Love, Grace, and the Outcome of Unappreciated Mercy: Reflections on the Prophecies of Jonah, Zephania, and Nahum

Epilogue

FOREWORD

Pastor Joseph Oloruntola,

Parish Pastor,

RCCG Holy Pilgrim

This book elucidates the intricate connection between Love, Grace and the Outcome of Unappreciated Mercy while also bringing out in great detail many spiritual lessons, benefits, and understanding to the reader.

One fact we get from the scriptures is the immense mercy of God demonstrated right from the time of the Israelites’ journey from Egypt to The Promise Land when God held back from totally destroying them for their continual disobedience on their way as we see in Deuteronomy 1:34–39. Over and over again, He delivered them from their enemies when they returned back to him in repentance. And God has repeated this from one generation to another.

In the book of Jonah and indeed to the people of Nineveh, we see this show of mercy all over again. However, while we see that the great love of God and His mercy prompted Him to send the prophet Jonah to Nineveh, we eventually see that the recalcitrant attitude of the people of Nineveh by their disobedience towards God brought the visitation of the judgment that the prophets Zephaniah and Nahum prophesied some 150 years after Jonah.

Clearly, we can learn that the God of the Bible is the God of love and the God of judgment who will not tolerate sin and sinners perpetually.

PROLOGUE

One of my sweet memories from my preschool years in Emelesue-Otapha, Abua, Rivers State (South-South) of Nigeria, was the way adults sat children down at night under the moonlight to tell them folk tales which inspire morals and wisdom. These tales can enable a child who heeds their moral lessons to grow up as a respectful and successful adult in life, in spite of the uncertainties, challenges, and obstacles that might be in the way.

One of my favourite folk tales was the story of how one very elderly woman sent a young person to accomplish an errand for her. The young person, who went out of respect and desire to help the elderly woman, on the way to the errand found a priceless jewel called ambi. The moral of this story is twofold: one, as a person, be willing to help the elderly because in doing so you will find an unexpected and immeasurable benefit such as the ambi; and two, we should be willing to honour those in authority, because you may surprisingly reap an inestimable reward.

In a sense, at a personal level, this book is an ambi to me. Indeed, whatever that is anchored on the word of God is priceless, but I consider this book as my ambi because it is an oblique product of my acting at the behest of my parish pastor.

I want to also say, when I became a Christian, I found that some of the invaluable morals imbedded in the folk tales told to us as children were actually the teachings of the Holy Bible. If we heed these teachings today, they will lead us to not only achieve the same rewards of priceless ambis on earth but also eternal rewards in heaven in the way scripture admonishes us to do. For concerning respecting and submitting to elders, the scripture tells us to act thus:

Stand up in the presence of the elderly, and show respect for the aged. Fear your God. I am the LORD. (Leviticus 19:32)

In the same way, you younger men must accept the authority of the elders. And all of you, serve each other in humility, for God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. (1 Peter 5:5)

If I may digress from the direct substance of this prologue, I may say, perhaps because in most western countries such as the United Kingdom, young people are not taught the immeasurable benefits of the lessons of respect for elders, they go on to abusing elders and in some extreme cases targeting vulnerable elders for mugging without knowing that such acts will bring curses and damnation upon them in the course of life.

On honouring those in authority, the scripture tells us how rebellion against authority has provoked the wrath of God in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, therefore making it imperative that we should honour and submit to those in authority:

And the sons of Eliab; Nemuel, and Dathan, and Abiram. This is that Dathan and Abiram, which were famous in the congregation, who strove against Moses and against Aaron in the company of Korah, when they strove against the Lord:

And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up together with Korah, when that company died, what time the fire devoured two hundred and fifty men: and they became a sign. (Numbers 26:9–10, KJV)

Submit yourself to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well. For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men…

(1 Peter 2:13–15)

Now back to the main gist of this prologue. A day or two before the first Sunday of this year, being January 4, 2015, I got a text message from my Parish Pastor Joseph Oloruntola, saying: Prepare to take the ‘Liberty Prayers’ on Sunday.

Being the first Sunday of the New Year, what came to my mind was to ask the congregation during the Liberty Prayers to praise God and give thanks to him for bringing us safely into another year; and then pray for individual blessings this year as well as blessings for the church. All of that seemed good to me for Liberty Prayers, but my mind was overwhelmed with the burden to also ask for prayers for the nations of the world starting with the United Kingdom, Nigeria, Israel, Syria, Iraq, etc. As I started searching for scriptures to base the prayer requests on, I had the strange thought of reading the book of Jonah. When I did, Jonah 3:3–10 attracted me as a passage of exaltation for prayers for the nations. I shall discuss that passage of the Holy Bible in chapters six and seven of this book.

Nineveh repented at Jonah’s preaching and was saved from imminent destruction. I wondered whether those engaged in evil ways and violence in the nations of the world today would repent on account of the preaching and prayers of God’s people. Disillusionment abounds as we daily see the ever increasing open display of the morally obscene, acts of terrorism, juvenile shootings, and killing of innocent people as we have seen recently in the cities of the United States of America and the knife culture that has brought sorrows to several families who have lost their children to death by stabbing in the streets of London in the United Kingdom.

I had hardly finished preparing for the Liberty Prayers before I felt called to preach on the book of Jonah this year. However, after leading the Liberty Prayers joyfully, I felt I should not just prepare to preach on Jonah and the people of Nineveh, but I should write a book on the people of Nineveh and the people of our world today. The question arose in my heart: the people of Nineveh repented when Jonah preached to them and they were not destroyed, but where are they today? What happened to them? What are the lessons they offer to us today in the light of the ungodliness, evil, and violence which colours the world today? Are we really safe in the world by continuing to tolerate the amoral sometimes in the name of freedom and in the face of uncertainty of our peace because of the unprovoked violence frequently lynched by a few miscreants of society upon their neighbours and fellow human beings who had no reasons to be suspicious of them?

The world appears to be losing its moral compass for community and corporate existence, because God has been eliminated from the development of human life at the early stages of children education. So the tensions and conflicts of life weigh on those who do not know God to do the unexpected, sometimes in their early adulthood. Most western nations appear to be doing things the wrong way. Children are prevented from learning about God in most state schools, but when hard-core criminals are jailed, religious organisations are allowed to preach to them because there is evidence that some criminals have been transformed and left crime in this way. So should western nations not consider reinstating Christian religious education in state schools for better moral, mental, and spiritual development of young people? Without considering that we will not only be arousing the wrath of God by the way we have chosen to do things, we may be exposing many to self-destruction before God condemns their wickedness. The truth is, God is still showing the world mercy today by not visiting it with utter destruction for all the evil we do, so let us value the love and grace of God and turn to him and be appreciative of his mercy before we lose it all!

I want to suggest that the reader views the problems of this generation and the state of the world today as our collective individual failure to connect with God, and not the problem of society or nations. Society and nations are made up of individuals. If individuals are bad, society will be bad. Our best bet to escape perpetuating evil and violence is to seek the face of God as individuals. We can’t ask society or nations to make policies for peace which cannot be enforced if individual hearts hold no value for human life and can’t appreciate peace. Those who fail to seek the face of God will doubtlessly find themselves in the place where Nineveh and its people eventually ended. For as I sought to trace what became of Nineveh and its people, I found that they returned to their