CHRISTIAN MINISTRY, LESLIE JOHN'S PERSONAL EVANGELISM

"And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and much cattle?"

I wonder whether you are Jonah in Nineveh or I am. Let us carefully read the above verse. It is a question God asked Jonah.

I am sure many Christians know the story of Jonah as presented in the Bible.

God asked Jonah to go to a city called “Nineveh” and preach God’s word. “It is a great city and very populous, as appears by the number of the infants, suppose from two years old and under; there are 120,000 such in Nineveh, that have not come to so much use of understanding as to know their right hand from their left, for they are yet but babes”

But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. Thus, Jonah headed to Tarshish against the commandment of God.

God taught Jonah a good lesson here. He taught Jonah that he should listen to God’s commandment. He was swallowed by a huge fish. Now, it may sound unbelievable that a man was swallowed by a huge fish, but that's exactly what happened as we see in the Book of Jonah. God commanded Jonah to preach to the people of Nineveh...but Jonah tried to flee from the presence of God.

Jonah repented and he prayed in the belly of the great fish. The purpose of sending this fish to swallow Jonah, was surely not for punishment, but it was a reflection of God's mercy. God sent a fish big enough to swallow Jonah whole. God prepared the fish to swallow Jonah whole and he kept Jonah alive in the belly of that fish for three days.

Actually, Jonah’s obedience was not from his heart. It was just to escape from what he thought was a punishment.

However, God responded to Jonah's prayer and spoke to the fish and the fish obeyed immediately.

Jonah 2:10 says, "So the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land." After this, God picked Jonah up, dusted Him off and gave him a second change to bring an entire people unto Himself.

Realizing that he did commit blunder Jonah sailed to Nineveh. There he proclaimed the word of God. He proclaimed that Nineveh is a sinful city and it will be destroyed by God in forty days. The people of Nineveh are said to have raided the cities around it and tortured people in the adjacent cities. May be Jonah’s family was one such which suffered the anger of Nineveh. We do not know. But one thing is sure, that Jonah wanted the city to be destroyed. We read in Jonah 3: 4 that Jonah proclaimed “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” We read about the repentance of Nineveh in Chapter 3 So 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 caused [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 any thing: 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 every one 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?

And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God had compassion on them and did not allow to come upon them the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did [it] not. What a great repentance it was. The repentance of this sinful city headed by a sinful king was greater than that of God’s servant. Jonah’s repentance was not from his heart. He actually desired the destruction of Nineveh.

Take the case of David’s repentance.

David committed adultery with Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba, and then schemed to hide his sin. He deliberately ordered Uriah, a loyal subject to take charge of a dangerous position in war, so that he may be killed. David eventually made sure that Uriah died. In spite of this sin of David, we wonder why God viewed him as a man after His own heart. It is because David repented of his sin. It is because David always depended upon God.

In times of success or times of failure, David illustrated the heart each of us need. By examining his heart we can learn lessons of repentance, renewal, and reliance. As a result, our hearts will be anchored close to God-and the closer we anchor our hearts to His, the better we will withstand the trials and temptations of life.

In Jonah chapter 4 we read, with a great deal of uneasiness, concerning the sin of Jonah. As there is joy in heaven and earth for the conversion of sinners so is there grief over the follies and infirmities of saints. We hardly see anyone in Bible so fickle minded saint as Jonah was. He was very much out of temper. He is so very peevish and provoking to God himself. In the first chapter we saw how he fled from God’s commandment, now in fourth chapter see how he is trying to flee from the face of God. What grieves us is that, there we saw an account of his repentance and return to God; but here, though no doubt he did repent, yet we do not see any indication of his recovery from backsliding; but, while we read with wonder of his perverseness, we read with no less wonder of God’s tenderness towards him, by which it appeared that he had not cast him off.

In Jonah chapter 4: 6-8 we read, “Then the Lord God provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the vine. But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered. When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah's head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, "It would be better for me to die than to live."

But God said to Jonah, "Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?"

Jonah did not like the kind of love God showed towards Nineveh. God had to gently reproof Jonah. Jonah sympathized the withering of vine, but did not understand the love of God. God asked him a question if Jonah as a man, had compassion towards the vine which neither he planted nor watered, why God, the creator of this world, should not have mercy towards a city with king and the people of that city repenting over their sins.

See here, how unjustly Jonah quarreled with God for his mercy to Nineveh, upon their repentance. This gives us occasion to suspect that Jonah had only delivered the message of wrath against the Ninevites, and had not at all assisted or encouraged them in their repentance, as one would think he should have done; for when they did repent, and found mercy,

Jesus is “the Savior of the world” (John 4:42; 1 John 4:14).

Jonah didn’t love the people he came to save, but Jesus had compassion for sinners and proved His love by dying for them on the cross (Rom. 5:6–8).

We all seem to face those tough times when we make serious mistakes that lead us to question God's love. Does His love really extend as far as He says it does.

After all, none of us gets through life without disobeying, and surely the sin of disobedience earns us a place in the Lord's long-term penalty box.

Jonah traveled to the other side of Nineveh and sulked. God raised up a plant to shade Jonah and then sent a worm to kill the plant. This was followed by a hot wind, which combined with a hot sun gets Jonah's attention.

God did this in order to get Jonah's attention so that He could show how much more love would be shown to people He created. The mercy of God extends beyond the people of God. He gives salvation to everyone repents of one’s sins.

So, it is neither you in particular, nor me, but we all behave like Jonah in Nineveh most of the time. It is the repentance that matters. Let us seek the mercy of our God, by repenting of our follies.

Thanks be to everlasting God.

Dear brother/sister, if you have not yet accepted Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior until now, you have lost much time. You may not get another opportunity to repent of your sins. Today is the right time for you to confess your sins to Jesus Christ. Please yield to Him.

Leslie M. John
leslie@lesliejohn.net