READ: Jon. 1:2: … Arise, go … and cry out against it … their wickedness …
The ungodliness of Nineveh may be compared with that of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, which the LORD overthrew. Their wickedness had risen up before God’s face: it cried out for God’s judgment. These are sins that we also see in the world today: debauchery, immorality, injustice, violence, blasphemy, and other abominable evils.
God does not take notice only of the sins of His own people, but also of those of the world, for He created the world for His own glory. Yet it grieves Him deeply when sinners perish (Ezek. 18:23). A hundred years later God’s judgment would indeed break forth upon Nineveh, and scarcely anything would remain of it (see Nahum).
Nevertheless, Jonah receives the command to go to Nineveh. That command comes with divine authority and demands submission. God’s Word also requires of us things that we find too difficult. Yet God never asks the impossible, because He Himself guarantees their fulfilment.
Until the Last Day every announcement of judgment still contains a call to repentance, as long as there remains a day of grace. God does not will that one of His own should perish. Therefore, in His longsuffering, He still delays His judgment upon the ungodly world (2 Pet. 3:9,15).
We too have the calling to preach to an ungodly world. In Rev. 11:3, the LORD commissions His two witnesses to prophesy clothed in sackcloth for 1,260 days. These two witnesses represent the church, and the 1,260 days signify the period between Christ’s ascension and His return. The judgments proclaimed by the church (Rev. 11:6) are to be regarded as harbingers of the final judgment.
Perhaps this calling appears threatening to us. What will people think if we speak to them of a coming judgment? Yet the two witnesses do so, even though it costs them their lives (Rev. 11:7–8).
Jonah must go to an exceedingly wicked city. But the commission comes from God, and therefore he simply has to go, for God Himself will be with him. Amos 3:8 declares: “A lion has roared! Who will not fear? The Lord GOD has spoken! Who can but prophesy?”
How do we give shape to this calling in our own time?
Sing: Ps. 40:5