If the story of Jonah took place in the era of the printed press, the headlines would have read, “THE NINEVITES REPENT!!!  Who saw this coming?  More times than not, wicked people reject the Word of God, but the people of Nineveh believed and repented.

Without repentance, salvation cannot be attained.  Jesus once said, “…except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3).  To repent is to have a change of heart toward God and sin.  It is to decide to do one’s best to stop sinning.  Repentance is the crossroad of man’s journey toward reconciliation with God.  It is, as they say, where the rubber meets the road.   The hardest thing for the Word of God to do is change the heart of man.  Once it does, the fruit of repentance is sure to follow.  Such was the case with the Ninevites.

Jonah 3:10 (ESV)
¹⁰  When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.   

What did God see?  He did not see that they merely determined in their minds to turn; that is repentance.  God relented of the disaster that He was planning to bring upon them once they brought forth the fruit of repentance, that is, once they actually turned from evil ways.

The repentance of the Ninevites served as an admonition to the generation of Jews in Jesus’ day.  They repented when a messenger delivered to them God’s message of repentance.  Yes, the message was confirmed by the miraculous deliverance of Jonah; still, he was just a flawed man.  The Jews in the day of Jesus had a greater messenger than Jonah.  They had the Son of God preaching, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15).  Since the Jews were rejecting a message from the Son of God, Himself, the actions of the Ninevites would condemn them.

Matthew 12:41 (NKJV)
⁴¹  The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here.

What was true of the generation of Jesus’ day is true of every generation of both Jews and Gentiles alike.  The admonition of Jesus to repent is just as applicable to us as it was to the Jews of His day.  To them, the kingdom of God was merely at hand, while for us it is here.  Time is of the essence.  Those who repent and believe in the gospel, demonstrated by bringing forth the fruit of repentance, namely, confessing Christ and being baptized (Acts 8:35-38), will be saved from past sins and enter the kingdom of God.  The message of repentance was continued by the apostles acting as the ambassadors of Christ.

Acts 3:19 (ESV)
¹⁹  Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out,

Is there any unrepentant sin in your life?  The Ninevites were active sinners, too, before they heard the message of God and changed.  What will you do with God’s Word?  Will you allow it to prick your hearts like the Ninevites, or will you ignore the message of God and remain in sin?  Whenever any of us sin, we should remember the Ninevites response to the message brought to them by Jonah; for indeed, a greater than Jonah is here.

As you wind down for the night, think about these things.