Thursday, April 15, 2010

Should Not I Spare?

Jonah 4:11 KJV
And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?

This passage oozes the love of God for the souls of men, even those who will likely turn against Him. Though Nineveh's wickedness was such that God was prepared to destroy it and its inhabitants, God graciously calls the unwilling prophet, Jonah to preach repentance there. When Jonah expresses his anger that God has been gracious to them God's response is to point in two directions:

There are there, "more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand...."These are the children of the city. Though members of a pagan nation and souls who we know in looking back (and God knew through omniscience) would turn against the God their parents turned to in Jonah's day, still at this point in their lives, they are innocent, and God extended grace to them.
We are far too narrow sighted. We see things through the perspective of ourselves and often fail to see that others have a perspective too. There were children there. There were children in that city who, though their parents had been enemies of Israel, would have, at least at this point in their lives, cheerfully played in the streets with the Jews own children.
There would come a day when they would be judged for their own sins. But that wasn't this day.

"....and also much cattle"
I do not pretend to believe that the lives of the animals in Nineveh equaled the worth of the souls of the children in the city. But God did point them out as creatures not deserving the destruction that would have happened had not Jonah preached and Nineveh repented.
In my mind I came back to the animals that were sacrificed for the sins of the Jews. If God was willing to spare this wicked city at least partially for the sake of the animals that existed there, if God cared that much for those animals, did He not care as much for those creatures whose lives were taken and whose blood was spilt in the place of the Jews' sin?
It is not wrong to take the life of an animal for food, or clothing, or another need. It would be wrong to see that life as worthless.

God's eyes must have welled in tears as the Jews slew the animals in sacrifice day after day.
• Blood was shed
• Life was taken
• Christ was remembered and
• Grace was bestowed upon man
In each and every one.

No comments:

Post a Comment