I live in Nineveh. My city has a host of problems. Sin runs the streets and darkness haunts the homes. Drugs, prostitution, crime. These are the problems that destroy lives and tear apart families in this small Southern Ohio river community. A girl was raped and nearly strangled to death outside our church building a few weeks ago. Deaths due to overdose are a near weekly occurrence. And the recent street rumour is that cocaine has made a return to the area. Death stalks its prey and shame prepares its next victim, keeping all those enslaved to sin from seeking help. But more than just these social ills, our community has an overall rebellion from God. It comes in many Sunday dresses and fancy neck ties as well as in blood-shot eyes and sunken faces. I live in Nineveh, perhaps that is why the account in chapter 3 of the book of Jonah speaks to me. If mass revival can happen in one city, then maybe it can happen in another.
The account of God’s re-commissioning Jonah to his task and of Nineveh’s acceptance of his message is a dramatic one. It reads as follows:
Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.” 3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days’ journey in breadth. 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” 5 And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them. 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. 7 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, 8 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. 9 Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.” 10 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.
Some scholars struggle with this passage. They express disbelief over a massive metropolitan revival. I suppose that if you don’t know the God of the Bible the veracity of such a story would be hard to find. But once you know who God is a believer can see all the support he needs. God can do such great things.
There are some possible reasons why Nineveh responded in immediate repentance. Doug Stuart points out that according to ancient omen texts of Assyria, the people could be moved by (1) invasion; (2) total solar eclipse; (3) famine, disease, or flood. The King during the ministry of Jonah is believed to be King Ashurdan III and we know that during his reign they were defeated in several battles, experienced a solar eclipse, and possibly an earthquake. And on the heels of all these catastrophes here stood a foreign prophet pronouncing God’s coming judgment. They were wise enough to hear God’s Word and act. Wiser, in fact that Jonah had been.
And that is an interesting contrast in this passage. God calls the people to repentance. The expression “forty days” sometimes referred to an indefinite time, like our word “dozens.” In its usage the people of Nineveh understood an open-ended opportunity to change. The lack of definiteness to the judgment was an offer to repent. But the people repent from genuine fear of the Lord, like the pagan sailors before them in the narrative. But we see that Jonah’s repentance and his compliance with God’s call are not heartfelt. His attitude has not changed, as chapter four will make clear. He is still a rebel.
This dichotomy is interesting to me because it too can reflect my Nineveh. There are those in our community who seek to call others to repentance. They seek to “help” our drug culture, our prostitutes, and others but the manner in which is done is suspect at best. There is a judgmentalism that runs through the heart of our religious communities in Southern Ohio. There is a kind of ministry that sometimes strikes me as sounding a lot like Jonah. “Repent or perish,” we hear, but there is a tinge of hope that perish will be the outcome. I was saddened by the man who wanted to “run all the druggies out-of-town.” It’s a Jonah heart on display in comments like that. It’s a Jonah heart I fear most for myself, a heart that responds to the religious people in the same way as Jonah did the Ninevites.
But there is hope. There is a hope that is found only in understanding God’s mercy. For Nineveh repents and God spares them judgment. And thanks to Jesus I know that I too can find mercy in God. It’s clear from the storyline of the Bible that Nineveh’s repentance was not a permanent thing. Eventually God does destroy them, but at this moment the lesson is more about Jonah’s heart than it is about Nineveh’s fickleness. It’s a lesson more about my heart too. Is my obedience to God’s will sincere? Is my belief in God’s mercy compelling me to repent and to call others to repentance too? I hope it is.
I live in Nineveh, but I am praying that God might use a sincere ministry here to bring about a great revival. Join me in this service, friends.
Sparrow & Heart Soul Care 