The story of Jonah is pretty well known. In fact, just recently a lobster diver was swallowed by a sperm whale and lived to tell the tale, creating a real problem for skeptics who want to dismiss the entire account as unlikely, if not impossible. But my concern is not so much with the authenticity of the book, which I do not doubt in the least, but with its message.
I’ve found great benefit in reading a book by G. Campbell Morgan entitled Living Messages of the Books of the Bible. Published in 1912, I received a copy from a semi-retired pastor in his 90s with whom I spent a delightful day of fellowship in the middle of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. In this 2-volume work, Pastor Morgan goes book by book through the entire Bible detailing what he believes are the permanent values taught by each book and its living message for today.
When it comes to the living message of the book of Jonah, Morgan speaks of the importance of preaching the gospel. He says, “We scatter our Bibles far over the world, and thank God that we do so, but the ordained method of reaching men is to send the Bible with a man. It is by the human voice, the actual living messenger, that the Word of God is made powerful. Christ still needs messengers to the cities, and He still sends us. There is no man, woman, or little child who really belongs to Christ, who does not share the responsibility.”
Morgan notes, however, the sad reality that the evangelical church has largely failed its mission. His assessment of the modern church and our attitude toward the gospel and the unsaved is bold and unapologetic. He does not pull any punches, and so I will simply allow him to state it in his own words with a lengthy quotation. Perhaps the living message of Jonah may stir our hearts to obey the word of God.
“The secret of the Church’s comparative failure in missionary enterprise is not that we do not know God and His compassion. We do know Him. His love has been commended to us. We have felt its warmth, its fire. We know its victories in our own lives. Why, then, do we halt? For exactly the same reason which halted Jonah. Because we hate Nineveh. The Church does not want to see the world saved, does not want to see the heathen nations brought to Christ. She still speaks of her work as foreign* missionary work; still describes men of other nationalities and other climates and other colours as natives*, as foreigners*; still adopts the attitude of supercilious indifference to them.
“If that statement seems too severe, come nearer home. Why does not the Church reach the outcast people in London and save them? Because the Church does not like the outcast people, does not want them saved. We write of the pariahs of India in pity but the submerged outside our own doors we prefer to keep outside. In how many pews in the average church would the outcast be welcome if he or she appeared on Sunday next? Do we really want them? Are we ready to coöperate with God?”
Morgan’s charge is blunt, but I do not think it is unfair. How often do we get comfortable in our church with people we are used to seeing every week? How do we typically respond when someone comes in and disrupts the order of things? Our reaction to such reveals the true state of our heart.
Thankfully, Morgan does not simply criticize, he offers a solution: “How shall we overcome this difficulty? Not by trying to love them. Never was a more absurd thing said by any man than that he would try to love some one. It is impossible. We cannot try to love these people. What, then, shall we do? Fall in line with the command of our Lord and what we know of Him, and do what He bids. Such obedience will create love even for those whom we cannot compel ourselves to love. There are a great many people in this city of whom we think with revulsion. We do not want to get near them. We are not really anxious they should be saved. We have never stretched out a hand to help them, but out of love for the Lord. As surely as we do, we shall find beneath the rough surface gems with lustre as wonderful as any we have discovered in any walk of life. We shall find that they also are lovable.
“The whole lesson of the book of Jonah is that of the sin of exclusivism, the sin of imagining that if we have received light, it is for ourselves alone. Let us away to Nineveh because God commands it, whether the going falls in with our prejudices or not; and as we go we shall come into new fellowship with Him, and find a new comradeship with humanity, and withal hasten the coming of the day of His perfect victory.”
[*Emphasis original]