Sooner or later, your last day on earth will come. It may come this week, this month, or this year. Or it may be a long way off for you. But one day you will wake up, and whether you realise it or not, it will be your last day. And what will happe...

Perhaps you would say today, “I’m not sure that I have been saved.” Or, “I’m not sure that I am being saved.” Or, “I’m not sure that I will be saved.” In your heart of hearts, you wonder: If salvation comes from the Lord, what can I do? Doesn’...

Consider how the Bible talks about salvation in the past, the present, and the future:

1. Completed Transaction (this is often called justification)

“By grace you have been saved through faith…” (Eph. 2:8). The ...

Jonah is a wonderful model for us here. Notice, he gives God all the glory for his salvation. “Salvation belongs to the LORD!” (2:9).

C. H. Spurgeon says, “Jonah learned this sentence of good theology in a strange college…. Most of the gran...

If salvation is something we do for ourselves with moral effort, good works, family values, and the Ten Commandments, then why did Jesus have to die on the cross? God sent the fish because Jonah couldn’t save himself. And that’s why God sent Jesus...

Maybe you have the idea that you need to clean up your life before God can save you. That’s like saying, “If you swim to shore, God will send you a lifeboat!” Jonah shows us a better way.

God saves guilty sinners<b...

If you want to emphasise something important, you could put it at the beginning, like in a headline; in the middle, like in a climax; or at the end, like in a conclusion.

If you want to sum up the book of Jonah in one sentence, it would be...

Imagine that you are responsible for parking at the Super Bowl. Your job is to clear the parking lot as quickly and as safely as possible.

When the game ends, you motion the front row forward. Nothing happens. You walk over to the first ca...

Here are three ways we can grow in compassion:

1. Rejoice in God’s unique creation
Every person you meet is God’s unique creation. When you see someone on a train, at the store, or in school, say to yourself, God car...

Here we have a wonderful window into the heart of God. He relented and had compassion on the Ninevites… and that made Jonah angry! Jonah said, “I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful…” (Jon. 4:2). But Jonah was not a gracious and merciful...

Think about the vine, the worm, and the wind in the life of our Lord Jesus.

Jesus chose twelve disciples and called them to be with Him (Mk. 3:14). He had the comfort, joy, and blessing of their companionship. He sent them out and their mi...

It’s easy to see why God provided the vine for Jonah. God is good. All good gifts come from Him. But why did God send the worm and the wind? What possible good could come from that?

It’s helpful to understand two important Bible words: ...

Put yourself in Jonah’s shoes. You are feeling miserable and resentful. And here you are, sitting in the sand outside a city you really don’t like. The sun is beating down on you, so you make a shelter. Then God steps in.

The Vine</...

Here are three common reactions to the grace of God:

1. God’s grace makes some people angry
Some folks believe that God must treat everyone the same, opening the door of salvation and waiting to see who will come in. B...

Why is Jonah complaining to God? What is going on in his heart? “That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish.” This is a marvellous example of undermining your own repentance.

Jonah repented, and God forgave him, but now Jonah wants to ex...

Let’s begin by noting something that Jonah did right. “He prayed to the LORD” (4:2). In chapter 1, Jonah was unhappy with God, and he ran from the Lord. In chapter 4, Jonah was unhappy with God, and he prayed to the Lord. That’s ...

You would think that a man who had seen miracles of grace in his own life and in his ministry would be full of praise and thanksgiving. Here we see something different.

Jonah was a mature believer. He was a prophet. He was a missionary. Yo...

What happened in Nineveh was remarkable. This kind of transformation does not always happen when we bring God’s message. Why not?

There’s God’s Word, and there’s God’s man or woman, but there is also God’s time. You can’t force that. But yo...

Did Jonah tell the people of Nineveh about his own experience? It seems likely he did, for two reasons:

1. The words of the king
“Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not...

Nineveh was a large city. People in the great cities of the world live relentless lives. We are consumed with what is happening now: running businesses, raising families, enjoying sports.

Jonah arrives and says, “Let me tell you what’s comi...

It was not a foregone conclusion that Jonah would go to Nineveh when God called him a second time. Nothing had changed in Nineveh, so Jonah still had at least four objections to overcome:

1. Fear
The Assyrians were still...

Here are three things we learn from the ship’s crew about pursuing a God-centred life:

1. Turn to God and ask Him for mercy
“They called out to the LORD” (1:14).
The crew saw that their religion was worthless...

How did Jonah know that the sea would become calm if the crew threw him out of the boat? There can only be one answer: God revealed it.

When Jonah’s sin was exposed, God’s silence was ended, and Jonah spoke as a prophet again. This prophet...

Notice, it was God who sent the storm. In Jonah’s life, the storm was an intervention to save him from a life wasted in disobedience. At the same time, God was stepping in to redeem the ship’s crew who knew nothing about Him. Even God’s judgements...

When Jonah refused God’s call, he knew that God would no longer give him prophetic revelations. If he made up his own prophecies he would be a false prophet. If he stopped prophesying, his rebellion against God would be exposed.

So, his cho...

Jonah avoided a God-centred life. He had planned where he wanted to live and what he wanted to do, and when God disrupted his plan, he quit.

If your plan becomes more important than God’s plan, you cannot live a God-centr...

Jonah was already running from God at the beginning of his story, but even after God used him to evangelise an entire city he was still out of sorts with God.

The book of Jonah was likely written later in Jonah’s life as he looked back on ...

Today’s title might seem a little strange: How to Avoid a God-Centred Life, but that’s what Jonah was doing for a huge part of his life! This month we’re going to look at eight different ways Jonah tried to avoid a God-centred life, so we...

Try to imagine what this will be like.

First, you will be presented before God’s glorious presence… blameless. The word translated “blameless” is the same word that was used to describe a sacrificial animal in the Old Testament that was ac...