The word of the Lord came to Oh No the son of the faithful God saying, “Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature – cry against it. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. There is none righteous, no, not one. And, the wages of sin is death. Every soul in the world will perish in their sin”. However, the Lord added, “if they believe me and my Word, they will not perish but have everlasting life in me”. This is the original intention of God, and this never changes.

But Oh No rose up to flee from the purpose of God. He spent God’s money to ‘buy a ticket’ for himself for a comfortable worldly life and set out to a seemingly prosperous place of his own liking. There were many ungodly men with him, each perusing his own vanity and idols – wealth, prosperity and serenity. This ‘man of God’ Oh No was in bad company, running swiftly and far away from the presence of the Lord. And, Oh No knew it too – that he was deliberately running away from God.

//However, God’s intent will never fail. He will shake heaven and earth and the seas, if required, to attain to His determined objective. He had factored in this rebellion and disobedience by His ‘son’ Oh No in His unchanging plan and His eternal purpose to save the perishing multitude.

The ‘eternal purpose’ of God is to save the perishing world from death and unending separation from Him; this He did through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. God, in His Son, bore the sin of the world and died as a substitute for every human being by shedding His own blood. Those who believe in this Salvation plan of God would repent of their sins and come to Him for forgiveness; this, He provides for free (because it is so costly it can’t be purchased by paying even one’s whole life). Those who believe in the Saviour receive a new and everlasting life in Him and would live with Him for ever – here as well as beyond this temporal world. God provides His mercy and grace to everyone that come to Him for t(His) gift irrespective of one’s nationality, language, race or caste. Faith and obedience that follows are key.//

God sent calamity to disrupt Oh No’s ‘journey to the top of the world’. The tempest that He sent was so intense that it could break the carrier (career) that the people were in. Everyone started crying unto their own gods – all lying vanities – shouting for help to save their souls from death.

//The people of the world are ignoring the grace that the God of heaven and earth has provided in His son Jesus. They are forfeiting the lovingkindness of God that He has in store for all those who approach Him. They are letting go the love of God that He demonstrates to them and are wasting the compassion that God shows to them, even though they deserve nothing from Him. It is unmerited favour that God offers to this unworthy humanity.//

Even those who were facilitating the journey, managers and team leads guiding from the front to take the people to the sought-out destiny, started panicking. Each one on their journey started trying his own way to save themselves from imminent destruction and death. They started casting away even essentials they thought would sustain their lives (selling off houses and assets bought on loan and EMIs?). They were ready to sacrifice anything to survive – all that they had accumulated to satisfy their hunger. They wanted to lighten their load so that they can escape from the onslaught unleashed by the storms of life.

//Mankind has devised many means to attain to life by defeating death. Religion is one. Science is another. Charity is the third. And there are many more in this list. Bowing to idols, offering blood of animals (sometimes their own) or blood-stained gourds, coconuts and lemons as sacrifice, going on pilgrimage, visiting temples churches or other (sacred!) places, dipping in (holy!) rivers and ponds, dropping money in collection boxes (hundies), following every long-held tradition and rituals are some of the religious aspects mankind has put together to ‘live long’. All efforts to discover medicines that will cure every disease and keep the body healthy are the scientific endeavours man has launched himself into in the quest for unending peaceful life. Technology has contributed a lot to this (misad)venture. Those contributing to social and environmental causes that will extend the life of people, heal and prevent them from deadly diseases, and save them from environmental calamities take the ‘charity’ route. Every ‘ism’ of the world is an outcome of this misdemeanour. None of these has helped man achieve his objective of ‘defeating death’ so far.//

But Oh No had gone down into his own comfort zone, laid there and was fast asleep. He was least bothered about the terror that people were in. He was unempathetic, lethargic and deaf to the cries of the people around him. Insensitive! He was indulging in his own whims and fancies and did not worry about the danger he himself was in. Didn’t he realise that he too will die along with the idolators and pleasure-seekers around him?

//The Christians of today, who are seeking after worldly pleasures and running away from God, are not concerned about the wretched situation the people around them are in. In fact, they themselves are perishing with the world by pursuing worldly comforts, luxuries, and extravagances. They indulge in sinful activities, follow ungodly means to reach their selfish ends and thrive in a filthy environment that they should not have been in the first place. Little do they fear that they will die eternally along with the unrighteous people they live amongst.//

Some people around this Oh No, who were desperate to live, approached him and sincerely begged this ‘sleeper’ to pray ‘to his own God”; they wanted to hold on to their breath by nook or by crook – even if it required them to give up their vain glory (position), religious zeal and their ‘own gods’. It is a shame that a man of God is being addressed by a worldly man as a ‘sleeper’, a person who has no sympathy to the plight of his fellowmen; the ‘believer’ is unlike the one who pleads, who, at least, has a common good in mind – the safety of his fellowmen.

//Idolators have no principles; they will worship anything that promises them a grand future, amidst whatever horrible state they are in. They will even bow to ‘the Christian God’ if they can get ‘something’ from him. They will bend their knees to anything that would prosper them or put them above everybody else around. They seek after wealth, fame and power that will give them an upper hand above their fellow beings. In their desperation, they will even urge Christians to pray for them so that they will receive healing from life-threatening chronic illness, deliverance from spirit oppression or reprieve from a dire situation they are entangled in. Other times, they will dare to call believers names if they are caught in an adverse situation and might not hesitate to throw the blame on him / her if they fail to achieve their ends. However, some might have a genuine humane attitude towards those around them and encourage everybody to work towards a common good – again, in their self-made ways.//

The people around Oh No tried to fix the blame on somebody for the deadly misfortune they were in. They used an unproven strategy to zero in on the ‘culprit’ who was the cause of this evil. They cast lots and the lot fell on Oh No. Bull’s eye.

//God knows the end from the beginning. He knows all of these would happen. (He will not arbitrarily stop the evil activities that people indulge in because He honours mankind with a freewill; one can choose to either obey His word and submit to Him or disregard Him and take the side of His enemy D’evil. Obedience results in life and blessings; disobedience leads to spiritual and eventually physical death and doom. God might single out the offender. Had He not to go ahead with His next predetermined move? His purpose is on, and His plan is on track.//

Once the black sheep was identified (not that the others were good; they were not the immediate cause for the ‘deep’ trouble they were in), his co-passengers started investigating. They enquired about his crime, his identity, his profession, his place, his nationality and his caste. Oh No revealed limited but vital information: “I am a chosen one of God and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven Who made the sea (and the calamity they were in) and the dry land”. He fit in a lie in between two facts. He did not fear the Lord; if he had, he would not have put everybody including himself in this precarious situation.

//Today’s believers are fooling themselves by claiming that they are the children of God and that they please Him in every way. However, their malice-filled hypocritic lives tell a different story altogether. The fear of God is totally absent in them. Many take pride in their caste, creed, language, social standing and other mean sentiments which stand foremost. But they dare to add that they are ‘also’ believers in the God of heaven. What a dishonour to the Creator! They live a puffed-up life that conceals the undiminished corruption in them but reveals a false exhibition of humility and godliness.//

The people with Oh No were filled with fear when they heard that God was causing this tragedy in the sea. He had earlier told them that because he was running away from this one true God, God had permitted this storm to fulfil His purpose through Oh No. When asked what they should do with him, he unhesitatingly said, “Throw me away into this deep sea of trouble you are in”. They were not ready to throw him into the writhing and tempestuous sea. They feared that the One True God might hold them accountable for the blood of His servant. (Did they repent even before the Ninevites did? Was Oh No taking note of their change in heart?) Unable to hold on further because of the unrelenting storm, they cast Oh No into the sea. However, they did not forget to beseech God for His mercy before they took this final daring step. And, the sea ceased from its rage.

//It is irony that people of other faiths fear God (or revere Him) when we pray or when they visit our place of worship. Look at our ‘believers’; they dance, scream, and defile the presence of God by dressing shabbily, taking His name in vain and disregarding the singing, praying and preaching of God’s word.//