Installment #3//Body and soul series: The gourd and the worm
When I was quoting from the book of Jonah the other day, I was intrigued by the way that Jonah rejoiced over the gourd that God prepared for him. You’ll notice that all these events and turn of events in this mission…God made preparation for. He is in control of every situation and will work things out if we let Him. Point #1.
Point #2. Jonah was up the miff tree. In other words he was miffed. Still don’t get it? He was in a pout…now you get it.
Jonah was in a pout because, well…he didn’t want to be there, he really wanted to be home with the wife and kids or failing that in Tarshish which was at the other end of the earth from Nineveh. It wasn’t the end of the world but you could see it from there. You’ve seen places like that, haven’t you?
Anyway here he was stuck in Nineveh, having great success, a 100 per cent success rate as the entire city repented at his preaching; what is wrong with this guy? Everybody got saved and he’s whining about the heat. He should have been down front at the altar praying with the new converts, after all there were one hundred and twenty thousand (120,000) of them. (I wrote that figure as well as the number so you would be more impressed.)
So God prepared a gourd to give Jonah some shade while he sulked. God thinks of everything doesn’t He? Now here is old Jonah resting on his laurels, laying back and thinking, why did God save this bunch? But oh well, might as well get some shut-eye, got a long day tomorrow, (takes three days just to get out of this place) then try to find another ship back home; not everyone was looking to take this guy on board…the last crew nearly drowned. So Jonah drifted off to sleep under the gourd. I’m getting a little ahead of the story because Jonah had made the journey by this time out of the city to the east side suburbs and built himself a booth for a shelter and then he sat down to watch God destroy the place. That’s when God made the gourd for him to give him more shade. And all the while he was whining and complaining until God prepared the gourd. He began to believe maybe he should start preaching a prosperity doctrine. Next morning, the sun comes up and surprise, surprise, surprise…during the night God had prepared a worm ( a cutworm, oh I hate those things too)and it attacked that gourd so that the gourd withered and died and no more shade for our prophet. Who says God doesn’t have a sense of humor?
Actually God added a little pressure because the Bible says that He prepared (there’s that word again) a vehement east wind just as the sun arose and beat on Jonah’s head, so that he nearly fainted. In fact old Jonah felt so bad that he prayed that God would take him. Can you picture the length of Jonah’s lower lip? It must have stuck out there past his nose even. He said, “it’s better for me to die than to live.” My, my, my…can you imagine? A prophet of God should be a man of faith but he is one of the most pessimistic men I have ever heard of in all of God’s holy Word.
He had one of the most successful campaigns of any preacher in history and here he sits under a withered up gourd watching to see what was going to happen to the Ninehvites, SWEATING LIKE A STUCK…WELL YOU KNOW .
Most of us would have blamed the devil for that cutworm…but it was God who prepared it and He did it in order to bring Jonah to a place where he could see the error of his ways and repent. Yes the preacher in this case needed to repent.
God said to Jonah..look boy, you had pity on the gourd, that you never created and didn’t even make it grow. It sprang up overnight and perished overnight. Not really all that important, Jonah. Not something to build a doctrine on much less a ministry. But here are souls. Where are we placing our priorities today? Are we like Jonah laboring for our personal comfort while we watch the world go to hell? God could prepare a worm you know.
As I pondered this true Bible story of Jonah, I was somewhat convicted in my thoughts, after all I have been pretty hard on Jonah, haven’t I? Really I like old Jonah for some reason or another, I guess it’s because I’m not much different than he was. I have said no so many times when someone asked me if I would teach a Sunday school class for an example. I have said no to the pastor when he asked me to be the teacher at a cell meeting that he wanted to set up in our area. I said no when asked to sing in a choir, all too many times. I have said no when I felt a prompting to visit the sick in hospital. I have said no too many times.
The Bible says that when you know to do good and you don’t do it that to you it is sin. Sin! I am thankful for the message that Jonah brings through this book and for the lessons taught.
It has taught me to repent…just now as I write these thoughts, I am repenting, asking God to forgive me…I don’t want to be guilty of complaining or any other sin. Lord, cleanse me of every evil thought, every evil deed, for not obeying You when I should have, like holding back a word from You when You are prompting me, an utterance from the Spirit….for knowing to do good and not doing it. Thank God, He has forgiven me…I thank Him for His grace.
And as for Jonah, he got an honorable mention in the New Testament from none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. I guess he made it after all.
When I was quoting from the book of Jonah the other day, I was intrigued by the way that Jonah rejoiced over the gourd that God prepared for him. You’ll notice that all these events and turn of events in this mission…God made preparation for. He is in control of every situation and will work things out if we let Him. Point #1.
Point #2. Jonah was up the miff tree. In other words he was miffed. Still don’t get it? He was in a pout…now you get it.
Jonah was in a pout because, well…he didn’t want to be there, he really wanted to be home with the wife and kids or failing that in Tarshish which was at the other end of the earth from Nineveh. It wasn’t the end of the world but you could see it from there. You’ve seen places like that, haven’t you?
Anyway here he was stuck in Nineveh, having great success, a 100 per cent success rate as the entire city repented at his preaching; what is wrong with this guy? Everybody got saved and he’s whining about the heat. He should have been down front at the altar praying with the new converts, after all there were one hundred and twenty thousand (120,000) of them. (I wrote that figure as well as the number so you would be more impressed.)
So God prepared a gourd to give Jonah some shade while he sulked. God thinks of everything doesn’t He? Now here is old Jonah resting on his laurels, laying back and thinking, why did God save this bunch? But oh well, might as well get some shut-eye, got a long day tomorrow, (takes three days just to get out of this place) then try to find another ship back home; not everyone was looking to take this guy on board…the last crew nearly drowned. So Jonah drifted off to sleep under the gourd. I’m getting a little ahead of the story because Jonah had made the journey by this time out of the city to the east side suburbs and built himself a booth for a shelter and then he sat down to watch God destroy the place. That’s when God made the gourd for him to give him more shade. And all the while he was whining and complaining until God prepared the gourd. He began to believe maybe he should start preaching a prosperity doctrine. Next morning, the sun comes up and surprise, surprise, surprise…during the night God had prepared a worm ( a cutworm, oh I hate those things too)and it attacked that gourd so that the gourd withered and died and no more shade for our prophet. Who says God doesn’t have a sense of humor?
Actually God added a little pressure because the Bible says that He prepared (there’s that word again) a vehement east wind just as the sun arose and beat on Jonah’s head, so that he nearly fainted. In fact old Jonah felt so bad that he prayed that God would take him. Can you picture the length of Jonah’s lower lip? It must have stuck out there past his nose even. He said, “it’s better for me to die than to live.” My, my, my…can you imagine? A prophet of God should be a man of faith but he is one of the most pessimistic men I have ever heard of in all of God’s holy Word.
He had one of the most successful campaigns of any preacher in history and here he sits under a withered up gourd watching to see what was going to happen to the Ninehvites, SWEATING LIKE A STUCK…WELL YOU KNOW .
Most of us would have blamed the devil for that cutworm…but it was God who prepared it and He did it in order to bring Jonah to a place where he could see the error of his ways and repent. Yes the preacher in this case needed to repent.
God said to Jonah..look boy, you had pity on the gourd, that you never created and didn’t even make it grow. It sprang up overnight and perished overnight. Not really all that important, Jonah. Not something to build a doctrine on much less a ministry. But here are souls. Where are we placing our priorities today? Are we like Jonah laboring for our personal comfort while we watch the world go to hell? God could prepare a worm you know.
As I pondered this true Bible story of Jonah, I was somewhat convicted in my thoughts, after all I have been pretty hard on Jonah, haven’t I? Really I like old Jonah for some reason or another, I guess it’s because I’m not much different than he was. I have said no so many times when someone asked me if I would teach a Sunday school class for an example. I have said no to the pastor when he asked me to be the teacher at a cell meeting that he wanted to set up in our area. I said no when asked to sing in a choir, all too many times. I have said no when I felt a prompting to visit the sick in hospital. I have said no too many times.
The Bible says that when you know to do good and you don’t do it that to you it is sin. Sin! I am thankful for the message that Jonah brings through this book and for the lessons taught.
It has taught me to repent…just now as I write these thoughts, I am repenting, asking God to forgive me…I don’t want to be guilty of complaining or any other sin. Lord, cleanse me of every evil thought, every evil deed, for not obeying You when I should have, like holding back a word from You when You are prompting me, an utterance from the Spirit….for knowing to do good and not doing it. Thank God, He has forgiven me…I thank Him for His grace.
And as for Jonah, he got an honorable mention in the New Testament from none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. I guess he made it after all.
posted by Randall | 5:49 a.m.
3 Comments:
HI again Randall
I see were you are going with this one. We don't want to see that sometimes God has to step into our lives to get us back on the right track. We will sometimes start down a road that looks good ,but we can get off track pretty fast. We may think that we can handle the world on our ,but we get into trouble fast. God sees this when we don't.
God will do what ever it takes to bring us back to the right road.
This might mean putting a cutworm or two into our life. {I HATE WORMS OF ANY KIND}
I think like Jonah we all have to see our errors and repent of them,so we can have every good thing that God has prepared for us. Maybe then we will have just al ittle of the success that
Jonah had with winning souls.
C.M.
THE GOURD and THE WORM [JONAH]
[1]God's control over situations
[2]Nineveh
[3]The Bible says that when you know to do good and don't do it, that to you it is sin. Repent
[4]Guilty of complaining,clense my thoughts
[5]Our priorities and personal comfort
[6]Most of us would have blamed the devil, for that cutworm, but it was GOD
[7]GOD prepared everything
[8]Error of his ways
[9]Convicted
[10]Thankful
[11]Pessimistic
[12]Sense of humor
Do I have [12] points to make, no
gotch, didn't I, see I got a sense of humor too.
The [12] points are what I wrote down as I read through the blog.They seemed to jump right out at me but when I looked at these things, to make my comment on the blog, there seems to be something missing, so I read the blog over a number of times, after which I decided the word I was looking for is "cost ".
I think when we look at these [12] and many more reasons, we must comsider the "cost "
Everything has a cost,you pay the price for it or you don't get it or even worse, you do get it,a nd then have to pay the price [what ever the cost], because don't forget you don't set the price, you just pay it.
Like JONAH and his Gourd, if at first there seems to be no cost, be careful,r emember that cutworm and let's not forget that "hot, hot sun that beat down on his head [poor guy]. We know he didn't buy the gourd, but you might say, he rented or at least he used it, thought it was free. As a matter of fact, he just took advanage of it because it was there, doesn't sound like GOD was real happy about this, so GOD, set the "cost" --"cutworm and hot,hot sun".It's like I said before about cost, you might not like it,but you still got to pay it , no matter how high it may be.It could very well mean the difference between HEAVEN and hell [quite the price...Ah??]
We are told that we have "free choice" and that GOD will always give us a way out when you are tempted, I never did understand this. We either sin or not, where's the choice here? I don't see it, so I think I have to disagree, nothing is free [good or bad] everything has its price and it is set by GOD and he wants to be paid.
Remember JESUS paid the price for us all, so what would ever let us think that his father, would let him die and not even set a few rules for us to follow and to pay for if we didn't,well he did.
Coffee
The account of Jonah - thanks for reminding us. Your thoughts and discourse forced me to go to the book and re-read it for myself. Guess that is the intention of the blog.
The story of Jonah is one of the greatest examples of God's grace - full circle from the earliest blogs.
Grace - to Jonah when he disobeyed, in giving him a second chance. Grace - in that God wants everyone to hear the salvation message, all nations, not just the Israelites.
Grace - to take the time to teach Jonah about his priorities, that people are more important than his own comforts.
Keep sharing your thoughts, brother; causes the rest of us to search both the Word and our own hearts.
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