Bedside Watchman Paying the Fare

Last Updated on : October 11, 2014

The Bedside Watchman

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December 1st -- Jonah 1

Paying the Fare

JONAH'S case is unique in the Scriptures; he is the only one of whom it is recorded that he "paid his fare." God commanded Jonah to go eastward to Nineveh, but thinking that he could evade his responsibilities, he boarded a ship going in the opposite direction -- westward to Tarshish. He was disobedient and went in the reverse direction, backwards not forwards. By so doing he got himself into dire trouble and moreover he paid for it. He would have lost his life if God had not intervened and saved him.When we go in the opposite direction to that which God has commanded us in the way of sin, then we pay the fare.God has paid our fare unto His Kingdom and glory; the price of redemption has been paid, even with the "precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot" (1 Peter 1:19). He has called us to travel in the way of righteousness unto His Kingdom; how unwise then to spurn His offer and go in the opposite direction, in the way of sin unto death. We cannot presume that, like Jonah, we shall be saved from our folly; if we persist in the way of sin we shall surely "pay the fare."

STAN THOMAS, The Christadelphian, 1976, page 258