Don't Be Like Jonah!

Our Sunday School class just finished a study of Jonah. You know he was an Old Testament missionary. God sent him to a different culture, one he hated, one that was full of people who hated his people, and were known to be wicked and cruel.

But the story is not about Jonah, it's about God. It reveals God's reasons for sending out missionaries. We saw five points about why God sends out missionaries. I'll just give you one so this will be a blog and not a book.

Jonah 1:2 tells us that God told Jonah, "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before Me." The phrase 'their evil has come up before Me' is interesting. Hadn't our omniscient (all-knowing) God noticed their evil before. Certainly Jonah had; he ran in the other direction. Since God is all-knowing this phrase can't mean He had just now seen their evil. So why did it come to His attention now? Maybe their pile of evil got so big that He just got tired of it. That doesn't sound much like God either.

Try adding to that statement the fact that God knew how the people of Nineveh would respond to Jonah's message. He knew they would repent. So maybe 'their evil has come up before Me' meant that He knew the time was right for them to hear and repent. He knew they were ready, so He sent in His Old Testament missionary, His reluctant, run away missionary.

God's timing is impeccable; He knows just when to set things in motion; He knows just the words that need to be said, by just the person, at just the time. He knew it in Jonah's day, and He knows it today. You could be just the person for someone in Peru, and maybe for many someones. There's only one way to be sure: go, take God's message of salvation with you.

Check back soon!