Power in the Pulpit | Jonah 3

Introduction: Thank you Leighton and David. I hope you are enjoying these Annie Armstrong videos as much as I am. I think it’s incredible to see how God is using people all over our continent to take the gosepl to those that have not heard in different ways. Don’t forget, that next week, we will be collecting our Annie Armstrong offering. I encourage you to pray about what God would have you to give. If you have an allowance or a savings account, I encourage you to think about bring a gift to give to Annie Armstrong.

Have you ever been somewhere where there is a warning sign. I’ll show you an example. When I was in North Carolina, I took a few of our students hiking at hanging rock state park one day. We hiked all the way to the top of the mountain, which was much more difficult than we anticipated. But if you have ever been hiking on a trail like that, you have seen signs that are telling you not to go in certain places. We thought it would be funny to take this picture. The sign was there to warn hikers that if they did not turn around at that point, they were in danger of being hurt or dying. The sign is not there just to scare people.But instead, it’s there to help them make a better choice. Tonight, when we look at Jonah 3, we will see something similar. We will see that God sent Jonah to warn the people of Nineveh of his judgement so the people of Nineveh could experience his grace. In fact, I think we will see that in our own lives, We must believe and tell of God’s judgement so we can experience his grace and share it with others. As is our custom here at Maynard, please stand as we honor the reading of God’s Word.

Exposition: So we saw in chapter one how God told Jonah to go to Nineveh and then he didn’t. And as we know, that didn’t work out well for him. He ended up being caught in a storm, being thrown out of the boat and almost drowning before finally being swallowed by a fish God sent to rescue him and then spit out on dry land after three days and nights and much prayer and reflection. So chapter three starts by saying in verses one and two Jonah 3:1-2 “Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.”” The words are almost identical to those that describe God’s call to Jonah in chapter 1. Jonah has been given a second chance by God. We have already seen throughout the story of Jonah that God is a God of grace. And we see it here because God gives Jonah a second chance at obedience. But notice something important. God, didn’t send Jonah on his own accord. He sent Jonah to declare the Word of God.

Application: When God calls us to share the gospel, whether it’s at home or across the world, he hasn’t called us to make something up that sounds good. He has called us to go and proclaim his words. It is God’s message we are responsible for. When we tell the story of how God has changed our lives, we are just telling the story of God. We don’t have the be super creative, just trust in the message God has given you.

Exposition: So we read in the first part of verse 3 Jonah 3:3 “So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord.” Jonah is given this second chance and he is obedient to God. He doesn’t run, he shows that he understood the gravity of his prior disobedience by responding in obedience.

Application: We have a bad habit as human beings of showing fake remorse. We ask God for forgiveness when we have not been obedient to His word, but when God gives us a second chance, we don’t take it. Don’t raise your hands for this, but how many of you that are believers have ever felt like God was calling you to tell somebody about Jesus, but you for whatever reason, chose not to do it. And you felt bad about it, said you wouldn’t let it happen again. Some time later, God gives you the opportunity, and you blow it. You chose not to do it again. We have to follow Jonah’s example here. Jonah, at least here, makes the most of his second chance.

Transition: We do not know anything about Jonah’s trip to Nineveh. We know that the distance would have been around 500 miles. We don’t know how long it took, we don’t know whether he walked the whole way or rode on a donkey. We don’t know where he stayed at night. We don’t even know if there was the ancient near east version of Buccees or Quick Trip that he could stop at. Well, I guess we know that part. But overall we don’t know much about it. We just know that he went. And the we read about what happened once he got there.

Exposition: Starting with the second part of verse three and going through verse 4 we read Jonah 3:3-4 “Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days’ journey in breadth. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”” Now the language about Nineveh as a great city is a little confusing. First, we read throughout the book of Jonah that Nineveh was a great city. But ancient discoveries have shown that the actual city, wasn’t that big. But when we read in the book of Genesis about the founding of the city of Nineveh, we know it was founded with a few other smaller towns that were referred to as the great city. The author is probably referring to the entire suburban area. Kind of like how we consider places like Marietta, Duluth and other Atlanta suburbs as being part of Atlanta. But in the end of verse three when it says an exceedingly great city, the literal meaning is a city great to God. What the author seems to be emphasizing is that God cared for the city of Nineveh. This city that was full of people that worshiped false gods and did all sorts of evil things, this city was important to God. Why, because God is a God of grace. And no matter what you have done, no matter what parts of yourself you don’t like, you are important to God too.

Exposition: So Jonah gets to Nineveh, this metropolitan city area important to God, he walks one of the three days worth of a journey it is through Nineveh and he calls out, “Forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown. How’s that for a message? You have forty days and God is going to destroy your city. Why is this what Jonah chose to say? Because he was being honest. Jereimah 18:7-8 says Jeremiah 18:7-8 “If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it.” Now Jeremiah prophesied after the time of Jonah, but God doesn’t change. This was still true in the time of Jonah. When God pronounced judgement, if people repented from their sins, God would relent from that judgement. God knew that the people of Nineveh probably weren’t going to stop doing what they were doing if they were not warned of the consequences. They could not experience God’s grace if they did not know it was grace.

Application: I’m going to ask you all to be honest for a second here, how many of you have a hard time talking about hell. How many of you find it uncomfortable to tell people that hell is a possibility for those that die apart from Christ. I get it. I find it uncomfortable too. And I’m not saying you should just walk up to people and tell them if they don’t turn to Jesus they are going to hell or ask them to get in your car, turn the heat all the way up and say, “You think this is hot.” But we cannot ignore that hell is a reality. The reason we cannot ignore that hell is a reality, is because we cannot understand salvation if we don’t understand God’s judgement. John 3:17-18 says John 3:17-18 “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” We are all sinners. Sin separates us from God and it is for that sin that we deserve the judgement of God. But God has made a way for us to avoid that punishment. That way is Christ. He sent Jesus to die on a cross for our sins when it should have been us. Christ took on the judgement we deserved so that we could avoid God’s wrath. We shouldn’t be scared of the topic of hell, we need to rejoice when we speak of it, that God has made a way for us to avoid it.

Exposition: How did the people of Nineveh respond. They responded with a strong response. Verse five says Jonah 3:5 “And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.” In this time, sackcloth was a way of showing grief and humility. The passage says that the people believed God. The phrasing used means to trust in something. The people of Nineveh trusted that God was who Jonah was saying he was and could do what Jonah was saying he was going to do. They had genuine trust in God.

Application: This is one of the things that keeps a lot of us from truly following Christ. We have a hard time really in trusting in what scripture tells us is true. We have a hard time trusting that God’s way is better and that sin is sin. We have a hard time trusting that God could ever forgive us for the things we have done. We have a hard time trusting that we should turn over control of our lives to God. If we want to see God’s word have an impact on our life, we have to believe that the God of the Bible is who He says He is.

Explanation: To understand why the people may have responded like this, we need to understand a little bit about this time period in Assyrian history. The Assyrian empire had been the strongest empire in the world for years. But around the beginning of the 8th century BC, the empire was facing all sorts of problems. There were uprisings throughout the empire that had caused the Assyrian government to give more power to local rulers. There were also a lot of other issues within the empire during this time. In the few records we have during this time period, we know that in every year from 765-759 BC there was an outbreak of some kind of plague, a revolt in one of the cities in the empire and even a solar eclipse that would have seemed very ominous to a superstitious culture like the Ninevites. It was in the backdrop of all of these things that Jonah came and declared this message and the people responded to it. How is it that Jonah ended up in Nineveh with this message in a time of heightened worry about the future. It’s because God had been in Nineveh long before Jonah. God had already been working to prepare the people of Nineveh for Jonah’s message.

Application: There are people in this room that will one day be on the mission field. That may be short-term missions, a summer, semester or career. What you can take heart in when you go is that God is not sending you somewhere that he has not already been. When God calls you somewhere, he already knows exactly who he is sending you to. The idea of going somewhere on mission can be very scary. But we must remember we are following God there.

Exposition: Going on to verse 6 we read Jonah 3:6 which says Jonah 3:6 “The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.” So the people start showing grief over what Jonah is saying. It is causing such a commotion that even the king of Nineveh responds. Now there are critics of this passage that say Nineveh didn’t have a king since it was under the domain of the Assyrian empire. But the phrase actually makes sense for this time period because so much power had been given to local rulers as the empire weakened. So the King od Nineveh hears about this and he doesn’t get paranoid and look to remove the threat that Jonah was to the peace and his rule. No, he shows a big sign of humility. He gets rid of his expensive royal robes and humbles himself by putting on the sackcloth and sat on the ground in ashes. He shows how serious he is taking what Jonah was saying. In fact, look at what he goes on to do. Starting in verse 7 and going through verse 8 it says Jonah 3:7-8 “And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.” They’re not just having the people sit in cloth and ashes, no they are even having the animals do this. He issues a decree saying as much. Which, this is much more productive than people that get like halloween costumes or jerseys for your dog. Sorry if your family does that, I’m just pointing out the truth. But the King issues a decree making sure the people do this.

Application: I think often times, we have a hard time believing that God could judge people for eternity. We like the idea of heaven, we don’t like the opposite idea so much. But the people of Nineveh believed what God had said through Jonah to the point that it led the to respond. Our level of response is often dictated by level of belief.

Exposition: But look at how the king describes the previous actions of the people at the end of verse 8. “Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.” The King is openly acknowledging all he and his people have done wrong. He is acknowledging their sin and showing genuine remorse and a genuine desire to leave it behind. He doesn’t try to minimize the sin. He doesn’t try to justify it. He also shows no desire to keep doing it. He completely turns away from it.

Application: See, the King of Nineveh was treating the sin as sin. He was treating it as something bad. He showed genuine repentance. A lot of times when seek forgiveness from our sins, we are really only seeking to avoid the consequences. We must learn to genuinely turn from our sins. Our sins are so serious that to atone for them God put Jesus on the cross. We have to take it seriously.

Exposition: The king says in verse 9 Jonah 3:9 “Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.”” They acknowledged that God was not obliged to forgive them. He did not owe it to them. They knew it was only from grace that God would forgive them.

Transition: So these people that are known for their evil, repent from their sins, hoping that maybe God will relent from the judgement that God is promising to bring upon them. Well, what happens next? What happens next is that once again, we see that God is a God of grace.

Jonah 3:10 “When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.” God saw the genuine repentance of the people of Nineveh, and he relented from his judgement. Now, eventually Nineveh would turn back to what it was and it was destroyed. But the people Jonah spoke to repented from their sins, and in His grace, God relented from the destruction that would have come.

Application: You see, God doesn’t have to forgive us, but he does. If we acknowledge our need for his grace and turn from our sins, God forgives us as well. That was the message of Jonah and that is the message of the gospel. But we must not forget Jonah’s role in this story. It was through Jonah that God communicated the message of grace. God could have done it anyway he wanted to, and he chose to send Jonah. This is the same way that God works today. God has chosen his people to be the messengers of his grace. But there are billions of people all around the world who have not heard the message. There are billions of individuals all around the world who need a messenger to come and share with them the message of God’s grace so they can repent from their sins and receive God’s grace. We keep saying that the story of Jonah is a story about a God who is a God of grace. But just like Nineveh, there are people God is calling to go and proclaim the message of grace to. Just like Jonah, we have received grace so we can go and proclaim the message of grace to other people. And God is calling you. It may not be overseas, it may not be out of state, but it also might be. Either way, God is calling you to be a messenger of grace. Maybe He is calling you to go somewhere else around the world and share of his grace. But wherever his is calling you, we must be messengers of his grace.

Verses 6-9

Verse 6

King of Nineveh makes sense for this time period

He humbled himself

Verse 7-8

This isn’t a half-hearted measure

There is genuine acknowledgment of sin

Verse 9

Acknowledgment that grace is God’s choice

Transition: So these people that are known for their evil, repent from their sins, hoping that maybe God will relent from the judgement that God is promising to bring upon them. Well, what happens next? What happens next is that once again, we see that God is a God of grace.

Jonah 3:10.

God saw their repentance and relented from his judgement

Goes back to the conditional statement from Jeremiah

He did not change his mind, he kept his word

The same thing God has done for us. When we turn from our sins, he relents from the judgement we deserve

The people repented because they heard the message of God’s obedient messenger

We must go and proclaim the message

Conclusion: I want to focus tonight on three of the actions we see in the passage tonight. The first is how they believed God. Maybe you realize tonight that you have never really trusted in the message of the gospel. Maybe you realize you have never really trusted enough to believe that Jesus is the way to heaven and that all who commit their lives to him have eternal life. But maybe you realize that now you’re ready. Maybe tonight you realize that you have sin in your life that you need to repent from. Maybe you need somebody to help walk with you through that. Or maybe tonight you feel that God may be calling you go one day as a missionary to proclaim the gospel. You may not know where, you may not know when, but you feel that God might be calling you to be like the people we have seen in these videos the last few weeks. Under your chairs are some cards, I would like for you to fill out. There is an option for all three things I have asked about. If you would fill it out and then fold it and place it back under your seat. But if you feel God is placing something on your heart, take tonight to respond.