Jonah and the Big City

Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: "Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you."

Jonah obeyed the word of the LORD and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very important city — a visit required three days. On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed: "Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned." 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 in Nineveh:

"By the decree of the king and his nobles:

Do not let any man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish."

When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.

Many stories have surfaced about modern Jonahs, but the best known is that of a sailor named James Bartley. Bartley was aboard the whaler Star of the East on February 1891, near the Falkland Islands when a lookout spotted a sperm whale. Two boats were launched: one succeeded in harpooning the whale, but the second was capsized by the whale's tail and its crew tossed into the water. One man drowned. Bartley could not be found. He was presumed dead.

The crew hauled he whale aboard ship and proceeded to butcher it. The next morning, they wer surprised to see signs of life inside the whale's stomach. Inside was Bartley. For two weeks he was a raving lunatic, but by the end of the third week he'd fully recovered.

Bartley recalled being swallowed by a great darkness, then slipping along a smooth passage until he came to a larger space. He could breathe, but eventually he passed out. The only lasting effect that the skin of his face, neck, and hands was bleached to the color of parchment by the whale's gastric juices. Some versions of the story report that all the hair on his body had dissolved.

The story of James Bartley may be just a legend of the sea, but what I find interesting is the description of what a man might look like who has been soaking in fish guts. It helps us imagine how Jonah might have looked after three days. He would scarcely look human. No doubt people would think that the arrival of such a person to be an evil portent.

This may help us understand the central miracle in the book—not the whale, but the redemption of Ninevah-- the greatest city of it's time, through a little man who did not want to be there.

This was not the first time Ninevah tangled with the true God. Senaccharib, king of Ninevah invaded Israel and Judah with an army of 185,000 and almost destroyed both countries. Only Jerusalem was left. King Hezekiah, and the prophet Isaiah prayed for God to deliver them. Then God miraculously destroyed Sennacharib's army. Suddenly overnight the army disappeared.

If Ninevah's army had not be obliterated by the power of God, they would not have received Jonah's message. If Jonah had not given his message, they would never have connected their defeat to the hand of God. IF Jonah had not been bleached by a whale's intestine, they never would have believed that this was a supernatural visitation. They would have gone on in their arrogance and been destroyed.

Jonah walked into Ninevah declared that in forty days the city would be destroyed. The soldiers by the gate, the merchants in the square, the beggars on the street, and everyone from beggar to king fell down in awe before this apparition. The king got down off his throne and repented in sackcloth and ashes. And disaster was avoided.

As we think about this story four questions come to mind:

• What is God doing?
• Why give Ninevah a chance?
• Why choose Jonah?
• And what does any of this have to do with us?

To answer these questions, let's look at the story from God's side.

God's purpose was to display his glory and power. God wanted the whole world to know He is God.. He wants the whole world to know His power.

God could do this by working uncontested miracles every few days.. But God created the earth to run without his constant interference. His interventions are usually subtle and unseen. But if we look far enough and hard enough we can find them.

His usual method of working is to start a series of circumstances in motion that will produce an expected end. Like a chess player, God plans several moves ahead, to bring His purposes. What could He do to cause Ninevah to glorify him? If God could bring Ninevah to its knees,, what would better glorify Him than that?

So how does He do it? First, he brings Ninevah's army to Jerusalem. Then he destroys their army. Finally, He sends Jonah to tell who did it.

Why Jonah? Because He resisted God at every turn. He hated Ninevah. If God wanted to get all the credit, who better to send than a man like Jonah? That's a challenge!

Kindness would not cause Ninevah to repent. They needed hellfire and damnation. So who better to deliver that kind of rough treatment that someone who wished to see them destroyed. What better way to prepare Jonah for the job than to bleach his flesh and give him an incredible story.

Every day, you are living out God's story for you. It is not God's purpose to make your story perfect, but to make it glorious. How glorious is a story that goes "once upon a time, they lived happily ever after?" A story involves failures and reversals. Only in the end does victory come.

A smooth, uneventful story, where nothing happened would be easy to construct. But a story where there is chaos and confusion, rebellion and resistance, but eventually ends in victory, is considerabley more difficult to construct.

Years before Jonah put out to sea, God went down into the depths of the Atlantic. He made a sea monster, a unique creature, big enough to swallow a man, yet with an air compartment in its belly.

Years ago, God made Jonah. He made him stubborn and hateful, yet honest and powerful in speech. Only God could take that lump of flesh and fashion him into a mouthpiece for God.

Decades before, God made Ninevah for His own glory He made it strong and powerful so He could cut it down to size.

God made a whale. God made Jonah. God made Ninevah--all for His glory.

For the same reason he made you and I. It is not our strengths that bring glory to God; neither is it our weaknesses. It is our strengths and weaknesses together. God prepares us for the plan He His plan. God loves us for our strengths, He loves us for our weaknesses, too. If we were perfect, we would get the glory. But since we are not, God gets the glory whenever we do something right.

Think about the lowly termite. The termite is very weak. If it is out in the open, it will die quickly. It has more natural enemies than practically everything else. There is not a burd or a lizard anywhere that does not enjoy a tasty termite.

But God created the termite with the power to eat wood. This is a problem for us who live in wooden houses. But to the rest of nature, a termite is a blessing. It reduces trees to dirt so other plants can grow. Without him, the forest would not survive. He is the way God made him.

Think about Jesus. He was born with every disadvantage. He was born in a working class home in an out-of=the-way village in Galilee. Jewish leaders despised him. Romans were suspicious of him. The people were disappointed in Him when they started listening to the demands he placed on their lives. His career ended in his early thirties, with an unjust trial and a painful execution. No one should have remembered him. But Jesus became the cornerstone of all history after him. He had just the right strengths and just the right disadvantages to make him the most important person of all time. Because of God's great love, he became the redemption of the world.

Have you ever thought what a hand God has upon your life? Have you wondered why you had go what you have been through? It is a preparation. God has brought you into this world for a purpose. He has saved you for a purpose. God has ordered the world around you in such a way that it would bring glory to Him.

God is writing our story so others will read it. The end of the story is always the same—God gets the glory. Your problems are part of a plan. They are not random. God will finish that plan in His good time, and God will be glorified.