In the Great City

Jonah's visit to Nineveh, with its amazing results, was perhaps unique in the world's history. The entire population of the greatest city of that time was brought low before God, their despotic ruler setting the example.
Let us endeavor to realize the situation. The prophet apparently went quite alone. Fellowship in service is very sweet, as Paul and many others could testify, but there is no hint of a companion for Jonah. He faced the consequences of his terrible message alone. No organizing committee was behind him; no flaming advertisements announced his coming; neither choirs nor notable singers were secured in order to draw the multitude together. Many modern witnesses appear to consider these things necessary if the masses are to be reached. When shall we all learn that the power of God is worth more than all the machinery that the wit of men can devise? Even penniless men, such as Peter and Paul, have accomplished great things for God as the fruit of simple dependence upon the Holy Spirit.
Jonah "cried" his solemn message through the streets of Nineveh. "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." Jonah 3:4. He was not regarded as a public nuisance, and arrested and jailed as such; nor did the inhabitants scoff at him, as the dissolute youths of Bethel (not "little children") scoffed at Elisha at an earlier date (2 Kings 2:23, 24); his message was heard with all due gravity. "The people of Nineveh believed God." This is good. It was not the mere speaker who was accredited; the people felt that their Creator was speaking to them in him. This is exactly what is recorded of the Thessalonians: "For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe." 1 Thess. 2:13.
The king of Nineveh doubtless lived in the seclusion of a palace, surrounded by officials all ready to obey his commands, however arbitrary and cruel they might be. It was not easy for any subject to approach an Oriental despot. Esther, although queen, felt that she would endanger her life by venturing into the presence of the king without a summons (Esther 4:11). But Jonah's serious message was carried right into the throne room of Nineveh, and reported to the king. He acted promptly, for conscience told him that the wickedness of his people well deserved divine judgment. Accordingly the king stripped off his robes, "and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes." The whole population was charged to do likewise, and even the beasts were to have both food and drink withheld from them that they might join the people in their cry of distress. The people were not only to "cry mightily unto God," they were also to turn every one from his evil way, and from his deeds of violence. Prayer without action is worthless. Repentance is an absolute necessity with God. The king concluded: "Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from His fierce anger, that we perish not?" This proclamation, and that by Nebuchadnezzar telling the story of his conversion (Dan. 4) are perhaps the most remarkable proclamations ever sent forth. Would God the rulers of men in the twentieth century would address their people in like manner! What change would come about in world conditions! What disasters would be averted!
Luke 11:30 suggests that God's dealings with Jonah were known. "Jonas [Jonah] was a sign unto the Ninevites." This would give point to his message, and who could so well warn of impending overthrow as the man who had proved in his own experience the power of God to lay low those who presume to oppose His will? The repentance of Nineveh and its king is as a great a miracle in the moral sphere as Jonah's experience in the physical.
In a later book than that of Jonah, God states plainly His principles with regard to the nations. "At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it; if that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them." Jer. 18:7, 8. No nation but Israel has ever been in direct relationship with God, but this does not mean that He is not interested in the masses outside the seed of Abraham. The time had not yet come for the sweet "whosoever" of the gospel to go forth, for the Son of God had not yet been given as God's great love-gift to the world, but His heart nevertheless yearns at all times over men everywhere, not desiring the ruin of any. Therefore when "God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that He said that He would do unto them; and He did it not." Even so would it be at the terrible moment in which we live; if any nation that seems doomed to destruction would get down humbly before God, His heavy hand would be lifted, and respite would be graciously granted.
W. Fereday
Editorial
The way that God tests man changes from time to time. These times are called dispensations. This very word is used in the first chapter of Ephesians and verse ten where it speaks of "the dispensation of the fullness of times." The three prominent dispensations we frequently speak of are Law, Grace, and the Kingdom or Millennium.
The dispensation of the Law began when God gave the law to Moses from Mount Sinai with a great outward display of awesome glory. It was only given to one nation, Israel.
The next dispensation called Grace begins in the book of the Acts with the descent of the Holy Spirit and free and full salvation by grace offered to all —to whosoever, not just to one nation.
There is something important for us to notice about this change of dispensations from Law to Grace. It is this: they overlap. This is readily understood from the special book addressed to the Hebrews who were the people to whom God had given the law as a test for them. Chapter 9 and verse 10 speaks of "carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation." The whole of the book of the Acts and still a few more years were the time of reformation. It was about forty years. This is what we speak of as the overlap of these two dispensations of Law and Grace.
Now we ask a question: Will there be a time of overlap between this dispensation of Grace and the soon coming Kingdom? We believe that there will. Another question: Are we now in that brief period of the overlap? There are at this time, signs that God is behind the scenes preparing Israel for her necessary tribulations and then the Kingdom. Many Jews are again gathered in and around Jerusalem where their forefathers rejected and crucified their Messiah and said, "His blood be on us, and on our children." Matt. 27:25. Surely God's dealings with His earthly people are beginning and yet His heavenly people, the Church, are still here awaiting the rapture which we can rightly expect any day. Meanwhile the gospel of God's grace is still offered to all.
In other words, it is still the time of the dispensation of Grace but behind the scenes God is preparing for the time of the Kingdom. We believe we are in the overlap. Ed.