalm of David. The earth is the LORD's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein,
Psa 24:2 for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers.

Psalms 50:
10 For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills.

Jonah had to learn, as we do, God's perspective on things. He has a plan. He creates the vessels for their proper use. Romans 9: 20-23
God requires obedience only, which is true worship. He does not want an argument, or a show of piety, or our religious righteousness.
If we put together these two passages from Paul's incredible letter to the Ephesians, we will gain perspective.

Eph 1:
19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might
20 that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places,
21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.
22 And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church,
23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Eph 2:
6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the victorious, risen and ascended Lord over all. The Son is seated at the Father's right hand. he is also the son of man, and so the redeemed are raised up with Him and seated with Him at the Father's right hand also. All things are under His feet, and He is the head of His church, i.e. His Body. Therefore all things are under our feet. He is head over all things TO the church. The perspective of the church comes from being seated in Christ at the Father's right hand. We are to be viewing people and circumstance, from the same perspective as Jesus views people and circumstance.
Jonah had to learn that God's love is not bound by earthly limitations, nor does it manifest the same as man's way of showing love.
The word to the church today is to readjust to the heavenly perspective. Too much time,effort, and expense has been wasted by focusing on methods and programs. God's methods were to use a reluctant and rebellious prophet, after taking him through the storm, and the belly of a big fish, in order to bring him to understanding and obedience. If the Lord calls us to a work, then we will do it, one way or the other. His will be done!

Job 42:
1 Then Job answered the LORD and said:
2 "I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

Rom 8:
28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

Soli Deo Gloria!


Update:
One more glaring Truth occurred to me as I looked at this again, i.e.the great gulf between God's way and man's way.
Jonah declared God to be gracious, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Obviously this is all true, and praise Him that it is. We reiterate that He is "slow to anger" which in itself denotes that He does manifest righteous anger and is justified in doing so. In fact one day that anger will be poured out in finality.
Now it is woefully apparent that Jonah is quick on the draw when it comes to anger,and is therefore not very merciful in his attitude toward the Assyrian people. Jonah declares that he is "angry enough to die".
The great discrepancy here is that while Jonah is angry enough to die, the Lord is compassionate enough to die. This was accomplished many centuries later in the person of His son Jesus.
This is the essence of Jonah's story.

Phillipians 2:
4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,
6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,
7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,
13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
14 Do all things without grumbling or questioning,
15 that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world,

The Story of Jonah:God's Sovereignty Part 2

Jonah 2:
1 Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the belly of the fish,
2 saying, "I called out to the LORD, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice.
3 For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me; all your waves and your billows passed over me.
4 Then I said, 'I am driven away from your sight; yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.'
5 The waters closed in over me to take my life; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped about my head
6 at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever; yet you brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God.
7 When my life was fainting away, I remembered the LORD, and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple.
8 Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love.
9 But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the LORD!"
10 And the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.

Jonah chapter 1 ends with the rebellious prophet being swallowed by a great fish. In fact the passage says that the Lord appointed the fish to swallow him and he then spent the next three days and nights in the great fish's belly.
This next chapter, as can be seen above, contains Jonah's prayer while he is in the fish. The prayer is the entire content of the chapter .
What is rather curious is that the whole of the prayer is spoken in the past tense.
It has been commonly taught that Jonah in the belly of the fish is part of the Lord visiting discipline upon Jonah. While this may be true in one sense, the reality is that his sojourn in the fish has a much deeper significance.
The fish is Jonah's salvation. Jonah would have most certainly drowned had the Lord not sent the fish to swallow him. Verses 2 through 7 are a compelling account of his near death experience.
The fact that he had sunk to the point of where the mountains begin at the bottom of the sea shows how close he came to the end of his life. The past tense is used as Jonah is recounting his experience, and the prayer he offered up in the midst of that experience.
This post deliverance-prayer of praise, uttered while he was being carried to safety inside the fish, demonstrates the profound effect that this experience had on Jonah.

9 But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the LORD!"

Jonah made a vow to the Lord in the midst of his crying out to God. What was this vow?

This prayer ends with the emphatic declaration: Salvation belongs to the Lord.

Jonah 3:
1 Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying,
2 "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you."
3a So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD.

The command is given again, go to Nineveh and deliver the message. This time, a very different Jonah responds in complete obedience. Was this the vow Jonah made; that he would do as the Lord told him to do? I think that is a good assumption. This is based on that which Jonah already knew, salvation belongs to the Lord. Jonah 4:2

Jonah 3: 3b Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days' journey in breadth.
4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey. And he called out, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!"
5 And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.
6 The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
7 And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, "By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water,
8 but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.
9 Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish."
10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.

Jonah completed his task, and proclaimed the Word of the Lord to the inhabitants of the great city. The outcome was as the Lord foreknew; the people believed God. (Verse 5)

Now compare that to the account of God's covenant with Abraham.

Gen 15: 5 And he brought him outside and said, "Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be."
6 And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness.

The people of Nineveh are Abraham's offspring and are counted as righteous. All who believe by faith are his offspring.This faith unto belief comes by hearing, and hearing comes by the Word of God being preached. What we have in this story, in a microcosm, is God's plan of salvation from Abraham to Jesus revealed in action.

The Jonah of chapter 1 shows Israel, given the oracles of God, the Mosaic covenant received at Sinai, separated from all other nations unto the Lord. This Israel will touch no unclean thing, or person. The experience of the storm, and the great fish in chapters 1 and 2 speak of Christ and His fulfillment of the covenant, through His life, death, burial, and resurrection. Christ has brought something completely new to the equation The Jonah of chapter 3 reveals God's full intent for Israel, both jew and gentile. Paul's entire letter to the Romans is the underlying orthodoxy to the Book of Jonah's ortho-praxy. See also Eph 2:11-22; Acts 15:1-19; Amos 9:11-12

The only way to salvation for anyone jew or gentile is by grace through faith, which comes from hearing the word of truth, i.e. Christ. This subsequently leads to belief which is accounted to us as righteousness. From the days of Abraham this was so.

Romans 4:
9 Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness.
10 How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised.
11 He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well,
12 and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.
13 For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith.

So Jonah in the beginning was like Paul, a Hebrew among Hebrews, and by the end of his story he was also like Paul in that he was struck down by the light of divine revelation;

Salvation belongs to the Lord!

Romans 9:16 So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.

Jonah had to learn just as the jews who lived during the days of the early church had to learn, that God's plan from the beginning was to call out a holy people, Israel, both jew and gentile, for Himself. Jonah's adventure is the story of the church.

It should be noted that the name Jonah, in the Hebrew, means, "dove".

In my final installment we will look at chapter 4 and its word of correction for the church today.

For the Glory of God!

The Story of Jonah: God's Sovreignty Part 1

A few days ago this post appeared at crn.info, which raised more than a few questions concerning their usual "I"segetical approach to the scriptures.

The author, Jerry, seems bent on making the point that Jonah was just plan not nice,i.e. he didn't love like God loves. (my question is; does Jerry love that way?) His inference, also found in the ensuing supporting comments left by the usual suspects, is that Jonah and the online discernment ministries (odms) are cut from the same cloth, which is, mean, unloving, fundamentalist in their ortho-praxy etc. We have all heard the song before. Any good study of Jonah disproves their faulty conclusions.

So what exactly is Jonah's story about? I would like to present a chapter by chapter study of Jonah.
I would suggest reading the entire book. It is only four, very short, chapters long.
You can read them online here, here, here, and here.

Jonah 1:
1 Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying,
2 "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me."
3 But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish.


Notice that first of all, God commands Jonah to cry out against the city of Nineveh. The message is, judgment upon the city is at hand. (Jonah 4:4)
Jonah immediately flees from the Lord proposing to go to Tarshish, which would represent the farthest point known in that day, that he could go. (Tarshish was situated in the area now known as southern Spain.)
He goes to Joppa, the only seaport in Palestine at that time, and finds a ship that could take him to Tarshish.
It is interesting that Jonah was about to prove King David's experiential theology, which was written in Psalm 139:
7 Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
9 If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.
11 If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,"
12 even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.


It is also interesting that Jonah had to depart from Joppa. As Joppa would figure in a very similar episode far into the future.


Now it must be understood that Nineveh, the capitol of the Assyrian empire, would be the last place Jonah would want to go and preach. The Assyrians were enemies of Israel, and were incredibly cruel. They eventually carried off the ten "lost tribes" of Israel, (the northern kingdom), before they themselves were taken over by the Babylonian empire. They were a gentile (heathen) nation, and for any Israelite to go and preach the Word of God to them would have been unthinkable to Jonah.


So here is Jonah in Joppa, "kicking against the goads". Now fast forward to a certain rooftop in the same port city;

Acts 10:
1 At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort,
2 a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God.
3 About the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God come in and say to him, "Cornelius."
4 And he stared at him in terror and said, "What is it, Lord?" And he said to him, "Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God.
5 And now send men to Joppa and bring one Simon who is called Peter.
6 He is lodging with one Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the sea."
7 When the angel who spoke to him had departed, he called two of his servants and a devout soldier from among those who attended him,
8 and having related everything to them, he sent them to Joppa.
9 The next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray.
10 And he became hungry and wanted something to eat, but while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance
11 and saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth.
12 In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air.
13 And there came a voice to him: "Rise, Peter; kill and eat."
14 But Peter said, "By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean."
15 And the voice came to him again a second time, "What God has made clean, do not call common."
16 This happened three times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven.
17 Now while Peter was inwardly perplexed as to what the vision that he had seen might mean, behold, the men who were sent by Cornelius, having made inquiry for Simon's house, stood at the gate........

First and foremost, the story of Jonah is the foretelling of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, going to the Jew first and then to the "Greek". Peter like Jonah, found anyone or anything outside of the Law to be unclean. The Lord had always intended for the believing gentiles to be included in the kingdom. It is no accident that these events happened at Joppa, though they were centuries apart.

It is also no accident that Peter went to the rooftop to pray at the sixth hour.

John 4:
5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
6 Jacob's well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink."
8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.)
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?" (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)

John 19:
14 Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, "Behold your King!"

Matthew 20:
1 "For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.
2 After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard.
3 And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace,
4 and to them he said, 'You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.'
5 So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same.
6 And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, 'Why do you stand here idle all day?'
7 They said to him, 'Because no one has hired us.' He said to them, 'You go into the vineyard too.' 8 And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, 'Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.'
9 And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius.
10 Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius.
11 And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house,
12 saying, 'These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.'

Luke 23:
44 It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour,
(See also Matthew 27:45 and Mark 15:33
Also note that Matthew, Mark, and Luke are using the Hebrew/Jewish timekeeping method which is sundown to sundown, and John is using the Roman/gentile system, midnight to midnight.)
I believe that the events recorded in Jonah 1 correspond to the 6th through 9th hour of Jesus' death struggle at Golgotha.


Jonah's rebellious flight to Joppa, is found to be entirely in the sphere of God's sovereign will.
The Lord's plan of inclusion of the gentiles begins at Joppa.
Joppa in the Hebrew means beautiful. Beautiful indeed.


So now we have the fleeing Jonah boarding the ship at Joppa:

Jonah 1:
3b So he paid the fare and went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the LORD.
4 But the LORD hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up.
5 Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his god. And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep.
6 So the captain came and said to him, "What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call out to your god! Perhaps the god will give a thought to us, that we may not perish."
7 And they said to one another, "Come, let us cast lots, that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us." So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah.
8 Then they said to him, "Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?"
9 And he said to them, "I am a Hebrew, and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land."
10 Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, "What is this that you have done!" For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them. 11 Then they said to him, "What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?" For the sea grew more and more tempestuous.
12 He said to them, "Pick me up and hurl me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you."
13 Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them.
14 Therefore they called out to the LORD, "O LORD, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not on us innocent blood, for you, O LORD, have done as it pleased you."
15 So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging.
16 Then the men feared the LORD exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows.


The similarities of this episode to other scripture are too startling to ignore.

Matthew 8: 23 And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him.
24 And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep.
25 And they went and woke him, saying, "Save us, Lord; we are perishing."
26 And he said to them, "Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?" Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.
27 And the men marveled, saying, "What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?"

Psalm 107:
23 Some went down to the sea in ships, doing business on the great waters;
24 they saw the deeds of the LORD, his wondrous works in the deep.
25 For he commanded and raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea.
26 They mounted up to heaven; they went down to the depths; their courage melted away in 27 they reeled and staggered like drunken men and were at their wits' end.
28 Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.
29 He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed.
30 Then they were glad that the waters were quiet, and he brought them to their desired haven. 31 Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man!
32 Let them extol him in the congregation of the people, and praise him in the assembly of the elders.

The ship's crew questioned Jonah;who are you? The disciples asked questions re: Jesus; what manner of man is this?

Both Jonah and Jesus were asleep in the boat and seemingly oblivious to the storm. Jonah was in the safety of the inner part of the ship. Jesus was "topside" sleeping in the very midst of the storm

Jonah's apparent demise stilled the storm. Jesus commanded the storm to be still.

Jonah became the sacrifice which saved the ship and it's crew. Jesus became the propitiation for the world.

Where Jonah was the shadow of things to come, Jesus is the greater fulfillment.

Verse 14 in Jonah 1 is beyond profound: 14 Therefore they called out to the LORD, "O LORD, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not on us innocent blood, for you, O LORD, have done as it pleased you."

This is the prayer of faith which the redeemed pray. It is not the shout of the crowd at Jesus' trial.

Matthew27: 24 So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, "I am innocent of this man's blood; see to it yourselves."
25 And all the people answered, "His blood be on us and on our children!"

Compare it also to this prayer:

Acts 4:
27 for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel,
28 to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

The sailors (like the disciples) recognized God's hand in all that happened.They offered sacrifice and vows, They worshipped the Lord.

The conclusion of this chapter is:

Jonah 1: 17 And the LORD appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

Matthew12: 39 But he answered them, "An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.
40 For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Jonah in the belly of the great fish, three days and three nights, prophecies of Jesus in the tomb. Jesus gave the interpretation of this, which obviously leaves no other meaning.

If the fish had not swallowed Jonah he would have eventually drowned. The fish's belly, i.e. the tomb, proved to be the place where life was preserved.

It is quite apparent that the story of the prophet Jonah goes deeper than could be imagined. Not only does it contain the foretelling of Jesus and His ministry to mankind, it is also the revelation of the birth of the church and its' mission to mankind. It is the revelation of God's complete and sovereign plan concerning the redemption of all things. The scriptures from Genesis to revelation are one complete and seamless Word.

John 5: 37 And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen,
38 and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent.
39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,
40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.

Matthew 12: 41 The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.

In the next part of this study I will look at Jonah's prayer while he was in the fish's belly. I will also look at the difference between the Jonah of chapter 1 and the Jonah of chapter 3.

Sola scriptura Chris P.

April 18,1521

This Day In History

"Unless I am convinced by proofs from Scriptures or by plain and clear reasons and arguments, I can and will not retract, for it is neither safe nor wise to do anything against conscience. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen."

Soli Deo Gloria

Christ Crucified: The Serpent In The Wilderness

In this season, as we celebrate the death and Resurrection of

Jesus Christ, our Passover Lamb, I find these scriptures

and their meaning to be most compelling.

John 3:
14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

John 8:
23 He said to them, "You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.
24 I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins."
25 So they said to him, "Who are you?" Jesus said to them, "Just what I have been telling you from the beginning.
26 I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him."
27 They did not understand that he had been speaking to them about the Father.
28 So Jesus said to them, "When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me.
29 And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him."
30 As he was saying these things, many believed in him.
31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples,
32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
　
John 12:
31 Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out.
32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself."
33 He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die.
34 So the crowd answered him, "We have heard from the Law that the Christ remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?"
35 So Jesus said to them, "The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going.
36 While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light." When Jesus had said these things, he departed and hid himself from them.

Numbers 21:
4 From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way.
5 And the people spoke against God and against Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food."
6 Then the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.
7 And the people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you. Pray to the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people.
8 And the LORD said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live."
9 So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.

Rom 7:9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.
10 The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.
11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.
12 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.
13 Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.

Rom 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

2Kings 18:
1 In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, Hezekiah the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign.
2 He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Abi the daughter of Zechariah.
3 And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, according to all that David his father had done.
4 He removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it (it was called Nehushtan).
5 He trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel, so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him.
6 For he held fast to the LORD. He did not depart from following him, but kept the commandments that the LORD commanded Moses.

2Cor 5:
14 For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died;
15 and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;
19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

There are several aspects to the death of Jesus that must be looked at:
1. He must be lifted up.
Jesus said this. John 12:33 says that He was indicating the manner of death that He would suffer.

Through this "lifting up" three things are accomplished:

a. HE will draw all people to himself. This drawing is for the purpose of all men to see the crucified Messiah, and to accept or reject Him and His atoning work.

b. The Jews that he was speaking to in John 8 would know that He is the one who came from the Father, and speaks the words of the Father. This also is done so that the house of Israel can accept or reject their Messiah.
c. His being crucified is the very same as Moses lifting up the bronze serpent in the well known episode in Numbers 21. This must be done so that that whoever believes in Him, Jew or gentile, will have eternal life.

This third element re: the bronze serpent, is the element of salvation.

2. It is amazing that in regards to the bronze serpent, the requirement to be saved from the deadly bite of the attacking serpents was to look upon the image of a serpent. In other words, they had to look at the image of the very thing that was killing them, in order to be saved.

In light of this, how deep is the meaning of the Lord's words in the above referenced verses from John's gospel?

The clincher is, that centuries later the bronze serpent was still in possession of the nation of Israel, and King Hezekiah had to destroy it along with the Asherah, the high places and pillars etc, as even the serpent's image had become an idol to which the people brought offerings.
What does this say about the Roman Catholic crucifix and the daily ritual of "re-sacrificing" the Lord?

3. Paul gives us the revelation of this "mystery" of His death on the cross.

The simple fact is that He died for all, so all have died in Him. This is a literal statement.


Paul, in Romans 6, tells us that the wages of sin is death.


Now the people of Israel admitted that they had sinned against the Lord after they had been bitten and began to die.The fiery serpents were sent by God to afflict Israel, and their bite was fatal. These serpents represent sin and its’ due recompense, i.e. death. Romans 7 shows that the issue is not just the forgiveness of sins, past, present, and future; it is the sin nature, sin itself which is the root. Therefore 2 Cor 5:21 gives us this most incredible and astounding revelation;
God made the One who knew no sin, to be sin. So that we now look upon the image of the very thing that is killing us, and we are saved. Sin itself, and its death-hold over us, is vanquished, because of His dying, and our participation in that dying.
So, the crucified Jesus must be lifted up in order that many may enter the reconciliation of Father to creation.
How then do we lift Jesus up?

1Cor 2:1 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.


It is not by clever evangelistic methods, i.e. tricks or manipulation, or theologies. We preach Christ and Him crucified.

1Co 11:24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me."25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.


It is not proclaimed in images, or ceremonies. Every time we meet and partake of the Lord's table we are proclaiming His death, until He returns. Not only are we proclaiming His death, we are proclaiming our participation in that death.We are united with Him in His death, and resurrection. Romans 6:3-7

The bread symbolizes our participation as members of His body, and the cup symbolizes our participation in the new covenant of His blood. The bread and wine do not become the literal body and blood, as we are the literal body, and His blood is the life of that body. Leviticus 17:11

I pray that the church would come to understand that the preaching of the "once for all" sacrifice of the crucified Messiah, through the partaking of the Lord's table, is the most powerful evangelistic message ever to be presented. It is the implicit revelation of Isaiah 53.

Whenever we meet, we do this remembering Him, and the last sacrifice men would never need re: atonement and eternal life. We celebrate and proclaim His death. We do not re-create it.


This season let us meditate on the incomparable gift given to the world through a slain lamb.


John 1:29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!