Joel M Bradshaw

10Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh, and the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go out of his land.–Exodus 11

Today’s chapter served as a warning for Pharaoh concerning the dreadful 10th plague. I want to offer a contrast. The king in Jonah’s day was just as powerful as the Pharaoh with Moses. Both man and beast would be affected in both stories. I added emphasis in the text.

Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.

The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.”

When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it. (Jonah 3:4-10)

1. God leads people to repentance. Nobody leaves their selfishness and turns to God unless God has first led him to do so. Jesus saw faith as “all whom the Father gives me” (John 10:25-30).
2. Pharaoh was hardened by God and wasn’t going to repent.
3. Nineveh’s kingly influence was remembered by Jesus for the repentance it produced (Luke 11:32).

I realize theologically that if you were to respond in faith to Jesus it would first originate in the work of God drawing you to Him. But I don’t know how God has been or is currently working within you. So I ask which of the two kings describes your response?–JMB