It is one of the most familiar stories in all the Bible.
The runaway prophet miraculously arrested in flight, heathen mariners constrained to acknowledge the true God as a storm subsides and the reluctant messenger sinks beneath the waves in the custody of his ocean captor, the greatest city of its time brought to its knees by a warning of pending doom—and at last, the pouting prophet angry at the forbearance he clearly anticipated from a God whose apparent love for this bastion of brutality he deemed so profoundly unwarranted (Jonah 4:1-2).
As an evangelist by trade I have long been fascinated by this story, and not only because it recounts what can only be called the most successful evangelistic campaign in the history of the world. Certainly it offers perhaps the strongest Old Testament example of God showing mercy to Gentiles—a narrative one thinks might have easily, if considered, corrected misconceptions during New Testament times regarding the alleged limits of divine grace. The story of Jonah describes not only the collective conversion of the heathen Ninevites (Jonah 3:10), but also that of the heathen sailors who threw Jonah overboard and saw the storm cease as a result (Jonah 1:15-16).
God had promised Abraham and his descendants that through their witness, all the nations of the earth would be blessed (Gen. 12:3; 22:18; 28:14). The experience of Jonah offers one of the strongest Old Testament examples of how God wanted this to happen.
Nineveh Sits in Judgment
Jesus recounted this narrative with the following warning to the Jewish nation:
The men of Nineveh 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 (Matt. 12:41).
It isn’t hard to understand why Jesus said this. After all, the people of Nineveh never heard a message of love and salvation, but rather, a prophecy of doom delivered by one who desired their destruction and resented God’s mercy toward Israel’s foes (Jonah 4:1-2). Indeed, Jonah admits the real reason he didn’t want to go to Nineveh in the first place—because he guessed the Lord would end up saving the Ninevites instead of obliterating them (Jonah 4:2). Yet Jonah’s preaching still brought them to repentance. By contrast, when the Son of God—the Personification of love Himself—came to His own people, who professed to worship Him and to look eagerly for His coming, they received Him not (John 1:11).
A Hidden Lesson
But perhaps many have missed another, less obvious lesson from the story of Jonah’s ministry to Nineveh—one that can better help us understand our priorities as God’s church today.
Stop and think about it. At a time when God’s own people were routinely rejecting, even murdering those sent to them with divine warnings, we find the world’s capital city—a pagan metropolis rife with cruelty and corruption—reduced to sackcloth and ashes after a scant forty-day effort by a reluctant prophet who cared nothing for the salvation of those he came to warn. While those who might have skinned Jonah alive bow in penitence before his God, repudiating their evil ways (Jonah 3:8-10), we find Jonah—not pleading for God’s mercy on behalf of his listeners—but huddled in despair under a bush outside the city (Jonah 4:5-6), no doubt hoping for a ringside seat when the fire comes down!
I wouldn’t be surprised if Jonah thought to himself, I’m glad God didn’t give me the same warning he gave Lot and his family when Sodom was destroyed, when He told them not to look back. I want to see these people fry!
Speaking as the first Adventist evangelist who held a series of meetings in New York City following the September 11 attacks, I have often recalled the story of Jonah’s preaching with shock and disgust. What if the population of New York City, from the mayor on down, would have responded to my preaching as Nineveh responded to Jonah? In that event I could have seen myself in danger of yielding to pride, but I could hardly imagine myself pouting with resentment under a tree on a Long Island park bench!
But I believe a deeper lesson remains to be learned from this story. If a flawed messenger like Jonah could in forty days bring to its knees a predatory culture which terrorized the known world as few powers in history have, what does this tell us about the hunger of the pagan world at that time for a knowledge of Israel’s God? In light of this, why didn’t God simply instruct His prophets to bypass His persistently rebellious, hardhearted people, and instead send them throughout the world to convert the heathen? After all, if wicked Nineveh could repent so quickly, wasn’t it likely that Babylon, Memphis, Thebes, Athens, even the great Eastern civilizations of India and China, would respond in kind?
I believe the answer to these questions is simple. God couldn’t bring large numbers of heathen into the covenant fold until and unless His own people were ready to receive them. Until those entrusted with the divine oracles offered a godly example in word and deed, large-scale evangelism beyond Israel’s borders was not possible. The experience of Jonah and the Ninevites should have been sufficient to give Israel a brief glimpse into what God’s message could do among the Gentiles. But until their own hearts and lives were right, this could not happen.
Nor can it today, until the same conditions are met.
Ellen White declares, “A revival of true godliness among us is the greatest and most urgent of all our needs. To seek this should be our first work” [1]. Notice she doesn’t say crowding the church’s gates with new converts is our greatest and most urgent need. Revival and reformation remain indispensable prerequisites for successful soul winning.
Conclusion
The following inspired statement is most sobering in this regard:
The Lord does not now work to bring many souls into the truth, because of the church-members who have never been converted, and those who were once converted but who have backslidden. What influence would these unconsecrated members have on new converts? Would they not make of no effect the God-given message which His people are to bear? [2].
With the coronavirus pandemic now receding, at least in the United States, interest in evangelism is growing as the church and its members emerge from relative isolation. This is as it should be. Countless souls beyond our borders are yearning for hope and a knowledge of a loving, saving God, just as they were in Jonah’s day. But as we cast our eyes abroad to a perishing world, let us also turn our eyes inward and seek that unconditional surrender to the written counsel of God—individually and corporately—which alone can prepare us to receive into our midst the soul-starved masses of today’s world.
Only when the ancient apostles were themselves converted could they go forth to convert thousands of others (Acts 1:13-14) [3]. May this be our experience as we presently ponder new opportunities for gospel proclamation, is my prayer.
REFERENCES
1. Ellen G. White, Selected Messages, vol. 1, p. 121.
2. ----Testimonies, vol. 6, p. 371.
3. ----Acts of the Apostles, pp. 36-37.
Pastor Kevin Paulson holds a Bachelor’s degree in theology from Pacific Union College, a Master of Arts in systematic theology from Loma Linda University, and a Master of Divinity from the SDA Theological Seminary at Andrews University. He served the Greater New York Conference of Seventh-day Adventists for ten years as a Bible instructor, evangelist, and local pastor. He writes regularly for Liberty magazine and does script writing for various evangelistic ministries within the denomination. He continues to hold evangelistic and revival meetings throughout the North American Division and beyond, and is a sought-after seminar speaker relative to current issues in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. He presently resides in Berrien Springs, Michigan