Jonah's ark

"Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before Me." (Jon. 1:1,2).

No, this post isn't about Joan of Arc. It's actually about Zeny Burdick. But, why Jonah's ark? His ark was a big fish, which Jesus called a whale. The Lord prepared that fish especially for catching Jonah, holding him watertight for three days, and giving the prophet something to think about. It was a time-out. And I have been through something like that while awaiting the Latter Rain when the message will be given that Babylon's sins have reached up to heaven and God has remembered her iniquities.

So, Jonah was God's designated representative for a special mission. No one else qualified. No one else had the peace of God, which would act as armor when the dangers would most assuredly arise. Jonah's peace passed all understanding. It was incomprehensible. Like his Master, Jonah could sleep soundly in the midst of chaos. Jonah's freight liner cannot compare to modern freighters, but it was no dingy. It was big, yet it was being thrown around on the Mediterranean Sea.

The Med can create some nasty storms. It has sunk a lot of ships. But, like Jesus Jonah was "fast asleep". The Hebrew for "sleep" is radam, "deep sleep". Have you ever awaken and be unable to tell where you are? Like the brain is completely turned off? That kind of deep sleep is what Jonah had. He was holy, but not from an arbitrary endowal from God. He loved the laws of God, and was obedient to them. As it is written, "Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." (2Pet. 1:21).

But what is the Holy Ghost? It is...

"... the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." (Rom. 5:5).

"And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body." (Col. 3:15).

As Paul explains it, the Spirit, which rules the heart of all who trusts the Son of God, is the same gift that is spread all over the heart. The Spirit is the presence and everlasting life of the eternal, self-existent One, the Life-giving Spirit, God the Father through the Spirit of His Son. 

"Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the truth, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." (1Pet. 1:2).

"And the very God of peace sanctify you." (1Thess. 5:5).

We are sanctified by God the Father through His peace, for an anchor-like peace in our hearts.

"And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy Thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." (Luke 1:35).

The above Hebraism parallels the Holy Ghost with the power of the Most High God. Miriam was flooded with peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. In that gigantic peace from above, which the world can't give, the Father fertilized Miriam's egg and then He put the Spirit of His Son into her zygote. She wasn't immaculate because the Spirit of his Father could keep His Son from falling. Thus, Jesus had infinite peace from His Father's bosom, which was the vehicle to His remaining sinless. Jesus was sinless because of His infinitely immaculate divine Father, not because of His sinful and corruptible, though sanctified and greatly peaceful mother.

Jonah had obedience, and that was the source of God's peace. He was justified, reconciled with God. Therefore, he knew Jesus' same gigantic peace of God, deep peace in the worst of storms. Jesus taught His disciples, "If you love Me, keep My commandments.... If a man love Me, he will keep My words: and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him." (John 14:15,23).

This was the condition of all the prophets. And Jonah's peace from the presence of the Father and the Son gave him words to speak and the power to deliver them. But, because he left the Father and Son, he must be taught how to obey more fully through an outside source.

"Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights." (Jon. 1:17).

Looking back I can see that the Lord gave me special spiritual advantages to prepare me for a life of service for Him. But, because He had prospered my family and country, so that life was relatively good, I quickly forgot all of His great works of mercy on my behalf in my formative years. And when His blessings seemed to pass, I decided to do like Peter after his Messiah-best friend, was crucified and buried. "There were together Simon Peter, and Thomas called Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two other of his disciples. Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing." (John 21:2,3).

He had spent three and a half years walking with the Lord of heaven and Prince of Peace. Then, the three year ministry with Jesus of Nazareth abruptly ended in total disappointment, all the exciting spiritual training was past, and Peter decided to not pursue it further. He was going back to living living a regular life.

I did something similar. For a beautiful year and a half with an amazing young man from Southern Missionary College, took me under his wing, showered love and Christian training on me, for which the Lord had put a yearning in my heart. Then Richard left. 

The Lord had given me an exciting year and a half walking with the most excellent and precious Christian friend I could ever ask for. But Richard went back to college, and the gloom that had haunted me before that mentorship returned. He went back to school; and I kept my consecration for five years.

That's when I said worse than Peter, "I want out, out of the Christian life. I want to be a worldling."

The problem was that I was afraid to leave God. From a long way He had brought Richard, my teacher. From a further distance He had brought Elder Morris Venden to Columbia Union College for its Fall week of Prayer, an amazing experience of learning the everlasting love of God. For the first time, I heard the mysteries revealed of the science of salvation, and through the Spirit I had the hope of righteous by faith. Many times, before and after that, Jesus took away my huge chastisement of peace and filled my soul. One time He touched my heart with ten minutes of holy sacred joy, and let me know that He wanted to live in me forever.

I knew how obligated I should be to Him for helping me so much. I also knew how last day events were shaping up. But all that seemed to be in the past, never to return. I chose to no longer remain in His training program. He seemed to have forgotten me. The 1980's world was spread out before me for my enriching and fill of enjoyment. 

I longed for love again like I had in my teen youth group under Richard's leadership. I wanted a family of my own; a wife and children to love. And it seemed possible to have that unless outside the context of the present legalistic church life. I had a trade; framing carpentry was the work I knew well and loved. Years before that the dream of being a pastor had left me. "I go a shopping for a new life!" But I could only leave God if I were loved, because without love I knew that I couldn't survive the fears of leaving the great God, the powerful Judge of all the earth.

So, He brought me just the right worldly wise gal. She was perfectly designed to prove to me that living apart from the Creator would be no walk in the park. Brought up in desperate poverty, hunger and thirst, and the slavery of northern Brazil, life had honed her to be aggressive and abrasive and controlling to the extreme. The unconquerable Maria Zeny Pereira Magalaez Da Silva was a mouthful, and always had a mouth full of cursing and bitterness. But she was also the exact remedy for my ingratitude to heaven. A repeat of history was in the making, "The Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah." (Jonah 1:17).

So, I have been protected from the worst abuses of life. My Brazilian ark has not always been a comfortable cruise ship. The sights and smells of living with stinking pets has left me somewhat disillusioned with my ark. But my ark can't live without a boatload of animals. Currently, Zeny has four cats, one Chihuahua, and two baby squirrels that she is nursing.

I've learned a lot from her, and a lot about myself. The Lord has used her to unearth deformities deep inside my character. One day I hope to get off my Jonah's ark and be ready to participate in the Latter Rain. And I hope my Joan of Arc will take part in it too.