The third stamp has a picture of Jonah under a gourd, with the sun shining on his head, and quoted in Hebrew and French on the stamp is Jonah 4:8 “And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live.”

        This stamp illustrated that Jonah came out of the whale and went in and preached to the city of Nineveh, illustrating the resurrection of Christ.

        Then 890 years later, as recorded in Matthew 12:39-40, Jesus interprets these events in the life of Jonah with these words: “39 But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas:
40 For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

        These stamps remind us that the only way a person can be saved is through the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. They are showing us that before Christ was crucified the disciples were taught that He would die, be buried, and raised again the third day.

        Jesus was placed in the tomb and soldiers sealed it with a stone and placed guards over it. His disciples should have been there on the third day, ready to witness this marvelous event, His resurrection, but they were not there! These disciples had the opportunity to see an event that multitudes of people down through the years have desired to see, but they missed it. In Luke 24:13-35, we find two of the disciples walking back to the village of Emmaus, sad and discouraged, when they could have been excited and thrilled. Not only did they miss seeing the resurrection of Christ, but they could hardly believe what they had heard. Even while in this condition, the resurrected Christ drew near to them, walking and talking with them. They still didn’t recognize him until after He had explained the prophecies of the Old Testament concerning His death, burial, and resurrection.

        We are approaching another great event in the history of mankind, which is for Jesus to return in the air. Think about this for a few moments. Have you ever heard of anyone returning after being gone for almost two thousand years? Before we ever had spaceships, Jesus left the earth and went up into space without the aid of any artificial powered ships or space suits. Even today, in this modern age of space technology, it would be quite a spectacular event that one who was crucified almost two thousand years ago would be coming back to the earth from space without a space suit or a spaceship.

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