No matter how far you go, God will still find you.

In this instance, Jonah was intending to go 2,000 miles away from where he should have been.

But God caught up with him because he is everywhere present and sovereign.

Even in our rebellion, even in our stubbornness, there is the providence of God in this incident of

imprisonment in the belly of a fish, is that he rediscovered grace.

Many Christians are familiar with the story of Jonah, especially children who have grown up

in a Christian home. But sometimes, being familiar with the story means we miss its important lessons.

I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and welcome to this Friday edition of Renewing Your Mind. Although you and I will

likely never experience what Jonah experienced, as you'll hear today from Derek Thomas,

Jonah's encounter, both with the whale and God, reminds us of the sweetness of the gospel

and provides many practical helps for Christians today.

So be sure to own this message and the entire series while there's still time

by donating at Renewing Your Mind.org before midnight tonight.

Well, here's Dr. Thomas with a message titled God's Persistence with Jonah.

Well, hello again, and this is number four in our series of characters who found themselves

imprisoned and lessons that they learned from that experience of imprisonment. And in some cases, the

imprisonment was 10 years in Joseph's case and overnight, maybe for others, like Micaiah.

And of course, you may wince a little now if the next person and the next person

chronologically in the Old Testament I've chosen is Jonah. And it's a metaphorical prison.

He was locked in it for three days, and of course, we were talking about

the whale. Jonah comes about a hundred years or so after the last character, Micaiah,

in the reign of Ahab in the northern kingdom of Israel.

...