Homilist Jonah 1:2 Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me. I. GOD SPEAKING TO MAN IN MERCY. 1. Here He speaks. "The Word of the Lord." His Word to Jonah, like His word to all men, was clear, brief, weighty, practical. 2. Here He speaks to an individual. He speaks to all men in nature, conscience, history; but in sovereignty He singles some men out for special communications. 3. Here He speaks to an individual for the sake of a community. "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city." Why does God call it a great city? To men it was considered "great," great in numbers, pomp, pretensions, masonry. But to God it could only be great in sin, for sin is a great thing to God; it is a black cloud in His universe. For the sake of this city, in order to effect its moral reformation, and therefore to save it, Jonah receives a commission. "Arise," shake off thy languor, quit thyself for action, and to work out the ideas of the Infinite. No other creature on earth has this power. (2) God's method of helping humanity. God enlightens, purifies, and ennobles man by man. We have this "treasure in earthen vessels." II. MAN FLEEING FROM GOD IN DISOBEDIENCE. "But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish, from the presence of the Lord." Here is a threefold revelation of man. 1. His moral freedom. God did not coerce Jonah, did not drive him to Nineveh. Man has power to resist God — a greater power, this, than can be found in all the heavenly orbs, or in the whole history of material organisms. This power invests man with all but infinite importance, links him to moral government. "Ye do always resist the Spirit of God." 2. His daring depravity. Alas! men have not merely the power but the disposition to oppose God. This is their guilt and their ruin; it is what men are doing everywhere, trying to break the shackles of moral responsibility, trying to elude the Infinite. 3. His egregious folly. His endeavouring to escape from God was — (1) Not merely an impulse, but a resolution. Had it been a sudden wish it would have been bad. He "rose up." He rallied and marshalled his energies. (2) Not merely a resolution, but an effort. He "went down to Joppa." The probability is, that he went with the greatest speed to Joppa, the Jaffa of this day. When he reached the spot, how long he was about the quays in search of a suitable vessel. (3) Not merely an effort, but a persevering effort. It was not one or two or three spasmodic efforts and then over. When he found a suitable vessel he "paid the fare thereof." Ah, what fares men pay in the career of sin! (Homilist.) Parallel Verses KJV: Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me. |
    |