LAST time we took note of the all seeing of God, and how God does not miss anything. We meditated on the fact that nothing escapes the sight of God, and that this sight reaches beyond our outward actions, and floods our souls with light so that any hypocrisy is revealed. On the other hand we saw that God, seeing deep into our soul, also will not miss true repentance, and true turning to God for mercy, and will respond to such genuine turning from sin to the living God. We now come to the reaction of God to such genuine repentance. This last verse of chapter 3 tells us that when God saw a truly broken heart before him, and a genuine cry for mercy, he had compassion, and did not bring the destruction that he had promised.

The compassion of God to sinners is something that we can learn in no other way than through the revelation God has given us in the Bible. We can not learn about God being a compassionate God from observing creation and the ordering of the world. We can learn much from the creation all around us if we are prepared to confess that the idea of the world coming into being by chance, and that life can occur by chance, is not plausible; but we can't learn about the compassion of God. This knowledge of God is only possible by revelation.

THE REVELATION.

We are told in our text that God had compassion on the Ninevites and did not bring the destruction he threatened upon them. The revelation is in the historical action of God. We learn of the compassion of God because he acted in compassion towards the Ninevites. Just as we observe God in nature and creation, we can also observe God in his actions. From observing God's action here to the Ninevites, we are able to observe the action towards the Ninevites, and so have revealed to us the compassion of God.

Compassion is not something we could expect from God. That God has an attitude of abhorrence towards sin, and that he punishes sin is something we can understand. We understand it because written into our consciousness is the idea of justice, that when people do harmful and evil actions towards another person or society, they deserve to be punished. We have some natural idea of compassion, but it does not really extend to people who commit dreadful crimes against humanity. Such crimes have to be punished, and the perpetrator called to account. We feel it is unjust if people get away with their crimes.

The revelation of God's compassion is truly surprising. In the case of Nineveh the whole of society in this city was given over to wickedness (chapter 1:1), and as a result they had offended God in a grievous way, and offended against his holy character and law, yet God was compassionate to them. He was prepared to relent from bringing down upon this wickedness the judgement it deserved, and which God had every right to inflict.

The revelation of God's compassion is a compassion, a kindness, a goodness, which was shown towards people who did not deserve any such movement of God towards them. Yet God showed compassion towards them. We can understand compassion towards people suffering through no fault of their own. We can understand compassion to victims of crime, but compassion towards those who practice crime is inconceivable. Paul expresses the amazing character of God's compassion in Romans 5:7 where he says that the extent of human compassion may extend to a kind person, but never to an evil person; but God was ready to show compassion and mercy while we were yet sinners.

In the Old Testament, the compassion of God is seen, as it is here, in our text, in the action of God. However we do not see the cost of God's compassion. This further revelation is reserved to us in the New Testament, though it can be learnt from the Old Testament if we are prepared to look for it.

The New Testament reveals the cost of compassion. It reveals what it cost God to exercise compassion to sinners. This further revelation heightens the wonder and glory of God's character of mercy. Compassion by God could only, and can only, be exercised if the justice and holiness of God is upheld, and his law fulfilled. For God to show this wonderful compassion, something had to be done to allow God to show compassion. Before God could show the compassion he desired, God had to find a way that he could do it without offending against his holy Law, and upholding his righteousness. The only way that this was possible was in the vicarious death of God himself, in the person of his Son.

The cost of compassion to sinners is that God should send his Son into the world, to take our nature upon him, with all the humiliation involved in that, and then offer himself to be punished in the place of the sinner. God's compassion towards sinners is only possible through Jesus Christ and his bearing our sin in his body on the cross. This is the great cost of compassion.

God could reveal his compassion to Nineveh because the cost of such compassion had been planned in the death of the Son of God, and such cost was paid in history when Jesus was incarnate, and gave his life a ransom for our sin on the cross. This should touch the heart of every Christian, because it is with his, Christ's, stripes we are healed, that is receive compassion from God, and continue to live under the compassion of God in time and eternity.

The fact that God showed compassion to the Ninevites, tells us that the cost which enabled this compassion was in the mind of God for all eternity, and because of this the cost was considered paid, even though the cost in time was yet to be paid. The compassion showed to the Ninevites, and indeed to all the saints of the Old Testament, was made possible only through the death of Jesus.

THE NATURE OF COMPASSION.

It is only too easy for sinful humanity to presume on the compassion of God. Somehow Satan deceives people into supposing that God's compassion is automatic, and people seem to believe that it is the business of God to be compassionate regardless, and that it our right to expect God to be compassionate towards everyone of us regardless of our attitude to God and sin.

That God's compassion is extended to all is plain in Scripture revelation. The whole of the city of Nineveh benefited by God's compassion. The threatened destruction was rescinded. It is a fact also that there is temporary compassion experienced by many because they are under the umbrella of God's compassion to some in society. For example the Bible reveals that God's mercy is experienced by the whole of a society for the sake of the few who are truly God's people, and so a society experiences God's blessing in a wide sense simply because they are associated with the people of God. In the history of Great Britain, the whole nation has benefited from peace and prosperity after a time of spiritual revival, because of God's special protection and blessing on those who have become believers. This happened after the time known as the evangelical revival because those effected by the revival, seeing the evils in society, worked hard to bring about reforms which brought blessing and the removal of evils which effected all the community, both Christian and otherwise.

However God's compassion can not be presumed upon, and is not something that people can take as automatic. The compassion which God showed to the Ninevites was because of the genuine repentance that God saw deep in the hearts of the people of the city, from the King down to the least in that society.

God is compassionate and merciful, though we have rebelled against him, and gone away from his purposes, but this compassion is shown only when there is true repentance. It is when God sees in a person true sorrow for sin, and true acceptance of the justness of God's judgement, and comes crying to God for mercy, that God's compassion is poured out.

It was when God saw that the city of Nineveh turned from its evil ways, that God showed compassion and relented from his threat of judgement. True repentance is not something that merits God's favour in compassion, but it is a condition of God showing compassion. Where there is no acknowledgment of sin, and true turning from sin, there can be no expectancy of compassion from God.

It is also true that God has no obligation to show compassion even where there is true repentance and turning from sin. In justice even sin that is repented of deserves condemnation and the penalty of God's law upon it. From this it is essential that included in true repentance there is included, as it was in Nineveh, a dependence on God's mercy. When the king of Nineveh called the whole of the city to turn to God, he acknowledged that this did not deserve compassion in the fact that he simply said “God may relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we do not perish (v.9). Repentance has no merit in it which demands God's compassion.