Today's Walk Radio Podcast Valley Baptist Church

Pastor Roger Spradlin looks at the role of the shepherds in the Christmas story.

Sometimes our life gets off track a little. Jonah’s life got off track majorly. The reality is sometimes that’s us as well. When our life does get off track, the big question is this: How do we get back on track? How do we start over? That’s what Jonah 3 is all about.

Jonah chapter 2 is a record of Jonah’s prayer. Jonah has been swallowed by a huge fish and thinks he’s going to die. He’s slowly being digested alive and he cries out from the belly of the grave… and God hears his voice! God often uses a crisis to drive us to pray to focus our attention upon His Word.

God told Jonah to go to Nineveh and preach and Jonah says no way and he runs in the opposite direction. We read that and we’re tempted to think, well that’s too bad he made his choice. God said do this and he stood at the fork in the road, and he chose wrong that’s the end of the story, but it’s not. Because God is determined to perform His will not just in Jonah’s life… but in my life… in your life. God continues to work His will even when we resist!

All of us are prone to wander from, and even resist God at times. Jonah was not doing the right thing and now he’s caught. The message of the Gospel is for you and I, for people like us who have messed up, for people like Jonah who have blown it, and ran from God. The whole don’t need the physician, but the sick, Jesus said. And at this point, Jonah was spiritually sick, but he didn’t seem willing to admit it. Jonah just told them throw me overboard!

Are we really that much different from Jonah? Sometimes sadly some are not! As Christians, we should examine ourselves in light of the Great Commission of Jesus in Matthew 2… and really, it’s not just the nations, it’s our neighbors Because it was not simply about Jonah going to Mosul. It was about going and taking the Gospel to the ends of the earth to all the peoples of the earth.