JONAH and the Whale
AN ORIGINAL AND INTERESTING DISCUSSION OF A MUCH-DISPUTED EVENT. may have been formed, upon which God kept a jealous eye, feeding it and protecting it until it became a great fish; or He may have spoken the Word and the fish immediately came into existence. At any rate, God got it ready and had it in the right place at the right moment. God could have equipped His submarine with a feather bed, a bath tub with hot and cold running water, an electric range, and an ice box full of strawberries and round steak—but He didn’t. But God prepared that fish not alone for Jonah, but for every man in Nineveh. Presenting the Credentials Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites. When men come from foreign shores to represent their governments at our national capital, they present their credentials and prove their identity. Very frequently the Jews demanded a “ sign” from Jesus, to prove His claim to Deity. Jonah “was a sign unto the Nine vites” (Luke 11:30) and his credentials were so acceptable and his identity as a messenger from God so well established, that when he arrived the whole city received his message with open arms. Was there ever an event so impossible as the repentance of a whole city? Would any small town of our day call a halt to business at the preaching of a lone Jew? Such an event is without parallel and a miracle beyond all comparison to that of a mere fish’s being large enough to swallow a. man. But why did such great multitudes turn from their evil way? Was it because of the greatness of the preacher? A Great Preacher? Nay, verily. For a greater .preacher than Jonah once trod this earth, but He was rejected in town after town. Once the mighty Apostle Paul traveled through the then-known world, preaching the Word everywhere, hut never was he tendered such a reception as this. Instead, he was stoned, beaten, im prisoned, left for dead. But here was Jonah: an obscure Jew, treading the streets of a heathen city, with a most unwelcome message of im pending judgment. Yet a whole city falls to its knees in peni tence. We are dumb with amazement, until we learn just why God “prepared a great fish.” The God Dagon Nineveh worshiped Dagon, a god half-fish, half-man. The people believed that he lived in the sea and sent a messenger from time to time to direct their paths. Once a great fish moved quietly through the eternal calm of his deep domain. A terrific storm raged on the sea’s surface, but he was unmoved. Then a strange object was wafted down ward. The fish opened his mouth and took on board God’s prophet Jonah. Three Days Later Three days later, some men along the shore may have seen the tail of a great fish lashing the waves into a foam; they saw it throw something on the shore and disappear again into deep water. Their surprise knew no bounds when the object began to move, to stand up, and to ask the whereabouts of Nineveh. The men set out for Nineveh at top speed, and when Jonah arrived, he found thousands prepared to receive his message. At the Judgment The men of Nineveh were looking for a messenger from God out of the sea. When Jonah came that way, they accepted him. Hundreds of years later, the men of Israel were looking for a messenger from God out of Bethlehem. He came and they rejected Him. No wonder the Ninevites “ shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here” (Luke 11:32). T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
By R. I. Humberd
“ The Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah” (Jonah 1:17).
O FTEN men scoff at the story of Jonah and the whale; often they stumble at the Scriptural account, not realiz ing that the miracle of a man in the belly of a great fish pales into insignificance beside the greater miracle of a city on its face before God. Verily, in all the annals of human history, was there ever so rare an event? In all the pages of Holy Writ, is there re corded a miracle so great as a city in repentance, and that repentance so real that it stayed the judgment hand of God? A Great City Nineveh was a “great” city, a city of half a million souls, with “ sixscore thousand” children so small they could not “discern between their right hand and their left” (4:11), yet at the preaching of a lone Jew, they “ put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them” (3:5). We marvel at a fish that could compass a man, but we stand dumb with amazement that a king and all his subjects should turn to God, until we learn the real lesson why “ God had prepared a great fish.” God Knoweth the Heart God knows hearts and He knows what will unlock hearts. The city of Sychar lay content in its iniquity and sin. But the key to that city was a woman. Convert that woman and the city would be unlocked for the preaching of the gospel. So it was that our Lord “must needs go through Samaria” (John 4:4). The key to Nineveh was a fish. Unlock Nineveh with a fish and the whole city could be led to repentance. So it was that God “ prepared a great fish.” God's Submarine God prepared that fish. Two centuries before a tiny creature Page Twelve
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