Nineveh – Preaching to a cruel enemy

Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.
Jonah 1:2 NASB20

Repent (They did.)

Remove your masks of hypocrisy, claimants of Christ. Let God’s enemy see your true face — that you DO NOT want them to be saved.

Nineveh initially didn’t even see the back of Jonah’s head as the man of God faced away from the will of the LORD.

Yet the LORD God wants to save sinners like us — Even other sinners not of us, that they too might come to know His love and grace.

(If you’re going to preach Jonah you probably ought to hear God’s message of repentance and obedience. You with ears to hear, hear the LORD — His will, before you just connect it to your missions or draw the picture for a Children’s Bible.)

HINT: It’s not about the whale.

Is Jonah and the Whale just a children’s Bible story to you?
Perhaps it is just an Old Testament parable predicting the resurrection?

NO. It is more than that.

For the LORD commands the Prophet Jonah to PREACH repentance to sinners. Yet this ‘religious man’ sails off on what he believes will be an easier journey. Jonah sails away from the troubles of others in favor of his own mission.

Who is this cruel enemy of Nineveh?

Even having read some ancient history background of the middle east at the time of Jonah, I again marveled at the contemporary look of those ancient people. Are we so different you might ask?

It was Sennacherib who made Nineveh a truly magnificent city (c. 700 BC). He laid out new streets and squares and built within it the South West Palace, or “palace without a rival”.. 80 rooms. A foundation of 3.5 million cubic yards with walls more than six stories high.

The stone carvings in the walls include many battle scenes, impalings and scenes showing Sennacherib’s men parading the spoils of war before him. .. he wrote of Babylon: “Its inhabitants, young and old, I did not spare, and with their corpses I filled the streets of the city.”

“And Hezekiah of Judah who had not submitted to my yoke…him I shut up in Jerusalem his royal city like a caged bird. Earthworks I threw up against him, and anyone coming out of his city gate I made pay for his crime. His cities which I had plundered I had cut off from his land.”

.. the total area of Nineveh (1,730 acres), and (15) great gates .. an elaborate system of (18) canals brought water from the hills to Nineveh..

The enclosed area had more than 100,000-150,000 inhabitants, about twice as many as Babylon at the time, placing it among the largest settlements worldwide.

Source: Wikipedia

The Enemy viewed from Jerusalem

In case (like me) you missed the connection between Nineveh and Jerusalem, you will need to go back into the wars recorded in 2 Kings.

2 Kings 18-19

13 Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria marched against all the fortified cities of Judah and seized them…

In fact, you are NOT Jonah; but the gentile of Nineveh to whom Jonah preaches repentance!

Will you respond to God’s message as did the people of Nineveh?
Or are you as faithless as the religious ones of Nazareth who turned away Jesus? (We will visit Nazareth also on this brief journey.)

Scriptures

Ezekiel 18

Matthew 12

Jonah 3

Original talkofJESUS.com post

Beyond Nineveh

Original post March 30, 2017 – Topic: Repentance