Actually, our reading is the
last half of verse 2, but let's read Jonah 1, 1 and 2. Now the word of the Lord came
unto Jonah, the son of Amittiah, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh,
that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness is come
up before me. And that last part I want us
to look at this evening, and their wickedness is come up before
me. Nineveh is a very interesting
city. A very interesting thing took
place there in the Old Testament, in the days of the ministry of
Jonah. The city of Nineveh is called,
in the second verse, notice, that great city. Now, it was not because it was
a bastion of goodness or morality. It is not because it was a model
of civility. It was not because it was a stronghold
of the arts and the culture. And it's not because it was a
city or a place of righteousness. In fact, it was the very opposite. but likely it is called that
great city on other accounts. By the way, the book of Jonah
four times refers to the city of Nineveh as that great city. Here they are, chapter 1 verse
2, chapter 3 and verse 2, that great city, chapter 3 and verse
3, now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days journey. Finally chapter 4 and verse 11. Should not I spare Nineveh that
great city? Now it's being a great city no
doubt had to do with its size for one thing, its residence
for another, its commerce for another, its wealth, and that
it was a city of great wealth and commerce. Some classical
writers of that era have said that Nineveh was at that time
the largest city in the world. Larger, some have said, than
even Babylon. It is generally conceded by those
historians that Nineveh was first founded and built by the descendants
of Nimrod and of that family, or line, out of Noah. Genesis chapter 10 and verse
11. And the founder of the Syrian
empire as well. And this city was at that time
the metropolitan city of the empire. It was the city of kings
where they dwelt and was ruled out of it by the kings in that
day. Not only that, it was a walled
city as many were in that time. It was strongly fortified against
any enemy from without. And it had a very large population
that were concentrated there in that city, proved by the sheer
number of infants that were there, chapter 4 and verse 11. It was
rich in cattle. also, chapter 4 and verse 11,
much cattle is what we read, and the kings brought their glory
therein. As cities go, it was a great
city, it was a large city, it was a thriving metropolis. And John Gill and others have
noted that the city was said to have outer circumstances of
60 miles. around the city. A wall about
it, 100 foot high and so wide, it is said, that three chariots
could travel abreast upon the great wall of that city. There were many towers there,
200 feet high, from which to spy out any enemy that might
be making their approach of thinking of an attack. Now there's another
fact about Nineveh, that exceeding great city. It was a Gentile
city for the most part. Here were legions of Gentiles,
heathens, pagans, and such like. Multitudes there were here who
knew not the true God of heaven. They were uncircumcised in heart
and in flesh, as we might read in the New Testament. It was
no doubt this fact more than any other that caused Jonah to
resist preaching anything under that particular city. But God
caused Jonah to preach to them, and it may have brought an ingathering
of some of them who heard the judgment of God pronounced against
it, and feared, and perhaps whose heart was somewhat turned. But
to get to our text in verse 2, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great
city, cry out against it, because their wickedness is come up before
me. Jonah was to cry out against
it. not comfort it, not give it solace,
but to cry out against it. He was to preach against that
city and no doubt its wickedness. He was to spurn up. He was, like
Isaiah, to lift up his voice like a trump and cry out to that
city and unto its wickedness. He wants to show them their sin. He wants to expose to them their
iniquity and announce the judgment and the destruction of that city. The reason is given in the last
part of verse 2, their wickedness is come up before me. That is, It had come up before
the face of Almighty God. So the words may be understood
as saying, reaching even up into the face of God. And while it
is true that every sin is before God, He sees each and every one,
Every sin is against Him, and every sin comes up against Him,
as it were. Yet the words here in our text
are meant to express not a single sin for one person or that was
prevalent among all, And not a few sins, not just some, not
some sin, not one now and then is in the mind of the prophet
or in the expression of God, but the expression there is after
this order. that it was sin to a great degree,
that it was excessive wickedness and sin to a great and high degree
that was committed in that city. It was as if their cup of iniquity
had filled itself to full and overflowing. It was as if their
sin had reached its peak and was full and yet increasing more
and more all the time. It was to such a degree of sin
as was committed in the very presence of Almighty God. It was great. It was high. It
reached, as we read so often, in the Scripture even into heaven. Now the sin of Nimrod's offspring
had done what his tower of Babel could not do. He could not make
a tower that would reach yonder into heaven, but his descendants'
sin were so great and odious, the stench of their iniquity,
as it were, had ascended into the very nostrils of God, and
it was counted as a putrid thing in his sight. The audacity of
their sin is seen in that they committed their sin openly and
without any shame. Openly, brazenly, they went about
their sin and their iniquity. Their immorality was open and
it was blatant without seemingly any restraint. And its heinousness
had come up before God in that particular time. John Gill said
it this way, quote, it called for immediate vengeance, it was
ripe for destruction, And I think that is an expression that we
ought to keep ripe for destruction. It was that their sin would no
longer be tolerated by the holy God of heaven and that He would
move against them in judgment. It had come up before Him. It had, as it were, ascended. Their cry had come up in His
ear and in His sight. And when the city, or rather
the cry of His people came up into the ears of God, He delivered
them. You read that over in the book
of Exodus chapter 2 and verse 23. What did God do then? Well,
Exodus 2.24, He heard their groaning, He remembered His covenant with
them. The covenant that He had made
with Abraham and his people. James chapter 5 and verse 4 also
said that the cries of a wrong man of God are entered into the
ears of the Lord. When one wrongs a servant of
God, it enters into God's ear. Exodus 3 and 9, the cry of thy
children is come up unto me. so that God's people cry unto
him and he hears, he remembers. But so does the great sin of
wicked sinners come up before God that he might deal with them. For example, in Nineveh, one
of the better descriptions of the Ninevite is in Nahum, chapter
3, verse 1 through 7. I won't turn there, but her sins,
some of them were bloody city, lies, robbery, murder, whoredoms,
at witchcrafts, a multitude of slain, stumbling over corpses,
this was the city of Nineveh that we're considering this evening.
But wait a minute, wait, we say, this sounds like Houston, Texas,
or New York City, or San Francisco, or New Orleans, or Miami, or
other great cities. That raises a point of truth
being this, that almost without exception, every large city becomes
dens of iniquity. Because where there are large
numbers of people, sin always seems to abound more than when
the people are more scattered. Sinners are drawn and attracted
to these types of places and cities, for there abounds more
the cup of iniquity, where one sinner entices another, one leads
the way. Large cities have larger concentrations
of criminals usually, and every imaginable sin is to be found
and be practiced. Until it can no doubt be said,
most large cities, their sin has come up before God. Or is it not true? The greater
the city, the larger, the richer, the more people, the greater
their sin, and the worse their immorality. Now how is it that
God said of Nineveh, for their wickedness is come up before
me. Did not God see them from the
very beginning? Did He not know them all along? Did He not know exactly what
there was in the city even from its building? Does he not write
down all iniquity in those holy books that Malachi said that
our Lord keep? Yet he said in Jonah's time,
the sin of Nineveh has come up before me. It has come before
my very faith. It has come up in the sense that
it is not only great, but it is also ripe for judgment. I think we need to keep that
in our mind. Exceedingly sinful is how we
might describe it. It is more than the long suffering
of God will endure. But up to a point, God endured
in His long-suffering. And when it becomes ripe for
judgment, then God poured out His judgment. I would like for
us to read a passage, if you want to turn, fine. If not, it's
in Genesis chapter 6, a few verses of Scripture that we look at
to enter into our text this evening. We notice there in Genesis 6
and verse 5, for example, God saw that the wickedness of man
was great in the earth. Then look at verse 11. through
verse 13. The earth also was corrupt before
God. The earth was filled with violence. God looked upon the earth and
behold it was corrupt for all flesh had corrupted his way upon
the earth. And then God said to Noah, the
end of all flesh is come before me. The earth is filled with
violence through them, and behold, I will destroy them with the
earth. Don't turn there, but in 2 Peter
2 and 5, Peter says, bringing the flood in upon the world of
the ungodly. In 1 Peter 3 and 20, which were
disobedient in the days of Noah while the long-suffering of God
waited. 2 Peter chapter 3 and verse 20,
or rather 3 and verse 6, whereby the world that then was perished. Now, let's make the following
points, if we might. A. Their exceeding sin was universal. That is, in the days of Noah. Not a sin here and there, or
a city here and there. Not a pocket of sin here, pocket
of righteousness yonder. No, the whole earth, everywhere
that men dwelt upon the face of the earth, the earth was wicked
in that day. For the earth is filled with
violence through them. In other words, the sin of that
generation was come up before God as the earth and the sons
of men in every place were wicked in His sight. And having come
up, as it said, before God, He resolved to destroy every living
creature with the exception of Noah, his family, and that in
the ark from off of the face of the earth, saving only eight
souls out of all of that mass of humanity. Now when the sins
of a city, a nation, or a generation come up before God, at His time
and wisdom, He sends judgment of one sort or another. The flood
is a good example of God sending judgment, that God will not forever
and forever tolerate the sin of the human family without judgment. This, his long suffering, will
at some point have an end and it will be connected to the salvation,
I believe, of the elect. Now the second example that we
might take, found also in Genesis, but this time in chapter 18.
And this carries us down to Sodom and Gomorrah. And in Genesis
chapter 18, this time reading verse 20 and verse 21. And the Lord said, Because the
cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin
is very grievous, I will go down now and see whether they have
done altogether according to the cry of it which is come up
before me. So that in Genesis 13, 13 The
men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly. Now, of course, all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. All are born in sin, shapen
in sin, and live in sin until God quickens by regeneration. But the people of Sodom have
overabounded the line. They are described as exceeding
sinners, sinners before the Lord exceedingly, having gone beyond. Can I say it? The common vices
of the race, beyond the sins that are prevalent in place and
in time. These men of Sodom are described,
I think, as being past the ordinary sins of ordinary societies, else
would all the world be destroyed again and again. Calvin, in fact,
said of them, quote, they were abandoned to the most extrable
crime, the cry of which rose to heaven and demanded vengeance
from God. You saw that in Genesis. 18 verse
20 and verse 21. So we read again, the cry of
Sodom is great. Not that these sinners themselves
cried out to God, but that their sins, as it were, cried out and
came up before God. Like the world of Noah's day,
their wickedness came up before the Lord, it became ripe for
judgment and for vengeance, ready for God to thrust in the sickle,
as it were, and bathe it in the blood of His wrath. To help us
better understand what it means that wickedness has come up before
God, let's consider some more scripture that we find in the
reading. such as Genesis 15 and verse
16. The iniquity of the Amorites
is not yet full. Now this God said to Abraham
in promising that his seed would be delivered from Egypt in a
future generation. For then the iniquity of the
Amorite was not yet full, and the land would not pass to Israel
until the pagans that filled it, their cup of iniquity to
overflowing, and God righteously judges them and puts them out
of their land. In Daniel 8 and 23, in latter
times when the transgressions are come to the full. Matthew
23 and verse 32, fill ye up the measure of your fathers, our
Lord said to those hypocrites and Pharisees. 1 Thessalonians
2 and verse 16, to fill up their cup always. Therefore, from texts
like these and others we learn that God does not strike suddenly
at the first sin or sins of men. He is long-suffering, long-suffering
indeed. In fact, it's said that the long-suffering
of our God is salvation. Patiently, God endures. In His long-suffering, He does
not destroy those who give themselves to great sins immediately. That God in heaven quietly abides
in long-suffering until sinners fill up their measure, and in
His wisdom it is time for judgment, till their cup runneth over.
And their cup runneth over, not with blessings, but with iniquity. It has been said that the wrath
of God goes with a slow step to avenge itself. while at the
same time it compensates for its tearing by the severity of
its punishment or judgment. When the cup is filled to the
brim, God determines it is wise, then He will strike. When the
measure is full, when it has come up before Him, He will act
when wickedness cries out with a loud voice even into the face
of a just and a holy God. Of Nineveh, God said, their wickedness
is come up before me. You go and cry out against them. Now, when such is the case, God
does one of two things usually we see from the scripture. Number
one, He might destroy them without remedy. Destroy them without
remedy whatsoever. Secondly, He might grant them
repentance and magnify His grace and mercy as was the case in
Nineveh. And when they sat in sackcloth
and in ashes, God therefore did not destroy the city. Not only
so, but there were Gentiles there, as we've said, in the city of
Nineveh, and God granted them repentance, at least temporary
repentance, and showed mercy unto their sin, mercy unto their
iniquities, that the city was not at that time destroyed. And it made Jonah mad. Jonah
was angry. He wanted God to destroy that
bunch of idolaters Gentiles and was displeased that his message
had met with success among the people of Nineveh. Now, let's
have a closing word to any that might be unregenerate. There is no reason for an unregenerate
person to flatter themselves that their sins seem to pass
by God unpunished. You know, a lot of people have
that idea. Because iniquity is not purged immediately, Ecclesiastes
said, the hearts of the sons of men are fully set in them
to do evil. So they continue in their sin. But according to Romans 2 and
verse 5, after the hardness of heart, treasuring up wrath against
the day of judgment, they continue on in their sin, adding sin unto
sin as time goes by, and like a fat hog or fat ox, being fattened
up for the slaughter. Revelation 14, 15 through 17,
an angel with a sickle cries out with a loud voice, thrust
in the sickle, gather the clusters of the vine of earth for her
grapes are fully ripe and they thrust in the sickle. Now the
sins of the elect come up before God. He required an accounting
for them. Ere they could be forgiven, a
satisfaction must be made ere God puts away the sin even of
His elect. Many pass through the forbearance
of God in the Old Testament economy to be atoned for in the death
of Christ in the cross. but instead of smiting the elect
who deserve it, our great God has smote His blessed Son. He has awakened the sword against
His fellow. He has set it on a mission, smite
the shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered. When sin comes
up before God, it is odious, it is vicious, It is an abomination
in His sight, the holy, holy God of heaven. Thank God, thank
God that no judgment fell upon this nation or that city or that
city and may fall again, who knows, Yet the judgment of the
elect fell upon Christ. He bore our sin. He endured them. He made satisfaction a propitiation. God set him forth to be the mercy
seat, the answer to the mercy seat in the Old Testament. Thank
God. When sins come up before God,
He demands an accounting, and Christ gave a perfect accounting
of the sins of the elect so that he is just while he justifies
the ungodly.