verse of the day

Wednesday 5 October 2022

Jonah went AWOL. ( Mark 5 v 1 - 15 ) 2

 As a young lad of fifteen I joined the army, as a boy soldier,I must confess I did not like it,and  I remember going AWOL,that means absent without official leave,well that's what Jonah did, he went AWOL.He was not prepared to do what God wanted him to do, there was a reason for this,Nineveh was the capitol of Assyria. Rosemary Nixon writes,' It is quite possible that we are meant to understand Nineveh as that which constitutes the very opposite of everything that Israel held dear. This view is vividly spelt out by the Jewish writer Hayyim Lewis.' The Assyrians were the Nazi storm- troopers of the ancient world. They were the pitiless  power crazed foe. They showed no quarter in battle, uprooting entire peoples in their fury for conquest. They extinguished the Northern Kingdom of Israel. For Jonah, Nineveh  was no ordinary city ; it carried doom - laden , tragic memories, it stood as a symbol, of  evil incarnate'. One other person writes,'To go to Nineveh means,for Jonah, to go to hell'.There are many people whom have felt the call of God to the most ungodly places,and may have said  ,'I cant go there'. 

                                                               William Booth.

                                           'Go straight for souls, and go for the worst.'


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