Don't Doubt What You Didn't Do, Your Salvation
Jonah 2:8–9 (ESV) Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love. 9 But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the LORD!” Before we leave Jonah's ordeal in the belly of the great fish, we should look at these last lines to understand the power of God's salvation. He first confesses, "those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope." An idol is anything that takes our hearts away from God. They can be things, people, places, or even our own emotional needs. What idol may Jonah be renouncing in his own life at this point? Perhaps it was the idol of ethnocentrism. The sense that those evil Ninevites did not deserve the grace of God when his own nation was playing the fool with the preface to those same sins! Maybe it was the idol that God was wrong, and he was right. Perhaps it was the idol of self-love, the source of almost every other sin. Whatever the case, Jonah acknow...