“And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left…?”
God is sympathetically pointing out the condition of the lost people in Nineveh … But Jonah didn’t like the Ninevites because their sin was different than his. God wasn’t telling Jonah to tolerate their sin, He told him to tell them to repent… but Jonah didn’t want to, because he was afraid they would listen and avoid the punishment he had decided they deserved.
We shake our heads at Jonah’s judgmentalism, but don’t we do the same thing? Don’t we know people who are so lost they can’t tell their right hand from their left – and our response is to judge them, and leave them in their “lostness”?
Let’s be honest…there are sins that we somewhat tolerate…but if you venture outside of those sins, our attitude toward you changes. If you succumb to a sin outside of our acceptable list, we don’t offer redemption, we don’t pray for you… we label you as arrogant, sick, ignorant, perverted, selfish, the list goes on and on…
Here’s the problem with that… God loves sinners… and instructed us to do the same. Sin is never to be tolerated, it requires repentance and change… if not, sin leads to destruction. However, God will determine deliverance or devastation … that is not my department.
My job is to love others and tell them the truth, and I can’t do one without the other. Truth without love will be condemnatory and condescending… Love without truth leaves people lost in their sinfulness. Both Truth and love are required to be effective.
So, who are the Ninevites in your life? …. Which group of sinners have you become judge and jury for? Who have you stopped praying for because they don’t “deserve” the gospel?
Are there people who have hurt or upset you to the point that you would just as soon see them go to hell? If so, you have allowed your heart to harden like Jonah’s did, and if you’re not careful you may find yourself figuratively lying on a beach, in a puddle of fish vomit.
“I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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