a
heathen city? Was it possible that Nineveh grieved God because of its
wickedness? Could it be possible that God really loved Nineveh, though
it was outside the covenant? Jonah did not want to believe this, but
he had to believe it. He had to realize that

"The love of God is wider than the measure of man's mind
And the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind."

Jonah did not want to undertake this mission. His objection, however,
did not grow out of the fear that Nineveh would refuse to repent. His
reluctance was not born of the conviction that there was nothing in the
people of Nineveh to which his message would appeal. I know we are
often hampered by that conviction. We feel that it is absolutely
useless to preach to some folks. There is no use in trying to
christianize Africa. There is no use even in trying to christianize
some of our next door neighbors. We so often forget that there is in
every man an insatiable hunger and an unquenchable thirst that none but
God can satisfy.

But to Jonah this call was unwelcome because he feared that Nineveh
might repent. And that he did not want Nineveh to do. Jonah believed
that God was the God of Israel only. He believed that God blessed
Israel in two ways. First, He blessed her by giving her gifts
spiritual and temporal. And He blessed her, in the second place, by
sending calamities upon her enemies. An abundant harvest in Israel was
a blessing from the Lord. A famine in Nineveh was also a blessing from
the Lord. Jonah was firmly convinced that the prosperity of a nation
other than his own meant calamity to Israel.

It is a pity that this selfish belief did not perish with Jonah. But
when we face the facts we know that it did not. It is a very human
trait in us to feel that another's advancement is in some way a blow to
ourselves. It is equally a human trait to feel that another's downfall
and disgrace in some way adds a bit of luster to our own crowns. Of
course, nothing could be more utterly false, but in spite of this fact
we cling to that faith through all the passing centuries.

On the whole this duty, then, that God had put upon Jonah was so
distasteful that he made up his mind that whatever it might cost him he
would not obey. Therefore, we read that he "rose up to flee unto
Tarshish from the presence of the Lord." Ordered to Nineveh he sets
out for Tarshish. There were two cities on his map and only two.
There was Nineveh