Jonah 3

A True Revival

Division of the Text

Verses 1-2: Jonah Restored

Verses 3-4: Jonah in Nineveh

Verses 5-9: Nineveh Repents

Verse 10: Nineveh Spared

JONAH RESTORED

I remember sitting my English exam for A levels at school, the question paper was placed on our tables, one sheet of a4 paper. The timer was started and we began the exam. I finished the paper with some time to spare and had the time to go over my answers (which was unusual for me!). I felt confident as the two minute warning was given by the officiating member of staff. “There are two minutes remaining” he said. “Make sure you have answered the questions on both sides of the paper...” My heart sank. I quickly turned over the exam paper and to my horror there was another essay question on the other side! Why hadn’t I checked that?! I was embarrassed, I was angry at myself, I felt very silly. I had potentially just scuppered my grade in what was one of my strongest subjects! I raised my hand, and the officiator came over to me. I knew there was probably nothing he could do, but I needed to tell him what had happened. “Sir, I said, I am so sorry, I messed up, I didn’t realise there was a question on the back of the sheet!” He shot me a look, and then said “i’ll give you an extre 10 minutes, Graham. Get that question answered!” The relief flooded through my whole body! A sense of gratitude. I knew he didn’t have to do that for me. He gave me another shot, when I didn’t really deserve it.

This is precisely what God did when Jonah repented; he gave him another shot. He gave Him a fresh start.

It’s no accident that verses 1 and 2 of chapter 3 of Jonah are almost exactly the same as verses 1 and 2 of chapter 1. It’s like God pushed the restart button; let’s go again! God is a God of fresh starts! Isn’t that great news?!

Jonah messed up, He got it all wrong and didn’t follow God’s calling for His life. When God delivered him from the belly of the fish, we might expect for God to think better of trying to send the same screw-up to go and do a job for Him! Maybe he had seen enough to prove that Jonah wasn’t up to it. Maybe He would go and speak to someone else now? But no - God spoke to Jonah a second time! God didn’t push the ‘abort’ button on Jonah, He wasn’t done with him yet. God is patient with us. God is not in a hurry. He is a God who sends screw ups like you and me to do great things in His name!

“Arise.” “Go.” Says God to Jonah. Have you gotten off track in your Christian walk? Have you become discouraged? Deflated? Are you weary and disappointed? Maybe even doubting whether God made the right choice in calling you at all! “Arise” sayeth the Lord. Pick yourself up, stand up. Get ready for action! I am not done with you yet!

“Go” says the Lord. Put one foot infront of the other in obedience. God didn’t tell Jonah what message He would give Him for Nineveh at this stage. He just tells him to “Go”. Sometimes in the Christian life you just need to get moving - put one foot infront of the other! You don’t need a fresh revelation from heaven each day to tell you what to do or what to say - just be obedient to walk in what God has already revealed in His word!

Story about my days of doing prophetic evangelism in town. Ended up not speaking to anyone unless we had a specific word of knowledge for them. Somedays we spoke to no one. In the end, the words of knowledge dried up, I believe because we weren’t being obedient to simply “go” with the word that God had already given us - the Gospel! We didn’t need a fresh word of knowledge to do that, we just needed to be obedient to follow what God has said in the holy scriptures.

JONAH IN NINEVEH

So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. How good and pleasant it is when we too walk according to the word of the Lord!

We are told that the city of Nineveh was not any ordinary kind of city, it was an exceedingly great city. Three days journey in breadth! In face the Hebrew literally says that Nineveh was a ‘great city to God.’ Suffice it to say this was an extremely large metropolis, significant on the global scale at the time.

Can you imagine if God came to you and said, “go and call out to London, if it doesn’t repent then it will be overthrown in 40 days.” Just imagine! You’d be on the phone to the Billy Graham foundation asking for help, we’d be flying in evangelists, we would be mobilising churches, organising mission plans, speaking to national media.

The creative team would be drafting up branding for the message; what message is most likely to grab the attention of the average Londoner?! What are they interested in? What kind of message is most likely to appeal to them? Yes, lets steer clear of anything that might put them off; judgement, sin, death etc!

But God chose one man. Just one man, with one simple and undiluted message. See how much God can do with one obedient servant, with just one individual surrendered to His will?! God didn’t need a PR team, he didn’t need a missions planning council, He didn’t need to ‘repackage the message for the Ninevites.’ And He doesn’t need those things today either. Just one surrendered servant ready to preach the simple gospel is enough for God to bring a whole city to it’s knees.

The New Park Street Pulpit Sermons, Vol. V Who Can Tell? (No. 275)

What cannot God do? Think not that he needs to wait for us. He can accomplish the greatest deeds by the meanest instrumentality.

Throughout history this has been God’s pattern; when His people were in captivity he raised up Moses, when they were overpowered by the Midianites he raised up Gideon, and now when He desires to show mercy to this great city of Nineveh he raises up Jonah. Is it any wonder then, that God has chosen to save the world through just one man? His only son Jesus Christ?

The task before Jonah was utterly overwhelming. It was too big for him. Humanly speaking there was no way that this one man alone could bring this giant metropolis to it’s knees in 40 days. But that’s the thing you see, Jonah wasn’t alone. God was with him. The God who brought whole nations to their knees let alone cities.

If you don’t ever feel out of your depth in life it’s because you are living it wrong! We were designed to be out of our depth - following God means committing to being way out of your depth every day. But God is with us, and He is not out of His depth. No calling is too big for Him, nothing is too much for Him to accomplish.

So if you are feeling overwhelmed by life right now, remember how Jonah must have felt as he saw the city walls of Nineveh looming up before him. And remember what happened next!

NINEVEH REPENTS

Jonah had only just begun to go into the city, about a days journey in. And as he preached to them they began to repent! Not just one or two people, not even a few hundred people, but the whole city! Within 1 day, the city was turning to God in repentence. This is arguably one of the greatest revivals in all of scripture! It’s also humanly speaking one of the most unlikely - one haggard looking Hebrew fresh from the belly of a giant fish, telling a city of violent pagan warlords that God is about to destroy them unless they repent! Sounds like a recipe for disaster?!

There is no human explanation for this revival - we have no reason to attribute it to the impressiveness of the messenger, or the sound of his voice, or the eloquence of his message to the people. The only logical explanation for the revival in Nineveh was the sovereign power of God!

And this is the same in all modern revivals - they do not occur because of the piety or the power of certain men or women. They do not occur because we have scheduled the perfect ministry meeting, or because the preaching is particularly eloquent or passionate. Plenty of powerful and eloquent preachers have lived and died without ever seeing revival, and some of the greatest revivals have taken place through the weakest of preachers.

Not only did the townsfolk repent in Nineveh, but also the rich and the powerful. When God sends revival - it touches every eschelon of society.

The king of Nineveh got up off his throne, removed his royal garments put on sackcloth and sat down in ashes! This is true revival - not when people get a bit excited and emotional and have a bit of a cry and then go back to their lives. True revival is when the people get off the throne of their own lives and leave it for God. It is when the people humble themselves before God in ashes! It is when the people fast and pray!

People are too quick to call any show of enthusiasm a revival nowadays - but where is the show of humility? Where is the fasting, where is the praying? where is the Godly sorrow for sin? These are the marks of a true revival.

The King of Nineveh proclaimed a fast throughout the city for man and for beast, and that they should turn from their wickedness and call out on God.

They forewent the comforts of the world and the flesh in order to give themselves to God, so that their attention was wholly fixed on Him. Show me a church that fasts and I’ll show you a church that is drawing nearer to God.

NINEVEH SPARED

God sees the reaction of the Ninevites to His word and he relents from destroying them. God’s forgiveness is conditional. It is conditional upon our response to His word.

Jeremiah 18:7–8 ESV

7 If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, 8 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.

Jonah wasn’t a false prophet because he proclaimed that God would overthrow Nineveh - God’s threatenings of judgement are always opportunities for mercy and forgivness.

Matthew 12:41 ESV

41 The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.

Will we be like the men of Nineveh or like the men of Jesus’s generation? What will be our response to the greater Jonah - who calls out to us today ‘repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.”