Jonah 3:4

Jonah 3:4 says, 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.  Nineveh was a large city, and Jonah was but one man. Since he was God's messenger, though, he had no reason to fear.  I hear people today say that Jonah was bleached out very white while in the belly of the whale.  I personally don't believe that to be the case, since God prepared the whale to save him, and the Bible doesn't say anything about it.  Jonah was not sent to call attention to himself, but simply to proclaim God's word.  The city was put on a forty-day notice, and it was up to them whether to believe or not.  We cannot be that exact about the time, but we can tell the lost of the world that if they don't turn to God, they ultimately will be destroyed.  Verse five adds, 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.  Jonah didn't want to be there, and we find no evidence of his preaching being powerful, but the whole city believed God.  The people must have been convicted by the power of God, because from what we read about Jonah's message, he offered them no hope.  We today, when we are reaching out to the world, need to reach out to them with the message of repentance and hope, not with the message of destruction.  We are not called to judge and condemn the world, but to reach them with God's love.  The people of Nineveh did not say they had forty days, so there was no hurry.  They believed God and repented.  They humbled themselves before God, from the greatest to the least.  What a revival Jonah preached, but it wasn't Jonah's powerful preaching that made the difference.  It was the belief of the people.  God today can work through the simplest of messages, as long as it is His word being presented under His leadership and authority.  We simply have to obey His calling and proclaim His message.  God will bring forth the results.