Jonah tells the story of the prophet who ran from obedience to God. There are many lessons here to help us understand how God does His work through man and how He deals with His servants when they rebel against Him.
Uzziah was a great king and was greatly blessed of the Lord. At the peak of his strength, he began to trust in himself. His strength led to his fall. It is often in times of perceived strength that saints of God become most vulnerable.
Neither the word <em>missions</em> nor the word <em>missionary</em> is found in the Bible. Yet, it is difficult to read through Acts or Paul’s epistles without seeing its practice on every page. Mission comes from the Latin word missio and means a sending or sending away. A mission is defined as a sending out with authority to perform a special duty.
Certainly, the Lord enabled Nehemiah and the Jews to complete the walls of Jerusalem. However, the leadership of Nehemiah was critical from the human viewpoint. The enemies of the wall threw everything imaginable at him, but he would not turn from the cause at hand. How much we should learn from Nehemiah’s example!
The Book of Jonah is a battle of wills. If there ever was a book of the Bible that dealt with a man matching his will and wits against the Lord, it’s the Book of Jonah. You don’t have to read very far to realize the fruitlessness of that endeavor! Have you ever battled the Lord over anything?
