September 12, 2021 · Jonah 2:8–10

A Whale of a Prayer

"Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God's love for them. But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. I will say, 'Salvation comes from the Lord.'" And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

“They are the capital of the kingdom of the Assyrians. For a long time, actually, they thought that the city of Nineveh didn't even exist. … But they discovered it actually exists. It's in Iraq, in all places. And the city of Nineveh is a city that is the capital of a barbarous empire. We're talking, like — the Romans are really bad at the crucifixion stuff. The Assyrians are probably the — cruellest — of all the empires. … They were — it was an evil empire. And so when he hears this, that God wants him to go preach to this empire, he's like, "Nah — I want to preach to them, but I want to preach fire and brimstone. God's going to destroy you." — I guess a little bit. — He's going to — God saying, like, "Tell them I'll destroy them if they don't pay attention." He's like, "Yeah, but you're going to tell them, like, repent. And then you're going to have mercy on them. I don't like that. They're evil. And you don't know what you're doing, God. They deserve destruction." And God says, "No, I want — to go preach to them and tell them to repent."”