Greetings, dear reader, in the Holy and Hallowed Name of JESUS!

JONAH (4 chapters) is God-sent to Nineveh

To prophesy doom, but instead he runs away.
He sails for Tarshish, but there's a great storm at sea -
The sailors cast lots - and find Jonah the cause be.
Throw me overboard!" he cries. At first they refused,
But when they did were shocked - the storm was defused!
Then God sent a great fish to swallow the prophet;
Repentant, three days and nights in its gullet,
He prayed, was vomited on a beach - changed in ways,
At Nineveh preached God would judge in 40 days.
He was vexed when they repented, and God lives spared,
But when God dried his shading plant, for life then cared.

JESUS IN THE BOOK OF JONAH

The "sign of Jonah" was Jesus being dead for a period (Matt 12:40). The
words of Jonah in the belly of the great fish that swallowed him (Jonah 2)
seem prophetic for Jesus also:

Jonah 2:1 Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish's
belly,
Jonah 2:2 And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and
he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice.
Jonah 2:3 For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and
the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over
me.
Jonah 2:4: Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again
toward thy holy temple.
Jonah 2:5: The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth
closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head.
Jonah 2:6 I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her
bars was about me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from
corruption, O LORD my God.
Jonah 2:7 When my soul fainted within me I remembered the LORD: and
my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple.
Jonah 2:8 They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.
Jonah 2:9 But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will
pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the LORD.
Re the Bible code, Yacov Rambsel has noted in his second book (His Name
is Jesus) that in this prophetic passage of Christ (Jonah 2) are encoded
several words at an ELS spacing of 153: "Jehovah" (v4), "the chief
corner"(v6), and "The Shepherd Lord"(v8). Jesus is Our Chief Cornerstone,
Divine, Our Shepherd, and Our Lord. I have commented in an earlier posting
re the significance, from John 21:11 and Gematria studies, of the number
153 in connection with the word fish. The word "Yeshua" (Hebrew for
Jesus) is also encoded at 12 letter spacing in Jonah 1:17: Now the LORD
had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the
belly of the fish three days and three nights.

If you are not familiar with the Bible code, you should know that Yacov
Rambsel, a messianic Jew, is presently the leading Christian researcher on
the Bible Code. When interviewed on TBN in 2000, he noted how after
prayer the Lord showed him the words "His Name is Jesus" (Yeshua Shmi)
encoded at an ELS (Equidistant-Letter Sequence) of 20 characters in Isaiah
53:10 Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief:
when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he
shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his
hand. In the next verse, again every 20th letter, is encoded: "Exceedingly
high, Yeshua is my strong Name". Yacov's book also lists about 40 names
and phrases found encoded in Isaiah 52 and 53 of Messianic significance.
These include: Yeshua, Nazarene, Messiah, Shiloh, Passover, Galilee,
Herod, Caesar, Caiaphas, Annas, Mary (this name occurs 3 times, in
successive verses Isaiah 53:9-11, and there were 3 Marys at the foot of the
cross), names of the disciples with the notable exception of Judas and
including Matthias his replacement, the phrase "let Him be crucified",
and His Cross. Apart from Isaiah 53, the only other place in the Old
Testament where the names of the disciples of Jesus are clustered close
together (including Matthias again) is Exodus 30, dealing with the altar and
the atonement sacrifice, where the words/phrases Yeshua, Nazarene,
Messiah, Shiloh, Passover, Galilee, Mary (thrice again), and "let Him be
crucified" once more recur! These facts alone are convincing evidence that
Jesus is the true Messiah.

Those familiar with the Bible code will also recall that it appears that all of
earth's history may have been condensely coded into the 5 books of Moses.
Re Jonah, in Genesis 23:16, the phrase "Jonah cried out" is encoded at an
ELS of 386 (the numerical value of Yeshua or Jesus in Hebrew), and the
adjacent letters to each letter in this phrase actually spell the word "Yeshua"!
This is a beautiful example of the Bible code and how it backs up the surface
code of the Scriptures - Jonah crying out in the belly of the whale being
prophetic of Christ in the grave, even as water baptism is a symbol of death.
Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were
baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into
death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the
Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life (Rms 6:3-4).

I believe Jonah 4:7 also speaks of Christ:

Jonah 4:7 But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day,
and it smote the gourd that it withered.

You will recall that God had caused a shading gourd to grow to protect
Jonah from the sun. Then God appointed a worm (tola'at in Hebrew) to
consume the plant of protection. I suspect that not only was God teaching
Jonah a lesson, but that He was painting a parable of Christ. The crimson
(scarlet) dye used for the tabernacle and both Temples came from the tola'at
worm. The crimson colour represents the redemptive power of the blood of
Jesus. Jonah was probably aware of the significance of the worm, showing
that the Gentiles could also be the recipients of God's redemptive plan. I also
see in this picture of the worm eating the natural shade of protection the fact
that our own righteousness cannot shelter us; we must reckon with the blood
of Christ. The Bible Code seems to hint at the messianic nature of this verse,
for beginning in Jonah 4:7, at an ELS of 243 spaces, is a 10 character
Hebrew phrase reading "a breastplate for upright Yeshua", with the
adjacent letters spelling "the prophet". Only the High Priest was allowed to
wear the breastplate, and Jesus is both the Prophet prophesied to come "like
unto Moses", and Our High Priest.

I close by quoting a passage from Jesse Duplantis, in his book on his visit to
heaven in 1988 (Heaven, Close Encounters of the God Kind), where, from
p.105, he writes of an interesting conversation he had with Jonah in heaven
before returning to earth.

I had seen Jonah earlier, but the angel was constantly moving me
towards that appointment I had. But on the street where the prophets
live I recognized Jonah again as he was coming from his house. I was so
interested in knowing about that whale that swallowed him. I wanted to
know if it was a fish or a whale and what it had been like to be in the
belly of a fish for three days and three nights.

I rushed up to him and said, "Boy, you were in that whale! How was it
like being in that fish?"

It seemed to me that he hesitated, as though he felt discontentment for

just a second. I felt that maybe I had brought an unpleasant event to his
memory he had been allowed to forget.

Then Jonah corrected me. He said, "No, I was in disobedience."

"Disobedience," I repeated, realizing that I had focused on the wrong

part of the story.

I remembered how God told Jonah to go to the city of Nineveh and

proclaim that their attention on worthless idols was causing them to
forsake God - their Source of mercy and lovingkindness. Chapter 4,
verse 2, of the book of Jonah shows how Jonah sensed that God would
revoke His sentence against them, and he ran from God's assignment.

While on a ship headed in the opposite direction from Nineveh, a great

storm rose up and the mariners cast lots to see whose fault it was that
the evil had come against them. The lot fell on Jonah. After questioning
him, they tossed him overboard! The storm stopped immediately. When
the mariners saw that, they worshipped Jonah's mighty God! A great
fish, or some Bible versions say a sea monster, swallowed Jonah. Jonah
was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights. (Jonah 1:1-
17). But I could see now that Jonah wasn't concerned so much about
the fish during those three days; he was concerned about his
disobedience to God.

"Disobedience is a powerful thing against you. Not only in the life that
you live now, but here."

I still don't quite understand what Jonah meant by that statement, but
he majored on the point of disobedience. I think he meant that
disobedience causes a delay in reaching the level we could reach. We
may reach the level in eternity, but I believe that disobedience to God's
Word moves us more quickly to the level that God has planned for us.
I remember his exact words to me. He said, "God's Word must be
followed to the letter."

Jonah continued, "When I came out of there, I had one thing on my

mind, and that was to do what God had told me to do. But when God
kept the city, instead of wiping it out, I felt irritated about that."

I was trying to grasp every word of what he was saying. I knew that
Jonah had prophesied to the people of Nineveh that God was planning
to overthrow the city in forty days. The people believed Jonah, and the
king proclaimed a fast to begin penitent mourning for their sins. Neither
man nor beast tasted anything, nor drank water to show their sorrow.
The king pleaded, Who can tell, God may turn and revoke His sentence
against us [when we have met His terms], and turn away from His fierce
anger so that we perish not (Jonah 3:9 AMP).

Chapter 3, verse 10, records, And God saw their works, that they
turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had
said that he would do unto them; and he did it not. Chapter 4 shows
that Jonah knew that God was gracious and merciful, slow to anger,
and of great kindness. But because God is merciful and didn't back up
Jonah's promise that the people of Nineveh would be overthrown,
Jonah wanted to run again. I guess we could say that he pouted.

Then Jonah said to me, "I felt irritated because I thought more of
myself than I thought of the nature of God. His nature is not to destroy,
but to heal and to bless."

One final thought: when Jonah finally re-emerged from the fish's belly, he
may well have been bleached white from enzymes! Maybe that is one reason
the people in Nineveh repented so fast when he preached!

God bless you! PC