The Message of Jonah
In the ancient city of Nineveh, in repentance, the people of this city put on sackcloth and ashes. At this time many of you don masks and protective gear. This is a time to seek the face of the One and living G-d.
This is a not a question about a virus. Instead one about the state of your heart.The One who sent His Son to save you from your sins and death.
Yet will you receive His blood upon your life?
Jonah is a universal ‘prodigal son’ story. It is relevant whomever you might be. Maybe you are a prodigal daughter? Wherever you might be from. This is your story. For each of us is fleeing the very One who created us. ‘So let us read further, shall we’?
Some people think when I speak about ‘prodigal’ I mean wasteful with material things. No. I mean to cease being wasteful with the ‘time‘ on earth God has granted me to serve Him.
Standing on the seashore of what is now present day Israel, Jonah’s hand above his eyes as he looks westward out into the Western Sea (Mediterranean Sea) from Joppa (present day ‘Jaffo; Yafo; Tel Aviv)
Jonah understood the voice and also the Words of Adonai (the God of Israel, the One Living God). This was not the problem. God wanted to use Jonah to give a message of life, righteousness and repentance to the people of the city of Nineveh (capital of the Assyrian Empire; the strongest empire of its epoch). The problem though was that Jonah wanted to be left alone to himself.
“Jonah fled to Tarshish”
Where was Tarshish anyway? ‘Tarshish was the end of the world’ for Jonah’s people at that time. Like what many Jewish sons and daughter, and maybe you as other people too, have done.
What shall we learn here now? We ‘run away’ from God to do … our own thing. Sound familiar?
Hebrew (Jewish) people fleeing the Lord’s call on their lives continues through the generations to come. The call upon this people, and all those of us who would gather with them, is to be a light to the world (Read Isaiah 42) and to preach the Gospel (Yeshua (Jesus the Messiah) rose from the dead for you to free you, by His blood, from death to know Him) to the Precious yet chained and bound nations of the world (Read Psalm 40).
Now, back aboard the ship at sea. “Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring the ship back to the land, but they could not.”
Something might work for us when it is calm but the storm is when we really find out what is reliable. We can try to accomplish something in the flesh without God; but it will not work.
“I am a Hebrew”. Jonah admits his identity that he was running away from on that ship sailing westward away from his given task in Nineveh.
Jonah comes out of his deep sleep (from apathy to action); and comes forward before the others to state what his true identity is:
“I worship the Lord” (Jonah brings himself to admit ‘why’ he is on earth)
Note: The ‘sea’ symbolizes the convulsions of people, nations and all their politics and games on earth.
“Pick me up and throw me into the sea” (knowing what must be done to calm the storm; and to save the lives of all the other people aboard the ship)
The people of the earth live inside a sea of unsettled peoples and thus their ambitions, intrigues, lusts and waywardness.
Nineveh
Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire, symbolizes – a wicked world. The world lies in wickedness; not knowing its right hand from its left; yet it gives the person an opportunity to make their heart right before G-D. Yet a message of righteousness needs to be preached first in order for a people to begin to recognize their true state and turn to G-D. This is the same right now. The question to us from the Living G-D is also the same question.
So what will you do with your own life – right now?
Much time has been lost. I focus so as to direct my heart more for the use of Yeshua (Jesus) who will lead me onward in His high calling on my life.
Canada and the Indian Act
With the response to the Corona Virus, Canadians (Americans and others in the West and around the world) are now experiencing what it was like for aboriginal peoples who have lived under the Indian Act and Pass System for decades (no jobs; no restaurants; limited rights; limited mobility; rationing; in short – rez life)
Next: The Parable of the Seeds
MC Maladetz Own Journey on Earth’s soil and shores:
Eternal Birthright vs Temporary Porridge 