THE MESSAGE JONAH WAS TO PROCLAIM

“And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown,” Jonah 3:4.

1. It was a message of judgment. 

That is what the Word of God is primarily. See Matthew 3:7, 1 Thessalonians 1:10. God’s first words to sinful man were words of judgment. Genesis 3:16-19. It was not a message of judgment ONLY but it was first and foremost a message of judgment. Man must first be convinced of his lost estate before he will hear the message of mercy. We will not seek the help of a doctor until we FEEL sick!

2. It was a message spoken with certainty. 

“Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” God does not often reveal the time of judgment but He always reveals the certainty of it. “Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead,” Acts 17:31.

3. The destruction spoken of was terrible. 

Gen 19:25. Same word used of Sodom, Amos 4:11.

4. Mercy is also displayed. 

The mere telling of the coming judgment was a mercy. The warning was there to be heeded. These people did, verse 5. 

Have you heeded God’s warning in mercy yet?