https://odb.org/MY/2022/09/13/whale-of-a-story
I have been to New Zealand once and that was 11 years ago. My boys will testify that it was one of the best travel experience we had as a family. Unfortunately after Ivan did the bungee jump at Queenstown, we didn’t continue on to the west coast of South Island towards Milford Sound as we needed to be in Auckland by a certain date to catch our return flight home. Thus we didn’t see the glaciers or take a boat out to sea to try to catch a glimpse of a whale. But during that trip we did see and touch little penguins that flew in from Antarctic covered with a slight layer of ice. We told ourselves that we will do that in our next trip to NZ. It has been 11 years since and we have yet to plan another trip there.
A large fish or whale in the context of the Bible is the story of Jonah in the book of Jonah. The narrative is simple. God instructed Jonah to preach repentance to the Assyrians and because they were evil people, Jonah rebelled against God and took a ship in the other direction. God then caused a big fish to swallow up Jonah and in those 3 days he was inside the belly of the fish, Jonah repented and proclaimed that salvation belongs to our God. Whether the story of Jonah was an allegory or historical fact, it is a debate but as Jesus mentioned this story Himself, it must be true. See Matthew 12:40. As to how a man could survive 3 days in the belly of a whale, see this:
https://christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-t004.html
What’s the message to us this morning? Is God speaking about whales to us? Perhaps for some of us. 😀😃😄😁😆… But I think for most of us, the message is more general and it is to remind us that salvation belongs to the LORD. He decides who should be given the message of salvation and not us. We must whenever possible preach the message of salvation to those around us even those we dont like so that everyone is given the chance and the choice to decide whether to accept Him or not. We will never know the real truth until we die and depart from this world but I just need to say that the Bible has overwhelming evidence that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have life eternal. We must be thankful that we have accepted Christ as our Lord and Saviour and we are saved. Salvation indeed belongs to God and we are on the right boat to salvation. Thank you Lord for Your grace and mercy! Amen
Ronnie's Thoughts 