one man, so certainly it resulted that death passed upon all men. _As_
Christ's remaining in the grave three days was not a fiction, _so_
Jonah's three days and nights in the great fish that God had prepared
was not a fiction.

Our Lord further certifies to the historicity of the book of Jonah by
his reference to the great prophet's preaching. The critic's objection
is thus stated: "Can we conceive of a heathen city being converted by an
obscure foreign prophet?"

Of course, the objection to the record of that mighty moral movement
comes from those who have counted God out of Jonah's preaching. If they
can eliminate the divine power from that event, they can easily hand the
whole record over to what they are pleased to call the "folk lore of the
Bible." Here, as ever, the critic must rid the Scriptures of the
supernatural.

But our Savior knew that "power belongeth unto God" (Psa. lxii. 11), and
he put on record the repentance of the Ninevites, saying, "The men of
Nineveh shall rise up in judgment with this generation and condemn it,
_because they repented at the preaching of Jonah_." (Matt. xii. 41.) But
if the book is not history, our Lord's statement is false, for he says
the Ninevites did repent.

There is no rational possibility of denying our Lord's positive
statement without impeaching his veracity.

His words authorize the following conclusions:

I. There was a prophet whose name was Jonah, as is stated in 2 Kings