Upside Down Values

And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be
angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto
death. Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which
thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and
perished in a night: And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein
are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their
right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?

Hostility and hate have a way of turning some, kind and compassionate, people into vicious and vindictive people. That is one of the reasons why the Scriptures caution us against allowing bitterness and hatred in our hearts.  Sometimes just like Jonah some Christians can fall into the same line of thinking that Jonah did. Why preach to these people because they are our enemies. They hate us.  Why try to say anything, about the Lord, to these evil people? The people of Nineveh hated the Israeli people the same as most Muslim people hate Christians and Jews today.

The problem today is the same today as it was in Jonah’s time. We, as God’s people, are to take the Word of God to thesepeople, just like Jonah had to take it to the people of Nineveh. Only after a near death experience did Jonah do what the Lord wanted.  What will it
take in today’s world for Christian people to do what the Lord wants? This story reveals the worldwide interest of God, even in Bible

times. Though God was working, for the most part, through the Hebrew nation as an means for the sending of the promised Seed (Genesis 22:18), nevertheless, his compassion for all the people of the earth was abundantly visible. And the sending of the “missionary,” Jonah, to the city of Nineveh was a clear demonstration of it. This Bible story points out a truth so frequently suggested in the Old Testament, and that is, the Lord, not man, is in control of the destiny of nations. God rules and looks over the kingdoms made by men and disposes of them according to his heavenly standard (Psalm 22:28; Proverbs 14:34; Daniel 2:21; 4:17). Those who think that nations stand or fall because of a “strong national defense” are sadly ignorant and unaware of Biblical principles. Our trust must be in God!

It is true that we have a people that want to take over our country as well as the world. We must never forget that. We have people that want to behead us, kill us, and who knows what else because we will not convert to their religion. It is also true, as Christians, we must stand up to these people and say:  I shall not be moved, Just like a tree planted by the water I shall not be moved. 
If it take war to maintain our beliefs then so be it. But as we go to war let us not be like our enemy.They promote their religion by invading, killing, beheading, road side bombings and many other ways.  We, as Christians must promote Jesus to them by love. The kind
of love that our Savior had and wants us to have. 

We might have to go to war and there might be lives that are lost, but hate must not be in our hearts as we go to war.  We must go with the victory in our hearts and our God will do the rest. Our values must not be upside down when some of these people convert, repent, and except the Lord like Jonah’s values was when Nineveh repented.  We must not be like Jonah and have a distorted view of an entire people that God wants to be saved.  Our values toward our enemies must be right before the Lord, not of one that is upside down. A lot of Christians should step back and take a long hard look at what matters to God. This world as we know it is here today and gone tomorrow. But a man’s soul lives for eternity.