The Gospel of Jonah

Jonah 1:2, 10; 3:2,4-6Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and cry out against it, for their evil has come up before Me. And the men became greatly afraid and said to him, What is this that you have done? For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of Jehovah, because he had told them so. Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city; and proclaim to it the proclamation that I will speak to you. And Jonah began to go through the city a day’s journey and cried out and said, Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overturned! And the men of Nineveh believed God, and they proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. And the word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne and put away his majestic clothes from him and covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes. 

God’s Purpose

God had a propose and called Jonah. This is how God carried out His purpose. He did not accomplished His purpose from the heaven, but always works in the principle of incarnation through His created man on the earth. 

God’s Call

To fulfill His purpose, He called man, specifically chosen by Him for a specific task. For His divine purpose God chose and called Jonah. 

God's Commission 

The commission of God in calling Jonah was to preach the "gospel" to the citizens of Nineveh.

Jonah's Response 

The response of Jonah was contrary to God's call, he tried to ran away in disobedience. Such deed of disobedience was deemed as running away from God's presence. A life without the presence of God was as bad as if there was no life at all. Since God had already chosen Jonah, He would cause any situation, would use any person, matter or thing to gain what He wanted to gain. As the case with Johan was, the gentile crew members of the escapade ship he was with had to chastise him to call upon his God which led him to his confession of his being "runaway evangelist", and was finally thrown into the sea. Nevertheless, a temporary aquatic prison inside the belly of a great fish under the sea was used to bring Noah to his sense. So God would do anything for the recovery of His runaway child. There is no escape and no excuse for anyone whom God chooses. God never gave up on anyone and He never will. Come what may, He will use whoever or whatever to restore such ones.

Noah was then brought to repentance and he prayed a wonderful prayer that eventually became a divine record in the Bible. He returned back and set forth to Nineveh to fulfill God’s commission. 

What Noah preached was a simple gospel of declaring the Lord's warning, "Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overturned!" He must have traveled the length and breath of the city just declaring this warning. If one has to analyse the content of his message, it was just a statement. His prayer of repentance was much deeper and longer than his actual gospel. Here lies the principle of preparation before the actual act. His vessel had been prepared by the Lord inside the belly of a fish under the sea! What a training center! That too for three days and three nights only. He was a chosen vessel of God and through all the experiences he went through the Lord perfected him. When his being was prepared, he became one with God and what he spoke became God’s speaking. Therefore, he need not be a great or eloquent speaker, but just a prepared vessel, one with God, was sufficient to carry out God’s commission. The same principle holds today. 

The effect of his warning was that the whole city of Nineveh, including the rulers repented of their wickedness and escaped God’s wrath. To bring in great revival of that magnitude today, God needs a called, commissioned, and prepared vessel who is absolutely one with God, whose speaking is God's speaking, for the salvation of the Gentiles, even the wicked city like Nineveh. 

This is the gospel of Jonah. This is what I have been enjoying in a fresh way while reading the book of Jonah. What a revelation concerning God's love and His way of preaching the gospel of Jonah for the salvation of the wicked city of Nineveh!