Fitting the Messenger

Aug 22, 2021 | by Pastor Josh Tate | series: Jonah

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What do the biblical accounts of Noah’s ark, the destruction of Sodom and Gommorha, and Jonah all have in common? In all three we find a wicked people living under the imminent threat of divine judgment, and we also find a servant of God who goes out with foreknowledge to warn the wicked to flee the coming day of wrath. But Jonah differs from these other two in that Unlike Noah and Lott, whose warnings landed on deaf ears, Jonah’s one-sentence sermon results in what was likely the greatest mass-conversion and repentant turning in the history of the world. And this despite the fact that it is delivered begrudgingly to a people whom Jonah actively despised and whom he actually hoped would respond negatively. Nevertheless, Jonah 3:5 says, “And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.”

As long as we are comparing and contrasting, another worthwhile question for us to entertain might be this; What do these kinds of accounts have to do with followers of Jesus living in Aroostook County, Maine in 2021?

Has God given His people today foreknowledge about a coming day of wrath and judgment?
He has.
Has God called His servants to go to a wicked people and to call them to repentance?
He has.
Has God given us a message?
He has.
Is the situation desperate?
It is.
Are we?
(We’ll let that question mark hang there unanswered. After all, that is how the book of Jonah ends.)

In the third chapter of Jonah we find one of the most hopeful, miraculous and exciting accounts of a people turning from their wickedness in genuine repentance, but even so the main point of the book is not that God is merciful, but rather that we, His special people, should be merciful as He is merciful.

Is God still about the business of fitting His messengers to the message?
He is.