Welcome to a year in the Bible with daily grace. The Bible tells one big story of

redemption and we want to spend five minutes every day journeying through the Bible from start to finish, and exploring how all of it

points to Jesus. Hey everybody welcome back to a year in the Bible with daily grace. My name is

Crystal and today we will be discussing the book of Jonah. Jonah is sent by God with a very clear mission.

Go to the city of Nineveh and preach against it because of their great evil.

Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, which was the nation that God sovereignly used to bring judgment upon Israel.

Jonah prophesied during the same time frame as the prophets Amos and Josea,

and their prophecies focused on the impending threat of Assyria and the eventual

exile of Israel. So Jonah knew that God was asking him to extend an invitation of

grace to their worst enemies.

And what was Jonah's response?

As any good prophet he did just as God commanded, right?

Well not exactly.

Only three verses into the book and we see Jonah's struggle.

It says not once but twice that Jonah got up to flee from the Lord's presence to a place called Tarsish.

Jonah chose to go thousands of miles in the complete opposite direction of Nineveh.

That is some dedication right there.

But even as Jonah tried to run away, God never left him.

While on the ship, God caused a great storm to hit.

Jonah told the sailors to throw him into the sea because he was to blame for the storm.

As they threw Jonah overboard, the sea stopped reaching. These pagan sailors who had been crying out to their gods

saw the power of the one true God, the God of Israel.

...