[Tugboat, 2009, JA Van Devender]
Location: Fells Point Area, Baltimore, MD.
Jonah 3:10 (NKJV)
10 Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it.
Tug boats are fascinating things. There is not much elegance about them as with locomotives, nor is there a sense of immensity as with giant cargo ships. Squat and pug-nosed they exist for one thing... to take ships that are extraordinarily larger than they and shove those ships where they need to go.
Big ships in narrow channels simply do not have the helm response and maneuverability to consistently and safely navigate to the dock. Neither are they often able, when at the dock, to position themselves in tight quarters. Heavy ships pack a huge punch. Even moving as slow as one or two knots, if they crunch another ship or push hard up against a dock, something is going to give. The tug-boats job in life is to move those monsters with all the precision and delicacy of someone placing a jig-saw puzzle piece in place. It can't be hammered home... it's got to be gently pressed into the exact place where it fits. Tugs do that with "pieces" weighing thousands of tons and they do it very well.
I don't think it too great a stretch to think of the job of guiding a human spirit and putting it right where it has to go as being that far removed from the analogy of a tug. And when I think of an entire population of people, with sin-hardened hearts that are extraordinarily difficult to shift onto a new heading, then it becomes even more incredible.
The people of Ninevah were bad "dudes." It was not going to be that far in the future, as Jonah knew very well I think, that their descendants would rape and pillage the entire Northern Kingdom of Israel and come within a hair's breadth of wiping our Judah also. There was no love lost on the Ninevites in Jonah's heart and I confess, I understand why and sympathize with him in those feelings.
So when the LORD told Jonah what he was to do... and Jonah, knowing that the LORD was just that kind of God who would most probably do something astonishing and cause those guys to repent and turn to Him, also knew that God would most probably relent of His intention to wipe them from the face of the earth. He wanted no part of it. God had other plans... God got Jonah's attention in a fairly spectacular manner... and shoved him down the road to Ninevah to do what he was told.
And don't you know it... it turned out just like he thought. Those doggone heathen repented of their idolatry... they turned in repentance to God the Father Almighty ... and God spared their land.
It's enough, from Jonah's perspective, to make you want to just sit down and have a good sulk. And he did.
But as he was sulking, old Jonah should have reflected on what he had just seen. God had used his preaching, as unwillingly and unlovingly as it had been presented to the Ninevites, to work a mighty shift in the lives of a hardened vicious people. The message was the tug boat... the Holy Spirit was the Power behind it... but the end result was the same. That huge ship was moved out of its original channel, at least for a season, at least for some, and that city was spared the blasting fate they so justly deserved.
If Jonah had given some thought to that, he might have concluded that this God can do anything. If the Holy Spirit can change the lives of the Ninevites, of die hard drug addicts, of wanton murderers, of addicted adulterers, of sordid idolaters, of sadistic slanderers... is there anything He cannot do?
Creation of the Universe? Mere child's play compared to the regeneration of a single human soul. Now, multiply that by a thousand... by a million... by tens of millions... dare we go with a billion? That's power... that's the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Raising someone from the dead? Bringing a person back in what is called a "near-death" experience? What is that compared to resurrecting a loving soul and causing it to stand over the very corpse of the sin-riddled "old man" that had been its native born tomb?
A tug boat sitting at the dock exists in potential. It is doing nothing at the moment and is not much use, even as an object of artistic contemplation. It is when it is underway and pushing that its amazing potential is employed and moves big things. So it is with the Gospel. Sitting at the dock... being heard only on Sunday and then left there where it was moored until it is revisited again on the next, means that it is not 'out there and pushing."
Jonah consciously did not want the gospel to "work" when he proclaimed it. But it did! The power and efficacy of the gospel is not primarily dependent on the one presenting it. Those things depend entirely upon the Dynamo, the Holy Spirit, that the Gospel brings to bear. We, too often, think that it is up to us... and that if we mess up that the Gospel will die... or we don't think we are capable enough or knowledgeable enough or whatever other excuse we might make. Those are lies from the father of lies. Our obedience is to take it where it needs to go and to be faithful in it. That's about it.
Jesus said that we can move mountains if we pray while believing. Think of all the big things that we can see being moved if we just unleash the Gospel and set it to work in our lives.
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