Sackcloth in Ninevah Jonah 3

Then the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them. Jonah 3:5

Jonah. What a guy. He who runs from God. He who doesn't want to see people saved. He who would rather die than bring salvation to his arch enemies. We have spent the last 2 weekends in Sunday School talking of this little book. There are many miracles in this book. Storms rise and cease at God's command. Jonah was saved by a fish. Plants spring up overnight big enough to shade the sorry prophet.

But the biggest miracle is in the verse here. The most wicked of people in the known world at the time BELIEVED IN GOD. They repented. This was a culture that most people couldn't imagine. Wicked to the core, they murdered, tortured, flayed and displayed their enemies. They surrounded the city with skulls stacked high against the walls. They were a fearsome people, and there was no doubt that Jonah was as terrified of going there as he was unable to see why God would want to warn them of their impending doom.

But God sent a guy from the belly of a fish to them, and they believed the warning he gave. They heard him talk of a righteous God who would repay them for their evil. I am sure they heard his fishy story, of the storms and the act of being kept alive himself for three days though he deserved to die for not following God's instructions and willfully doing the polar opposite.

They believed Jonah. They believed that they were wicked and that a righteous God had the power to destroy them. THAT is a miracle. From the greatest to the least, they put on sackcloth and ate and drank nothing. They knew they deserved what was coming. Why else would they repent? Why else would they hear the voice of the angry prophet? Any one of them could have run him through with a spear and given him the treatment of any enemy. But they did not...another miracle. They let him run around town for a single day and heard his voice and his story and repented. It says the needed to turn from their wickedness and violence. Jonah preached peace with God through repentance.

I have been reading God's Underground by Richard Wurmbrand, and the theme that comes up over and over is that God offers salvation to all men, regardless of the wickedness that he has committed. And the sad thing that happens over and over is that men would die in their sin rather than accept that forgiveness. Over and over Richard would hear them confess their wickedness, hear them say they had gone too far and that God could not forgive them. He reassured them over and over that this is why Jesus came...to forgive sinners. Their souls would torture them more than the guards of the prisons. And many would refuse to be comforted and forgiven. That is the saddest part of the whole book. The torture inflicted on the body makes one cringe, even cry, for what these men suffered physically, but knowing that they chose not to accept God's offer of forgiveness makes one sadder yet, unless you are like Jonah. If you hate someone enough to wish for their eternal suffering, you hate indeed. To watch someone go into a godless eternity is a torture to the soul. Many cannot accept God because of hell. They can't bear to think of someone they loved not being in heaven. But God offers heaven to all, but all do not accept it. That is not His fault. There are choices to be made. God chooses to offer, man chooses to accept or decline that offer for reason of believing he is not bad enough to deserve hell, or believing he is too bad to deserve heaven. Both thoughts miss the point. We all deserve hell, and no one deserves heaven, but God knew that, sent his Son, like Jonah, to preach repentance, and some choose to heed the warning. It is Christ that makes us worthy of heaven, not ourselves. It was Him taking our sin when we give it to Him that purifies us.

The fact is, the Ninevites changed their ways. They repented. They saw their sorry state and exchanged their clothes for sackcloth, their food and drink for the symbolic body and blood of Christ, and turned their cursing and violence into appeals for mercy and worship of the One True God. That is what salvation looks like. Men see themselves for what they are, and see God for Who He Is. And beautiful things happen.