“As Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation.”
Luke 11:30
Did Jonah tell the people of Nineveh about his own experience? It seems likely he did, for two reasons:
1. The words of the king
“Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish” (Jon. 3:9). Where did the king get that idea? How would he have had any hope in the mercy and compassion of God? If the king knew Jonah’s story, he could say, “If God saved Jonah, perhaps He will have compassion on us.”
2. The words of Jesus
“As Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation” (Lk. 11:30). How was Jonah a sign to the Ninevites? Jesus says, “Just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Mat. 12:40). If being in the fish was a sign to the Ninevites, Jonah must have told them about it with a passion born from his own experience:
“Let me tell you what happened to me! When God called me to come here, I did not want to come. So, I got on a boat headed for Tarshish, but God sent a storm. I felt sure I was finished. But the God whose judgement I deserved saved me. He sent me to tell you that your wickedness has come before Him, just as mine did. Forty days and Nineveh will be destroyed.”
God never wastes a thing. He can use your failures, your trauma, your shame, the desperate moments of your life to advance the gospel.
Is there a failure in your own life that God could use to reach others?
