Title Undigested Jonah (Jon 01:1-11)
Contents Today, we would like to learn about the Jonah, which we know all too well.
When it comes to Jonah, the first thing that comes to mind is a person who broke God's command and ran away, met a storm, was swallowed up by a fish, and came back to life by praying in it. Therefore, this is a mysterious event that no one can experience, so we use this incident as a motive for indirectly learning about God's great work. I know, but I hope that it will be a time of grace through the situation that Jonah was in an undigested state in the stomach of a large fish and was vomited out by praying to God.
I always worried about this when I was young. When I ate meat such as cutlassfish, when the thorns of the meat got into my mouth, I thought that the thorns would roll around in my stomach and scratch my stomach from side to side. I lost. But one time, I was discharged from the military and did a boarding house with the children from the boy's house run by the Catholic Church. Those children were very unfortunate, and most of them were from orphans or impure families. And we covered a futon together and lived for several months together. However, I found something surprising for them. When I eat fish, I eat them all without throwing away.
I didn't extract the bones, I ate them all. So I was surprised and said that the thorns should not go into the stomach. They say that because the gastric juice is extremely strong, it dissolves all the thorns in the stomach.
Our gastric juices are really strong. So even if a thorn gets in, it melts. Now, let's think about Jonah who went into the belly of a fish from this angle.
Obviously, the Jonah that went into the fish's stomach would have to be dissolved in the gastric juice from the fish's stomach. However, Jonah did not melt and although it was painful, he was praying to God as shown in today's text.
This is truly a wonderful thing that cannot but be a miracle.
Although they broke God's command and ran away, they got into the belly of the fish, but they were not digested in it.
How could Jonah not be digested? It was because Jonah was under God's protection.
God's amazing hand was protecting Jonah.
These words say that there were human sins, but God does not abandon them, but protects them and protects them.
We humans, in a word, may be all the same kind of person as Jonah.
Although God speaks of God's will and commands to our lives in various ways, we are violating those commands and running away from God to live with the world all the time.
By the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, we are alienating ourselves from God.
But God always has pity on us and is looking for us.
In the old days, Adam and Eve, who sinned, made skirts from leaves and hid themselves among the trees in the garden to avoid God. But what did God do to Adam and Eve?
God has found you. Where are you?
This kind of seeking is God's hand looking for Jonah in today's text, and God looking for us who have sinned.
However, the important thing is that he seeks us and protects us even in the midst of it. He protects us without digesting us.
It's really important not to digest it here.
Because we humans were originally born into this world as a sinner, it is easy to fall into the world all the time.
Sometimes we fall into the world in despair, sometimes we fall into the world in worry, and sometimes we fall into the world in failure.
But what about it? Although we are weak and we run away from God and fall into the world, there is God's protecting hand in the midst of it, so that the evil gastric juices of the world do not melt us.
The God who prevented Jonah from being digested in the belly of the meat also does not allow us to be assimilated into the world either.
God protects and protects us to the end.
It never leaves us to be completely digested by the world.
The words of Isaiah 41:8-9 well introduce God's caring hand.
So, what should we do? In no case should we give up.
Because God never forsakes us for a moment.
In fact, sometimes we think that God is so great that we give up on our assumptions until he even cares about us.
However, God is not only the God of a nation, but also an individual God.
He is the God who watches my every move.
And God wants us to do God's will.
In the case of Jonah, God wanted him to use it greatly, but his human judgment and belief betrayed God's will.
So are we.
If there are 100 people, 100 people are different. They have different philosophies, ideas, experiences, and opinions. This is an obstacle to access to God.
We must know for sure.
The people God loves the most are those who can confess and practice, 'If it is God's will, I will give up my philosophy, thoughts, experiences and opinions.'
However, God is not a God who gives up on people who forsook God and went astray.
It is not the God who declares that 'I am finished with you now'.
After disobeying God's command and fleeing to Tarshish instead of Nineveh, he found Jonah sleeping under the boat, led him to the belly of the fish, a special prayer room, and gave him time to repent, then used it again.
But the important thing is that even in such a situation, God did not hurt Jonah's hair, even a single hair. It is said that he kept the fish from being digested in the stomach.
Why did you do this? The first was to love Jonah, and the second was to continue entrusting him with the mission entrusted to him.
Dear saints, God's chosen people will never be abandoned.
But we must think clearly.
The life we live is not a life we live twice. It's one life.
It is not a life you can turn around and live again.
Therefore, every single moment of each day is truly precious as gold.
But why waste such precious time? A life in which we do not waste time is to entrust our plans and everything to God's program.
No matter how much we avoid and run away, God's people will eventually be led by God's hand and proceed to God's instructions.
We must know exactly what kind of God God has led us to the end according to God's intentions by letting them live without being digested even in the belly of the fish at this time.
1. He is an all-knowing God.
It is God who sees not only Jonah's movements but also his thoughts.
In fact, it can be annoying in some ways that God knows everything about us.
There are times when it's cumbersome.
However, when humans know each other well, in many cases, they use it to satisfy their own desires, but God is with us because He knows us.
Therefore, it is a great blessing to have a God who knows all of me by my side.
2. God is everywhere.
Psalm 139:8-10 Even if I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in hell, you are there./Even if I spread my wings at dawn and dwell at the ends of the sea/even there your hand guides me, and your right hand holds me I will sustain you. Even where Jonah is fleeing, God is with him even when he is in the belly of the fish.
Of course, when we do not live according to God's will, God must not be there, but He is there too.
Wherever I disobey, where I sin, God is with me.
However, whenever we are weak, even when we are infinitely helpless, God is with us and protects us. This is a blessing.