God's grace (Jonah 1:2, 3:2)

 God's grace

 

 

"’Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me.’  …  ‘Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you’"(Jonah 1:2, 3:2).

 

 

 

                When we compare Jonah 1:2 with Jonah 3:2, there is a similarity.  Both the first word of God to Jonah (1:2) and the second word (3:2) begin with the same words: “Arise, go the Nineveh the great city.”  But comparing the two verses, there is also the difference.  The difference is that in the first word of God, God told Jonah the reason why Jonah should go to Nineveh ("because its wickedness has come up before me”) (1:2) while in the second word of God, God told Jonah what he should proclaim, the content of the message (3:2): “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown” (v. 4). 

 

                As I was meditating on these two verses, I thought about this: ‘If the order to God’s commands were changed, how would Jonah respond?’  In other words, if God told Jonah the content of his message (3:2, 4) first instead of the reason to go to Nineveh (1:2), I wonder how Jonah would have responded.  I think Jonah would have obeyed God's command.  In other words, if God said to Jonah the first time “"Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you” (3:2), I think Jonah would joyfully go to Nineveh and proclaim to them “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown" (v. 4).  The reason is that Jonah foretold that God would punish Israel by using the Assyria (the capital: Nineveh) as a 'stick'.  In other words, if Jonah had patriotism as a prophet of Israel, he would have hoped for the destruction of Assyria.  Therefore, if God first commanded Jonah to go to Nineveh and proclaim to the Ninevites “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown” (v. 4), then he would quickly obey God's command and went to Nineveh instead of running away from Nineveh and running away to Tarshish, the opposite direction from Nineveh.  The prophet Jonah was the servant of the Lord who had not imitated the heart of God.  Although he was disciplined by God because he disobeyed the first command of God (1:2), repented and prayed in the stomach of the great fish, and was saved, Jonah didn’t have the heart of God who is “a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity” (4:2) Instead, I think Jonah went to Nineveh and gladly cried against the Ninevites “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown”, thinking in confusion that he had the holy and righteous God's heart.  But the amazing grace of God is that God used such prophet like Jonah, whom he loved and chose as his servant, even though he knew the Jonah’s heart.  In other words, the grace of God is the fact that God used Jonah, who didn’t have the heart of God, to fulfill His will.

 

I am a pastor like Jonah.  I am proclaiming the Word of God even though I don’t have the God's heart.  There are many times when I didn’t feed the God’s flocks properly whom God has entrusted to me.  Instead, I hit their hearts with my interpretations of the Word of God as if Jonah had proclaimed to the people of Nineveh, “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.”  My own heart and sinful heart must be broken first, but I would rather preach the Word of God by wanting the hearts of the flock to be broken.  Even such pastor like me, God still loves me and uses me.  Isn’t this God’s amazing grace?