Jonah (part III)

By Odon Bulamba (summary only)

Jonah 1:6-12

The people on board the boat woke Jonah up. Some versions of the Bible say that they told him to stand up, “you cannot continue to sleep while we are in trouble, people are suffering with fear, people are suffering with trouble and you, yourself are sleeping, wake up”. Jonah woke up and told them to shout for help from his God. Jonah knew that he had a problem with the same God that he had to go and ask help from. Most of the time when we are going through problems, the problems will push us because there is no solution anywhere else so we have to pray.

Sometimes we reach a point where we can do nothing ourselves, we try our best but nothing works and the only solution is to commit the problem between God's hands. When you are crossing a really hard situation you can pray and even cry and you can feel really bad and many people can even ask God why is the situation happening to me why am I crossing this, why and why and why?

Because they are pushed they come to God. This was the first thing that God did in Jonah's life, He told people to wake him up and push him to ask for help. Jonah felt shameful; “I cannot ask help from God, I'm a sinner, I did something wrong against Him, how shall I go and stand in front of God and ask Him to help us?" He found there was no way he could do it so he was now obliged to confess that it's because of his fault the situation is happening. Jonah recognized he was far away from his God and was forced to fix this problem with God. He was supposed first fix his problems with those who were around him.

Do I have the courage to see the person who is next to me and say, “ I am sorry it is now two years that I've been living here and I've never talk to you about Jesus please forgive me”. Is that really easy? I think, no. Is it really easy to go to your colleagues at work and say, “you know I have a new identity since maybe 1972, I have been a Christian since then.” Maybe they will answer, “You are a Christian? I didn't even know”. Will you have the courage to continue? “I am sorry because I didn't even tell you I was a Christian since a long time but now I call you to come and join us so all of us can be called a child of God”. This is really a hard task and is not easy.

Because of that situation people started now to play with Jonah and ask questions, “Jonah, which country are you from?” and he was, supposed to respond. “From which tribe are you? Tell us because we've never seen someone like you”. Jonah said, “I am Hebrew and my God is the God of the Hebrews, the God who created the heavens" and so on. Today we are living in a society where the best God, the god which is known by every person on earth is money. Children and adult people and old people know that the best thing in life is money. Money can be there and our faith will be sacrificed. Money can be there and everybody will be happy. But if there is no money we will find that life is hard. We can study and work just because of money. We can spend our time, many years at university because in the future we are expecting to get money, to find a nice job and to live properly on earth. But it is not too easy to spend many years learning about God so you can gain something in the Kingdom of God. Why that? Because for some people money is equal to God.

Jonah was really clear, “the God that I am praying is the Creator of heaven”. So who is your God? Is your God your house, is your God your children, is your God your studies, who is your God?

That day Jonah confessed and he told those people about all those secrets, I did such and such mistakes and that’s why we are here today so take me and throw me in the water.

In chapter 3 Jonah reached Ninevah and he started to preach that within 40 days God will destroy this town. Although Jonah was preaching he wasn’t preaching because he wanted to but because he was pushed by God. Sometimes we are also pushed, sometimes people push us or God pushes us to do this or do that and we have to know what to do.

If Jonah was arrogant, after coming out from the fish’s belly he could just end up on the beach and look around and say I am free here are not inside the vicious stomach any more, I am free, I can go where ever I want and God will not stop me. But he thought of those people who pray to other gods and he remembered how close he was to death in the fish’s belly and he didn’t want to forget what he had been through.

Today we have a problem with the church because we can easily forget what God has done for us. We can even forget after five minutes. We can easily forget, and we know that we are alive now and nothing bothers me now so I can carry on with my life the way that I want. I've heard people say, especially Christians, “this is my life, this is the way I want to live my life.” That's true, it is your life but you don't have to forget that you took it by credit, it's a life from God, He gave it to you for a time and He will take it back one day to Him.

If you are not clever you will be compared to those five foolish girls who were thinking that they were waiting for their groom to come and then they forgot that they needed oil in the lamp. So they were just spending their time. We are called to not be like those people, we have to think and remember that within 40 days maybe, within a short time this world will be destroyed and we know that one day Jesus will come. He will come to destroy this world, to punish the world, so why don't we tell people that Jesus is coming back soon? Within a few days, in a few months maybe the world will be destroyed and people who don't believe will perish. I will not be happy to see my brothers and sisters perished. You also will not be happy to see your people perish.

SUMMARY

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