"The Biblical account of Jonah begins with an admonition from God, in which He says to Jonah, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.” Jonah 1:2.
After Jonah resists the word of the Lord and ends up in the belly of
a fish, where he is convicted of his sin, repents, and experiences true heart conversion, he is given a second chance to preach the cutting truth of the everlasting gospel to the people of Nineveh.
This time, “Jonah began to enter the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.” Jonah 3:4–5.
Besides Nineveh, the Bible also refers to Babylon as “that great city” (Revelation 14:8).
Like Jonah, we must preach the everlasting gospel to those in spiritual Babylon.
However, the present truth for us today encompasses the entirety of the three angels’ messages, .... So, we must preach not only the present truth of Jonah’s time (the first angel’s message, which commands us to fear the God of Creation and declares that His judgment is come), but the whole everlasting gospel of Revelation 14:6–12,
*which identifies Babylon,
*the beast and his mark, and the image,
*and calls on us to keep God’s commandments and the faith of Jesus.
This comprehensive gospel message is present truth for our time, in verity.
If Jonah were to have simply tried to speak the language of the city (to do in Nineveh as the Ninevites, so to speak), and to build bridges with them, God could not have used him to deliver His saving message to the people of Nineveh.
After Jonah preached the message God had given him, “God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.” Jonah 3:10.
Babylon, “that great city” of these last days, however, will not be spared, as Revelation 18:19 proclaims in no uncertain terms, “And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas, that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.”
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