Among the cities of the ancient world in the days of
divided Israel one of the greatest was Nineveh, the
capital of the Assyrian realm. Founded on the fertile bank
of the Tigris, soon after the dispersion from the tower of
Babel, it had flourished through the centuries until it had
become "an exceeding great city of three days' journey."
Jonah 3:3.
In the time of its temporal prosperity Nineveh was a
center of crime and wickedness. Inspiration has characterized
it as "the bloody city, . . . full of lies and robbery."
In figurative language the prophet Nahum compared the
Ninevites to a cruel, ravenous lion. "Upon whom," he
inquired, "hath not thy wickedness passed continually?"
Nahum 3:1, 19.
Yet Nineveh, wicked though it had become, was not
wholly given over to evil. He who "beholdeth all the sons
of men" (Psalm 33:13) and "seeth every precious thing"
(Job 28:10) perceived in that city many who were reaching
out after something better and higher, and who, if
granted opportunity to learn of the living God, would put
away their evil deeds and worship Him. And so in His
wisdom God revealed Himself to them in an unmistakable
manner, to lead them, if possible, to repentance.
The instrument chosen for this work was the prophet
Jonah, the son of Amittai. To him came the word of the
Lord, "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against
it; for their wickedness is come up before Me." Jonah 1:1,2.
As the prophet thought of the difficulties and seeming
impossibilities of this commission, he was tempted to question
the wisdom of the call. From a human viewpoint it
seemed as if nothing could be gained by proclaiming such
a message in that proud city. He forgot for the moment
that the God whom he served was all-wise and all-powerful.
While he hesitated, still doubting, Satan overwhelmed him
with discouragement. The prophet was seized with a great
dread, and he "rose up to flee unto Tarshish." Going to
Joppa, and finding there a ship ready to sail, "he paid the
fare thereof and went down into it, to go with them."
Verse 3.
In the charge given him, Jonah had been entrusted with
a heavy responsibility; yet He who had bidden him go was
able to sustain His servant and grant him success. Had the
prophet obeyed unquestioningly, he would have been spared
many bitter experiences, and would have been blessed
abundantly. Yet in the hour of Jonah's despair the Lord did not
desert him. Through a series of trials and strange
providences, the prophet's confidence in God and in His infinite
power to save was to be revived.
If, when the call first came to him, Jonah had stopped to
consider calmly, he might have known how foolish would
be any effort on his part to escape the responsibility placed
upon him. But not for long was he permitted to go on
undisturbed in his mad flight. "The Lord sent out a great
wind into the sea, and there was a might tempest in the
sea, so that the ship was like to be broken. Then the mariners
were afraid, and cried every man unto his god, and
cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to
lighten it of them. But Jonah was gone down into the
sides of the ship; and he lay, and was fast asleep." Verses 4, 5.
As the mariners were beseeching their heathen gods for
help, the master of the ship, distressed beyond measure,
sought out Jonah and said, "What meanest thou, O sleeper?
arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon
us, that we perish not." Verse 6.
But the prayers of the man who had turned aside from
the path of duty brought no help. The mariners, impressed
with the thought that the strange violence of the storm
betokened the anger of their gods, proposed as a last resort
the casting of lots, "that we may know," they said, "for
whose cause this evil is upon us. So they cast lots, and the
lot fell upon Jonah. Then said they unto him, Tell us, we
pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us; what is
thine occupation? and whence comest thou? what is thy
country? and of what people art thou?
"And he said unto them, I am an Hebrew; and I fear
the Lord, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and
the dry land.
"Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto
him, Why hast thou done this? For the men knew that he
fled from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them.
"Then said they unto him, What shall we do unto thee,
that the sea may be calm unto us? for the sea wrought, and
was tempestuous. And he said unto them, Take me up,
and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm
unto you: for I know that for my sake this great tempest is
upon you.
"Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring it to the
land; but they could not: for the sea wrought, and was
tempestuous against them. Wherefore they cried unto the Lord,
and said, We beseech Thee, O Lord, we beseech Thee, let
us not perish for this man's life, and lay not upon us innocent
blood: for Thou, O Lord, hast done as it pleased Thee. So
they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea: and
the sea ceased from her raging. Then the men feared the
Lord exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice unto the Lord, and
made vows.
"Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow
up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days
and three nights.
"Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the
fish's belly, and said:
"I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord,
And He heard me;
Out of the belly of hell cried I,
And Thou heardest my voice.
"For Thou hadst cast me into the deep,
In the midst of the seas;
And the floods compassed me about:
And Thy billows and Thy waves passed over me.
"Then I said, I am cast out of Thy sight;
Yet I will look again toward Thy holy temple.
The waters compassed me about,
Even to the soul:
"The depth closed me round about,
The weeds were wrapped about my head.
I went down to the bottoms of the mountains;
The earth with her bars was about me forever:
"Yet hast Thou brought up my life from corruption, O
Lord my God.
When my soul fainted within me I remembered the
Lord:
And my prayer came in unto Thee,
Into Thine holy temple.
"They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.
But I will sacrifice unto Thee with the voice of thanksgiving;
I will pay that that I have vowed.
Salvation is of the Lord."
Verse 7 to 2:9.
At last Jonah had learned that "salvation belongeth unto
the Lord." Psalm 3:8. With penitence and a recognition
of the saving grace of God, came deliverance. Jonah was
released from the perils of the mighty deep and was cast
upon the dry land.
Once more the servant of God was commissioned to
warn Nineveh. "The word of the Lord came unto Jonah
the second time, saying, Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great
city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee."
This time he did not stop to question or doubt, but obeyed
unhesitatingly. He "arose, and went unto Nineveh, according
to the word of the Lord." Jonah 3:1-3.
As Jonah entered the city, he began at once to "cry
against" it the message, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall
be overthrown." Verse 4. From street to street he went,
sounding the note of warning.
The message was not in vain. The cry that rang through
the streets of the godless city was passed from lip to lip
until all the inhabitants had heard the startling announcement.
The Spirit of God pressed the message home to
every heart and caused multitudes to tremble because of
their sins and to repent in deep humiliation.
"The people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed
a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even
to the least of them. For word came unto the king of
Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his
robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat
in ashes. And he causeth it to be proclaimed and published
through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles,
saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste
anything: let them not feed, nor drink water: but let man
and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto
God: yea, let them turn everyone from his evil way, and
from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God
will turn and repent, and turn away from His fierce anger,
that we perish not?" Verses 5-9.
As king and nobles, with the common people, the high
and the low," "repented at the preaching of Jonas" (Matthew
12:41) and united in crying to the God of heaven, His
mercy was granted them. He "saw their words, that they
turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil,
that He had said that He would do unto them; and He did
it not." Jonah 3:10. Their doom was averted, the God of
Israel was exalted and honored throughout the heathen
world, and His law was revered. Not until many years later
was Nineveh to fall a prey to the surrounding nations
through forgetfulness of God and through boastful pride.
[For an account of the downfall of Assyria, see chapter 30.]
When Jonah learned of God's purpose to spare the city
that, notwithstanding its wickedness, had been led to repent
in sackcloth and ashes, he should have been the first to
rejoice because of God's amazing grace; but instead he
allowed his mind to dwell upon the possibility of his being
regarded as a false prophet. Jealous of his reputation, he
lost sight of the infinitely greater value of the souls in that
wretched city. The compassion shown by God toward the
repentant Ninevites "displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he
was very angry." "Was not this may saying," he inquired of
the Lord, "when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled
before unto Tarshish: for I knew that Thou art a gracious
God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness,
and repentest Thee of the evil." Jonah 4:1, 2.
Once more he yielded to his inclination to question and
doubt, and once more he was overwhelmed with discouragement.
Losing sight of the interests of others, and feeling as
if he would rather die than live to see the city spared, in his
dissatisfaction he exclaimed, "Now, O Lord, take, I beseech
Thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to
live."
"Doest thou well to be angry?" the Lord inquired. "So
Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the
city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the
shadow, till he might see what would become of the city.
And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it to come
up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head,
to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding
glad of the gourd." Verses 3-6.
Then the Lord gave Jonah an object lesson. He "prepared
a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it
smote the gourd that it withered. 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."
Again God spoke to His prophet, "Doest thou well to be
angry for the gourd?" And he said, "I do well to be angry,
even unto death."
"Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd,
for the which thou hast not labored, neither madest it grow;
which came up in a night, and perished in a night: and
should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are
more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern
between their right hand and their left hand; and also
much cattle?" Verses 7-11.
Confused, humiliated, and unable to understand God's
purpose in sparing Nineveh, Jonah nevertheless had fulfilled
the commission given him to warn that great city; and
though the event predicted did not come to pass, yet the
message of warning was nonetheless from God. And it
accomplished the purpose God designed it should. The
glory of His grace was revealed among the heathen. Those
who had long been sitting "in darkness and in the shadow
of death, being bound in affliction and iron," "cried unto
the Lord in their trouble," and "He saved them out of
their distresses. He brought them out of darkness and the
shadow of death, and brake their bands in sunder." "He
sent His word, and healed them, and delivered them from
their destructions." Psalm 107:10, 13, 14, 20.
Christ during His earthly ministry referred to the good
wrought by the preaching of Jonah in Nineveh, and compared
the inhabitants of that heathen center with the professed
people of God in His day. "The men of Nineveh,"
He declared, "shall rise in judgment with this generation,
and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching
of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here."
Matthew 12:40, 41. Into the busy world, filled with the din
of commerce and the altercation of trade, where men were
trying to get all they could for self, Christ had come; and
above the confusion His voice, like the trump of God, was
heard: "What shall it profit a man, it he shall gain the
whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man
give in exchange for his soul?" Mark 8:36, 37.
As the preaching of Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites,
so Christ's preaching was a sign to His generation. But
what a contrast in the reception of the word! Yet in the
face of indifference and scorn the Saviour labored on and
on, until He had accomplished His mission.
The lesson is for God's messengers today, when the cities
of the nations are as verily in need of a knowledge of the
attributes and purposes of the true God as were the Ninevites
of old. Christ's ambassadors are to point men to the
nobler world, which has largely been lost sight of. According
to the teaching of the Holy Scriptures, the only city
that will endure is the city whose builder and maker is God.
With the eye of faith man may behold the threshold of
heaven, flushed with God's living glory. Through His
ministering servants the Lord Jesus is calling upon men to
strive with sanctified ambition to secure the immortal inheritance.
He urges them to lay up treasure beside the throne
of God.
There is coming rapidly and surely an almost universal
guilt upon the inhabitants of the cities, because of the steady
increase of determined wickedness. The corruption that
prevails is beyond the power of the human pen to describe.
Every day brings fresh revelations of strife, bribery, and
fraud; every day brings its heart-sickening record of violence
and lawlessness, of indifference to human suffering,
of brutal, fiendish destruction of human life. Every day
testifies to the increase of insanity, murder, and suicide.
From age to age Satan has sought to keep men in ignorance
of the beneficent designs of Jehovah. He has endeavored
to remove from their sight the great things of God's law--
the principles of justice, mercy, and love therein set forth.
Men boast of the wonderful progress and enlightenment of
the age in which we are now living; but God sees the earth
filled with iniquity and violence. Men declare that the law
of God has been abrogated, that the Bible is not authentic;
and as a result, a tide of evil, such as has not been seen since
the days of Noah and of apostate Israel, is sweeping over the
world. Nobility of soul, gentleness, piety, are battered away
to gratify the lust for forbidden things. The black record
of crime committed for the sake of gain is enough to chill
the blood and fill the soul with horror.
Our God is a God of mercy. With long-sufferance and
tender compassion He deals with the transgressors of His
law. And yet, in this our day, when men and women have
so many opportunities for becoming familiar with the
divine law as revealed in Holy Writ, the great Ruler of
the universe cannot behold with any satisfaction the wicked
cities, where reign violence and crime. The end of God's forbearance
with those who persist in disobedience is approaching
rapidly.
Ought men to be surprised over a sudden and unexpected
change in the dealings of the Supreme Ruler with the inhabitants
of a fallen world? Ought they to be surprised when
punishment follows transgression and increasing crime?
Ought they to be surprised that God should bring destruction
and death upon those whose ill-gotten gains have been
obtained through deception and fraud? Notwithstanding
the fact that increasing light regarding God's requirements
has been shining on their pathway, many have refused to
recognize Jehovah's rulership, and have chosen to remain
under the black banner of the originator of all rebellion
against the government of heaven.
The forbearance of God has been very great--so great
that when we consider the continuous insult to His holy
commandments, we marvel. The Omnipotent One has
been exerting a restraining power over His own attributes.
But He will certainly arise to punish the wicked, who so
boldly defy the just claims of the Decalogue.
God allows men a period of probation; but there is a point
beyond which divine patience is exhausted, and the judgments
of God are sure to follow. The Lord bears long with
men, and with cities, mercifully giving warnings to save
them from divine wrath; but a time will come when pleadings
for mercy will no longer be heard, and the rebellious
element that continues to reject the light of truth will be
blotted out, in mercy to themselves and to those who would
otherwise be influenced by their example.
The time is at hand when there will be sorrow in the
world that no human balm can heal. The Spirit of God
is being withdrawn. Disasters by sea and by land follow
one another in quick succession. How frequently we hear
of earthquakes and tornadoes, of destruction by fire and
flood, with great loss of life and property! Apparently these
calamities are capricious outbreaks of disorganized, unregulated
forces of nature, wholly beyond the control of man;
but in them all, God's purpose may be read. They are
among the agencies by which He seeks to arouse men and
women to a sense of their danger.
God's messengers in the great cities are not to become
discouraged over the wickedness, the injustice, the depravity,
which they are called upon to face while endeavoring to
proclaim the glad tidings of salvation. The Lord would
cheer every such worker with the same message that He
gave to the apostle Paul in wicked Corinth: "Be not afraid,
but speak, and hold not thy peace: for I am with thee, and
no man shall set on thee to hurt thee: for I have much
people in this city." Acts 18:9, 10. Let those engaged in
soul-saving ministry remember that while there are many
who will not heed the counsel of God in His word, the
whole world will not turn from light and truth, from the
invitations of a patient, forbearing Saviour. In every city,
filled though it may be with violence and crime, there are
many who with proper teaching may learn to become followers
of Jesus. Thousands may thus be reached with saving
truth and be led to receive Christ as a personal Saviour.
God's message for the inhabitants of earth today is, "Be
ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son
of man cometh." Matthew 24:44. The conditions prevailing
in society, and especially in the great cities of the nations,
proclaim in thunder tones that the hour of God's judgment
is come and that the end of all things earthly is at hand.
We are standing on the threshold of the crisis of the ages.
In quick succession the judgments of God will follow one
another--fire, and flood, and earthquake, with war and
bloodshed. We are not to be surprised at this time by events
both great and decisive; for the angel of mercy cannot
remain much longer to shelter the impenitent.
"Behold, the Lord cometh out of His place to punish
the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also
shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain."
Isaiah 26:21. The storm of God's wrath is gathering; and
those only will stand who respond to the invitations of
mercy, as did the inhabitants of Nineveh under the preaching
of Jonah, and become sanctified through obedience to
the laws of the divine Ruler. The righteous alone shall be
hid with Christ in God till the desolation be overpast. Let
the language of the soul be:
"Other refuge have I none,
Hangs my helpless soul on Thee;
Leave, O, leave me not alone!
Still support and comfort me.
"Hide me, O my Saviour, hide!
Till the storm of life is past;
Safe into the haven guide,
O receive my soul at last!"