The Korean War started this day, June 25, 1950, when communist North Korean’s invaded South Korea, killing tens of thousands within the first weeks. General Douglas MacArthur was placed in command of the U.N. Forces and quickly turned the war by a daring landing of troops at Inchon and recapturing the city of Seoul. Politicians limited the military from pursuing victory and the war drug on three years with millions of casualties. General MacArthur stated: “History fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject to moral decay have not passed into political and economic decline.”

Federer, B. (2003). American minute. St. Louis, MO.: Amerisearch, Inc.

I have never understood
why it should be considered derogatory
to the Creator to suppose
that he has a sense of humor.
--- William Ralph Inge

... from here, there and everywhere

1 Wine is a mocker, strong liquor a rowdy;
anyone led astray by it is unwise.

2 The dread of a king is like when a lion roars;
he who makes him angry commits a life-threatening sin.

Stern, D. H. (1998). Complete Jewish Bible-OE
: An English version of the Tanakh (OT) and
B'rit Hadashah (NT) (1st ed.). Clarksville, Md.: Jewish
New Testament Publications.

                         Receiving one’s self in the fires of sorrow

     What shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? But for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify Thy name. --- John 12:27–29 (R.V.).

     My attitude as a saint to sorrow and difficulty is not to ask that they may be prevented, but to ask that I may preserve the self God created me to be through every fire of sorrow. Our Lord received Himself in the fire of sorrow, He was saved not from the hour, but out of the hour.

     We say that there ought to be no sorrow, but there is sorrow, and we have to receive ourselves in its fires. If we try and evade sorrow, refuse to lay our account with it, we are foolish. Sorrow is one of the biggest facts in life; it is no use saying sorrow ought not to be. Sin and sorrow and suffering are, and it is not for us to say that God has made a mistake in allowing them.

     Sorrow burns up a great amount of shallowness, but it does not always make a man better. Suffering either gives me my self or it destroys my self. You cannot receive your self in success, you lose your head; you cannot receive your self in monotony, you grouse. The way to find your self is in the fires of sorrow. Why it should be so is another matter, but that it is so is true in the Scriptures and in human experience. You always know the man who has been through the fires of sorrow and received himself, you are certain you can go to him in trouble and find that he has ample leisure for you. If a man has not been through the fires of sorrow, he is apt to be contemptuous, he has no time for you. If you receive yourself in the fires of sorrow, God will make you nourishment for other people.

Chambers, O. (1993). My Utmost for His Highest

People: their combs and wattlesbr /> rampant upon a backgroundbr /> of dung. The dancers silentlybr /> crackling on an unquenced hearth.br />br /> A mosque, a tower as deputiesbr /> in the clouds' absence; and gazind,br /> as at a window, the detachedbr /> ocean with its ceruean stare

R.S. Thomas.

     The wicked are controlled by their hearts … but the righteous control their hearts.

     BIBLE TEXT / Genesis 8:15–21 / God spoke to Noah, saying, “Come out of the ark, together with your wife, your sons, and your sons’ wives. Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you: birds, animals, and everything that creeps on the earth; and let them swarm on the earth and be fertile and increase on earth.” So Noah came out, together with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives. Every animal, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that stirs on earth came out of the ark by families. Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking of every clean animal and of every clean bird, he offered burnt offerings on the altar. The Lord smelled the pleasing odor, and the Lord said to Himself: “Never again will I doom the earth because of man, since the devisings of man’s mind are evil from his youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living being, as I have done.”

     MIDRASH TEXT / Genesis Rabbah 34, 10 / And the Lord said to Himself [lit. “said to His heart”], The wicked are controlled by their hearts: “The villain thinks” [lit., says in his heart] (Psalm 14:1, authors’ translation). “And Esau said to himself” [lit., in his heart] (Genesis 27:41). “Jeroboam said to himself” [lit., in his heart] (1 Kings 12:26). “Haman said to himself” [lit., in his heart] (Esther 6:6). But the righteous control their hearts: “Now Hannah was praying to herself” [lit., to her heart] (1 Samuel 1:13, authors’ translation). “David said to himself” [lit., to his heart] (1 Samuel 27:1). “Daniel resolved” [lit., put it to heart] (Daniel 1:8). “And the Lord said to Himself” [lit., to His heart].

     CONTEXT / The Book of Genesis, especially the early chapters, which describe the Creation story and its aftermath, is filled with anthropomorphisms. God’s actions are described in human terms. When the text says that Adam and Eve “heard the sound of the Lord God moving about in the garden at the breezy time of day” (Genesis 3:8), one might think that God was out for an evening stroll. God also shows human emotions:

     And the Lord God said, “Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and bad, what if he should stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever!” So the Lord God banished him from the garden of Eden, to till the soil from which he was taken. (Genesis 3:22–23)

     These two human characteristics—actions and emotions—are used to describe God’s reaction to Noah’s post-flood sacrifice:

     The Lord smelled the pleasing odor, and the Lord said to Himself.…

     God talks and smells. God reacts and is pleased.

     The Rabbis were puzzled by the wording of the phrase translated as “the Lord said to Himself.” In the Hebrew, the Lord “spoke to His heart.” Knowing all of the Bible by heart, the Rabbis of the Midrash knew that two phrases recur throughout Scripture. Sometimes, a person speaks בַּלֵּב, “in the heart,” while others speak אֶל הַלֵּב or עַל הַלֵּב, “to the heart” or “on the heart.” The Rabbis were able to generalize: The wicked speak in their hearts, while the righteous speak with (that is, to or on) their hearts. Thus, the villain says in his heart, or thinks, “God does not care” (Psalm 14:1). Three specific biblical characters speak in their hearts: Esau, the wicked brother of Jacob; Jeroboam, the rabble-rouser who caused a split among the Jewish people and led the ten northern tribes away from Rehoboam’s rule to form the kingdom of Israel; and Haman, the evil character in the Purim story.

     At the same time, the Rabbis noted that in referring to the righteous, the Bible doesn’t use the term “speak in the heart” but “to/on the heart.” They cite four examples: Hannah, the mother of Samuel, who went to Eli the priest at Shiloh to pray for a son; David, who sought to avoid confrontation with King Saul; Daniel, the hero of that cryptic book bearing his name; and God, who promises never to destroy the world again and therefore acts with righteousness and kindness to humanity.

Katz, M., & Schwartz, G. Searching for Meaning in Midrash: Lessons for Everyday Living Philadelphia, PA: The Jewish Publication Society.

     And [Peter] went outside and wept bitterly.… Then [Judas] went away and hanged himself. --- Matthew 26:75; 27:5

     The concentration on self is a denial of faith. Sermons Preached in St. Paul's Cathedral The concentration on the past is an exclusion of hope. Judas could not face the future. The past had been an utter failure. Yet the future was all before him; the future was uncompromised. The two great preachers of the Gospel were destined to be Peter the denier of Christ and Paul the persecutor of Christ. Why should not Judas the betrayer of Christ have made up the triad? Why not—except that having lost faith he had lost hope also.

     Hope is the reflection of God’s mercy; hope is the echo of God’s love. Hope is energy, hope is strength, hope is life. Without hope, sorrow for sin will lead only to ruin. We have no time to brood over the errors of the past, while the hours are hurrying relentlessly by. Have you been tempted? Have you yielded? Have you sinned? Then go out from the scene of your temptation, as Peter went out, and weep bitter tears of repentance before God. But having done this, return, return at once and strengthen your brothers and sisters. In active charity for others, in devoted service to God is the truest safeguard against the suicidal promptings of remorse. Be the foremost to bear witness of him to an unbelieving world—the foremost in zeal, the foremost in danger, the foremost to do and to suffer. The past is beyond recall. Put it behind you. The future is full of magnificent opportunities. Be energetic, be courageous, be hopeful. In the agony of your contrition, from the depths of your despair, listen to the divine voice that summons you: “Let the dead bury their own dead”—dead opportunities, dead regrets, dead failures, yes, even dead sins—and “follow me” (Matt. 8:22; cf. Luke 9:60).
--- J.B. Lightfoot

Wallis, D. (2001). Take Heart: Daily Devotions with the Church's Great Preachers

     The question is usually asked in Old Testament survey classes, “Was the great fish more relieved to be rid of Jonah than Jonah was to get out of the great fish?” Maybe their sense of relief was mutual. At any rate, we hope that Jonah gave thanks to God for the divinely provided creature that rescued him from certain death.

     In these two chapters, we are confronted with four marvels that we dare not take for granted:

     1. The Marvel of an Undeserved Commission (Jonah 3:1–2)

     Did anybody see Jonah emerge when the great fish disgorged him on the dry land? If so, the story must have spread rapidly and perhaps even preceded him to Nineveh, and that may help explain the reception the city gave him. Had Jonah been bleached by the fish’s gastric juices? Did he look so peculiar that nobody could doubt who he was and what had happened to him? Since Jonah was a “sign” to the Ninevites (Matt. 12:38–41), perhaps this included the way he looked.

     What the people saw or thought really wasn’t important. The important thing was what God thought and what He would do next to His repentant prophet. “The life of Jonah cannot be written without God,” said Charles Spurgeon; “take God out of the prophet’s history, and there is no history to write.” (The Bible Exposition Commentary: Old Testament: The Prophets (See all Religion & Spirituality Books) )

     God met Jonah. We don’t know where the great fish deposited Jonah, but we do know that wherever Jonah was, the Lord was there. Remember, God is more concerned about His workers than He is about their work, for if the workers are what they ought to be, the work will be what it ought to be. Throughout Jonah’s time of rebellion, God was displeased with His servant, but He never once deserted him. It was God who controlled the storm, prepared the great fish, and rescued Jonah from the deep. His promise is, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Heb. 13:5, NKJV; see Josh 1:5). “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you” (Isa. 43:2, NKJV).

     God spoke to Jonah. After the way Jonah had stubbornly refused to obey God’s voice, it’s a marvel that the Lord spoke to him at all. Jonah had turned his back on God’s word, so the Lord had been forced to speak to him through thunder and rain and a stormy sea. But now that Jonah had confessed his sins and turned back to the Lord, God could once again speak to him through His word. One of the tests of our relationship to God is, “Does God speak to me as I read and ponder His Word?” If we don’t hear God speaking to us in our hearts, perhaps we have some unfinished business that needs to be settled with Him.

     God commissioned Jonah. “The victorious Christian life, “ said George H. Morrison, “is a series of new beginnings.” When we fall, the enemy wants us to believe that our ministry is ended and there’s no hope for recovery, but our God is the God of the second chance. “Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time” (Jonah 3:1). “Do not rejoice over me, my enemy; when I fall, I will arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me” (Micah 7:8, NKJV).

     You don’t have to read very far in your Bible to discover that God forgives His servants and restores them to ministry. Abraham fled to Egypt, where he lied about his wife, but God gave him another chance (Gen. 12:10–13:4). Jacob lied to his father Isaac, but God restored him and used him to build the nation of Israel. Moses killed a man (probably in self-defense) and fled from Egypt, but God called him to be the leader of His people. Peter denied the Lord three times, but Jesus forgave him and said, “Follow Me” (John 21:19).

     However encouraging these examples of restoration may be, they must never be used as excuses for sin. The person who says, “I can go ahead and sin, because I know the Lord will forgive me” has no understanding of the awfulness of sin or the holiness of God. “But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared” (Ps. 130:4, NKJV). God in His grace forgives our sins, but God in His government determines that we shall reap what we sow, and the harvest can be very costly. Jonah paid dearly for rebelling against the Lord.

     God challenged Jonah. Four times in this book, Nineveh is called a “great city” (1:2; 3:2–3; 4:11), (“Great” is one of the key words in the Book of Jonah. Besides a “great city,” the book mentions a great wind and tempest (1:4, 12); great fear (vv. 10, 16); a great fish (v. 17); great people, probably nobles (3:5, 7); and Jonah’s great displeasure and great gladness (4:1–6).) and archeologists tell us that the adjective is well-deserved. It was great in history, having been founded in ancient times by Noah’s great-grandson Nimrod (Gen. 10:8–10). (Some date Nineveh’s founding as early as 4500 B.C.) It was also great in size. The circumference of the city and its suburbs was sixty miles, and from the Lord’s statement in Jonah 4:11, we could infer that there were probably over 600,000 people living there. One wall of the city had a circumference of eight miles and boasted 1,500 towers.

     The city was great in splendor and influence, being one of the leading cities of the powerful Assyrian Empire. It was built near the Tigris River and had the Khoser River running through it. (This fact will prove to be important when we study the Book of Nahum.) Its merchants traveled the empire and brought great wealth into the city, and Assyria’s armies were feared everywhere.

     Nineveh was great in sin, for the Assyrians were known far and wide for their violence, showing no mercy to their enemies. They impaled live victims on sharp poles, leaving them to roast to death in the desert sun; they beheaded people by the thousands and stacked their skulls up in piles by the city gates; and they even skinned people alive. They respected neither age nor sex and followed a policy of killing babies and young children so they wouldn’t have to care for them (Nahum 3:10).

     It was to the wicked people of this great city that God sent His servant Jonah, assuring him that He would give him the message to speak. After making the necessary preparations, it would take Jonah at least a month to travel from his own land to the city of Nineveh, and during that trip, he had a lot of time available to meditate on what the Lord had taught him.

     The will of God will never lead you where the grace of God can’t keep you and the power of God can’t use you. “And who is sufficient for these things? … Our sufficiency is of God” (2 Cor. 2:16 and 3:5).

W. W. Wiersbe, (1996) Be Amazed (Minor Prophets): Restoring an Attitude of Wonder and Worship (The BE Series Commentary)