Jonah 3:9-10 -- On Repentance

"Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?
And 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 3:9-10


This is part of the story of Jonah... he got into the trouble with the fish/whale because he didn't want to come to preach to Ninevah, and this is after, when he repented and came. And in verse 5 it says "the people of Ninevah believed God" (through the preaching of Jonah), and in this selection we can see that they did in fact repent. That's pretty miraculous, actually. We have many examples in the scriptures of the people not listening, but in this case they did, and so God repented (turned away) his anger.

Now, we could get into the whole thing about why God sends prophets/warnings when he knows what is going to happen ahead of time, but I think in this case it is pretty clear... the city needed the warning in order to change, and Jonah probably also needed to learn something here. To me though, I like the clear message that God's warnings are not empty. If he warns us, there is every reason to believe that we can still be saved. We just have to get serious and repent as the people of Ninevah did, turning from our evil ways.

Today, let's remember that God's admonitions aren't just empty... they are meant to wake us up and motivate us to do better, and find our way back to God. Let's take God's warnings to heart and change our ways, so that we too can be saved as Ninevah was.