a great God saves a great city

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.

Jonah 3:5

God sent Jonah to preach a message of judgment against wicked Nineveh. God knew the Assyrian empire, headquartered in Nineveh was evil and violent. And He also cared enough to to warn them of judgment. Why? God’s own assessment was that Nineveh was a “great city”. It was large. It was influential. It was home to a lot of souls ignorant of God. In His mercy He sent His prophet to warn this great city. Four times in the four short chapters of Jonah God reminds His prophet that Nineveh is a great city.

One of the features of the little story of Jonah is the amount of superlatives packed into the book. Here is a short list of a few… there are more than this:

• Nineveh is a “great city” (1:2; 3:1, 3; 4:11). In 3:3 Nineveh is “exceedingly great”.
• God sends a “great wind” and a “mighty tempest” when Jonah flies by ship to Tarshish (1:4, 12).
• Sailers are “exceedingly afraid” when they find out Jonah was fleeing God’s command (1:10).
• After they took Jonah overboard, the sailers “feared the Lord exceedingly” by offering sacrifices, a precursor in their pagan repentance of what Nineveh would eventually do (1:16).
• God sends a “great fish” to swallow Jonah (1:17).
• The “greatest” to least repent at Jonah’s preaching (3:5).
• The king called Nineveh to cry out “mightily” to God for mercy (3:8).
• Jonah is displeased “exceedingly” at Ninevah’s repentance (4:1).
• God “abounds” in steadfast love (4:2).
• Jonah is “exceedingly glad” about a plant (4:6).

God does great things to save a great city. His mercy and grace are given to heathen Ninevah in order to show His greatness. This is true even as Jonah greatly runs from God and greatly hates Ninevah. God moves the greatest to the least in salvation. He does so despite the greatly misplaced values and emotions of His prophet. God can save still, through Jesus, today. He will use us, despite us, to reach great cities. Will we believe this, or will we hatefully hope to see God damn “the wicked” to judgment?