Jonah"s Warnings

Jonah’s Warnings

4/26/18

God will never allow His judgment to occur without first giving us warnings and in these warnings will come evidence of why God is issuing such statements.  God will never surprise us with such devastating warrants but will give us plenty of opportunities to change our hearts before He must really grab our attention.  Many times it is understandable that we miss the first warning but after that, it is our own fault if we ignore such given and provided truth.  God does not miss on what He says for each letter and word has a Divine purpose for our lives, a detail we cannot afford to forget.  It is still possible for us to heed the warnings without true devastation occurring but we need to change paths accordingly and in a timely fashion if we are to escape impending direction.  Return to God and our hearts led to repentance is what God is calling for us to do and we need Him now more than ever.

Approximately twenty years or so ago I began to have physical warnings that my health was not in the best shape.  I was overweight, my diet was lousy and my stress level was outrageously high.  For decades previously I knew that my blood levels of cholesterol and triglycerides were abnormally high and that even when I was younger exercised regularly and ate better food they were still grossly elevated.  Back in the 1980s, the medications were not available yet to control such elevated lipid levels and while my metabolism was high and working properly the experts said that I would be okay.  Therefore, as we all know when the age factor sets in our metabolism slows and thus if any issues are present at that moment they will be sure to become an issue sooner or later.  It is a part of human nature for these types of processes to slow as time passes along but for those of us who have genetically stinky conditions, it does not bode well if these issues are not taken care of properly before severe events occur.

One of my doctor friends and I were talking one evening and she suggested that I get lab work done and see what my lipid levels were doing, I did so and when she received the report she came to me -that evening- with a few samples of drugs that could lower my lipid levels.  I was hesitant at first while she was explaining what the drugs would do but began taking them the next morning.  Now, as stated above I had not been feeling too well for quite some time so what was about to occur in a few days was not due to the drugs but because of my delay in treatment the previous years.  These symptoms or warnings as they were increased I did what any healthcare professional and normal human being would do, ignored them.  I have previously stated many times to others and even to my family members that I was feeling okay and that all was well even though as soon as my mouth closed with those words they responded that I looked terrible.  They were correct, I did look terrible and I felt terrible but since nothing had occurred yet I believed that I was in the “right”.  Boy, was I about to be in for a stunner.

Warning signs are designed to give people, animals, and any other intelligent creature the opportunity to figure out that something was not correct and to make the necessary changes in order to prevent something from drastically changing the normal appearance and condition of said opportunity.  However, since I continued to ignore the warnings that my body was producing that fateful Monday at lunchtime pain hit me in a very unusual manner and from that point onward my life and the lives of my family members.  My LAD was 99% blocked and technically when my chest began to hurt I should have hit the floor being dead before I did such movement.  However, God was not finished with me yet and from that point onward God has been doing mighty things in my life and I continue to try and stave off the further genetic conditions that I seem to be following.  The warnings signs were now over and the storm that I was facing was a real threat to my physical existence and if it was not for the advanced technological treatments available today I probably would not be here completing the mission that God has set me to do.  My life has changed in so many ways since that October day and I am thankful that God has seen fit to now teach others about His existence, His Ways, and His Definition and especially how much He loves us and desires for us to follow Him.

Up until a short time ago, I did not understand that when a person disobeyed that it meant they were running from the person who was in the authoritative position over them, even if they were the ones in the authoritative position.  When this setting of disobedience occurs warning signs will eventually show up simply because the numbers and mechanisms of such accountability will fall into question at some point in time.  Humans forget that we are a flawed lot and that if we do things correctly and then fail, how can we not think the worst when things are done incorrectly?  It is embarrassing enough when good things go wrong and turn south as they say but how many companies, governments, etc. fall and the conditions of the interior or infrastructure become exposed?  It is a sad state of affairs when this occurs and it all stems from the disobedience that we would rather harbor, a condition easily avoided.

It is this state that Jonah finds himself in when he has totally and completely disobeyed the command of God.  Jonah has taken matters into his own hands by believing and then acting upon his beliefs that he did not need to listen to God at all.  With the events having been completed in Jonah 1:1-3 we now have a setting where God is in the position to send out Jonah’s warning signals to him; however, the only problem is that there are other people with Jonah as well when this event begins, but remember while it is difficult to understand why God judges the just and the unjust at the same time, this event does occur.  Jonah 1:4 states as follows: “But the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken.”  Okay, we have here another pretty specific and concise effort of God that is intended to grab the attention of Jonah and to inform him again that God has a job for him to complete.  Now, I understand and all of us understand that when the Bible talks about ships it is not referring to the modern day ocean liners, cruise ships, cargo ships, or modern military vessels but of ones that were built by wood and had simple frames and structures to them.  Given that information, a storm is a storm and no matter what type of ship sailing that comes into contact with a fierce storm is always subject to sinking or totally being destroyed structurally before it goes down.  Water and storms are a powerful mix and many times cannot be conquered by the thinking of the human mind.

What many may find to be enough of a setting to claim as a judgment does not always fit with what eventually occurs.  There have been many times that I have heard stories from people who claim their issues and how they endured them but ended the setting with the words “what else could occur?”  I have learned never to say such a thing because if that door is opened Murphy’s Law many times comes right on through.  In this verse, we find that Jonah has boarded a ship and they have departed the port and are in the sea heading towards their next destination.  A violent storm appears and begins and is strong enough that it is threatening to sink the ship.  The ship is big enough to have a lower deck for that is where the Bible says that Jonah is in verse 5.

The Bible uses the word tempest to describe the storm that had overcome the ship and even describes that the strength of the storm went into the sea itself which adds another dimension of turbulence, a supernatural action that could only be created by God and this truth is mentioned in this verse as well.  The word tempest is defined as a violent windstorm and the Bible uses the Hebrew word “saar” which means the same as the modern-day translation.  However, an interesting note here is that this specific word is used only in one other place in the Old Testament and that is in Jeremiah 30:23 where it is talking about how God goes forth as a whirlwind with fury and how it will fall onto the heads of the wicked.  I find this specificity very intriguing and should be studied more by myself and others.

Warnings are not given for those who are in a good state of obedience but come during a state of disobedience before something occurs majorly wrong within that confined contingency.  When one reads this passage they could easily come to the conclusion that the storm that the people are facing is the judgment that God has intended for Jonah and also how unfortunate the people are to be unknowingly admitted to this process at the same time.  If we did not know the end of this story and how things turn out it could be concluded that God doubles down on Jonah but in truth, it is the warning that even though it was designed for Jonah the people around him were also exposed to such attention-grabbing method God chose.  And it is this portion of the story that becomes personal to us today as well for the same setting is currently being played out in our society and if we continue to perform just as Jonah did then we are all in for a devastation that is incomprehensible.

I have heard it said many times that God would not allow such devastation to come upon His people that His love for them is far greater than the “hate” that such devastation would portray.  This is where many of us fall into the trap and web of Satan’s lies because we do not take the Bible literally enough to understand what God uses in order to grab our attention concerning sin and the importance of seeking to live without it in our lives.  In order to make His point, God gives His people warnings before the real judgment arrives and He gives us plenty of opportunities to change our hearts and to turn back before He must go further.  Jonah 1:4 gives us the example of exactly what God is trying to teach us today and while everyone is in the same boat some do not understand why the storm is affecting them as well.  More importantly, they do not understand that what they are witnessing and experiencing is a warning that represents the tip of the iceberg for the actual judgment is much harsh.

It is obvious that everyone in this nation is witnessing what is being exposed because every industry and organization is being in the news with some type of allegation or accusation coming to light.  The picture that we are witnessing today stems from actions by an entire nation and belief not stemming from just one person.  We must contribute this land as to what Nineveh was raising up to God and the one who has the answers to this problem is asleep and not doing what he was told to do.  God’s warnings come in a vast array of truths and in the story of Jonah, Jonah is being exposed to everyone’s knowledge without them even understanding what is occurring, just as we are being exposed today and do not understand that the blame lies on all of us and not coming from one person.  It has never been an intention of God to scare anyone into submission to His Ways nor will He ever force one to make a decision based upon fear but God does send warnings to His people in order to get their attention as to what is going around them and that there is a reason for those tidings.

From the time that Lucifer fell from Heaven and including the time that Adam and Eve fell in the Garden of Eden to this very day, God has continually singled out people to lead His eternal Testimony while the majority of others fail to recognize what is going on around them.  When a few people stray God understands and hopes that those small factions stay and find the truth without major issues coming into light but when the majority of the people fail to recognize why failings occur.  Even when God told us in Genesis 6:5 about why He had to destroy the earth because every heart thought nothing but evil continually, this process did not happen overnight, it took time and God gave warnings before this devastation occurred. 

Today, God is sending out the same type of warnings to this nation and pleading with us to listen to these warnings and signals, for if we do not figure out that the storm that is around us has been established because of our actions then we will have no choice but to face a much greater catastrophe sometime soon.  As Nineveh was created to have a purpose so was this nation and as in both examples the purpose has been skewed greatly, we no longer can be fooled by the leader of the world and his lies.  On the other side of the issue, we have the people that have been charged with handling this redemption news and we have failed miserably in delivering the truth about what is going on around us.  Our hearts are sick and asleep and we have no choice but to wake up and go do what God has told us to do.  Repent, folks for God is still being patient with us for a while longer and I trust that we will change our hearts and turn back to Him before it is too late.

DLB