The experiences of the prophet Jonah have much to teach us. And we have much to learn. This short book is about an exceedingly wicked city--Nineveh, the capital of the vast Assyrian empire, the ISIS of the ancient world. It was a gorgeous city architecturally, but putrefying in death and bloodshed. God commanded Jonah, "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me."
Jonah's response--to run in the opposite direction--led to him becoming a living sign to Nineveh of the judgement to come. He was resurrected out of the whale. And so, centuries later, when the opponents of the Lord of Glory asked Jesus for a sign to prove Himself, He replied:
Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. (Matthew 12: 38-41)The age of special revelation has ended with the coming of the Son of God. Yet the the book of Jonah shines like a laser beam upon our age.
We, like the people of Nineveh, have built a city filled with bloodshed. We ought to be in no doubt that our evil has "come up before" God. Just as Jonah, whose resurrection authenticated his warnings to the citizens of Nineveh, so Christ's warnings of His coming judgement upon us, are authenticated, locked, and loaded by His resurrection. He, Who will one day resurrect all human beings, born and unborn, before Him to face His judgement, is the centre around which everything else turns.
Jonah was commanded to cry out to Nineveh, "Forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." Then a completely unexpected and remarkable thing happened: "And the people of Nineveh believed God." (Jonah 3: 5).
Recently, we were reading the accounts of how our government sponsored, sanctioned, and state endorsed abortionists kill children. Although we knew all along, the graphic description once again was paralysing in its horror. The evil of bloodthirsty Nineveh has been revived. Mordor has been rebuilt. This evil has surely come up before God. The great city--the United States, along with all who follow in her train of bloodshed--shall be overthrown.
This is the message of Jonah for our generation. Not, "If abortion continues, God may judge us", but "Yet in a little while and God is going to overthrow the United States" (along with every Western nation equally complicit). Let the prophets of God in our day speak forth this infallible truth to the nation. The coming judgement upon the United States is not a possibility, a possible contingency of history. Rather, it is a certainty. It will be overthrown. Its doom is sure.
Why? What sign can we point to? To Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, and thereby appointed Judge of the heavens and the earth (Acts 17: 31). The evil of the West has come up before His throne. He is coming. There is no hope left. No time left.
The King of Ninevah has provided us with the only counsel worth considering:
The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 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. Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.” (Jonah 3: 6-9)Who knows, indeed?
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