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.
