Jonah 3 & 4
Now God again tells Jonah to preach in Nineveh, and this time he obeys.
Nineveh is a huge city, so big that a visit would take three days to just hit the highlights. Jonah was no tourist, he entered the city gates and began to preach right off: Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.
I can imagine that Jonah's startling appearance among these middle-Easterners got their attention, so they all heard his street-evangelism. So the Ninevites believed God, they declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat down in the dust. Then he issued a proclamation: ...
When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, He had compassion and did not bring on them the destruction He had threatened.
You would expect that a preacher whose message brought an entire city to its knees to be overjoyed. But Jonah became outraged and depressed. Why?
Jonah complains to the Lord that this is why he tried to run away. I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God Who relents from sending calamity.
But the Lord replied, Have you any right to be angry?
Jonah didn't answer God's question, but just went out & sat down to just see what would happen to the city.
So God causes a vine to grow up beside him to shade him in the bright sunlight, but takes it away the next day. Then he complains again.
So God said to Jonah, Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?
And he answers this time, I do, I'm angry enough to just die!
He's not really angry about the vine, he's mad at God! He wants these horrible people to be destroyed, as they deserve. He wants to see God's vengeance satisfied on them. They've been mean and cruel, and he wants them to pay.
But God relented. God gained the victory, even though Jonah didn't want to recognize it. God will always relent, because He will do what He says He will do. Always. Destruction is voluntary. Even when we deserve trouble, pain, and death, if we will only turn around our thinking (repent) and confess and forsake our rebellious and unloving ways, God will always relent and instead forgive.
That's our God. He will extend His vengeance upon those who refuse to repent, because He is just, and we all deserve punishment, we all owe God that eternal debt that we can never pay off. And He did destroy Nineveh, a couple of generations later, when they refused to repent.
That's why Jesus came. Even before He created anything, He knew that He would need to come and be with us, so that He could pay our debt and cleanse us, to make us able to be with Him where He is.
That's how much God loves us. Jesus refers to Jonah's "three days and three nights in the belly of the fish" as an historical event that really happened, and as an illustration of the three days Jesus will spend in the Tomb (Matthew 12:40).
Today (Saturday) is the day we remember that Jesus is in the tomb. Actually, His body lay in the tomb, He is elsewhere. (See my blog for April 17, 2017 to find out where He was and what He was doing.)
This book of Jonah ends with this question: Shall I not be concerned for this great city? Should we not be concerned for all the people who have never heard about our God?
God's plan for this Earth was to put Mankind here, redeem him when he'd gone astray, and fit him to spend Eternity with his Maker and Creator. God loves what He made, and He wants all of us to realize how much He loves us.
We who know Him are charged to "Go and make disciples of all Nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." But we don't have to do it alone, He promised, "I am with you always, to the very end of the age." He will be continually, uninterruptedly with each of us as we obey His Great Commission. (Matthew 28:19-20.)
O my Father, thank You so much for Your love for all Mankind! Even though we rebel against You and believe the enemy that we don't need You; You still reach out to each of us to grant us the faith to believe You instead of being deceived. Thank You for Your wisdom and strength and sovereignty to do whatever You want to do; and what You want to do is for our good, because You are good, and I can trust You to always have my best in mind, even when life is not going as I would want.
I know that Your love for me is beyond anything I can imagine, and the hard times that press on me is just You making a diamond out of the dust that I am. Keep me, Father, securely in Your hand, send me out to those who have never heard Your Name. Let me be one of Your diamonds that show the World how much You care. Let Your fragrance emanate from Christ in me to draw others to Yourself.
And continue to work out Your Grand Plan of the Ages, using each of us and all of us to further that Plan toward the realization of Your Kingdom in this World on this Earth.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
