Ellen G. White and Her Critics

A Threat of Judgment Reversed

“So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days’ journey. And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” Jonah 3:3, 4.

“So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.” “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 3:5, 10.

Someone may interject that Jonah’s prediction was patently not intended by God to be understood in an unqualified sense, else what would have been the Lord’s purpose in sending him to preach to the Ninevites. Only two comments are needed: EGWC 103.1

1. To contend that something should be implied in a prediction is to agree with the very reasoning we are here setting forth. EGWC 103.2

2. So far as the written record is concerned Jonah was sent to preach only a message of judgment. That God might forbear to bring judgment if they did repent, the Ninevites seemed not to be sure: “Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?” Jonah 3:9. Furthermore, if Jonah had preached repentance and thus the possibility of deliverance, he would have had no reason to feel that he had “lost face” when the dire forecast failed to be fulfilled, EGWC 103.3