Jonah preached in Nineveh with a heart full of political hate.
Being arguably one of the most successful ‘instant’ revival preachers in history, you would think that Jonah would have paused to take in the moment. Instead, he perched himself atop the nearest hill overlooking Nineveh and hoped that God would rain down terror upon it.
Jonah saw the Assyrians as nothing more than a murderous horde deserving of God’s wrath. And no doubt about it, they were a murderous horde that eventually suffered God’s wrath. However, it was for that brief moment that a spirit of repentance was about to swept over the city that God sent Jonah; God is merciful.
Grace upon the politically wicked was too much for our reluctant preacher to endure. He couldn’t imagine a scenario where anyone should be content to wish grace upon this city of godless butchers. Though he was aware that God freely shared such grace, he wanted no part of it for the Ninevites. Therefore, God chided Jonah for caring more for a weed that gave him shade than for the souls below him. God said,
“Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?” (Jonah 4:11).
Like Jonah, many Christians insist that their strong political views accurately reflect God’s Justice. And also like Jonah, many Christians believe that their political opponents are deserving of God’s wrath – even if they “do not know the difference between their right and left hand.”
Our one-person-one-vote system is new. For most of the last 6000 years mankind has been controlled by anything but consensus. Today Christians have been lulled into believing that they can win worldly leaders over to their way of thinking. I most certainly support all godly efforts, but I would caution my brethren to remember that a worldly leader is just that—worldly!
It is concerning that every Christian who has gone out of his way to divide the church along political lines has had the poisonous tongue that James speaks about in James 3:9…
“With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God.”
John Staiger
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