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At my church on Wednesday nights we have been studying Jonah. In my Bible study we are studying Matthew, and in the 12th chapter of Matthew, Jesus confirmed that Jonah was 3 days and 3 nights in the belly of a great fish, so will the Son of Man be 3 days and 3 nights in the heart of the earth. This story has been used by unbelievers for centuries as a means to make fun of Christians. Scientists say that no one could live in the belly of a great fish, that the enzymes in the stomach would have killed him. This story took on new meaning as I heard Jesus say that this was a picture of what was going to happen to Him. This settled the story for me - Jonah died, buried in the belly of the fish, and was resurrected and spit out on the banks nearer to Ninevah. This is a true story, confirmed by what Jesus spoke and lived. That's twice I came into the Jonah story. Next I went to Prince Edward Island, Canada to teach the Rapture, and the first night a young woman told me she came out of the Catholic church so she could learn the Bible, and when she went back to tell her priest, he said "Oh, you going over to hear the Jonah story". I told her I did not have a Catholic Bible but I believe it might be in his Bible as well. On the plane home, I sat beside a young man on his way home to Clarksville, Tennessee. I asked him if he was in the military. He told me he had been, but was not now, but he was returning from Iraq where he had been doing some contract work. We talked about the places he had been in the Middle East. I asked him where he had been in Iraq. He said Mosul, and I replied "Oh you have been in Ninevah". He said with a broad smile that I was the first person he had told that to that knew it was the old city of Ninevah. With his broad smile he told me he had a personal relationship with Jesus and from that time to the time of touch down in Nashville, we talked prophecy. Four times in 7 days that I encountered Jonah; just the way God gets my attention and lets me know He is in control.
