Similar steps were taken to preserve the life of the baby, Lord Jesus. Herod wanted to

kill Jesus, so Joseph was warned by God in a dream to take Jesus and his mother, and flee

into Egypt. There they were to stay until the death of Herod. Clearly, it was right and

proper that Joseph and his family should run away to Egypt, so that Jesus could grow up

and fulfil the will of His heavenly Father.

Moses was also in danger, when Pharaoh heard that he had killed an Egyptian. We

read in Exod. 2: 15 that Pharaoh sought to slay Moses and so Moses fled (or ran away)

from the face of Pharaoh.

Jonah heard the word of the Lord when he was instructed to go to Nineveh and cry

against it. But then we read that Jonah rose up to flee from the presence of the Lord, and

went to Joppa where he found a ship going to Tarshish. So he boarded the ship, thinking

that he could run away from the Lord's presence. He was wrong for two reasons, (1) It

was impossible to flee from the Lord's presence (Psa. 139: 7), and (2) He was

disobedient to the Lord. He was to go to Nineveh. But the Lord dealt with the situation

and eventually sent him to the city of Nineveh. But when he cried against the great city,

he was amazed when the people believed the message and repented. God accepted their

repentance and did not destroy the city.

Jonah did not like the first message he was given and so he ran away, but when he did

give the message God reversed the plan to destroy the city, and that made Jonah angry.

He did not understand his duty as a prophet, neither did he realize that the Lord is

gracious and merciful (Jonah 4: 1-4).

Moses at first was like Jonah. He did not want to declare the word of the Lord to

Pharaoh. He feared that the people of Israel would not believe that God had sent him.

He made many excuses and asked God to send someone else. The Lord was angry with

Moses (Exod. 4: 14) but agreed that Aaron could go with Moses and speak, while God

would give the message to Moses who would pass it to Aaron.

The ministry of our Lord while He was on the earth had the effect of dividing His

hearers into two groups: believers and unbelievers.  Such a situation is described in

John 6: 64-71. If we go back to verse 60, we find that some disciples said, "This is an

hard saying; who can hear it?". Then, after a further discourse, we read:

Peter, being the usual spokesman, assured the Lord that there was no other person to

whom they could go, because Jesus had the words of eternal life. In view of this

assurance, can we be sure that the disciples would never ran away? If we read in

Matthew the account of the betrayal of our Lord, we find that all the disciples ran away: