Jonah 3:6
“The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.”
Who could have ever imagined an Assyrian king bowing before the God of the Hebrews? Historically, the Assyrians were ruthless in their encounters with their enemies, including Israel. In fact, at one point in Isaiah 23 it describes the Assyrians as making the Babylonians look like wimps, sissies, patsies, punks, or in the word of AAAAnold—girlie girls.
As a follower of Jesus, there’s something rolling just below the surface here that should give us great confidence in God and great hope. If God can turn the hearts of Israel’s dreaded enemies, have compassion on them and call them to himself, can’t God do that with those that we know that are the furthest from him? Can’t we look at this lesson with the Assyrians in Nineveh and see that God can break through even the hardest heart, the most stone-cold attitude and the mind that seems to not want anything to do with God?
In reading this account I’m reminded of 1 Corinthians 13 “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes…” Love always HOPES! When we love somebody and they’re far away from God, we must cling to hope. When all seems lost to somebody every giving their life to Christ, we must cling to hope. When all seems hopeless, we must cling to hope.
There’s an interesting dynamic taking place with the people of Nineveh; Jonah isn’t the one that has love and hope for them, it’s God who has the love and hope for them. God was simply asking Jonah to be obedient in taking the message so that God could lavish his love on people who don’t deserve it. That’s pretty much every one of us. God had hope for the Assyrians when Jonah didn’t. God had love for the Assyrians when Jonah didn’t. So, what does that say about people we don’t like; what does that say about people we’ve given up hoping for, what does that even say about people who seemingly hate God? There’s hope.
Nineveh’s king humbles himself completely before God, and what’s astounding is that Jonah could have pleaded, begged, screamed, anguished and tore himself up in trying to get the king to repent; but Jonah didn’t have to do any of that, he just had to be faithful to what God asked and let God bring about the results that God wanted to bring about.
“And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, ‘By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.” (v7-8)
Once God had broken into the life of the king, it was the king he used to break into the lives of the rest of the Assyrians. The king issued a decree that there was to be a great fast, for both man and animal, no food or water. The decree was that the entire city would humble itself and cry to God for mercy in repentance. And, the king recognized something about himself and his own people once he’d been changed by God—they were a violent and evil people. The king instructs the Assyrians through the decree to turn from evil and violence.
All of that came about because Jonah decided to be faithful and obedient to God.
Can we, as followers of Jesus, grasp what God might want to do through us if we are surrendered in our obedience to him? Could our lack of obedience be keeping people from coming to God? Could our lack of surrender stymie the movement of God in the lives of people we care about? Could we, holding out on God, defer the surrender of others’ lives to God? Could we be Jonahs and not even realize it?
God looked at Nineveh and saw its wickedness. God had a plan to turn the Assyrians from their wickedness into believers in God. The people of Nineveh weren’t Hebrews, they weren’t part of the nation of Israel, but they became converts and believers in the one true God of Israel.
Who would we look at today as Assyrians? What group of people would we look at and see it as a wicked Nineveh? Who might God be priming me to go to with just one word from him, and it could possibly change lots of people?
I watched a video on CNN yesterday which was rather disturbing and left my heart grieved and hope diminished. The video was an interview with the leadership of Planned Parenthood of Indiana that is offering Christmas Gift Certificates this year for its services. The leadership of Planned Parenthood commented that the Gift Certificates were good for any of the services that the organization offered, including; any type of contraceptive, breast exams, pap tests, condoms, screenings for STDs and HIV and abortions. The leadership phrased all of this as “reproductive healthcare.” Wow, what a grouping of oxymorons! Killing unborn babies isn’t healthy or care. Killing unborn babies isn’t reproductive, it the elimination of reproduction.
I was reminded of Alcoholics Anonymous that has a saying that goes something like this…”you’re only as sick as your secrets.” STDs, HIV, the need for abortion and the need for contraceptives are by and large things that happen in secret. With Planned Parenthood offering Gift Certificates for Christmas I’m grieved at just how sick our culture is. The very holiday that we celebrate the birth of the Savior of the world has been commercialized to a whole new level by Planned Parenthood; it has been hijacked and turn into something laughable. Now, all our teenage children can have their friends buy them Gift Certificates for whatever the need might be; contraceptives, STD treatment and killing babies.
Is it possible that God would use one person in his Church to change the trajectory of Planned Parenthood, which in turn would change the lives of countless thousands of people across America? Are there other groups do things as equally evil and wicked as Planned Parenthood, that God wants to change for his glory? Is Planned Parenthood today any more or less wicked than the Assyrians were in ancient Israel’s day when they slaughtered children during battles and ripped open pregnant woman while killing them. They sound somewhat similar, don’t they?
“Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.’ When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.” (v9-10)
Who knows? What an amazing phrase that describes how mysterious God can be and the hope that he can offer. Who in Jonah’s day could have conceived that God would love the Assyrians? Who could have conceived that God would be merciful and loving toward them? Even the king of Nineveh didn’t see this coming; but Jonah did!
Jonah knew that God was merciful, loving and longsuffering with people. And somewhere deep in Jonah’s gut he knew that the Assyrians would repent and turn to God.
