Lessons Gleaned from Jonah
“Preach the message that I tell you.” God’s mission was to save the Ninevehites and Jonah’s mission was to carry the message. Today, God’s mission is to save the world. Our mission is to carry that message – no additions, no subtractions, no modifications.
“Yet, forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” Eight words in English; five in Hebrew. Short and to the point. Truly a sermon does not have to be eternal in order to be immortal! No enticing words of man’s wisdom, no frivolities. Just the facts.
But it was the gospel. It was God’s power unto salvation. And it had marvelous effects. The people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth. Even the king covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes. As a result of their repentance, God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them. The people were saved.
God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:4). God was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but He was more than that. He is the Judge of all the earth (Psa. 96:13), a point Jonah apparently failed to realize.
There is no one living today more despicable than were the Ninevehites to the Israelites. “In every nation, whoever fears God and works righteousness is accepted by Him” (Acts 10:35).
God expects His people to be missionaries. That was His purpose for Israel. They were to be a kingdom of priests (Exo. 19:6), go-betweens, taking God’s message to the world. “You are my witnesses,” the Lord told Israel through Isaiah (43:10). By and large, Israel shirked her responsibility.
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We have been saved to save. The will of God is “go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind” (Luke 14:23). There are millions out there who are groping for spiritual substance in their lives. A Christian with the Good Book in hand and love in the heart has the answers to life’s problems. Out there, somewhere, someone is needing you.
The unbeliever cannot be won until someone arises and goes. Nineveh was an undesirable city. This country and world have many undesirable cities, undesirable communities, and undesirable people. But God loves them just as much as He loves you and me.
God needs Christians with the attitude of the apostle Paul, who was constrained/compelled/controlled by the love of Christ (2 Cor. 5:14). “I could wish that I, myself, were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh” (Romans 9:3).
Paul’s love for the lost motivated him to go as far as to tell his brothers, “What do you mean weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 21:13). Paul had his sins forgiven and he would not rest content until every person he could find had heard that saving message.
We have the presence of Christ (Matt. 28:20). We have the Gospel message. Do we have the courage? Do we have the love? Do we have the patience? “Let us not be weary in doing good for in due season, we will reap if we do not lose heart” (Gal. 6:9).
Paul Holland
