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.
If revival is a work of man then we are right to believe it will not happen, but if revival is the work of God in a man’s heart, then we must believe as long as the Lord tarries His coming that revival is possible.
One revival or restoration is never enough for the people of God. God’s people follow the natural lines of spiritual degeneration. They will naturally slide backwards toward the ways of the world. They require periodic revivals in order to remain close to the Lord. When the revivals cease, the people will fall further and further away from the Lord.
A covenant is a solemn agreement. The most important covenants in the Bible are those in which God makes a covenant with man: the Abrahamic Covenant, the Davidic Covenant, etc. Here is a covenant which man makes with God. The Israelites recognize the importance of God and covenant together to wholly follow Him.
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!
