The Constitutional Convention was in a heated deadlock over how both large and small states could be represented equally. Some delegates even left, giving up hope. Then, on this day, June 28, 1787, the 81 year-old Benjamin Franklin spoke, and shortly after the U.S. Constitution became a reality. As recorded by James Madison, Franklin stated: “In the… Contest with Great Britain… we had daily prayer in this room for Divine protection. - Our prayers, Sir, were heard, &… graciously answered…. And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? or do we imagine we no longer need His assistance?”

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

Be God
or let God.
--- Author Unknown

I could not say I believe.
I know!
I have had the experience
of being gripped by something
that is stronger than myself,
something that people call God.
--- Carl Jung

... from here, there and everywhere

7 The righteous live a life of integrity;
happy are their children after them.

8 The king seated on his judgment throne
can winnow out all evil with his glance.

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.

                         Apprehended by God

     If that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended. --- Phil. 3:12.

     Never choose to be a worker; but when once God has put His call on you, woe be to you if you turn to the right hand or to the left. We are not here to work for God because we have chosen to do so, but because God has apprehended us. There is never any thought of—‘Oh well, I am not fitted for this.’ What you are to preach is determined by God, not by your own natural inclinations. Keep your soul steadfastly related to God, and remember that you are called not to bear testimony only, but to preach the gospel. Every Christian must testify, but when it comes to the call to preach, there must be the agonizing grip of God’s hand on you. Your life is in the grip of God for that one thing. How many of us are held like that?

     Never water down the word of God; preach it in its undiluted sternness. There must be unflinching loyalty to the word of God; but when you come to personal dealing with your fellow men, remember who you are—not a special being made up in heaven, but a sinner saved by grace.

     “I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do …”

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

She didn't want to go;
she couldn't resist.
It was an opportuity
to be like other women,

to sit at an inn table,
not drinking, but repenting
for having drunk of a liquid
that made such promises

as it could not fulfill.
Her clothes are out of the top
drawer, the best her class
could provide.The presence

of the swarthier ruffian
beside her guarantees
that she put them on in order
to have something good she could take off.

R.S. Thomas.

     You don’t have trouble for one person that doesn’t bring gain for others.

     BIBLE TEXT / Genesis 11:5–8 /The Lord came down to look at the city and tower that man bad built, and the Lord said, “If, as one people with one language for all, this is how they have begun to act, then nothing that they may propose to do will be out of their reach. Let us, then, go down and confound their speech there, so that they shall not understand one another’s speech.” Thus the Lord scattered them from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city.

     MIDRASH TEXT / Genesis Rabbah 38, 10 / Let us, then, go down. This is one of the things that they changed for Ptolemy the King: “I will, then, go down and confound their speech.”

     And confound [וְנָבְלָה/v’navlah] their speech there. Rabbi Abba bar Kahana said, “From their own lips, I will make corpses [נְבֵלָה/neveilah]. One person said to his friend, ‘Give me an axe’ and he gave him a shovel, so he struck him and broke his skull. This is as it says: From their own lips I will make corpses.”

     Thus the Lord scattered them from there. Rabbi Yehudah and Rabbi Neḥemiah: Rabbi Yehudah said, “The people from Tyre went to Sidon, and those from Sidon went to Tyre, and Egypt held on to its own land.” Rabbi Neḥemiah said, “Everyone held on to their own land, for their original settlement was there, and to there they returned.” So what is [meant by] “Scattered … there”? That all the peoples entered the mountain peaks and each and every one observed the peoples of its place.

     The Rabbis said, “Not וַיָּפֶץ/va-yafetz/scattered, but וַיָּצֶף/va-yatzef/swept away. The sea swept over them and swept away thirty families.” Rabbi Levi said, “You don’t have trouble for one person that doesn’t bring gain for others. Those thirty families—who were their replacements? From Abraham—sixteen from Keturah, twelve from Ishmael, and the remaining two—‘… the Lord answered her, “Two nations are in your womb!” ’ ” [Genesis 25:23]

     CONTEXT / In the Letter of Aristeas, there is the legend of how King Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–244 B.C.E.) put seventy-two Jewish scholars into separate rooms and commissioned them to translate the Bible into Greek. This translation is known today as the Septuagint. Amazingly, their translations were exactly the same! Even more remarkably, they each on their own chose to alter certain passages. Our Midrash contains one example: Though God speaks in first person plural (“Let us, then, go down …”), the translators rendered the words into first person singular (“I will, then, go down …”). Though the Torah had God speaking in the “royal we,” the translators were concerned that readers might deduce there was more than one God.

     … And confound [וְנָבְלָה/v’navlah] their speech there. Rabbi Abba bar Kahana said, “From their own lips, I will make corpses [נְבֵלָה/neveilah].” Rabbi Abba bar Kahana then continues with another change of language, this time a wordplay. Instead of the [נָבְלָה/navlah] (referring to the “confusion” of speech that God inflicted on those who built the tower of Babel), Rabbi Abba uses the word [נְבֵלָה/neveilah] (the same Hebrew letters with different vowels, meaning “corpse”). The result of this pun is a vivid picture of what took place after God gave everyone a different language. It was not merely that the people couldn’t communicate; instead we see a tragic/comedic scene in which the lack of a common language led to actual violence.

     Thus the Lord scattered them from there. Rabbi Yehudah and Rabbi Neḥemiah: Rabbi Yehudah said, “The people from Tyre went to Sidon, and those from Sidon went to Tyre, and Egypt held on to its own land.” The punishment for the building of the Tower of Babel was the scattering of humankind. “Thus the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth” (Genesis 11:8). This implies that humankind was centered in one place before the building of the tower. But after the story of the Great Flood (which took place years before the tower), we read: “These three [Shem, Ham, and Japheth] were the sons of Noah, and from those the whole world scattered out” [9:19, authors’ translation]. How is it possible that humankind was scattered during the time of the Tower of Babel if it had previously been scattered after the flood in Noah’s time? Rabbi Yehudah and Rabbi Neḥemiah had different explanations. Rabbi Yehudah imagined that after the flood, peoples moved to their respective countries; after the tower, populations exchanged places. Rabbi Neḥemiah explained that the peoples headed first to the mountains, fearing another flood. When there was no immediate punishment, they returned to the places from which they had come.

     The Rabbis said, “Not וַיָּפֶץ/va-yafetz/scattered, but וַיָּצֶף/va-yatzef/swept away. The sea swept over them and swept away thirty families.” The Rabbis return to the methodology of wordplays. By transposing letters, they turn וַיָּפֶץ/va-yafetz/scattered into וַיָּצֶף/va-yatzef/swept away. The Midrash speaks about thirty “families” or nations that made up the population of the world. The Rabbis held, based upon the genealogical lists in Genesis, that the world was comprised of seventy nations. This number becomes fixed in Rabbinic thought (we often read of the seventy languages that existed in antiquity). The Rabbis were therefore hard-pressed to explain the addition of thirty “families” (or nations)—sixteen who came from Keturah (Genesis 25:1–4), twelve from Ishmael (Genesis 25:13–15), and two from Isaac (Genesis 25:23). These thirty families were all descended from Abraham. While it was appropriate that Abraham be the “father of a multitude of nations” (Genesis 17:4), the original number seventy had to be maintained. This could only happen if thirty of the original nations disappeared or were swept away. This leads to the proverb—“You don’t have trouble for one person, the original thirty families, that doesn’t bring gain for others,” Abraham’s other descendants.

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

     No one can hold back his hand or say to him: “What have you done?” --- Daniel 4:35

     God has reigned from the first day; God shall reign when days are gone. Classic Sermons on the Sovereignty of God (Kregel Classic Sermons Series) Everywhere he is the reigning God—reigning when Pharaoh said, “Who is the LORD, that I should obey him?” reigning when scribe and Pharisee, Jew and Roman, nailed his only-begotten Son to the cross; reigning amid all the calamities that sweep the globe, as much as he will be in the golden days of peace. Never is the throne vacant, never is the scepter laid aside. Your monarch has not yielded his sword to a superior foe, you do not have to search for another leader. In the person of his dear Son he walks among our golden lampstands and holds our stars in his right hand.

     Here is our comfort; it is right that God should have this might, because he always uses his might with strictest rectitude. God cannot will to do anything unjust, ungenerous, unkind—ungodlike. No laws bind him as they bind us, but he is a law to himself. There is “Thou shalt,” and “Thou shalt not,” for me, for you, but who will attempt to be legislator to the King of kings? God is love. God is holiness. God is the law. God is love, and, doing as he wills, he wills to love. God is holy, and, doing as he wills, he wills holiness, he wills justice, he wills truth. It is not for me to unriddle the enigmas of the Infinite—he will explain himself. I am not so impertinent as to be his apologist; he will clear himself. I am not called to vindicate his character. “Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Gen. 18:25). What folly to hold up a candle to show the brightness of the sun! How much more foolish to attempt to defend the thrice-holy Jehovah! Let him speak for himself if he will deign to contend with you.

     How wise to be at one with him! He invites you to come. He might have commanded you to depart. If he is on our side, who can be against us? How this should help you that suffer! If God does it all, and nothing happens apart from God, even human wickedness and cruelty being still overruled by him, you readily may submit. It is your God who is in it all, your Father God, the infinitely good. If we can bow before his crushing strokes and feel that if the crushing of us by the weight of his hand will bring him honor we are content, this is true faith. Give us grace enough, O Lord, never to fail in our loyalty but to be your faithful servants even to suffering’s bitterest end.
--- C. H. Spurgeon

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

     Jonah and Nahum are the only books in the Bible that end with questions, and both books have to do with the city of Nineveh. Nahum ends with a question about God’s punishment of Nineveh (Nahum 3:19), while Jonah ends with a question about God’s pity for Nineveh.

     This is a strange way to end such a dramatic book as the Book of Jonah. God has the first word (Jonah 1:1–2) and God has the last word (4:11), and that’s as it should be, but we aren’t told how Jonah answered God’s final question. It’s like the ending of Frank Stockton’s famous short story “The Lady or the Tiger?” When the handsome youth opened the door, what came out: the beautiful princess or the man-eating tiger?

     We sincerely hope that Jonah yielded to God’s loving entreaty and followed the example of the Ninevites by repenting and seeking the face of God. The famous Scottish preacher Alexander Whyte believed that Jonah did experience a change of heart. He wrote, “But Jonah came to himself again during those five-and-twenty days or so, from the east gate of Nineveh back to Gath Hepher, his father’s house.” (Bible Characters from the Old Testament and the New Testament in One Volume ) Spurgeon said, “Let us hope that, during the rest of his life, he so lived as to rejoice in the sparing mercy of God.” (Charles H. Spurgeon, 84.) After all, hadn’t Jonah himself been spared because of God’s mercy?

     God was willing to spare Nineveh, but in order to do that, He could not spare His own Son. Somebody had to die for their sins or they would die in their sins. “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Rom. 8:32). Jesus used Jonah’s ministry to Nineveh to show the Jews how guilty they were in rejecting His witness. “The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it; because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and, behold, a greater than Jonah is here” (Matt. 12:41).

     How is Jesus greater than Jonah? Certainly Jesus is greater than Jonah in His person, for though both were Jews and both were prophets, Jesus is the very Son of God. He is greater in His message, for Jonah preached a message of judgment, but Jesus preached a message of grace and salvation (John 3:16–17). Jonah almost died for his own sins, but Jesus willingly died for the sins of the world (1 John 2:2).

     Jonah’s ministry was to but one city, but Jesus is “the Savior of the world” (John 4:42; 1 John 4:14). Jonah’s obedience was not from the heart, but Jesus always did whatever pleased His father (John 8:29). Jonah didn’t love the people he came to save, but Jesus had compassion for sinners and proved His love by dying for them on the cross (Rom. 5:6–8). On the cross, outside the city, Jesus asked God to forgive those who killed Him (Luke 23:34), but Jonah waited outside the city to see if God would kill those he would not forgive.

     Yes, Jesus is greater than Jonah, and because He is, we must give greater heed to what He says to us. Those who reject Him will face greater judgment because the greater the light, the greater the responsibility.

     But the real issue isn’t how Jonah answered God’s question; the real issue is how you and I today are answering God’s question. Do we agree with God that people without Christ are lost? Like God, do we have compassion for those who are lost? How do we show this compassion? Do we have a concern for those in our great cities where there is so much sin and so little witness? Do we pray that the Gospel will go to people in every part of the world, and are we helping to send it there? Do we rejoice when sinners repent and trust the Savior?

     All of those questions and more are wrapped up in what God asked Jonah.

     We can’t answer for him, but we can answer for ourselves.

     Let’s give God the right answer.

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