I've been dreaming about the Book of Jonah. And so I want to try to bring a lesson, several lessons to you from the Book of Jonah, from Hebrew also. Jonah is quite a story. The Book of Jonah is almost like predestination and ordination from the first to the last word. Jonah the rebellious prophet. Jonah the rebel prophet. It was written somewhere between 753 and 800 BC. Jonah is a book of predestination and foreordination in many aspects and I'm reading from my introduction to Jonah. God foreordained Abraham. Think about that. Abraham is over here in this period of time. All right, he even ordained Adam, as far as that goes, and Noah, all that. Abraham, Isaac, of course, Jacob, was later called Israel. God foreordained Nineveh. Nineveh was a very important place in the history. Nineveh embedded crucifixion. Nineveh invented crucifixion. Crucifixion was very, very important because that's the way the Lord was going to die. And the Lord prophesied that was to be before this period of time already, even here. God ordained Nineveh, Joppa, Tarshish, the ship, the storm, the ship's captain. Just think about this now. God ordained all of these things. The crew of the ship. God ordained the crew of the ship. The great fish or leviathan, whatever it was, a dog in Hebrew. We'll get to that. He ordained the castor bean plant. He ordained the worm. He ordained the sun to shine brightly and hot during the days that it was supposed to. God saved every individual that Joel preached to, willingly. They all believed. The complete ship load of people believed and all of Nineveh believed. How would you like to, if you were teaching a Bible lesson and there was a lost person there, and every person that you ever talked to, in Kmart or Walmart or whatever, in any restaurant, every person that you ever talked to was saved. Just think about that. 100% success rate. And yet he was a rebellious prophet. He's one of the most rebellious prophets of all. He was from Galilee area. This is one of the greatest prophets of the Old Testament, and he was from Galilee. And they said, did a prophet ever come from Galilee? Well, here he is. All the people never believed from the king to the paupers. All of the livestock of that great city was rescued and lived. Even the livestock. Jonah, the great prophet, was angry with the results, of his great ministry because he was so racially prejudiced and Judaistic, separatist, not willing for God to show mercy on anyone but God's elect. He was so racially prejudiced that he didn't want them to be saved. And besides that, I think that he had read some of the prophecies where Nineveh was going to God was going to use Nineveh to work Israel over. He found out that God so loved the Gentile dogs also. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. And these people needed to be saved. They needed to be saved. God so loved the world, He so loved Nineveh. Jonah drowned and died. Here we have a prophet of God that died and went to Hades and came back. God sent him back. He wasn't finished with him yet. He prayed from the belly of Sheol. A lot of people say, well, you can be swallowed by a whale and live. Well, Jonah didn't live. He died. He's dead. He's not unconscious because when you die you're not unconscious. There's no soul-sleeping business. He's not unconscious. He is in Sheol, not in the belly of the great Leviathan. Joba drowned and died in the great storm and swallowed by a great fish. He was drowned and then he was swallowed. And then he went on a ship, he went on a fish trip. You go on a ship trip, well he went on a fish trip. And this is quite a trip, I'm telling you. I'm going to bring up here a globe and I'm going to show you how far he was, his journey was. Soiled by great fish that it was foreordained to transport him thousands of miles to the shore of the Tigris River at the banks of Nineveh. He's going to take him thousands of miles, this Leviathan is. And he was dead in the belly of that leviathan. When he spit him out, he came to life. Anastasia, the resurrection. Jonah was praying to God from Sheol. Either the fish flew or would swim the whole distance around Africa and through the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf. Let's look at that for just a moment. I'm gonna try to bring this up to you, I want you to understand, a lot of people, I've never heard anybody preach this, at all. Here we are, Earth America, over here is Russia, all the way through Libya, Arabian Sea, down to the south point of Africa, all the way up here, Now you go through here between North Africa and Spain, Tarshish, and here's the Mediterranean Sea all the way here. Now here, over here, this very little place right here is where Jonah was. And up here is Galilee, just a little way. Now Jonah had to go from here, By boat he was out in the Mediterranean Sea, had to go all the way around. That fish had to swim all the way around, all the way around Africa, all the way up into the Indian Ocean, in the Arabian Sea, and all the way up here into the Persian Gulf, and then all the way up to Tigris, up there to Nineveh. and spit him out. Or maybe God gave the fish wings and he flew all the way from here. He was near Spain, going to Spain. He had to fly all the way from there over to there. So that's a long trip. I don't think that that Leviathan or whatever it was had any scales on it when he got there. Everybody always say he had a whale swallowed him. It doesn't say a whale. It says the dog a fish. And a leviathan is also called a fish. The leviathan of the sea, the great fish of the sea. Jonah drowned and died in the great storm. He drowned. And he was swallowed by a great fish that was foreordained to transport him thousands of miles to the shore of the Tigris River on the banks of Nineveh. The gentleman was praying to God from Sheol. Either the fish flew or slammed the whole distance around Africa through the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf up to the eastern bank of the Tigris River to Nineveh. A miraculous journey. That is a miraculous journey. Now I'm going to tell you something. That's quite a journey. Jonah being dead. Jonah was dead for three days. He was three. And that fish was swimming like a bullet. Just think about it. That fish had to swim fast. That's a long way. Had to go all the way through the Mediterranean Sea, out into the ocean, down around Africa, point of Africa, up into the Indian Ocean. That's where India is, you know. And all the way up in the Persian Gulf and then up where the Tigris and the Euphrates go together and he swam up the Euphrates River and spit him out on the shore of Nineveh. Jonah was from Galilee, near Nazareth, from a city called Gath. Gath Heifer, and there's where they had a wine press. Nineveh was about 600 miles northeast of Jerusalem. And Tarshish was 2,500 miles west in the opposite direction. Think about it now. Nineveh was 600 miles northeast of Jerusalem. And Tarshish, where he took off, was 2,500 miles. Now he had to go 2,500 miles and then all the way down. There's no way that there's no inlet going in there from the Mediterranean Sea to go up to Nineveh. You have to go all the way around and up into the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf to get back up to Tigris or Euphrates when they enter. The opposite direction. God used Nineveh to correct and punish Israel. And Nineveh gave many inventions to the civilized world in her day. Plumbing for one. flushed toilets, irrigated, this is what we call irrigation, irrigating farms, canals, aqueducts, locks and keys, and paved roads, postal service, iron tools, libraries, arithmetic, and geometry, and the 360 degree circle, and crucifixion in the form of a stake. It changed. Crucifixion changed from the stake into a what we call an X-looking thing, and then to the Tau Cross. Jonah means dove. Dove is a symbol of peace, remember, and protection. Nineveh means the house or dwelling of Ninus, the fish, or fish god. Aramaic Nuna. The worship of Ishtar, Astarte, the fertility gods, Nineveh did fall after she had fulfilled her destiny in 612 B.C. In Akkadian, it's Ninir. Syriac is Ninwi. In Arabic, it's Ninniwa. In Hebrew, it's Ninniwa. And in Greek, it's Niniwa. Persian, it is Ne. Niwa and in Latin it is Nineveh. Joppa was a beautiful city. It was a city where shipping was. Tarshish means hard and shipbuilders and seabaring society and it's in Spain. Amethy was Jonah's father and his name means truthful. Dog, or Godala, Fish, or Leviathan, page 185 and 212 of Koehler and Bumgartner. The castor bean plant was Hakekaon, page 884 in Brown, Driver, Briggs. The worm, the toloth, it means venu, weevil, or cocus ileus, the worm that produces red dye, or crimson dye. a very destructive weevil type of worm with a ferocious appetite. Now here we've got just a little bit. 793 to 800 B.C. Jonah was sent by God to preach the Nineveh. The call was plain. You know what? It's always better to trust God today for tomorrow and for the next day. It's better to trust God that he knows what he's doing in your life. for today, tomorrow, and forever, as long as you're upon the earth. Jonah didn't do that. Jonah was very hard-headed. He was very racially prejudiced. Now, when God calls Jonah, Jonah does exactly the opposite of what God tells him to do. The opposite. Now, he's a prophet of God. And God told him to go do this, and he went the opposite direction. Let's start here and read this. Yonah, remember that means dove. Wahi-da-var-ha-da-var, El Yonah, Ben-ah-mee-tay, Limor. Jonah, remember that means dove. Now it became here, it says, why he, and he became, or it became a word, the Devar, the word of Jehovah there, and we're gonna call Jehovah Ha-Devar, because in the New Testament, John, all the way through John's writings, he calls Jesus the word. And when he calls Jesus the word, he means Jehovah, because that was the substitute word for Jehovah, because they didn't say the word. They'd come to the word Jehovah, and they'd say Ha-Devar, Or they would sometimes call it Hashem, the name. And when Wahian became the word, the Devar, the word, page 120, or 180 and 210 that is, if you want to look that up on Ground Driver Briggs and Kohler and Baumgardner, Jehovah. What does Jehovah mean? He who shall become. John 1.14 is the fulfillment of Jehovah. and the word of the Jehovah, flesh he became. And he dwelt among us and we beheld the glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. It says later in 118, it says no man has seen God at any time, but the only begotten God, the one being in the bosom of the Father, that one has led himself out. And became word of Jehovah, Unto Jehonah, El, look at that little word El there. Now El can be a preposition, it can be the name for God. Right here it's a preposition, page 39. And then the way the Yonah. Yonah. Jonah, Ben, Amite. Ben means son of. Ben means son of or from the house of. Now, Marilyn, your family, your father's family came from Denmark. And all they had, your family's name was Larsen. That means son of Lars. Larsen, son of Lars. And here we have Ben Amiti, son of Amiti. Amiti, truthful. Second Kings 14.25, say that name again, and a little more. Lemur, it comes from Amer. And that lemant on the front of that there, it makes it into an infinitive, cal-infinitive construct. Pages 55 and 65. Now let's see what Jonah does here. Does he trust God? Does he, this is a, this is a, a prophet of God. Now, these people there were pagans, weren't they? Can God save pagans? Can God save pagans? Can God save gentiles? We're here for proof and pudding, huh? Now they've been worshipping Astarte and Ishtar and the fish god. And by the way, now, God is going to use the fish god. assembly of the fish god, this giant leviathan, he's going to use it to transport Jonah there. So he's going to use one of the gods of Nineveh to transport Jonah where he's supposed to be. Now they think when they see this fish god coming up out there and spit him on the shores that they see a miracle. First of all, one of their gods that they've been raised to believe in brought the man there. They brought him there. I remember when, in history, when the white men, when the Anglo-Saxons came to America, most of the people here were, well, the East Coast Indians were a little whiter. But when they landed where they landed, they looked at them and they thought they were some kind of white gods. They thought they were some kind of gods. And here they came in on this boat. And where did they come from? And they began to worship them. as gods. Willingly, to begin with. They found out they weren't quite gods. Not at all. Now let's read Genesis 1 and verse 2. I'm not Genesis, but Jonah 1 and verse 2. Gum lek el nerwe ha-er ha-gi do-wa yu-ge-re ali-ha ki Alitha, Reatham, Lefane. Now let's go back and look at this. Nirmah means what? The house of fish. The house of fish. The house of the fish god. Gum. Gum is Massantine or Kal Imperative. 877 to 1086 in the in the lexicons, it says, raise up, arise, go or walk, leka, leek here, it's mass and singular cal imperative also, it's a command imperative. You walk, you go, unto, preposition, page 39, El, Nineveh. You walk and go unto Nineveh. Now how far is Nineveh? Huh? How far is Nineveh? About 600 miles, huh? Now, Nineveh is about 250 miles north of Babylon. So he's going to go 600 miles walking. And that wasn't a big challenge. He decided to go in a boat 2,500 miles in the opposite direction. He didn't want to go. Ha-er. Go to the city, Nineveh, the city of the house of the Fish God. Ha-gi-du-lah. The, definite article, ha, the, definite, the, great, the great city, and you gather, mass and scene or cow imperative again, and you cry out, against her. Elija. El is a preposition with a suffix. Third person masculine, feminine singular. The city. The city as a unit. Because, that little key there, because Alitha, she has come up. Third person feminine singular. The city is called a feminine gender. She has come up, Kal, perfect. Their evils, their craftiness, their shrewdness, Ra-A, Ra-Atham. This is plural now. Their crafty, wicked, evil, shrewdness. It means also to break up and destroy. They have broken up and destroyed many other civilizations. And then Lifane, Their evils have come up to the face of me. Their evils have come up to the face of me. God is going to use them. Verse number 3 now. Jonah wanted Nineveh to be destroyed. He didn't want Nineveh to be saved at all. Now what had God done to Sodom and Gomorrah? And he sent a prophet there too, didn't he? He said, what prophet did God send to Sodom and Gomorrah? What preacher did God send to Sodom and Gomorrah? He wasn't a very good one. Lot. Lot. Lot. Lot was supposed to be preaching to them. And he got converted to them, to their ways. And then Aaron stood in. And then God sent the angels there. And they wouldn't listen to the angels. They wouldn't listen to Lot. And so God destroyed them. You know, Abraham even interceded for Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham one time went down there and saved them after they had been attacked and brought them back. And then the evilness of that place. wasn't a very good prophet at all. There was no conversion with him. He didn't even convert his sons-in-laws. They laughed at him when he said, God's going to destroy the place. 1 and verse 3, וַיִּה גָּם יֹּוֹנָה לִבְרֹעַךָ תְּרְשִׁשָׁה מְלֶּתְנֵי הַבָּר וַיִּה רֵד יָּפוֹל I got to get the other half of that verse that's on another page. Melefenei Hadbar. Now, there's all kinds of references here to other places in the Bible. Joshua 19, 46. 2 Chronicles 2, 16. Ezra 3, 7. Even Acts 9, 36-43. Isaiah 23, 1, 6 and 10. Jeremiah 10. And verse number 9, Genesis 4.16, Psalm 139, 7, 9 and 10 that is. All references to this, especially in the New Testament. The New Testament said, talked about Jonah. Jesus talked about Jonah going to the city of Nineveh. He said Nineveh would have repented if the miracles Or Sodom and Gomorrah would have repented if the miracles were done in Galilee and Sodom and Gomorrah. He said, you'll have the strongest, most severe judgment. Why you gone? And he rose up, third person, master, senior, consecutive and perfect. And he rose up and kept on rising up, Jonah. What did he do? Did he go to Nineveh? No. Went the opposite direction. To flee. To flee. That word is liberach. Liberach. That means to run, to flee, like he was running away from God. He's running from God now. He doesn't want to do the job. Cal infinitive construct. Flee. 137-156. To Tarshish. Tarshish is Spain. Italy. Spain. The opposite direction. 2500 miles on the wrong way. Now he's going to go away in a boat. And those ships in that Mediterranean Sea, that was a very dangerous journey, especially in certain times of the year. It was terrible. Look at the shipwreck of Paul. People that died in that sea. He's going to go the wrong way, even if he's going to risk his life to go the wrong way. He's going to risk his life to go the wrong way, and it cost him his life. Read the Tarshish. Tarshish means a hard place. Then Melephene, before your face, had a preposition on the front of that, before your face, from, preposition from man, and then Lamed, preposition also, and then from your face, from, to your face, of Jehovah. He fled from the face of Jehovah. Now, I want to ask you something. Can you get away from God? No. Can you flee from God? No. Because God is everywhere. He's omnipresent. Wherever you go, He's there. And so now God is out in the Mediterranean Sea. Flee from the face of Jehovah, and then why you read, and he came down, third person imagine seeing your cow while consecutive in person, and he kept on going down to Joppa. Joppa. Joppa means beautiful place. This is the seaport there. And he kept on finding a ship, third person, master, senior, cow, wife, consecutive, from perfect, from mitzvah. And the word for bread, matzah, bread, and they used to say when they were going to have the Passover, look for it, look for the bread, look for the leavened bread, look for it, chase it out, take it out of your house. found, and he kept on finding a ship. A ship, and the ship is called a female too, a female ship, page 58, a Nia. And then Ba'a, Ba'a comes from Boo, and it's feminine singular, cal participle, the ship she is going to Spain, to Tarsus, to the hard place. The calling to God now is irrevocable. The calling to God is undeniable. When God calls you to do something, you're called to do it. Period. That's it. Now, what's he going to do? Take off the other direction. Remember, we're supposed to trust God for today, tomorrow, and the next day. Always. Why you tent? Seek haraam. Why attend? And he gave and kept on giving. Third person mattressing your cow while consecutively purfing. Its wages. He gave its wages. Mythos is the Greek word. Here it is sikara. He gave the wages. Page 969. He gave his ship passage. He got a ticket for the ship. And he went down, third person, mangle, singular, while, consecutive, imperfect, and he kept on going down into her, bah. That's a preposition with a suffix. Third person masculine, third person feminine, singular, that is. And then la-ro, la-vo, to go. Cal infinitive construct, to go with them. Now here we have a preposition with a suffix, third person masculine plural. With them, to Tarshish, Tarshish. Milfenay, from the face of Jehovah. From the face of Milfenay. Preposition, preposition, and then face. From the nose of God, from the face of God, of Jehovah. Well, Jonah is on a disastrous journey that he chose for himself. God told him to go a different direction by a different mode of travel. He could have got a donkey. He could have got a chariot. He could have got a cart. Or he could have walked all the way up there to Neba. And God would have protected him all the way. But now he has thrown away the protection of God. and he's not trusting God, he's not going to do the will of God at all. What does it just tell us in our lives? That we should do the will of God in our lives. Don't remember how hard it is we think at the moment. We should do the will of God for our lives. What's God calls you to do? God calls everybody out there to do something. If you do nothing but to earn and share your wealth with God's work, that's something. You see your families and you try to preach to them. Sometimes that doesn't work very well. Sometimes you have to do it very silently, just by examples, just by what you are. God's got something for you to do. God's got a mission for you to go on, just like He had for Jonah. What is that mission? Whatever it is, put one foot in front of the other and go that way. We thank you for this message. Thank you for the Book of Jonah. Please use it wherever it goes. Please guide our lives like whatever you called us to do and wherever you're placing us. Wherever we do, bloom where we're planted. Thank you for your word. Thank you for your grace. Thank you for your love. Please use your word wherever it goes to touch people's lives. In Jesus' name I pray.