Nineveh Repents
Notes
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Today is Reformation Sunday. On Halloween of 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the Castle Church door Wittenburg, Germany. This was a lot like posting something on a community bulletin board.
This was primarily in response to Pope Leo X who began to sell indulgences in order to raise funds for an extreme church makeover of St. Peter’s Basilica. This indulgences were met with the promise of if you donate to the church, we will give you this document that will promise you, or a loved one time off of purgatory. The doctrine of purgatory is problematic enough as it is - purgatory asserts the the sacrifice of Jesus isn’t enough to save. But also this means that salvation is for sale as long as the price of right.
This is what drives Luther’s statement of Justification by Faith Alone… Sola Fide. We are not justified by works… not by donating to the church, nor by obedience to tradition, or even obedience to God’s commands… we are justified by grace though faith in Christ. Salvation comes by believing in Jesus, not by filling out a check.
Luther’s development of this doctrine was heavily influenced by
17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
An interesting development from this is what happened when Luther reads the book of James.
Luther reads James 2:14 and following
14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?
He cannot find a way to reconcile this with his theology of justification. If we are saved by faith, how can verse 18 be true?
18 But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.
But James does not contradict Romans. We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone.
Luther had a tough time with this. He referred to James as an Epistle of Straw. This also serves as a wonderful time to mention that we will be looking at the book of James after we finish the book of Jonah.
Now I’m not just giving an obligatory history lesson and a plug for our next sermon series - but believe it or not this connects us to Jonah:
If the main point of last week’s sermon was “Preaching of the Word of God brings repentance.” Then the point of this week’s sermon would be that true repentance is marked by a change of action.
True repentance is marked by a change of action
True repentance is marked by a change of action
But that comes with a caveat…
Right belief drives right action. When true repentance is partnered with sound doctrine it produces biblical actions and attitudes.
Someone can be convinced of an errant theology that leads them to repent of drinking coffee… something that isn’t a sin…
But that is not true repentance met with sound doctrine.
But when one hears the word of God, repents and believes Biblical theology it will lead them acting in God glorifying ways. And this is similar to what we see happen in the book of Jonah.
In this morning’s text we see the follow up to Jonah’s sermon. As we looked at last week Jonah goes to the Ninevites and preaches the word that God has given them. In verse 5 we see the people believe God and then they respond with fasting and wearing sackcloth. Faith then repentance. From the greatest to the least.
They receive a believable message, from a reliable authority.
A Believable Message from a Reliable Authority
A Believable Message from a Reliable Authority
And I was thinking through this there is something unique about this message. We regularly hear from Climate Change activists, politicians and lobbyists that the world is going to end is x-amount of years if we don’t make some significant change to our world…
I found a whole article of these predictions - but I will share only a few of them:
In 1989, the associated press gave us “11 years to change course of things significantly or the rising sea levels would drown entire nations.” That would have been 24 years ago…
In 2006, Al Gore told us that we would be at the point of no return in 2016… And here we are in 2024…
And more recently, in 2019 we heard from a congresswoman in New York that the world will end in 2031 if we don’t change course. We’re not there yet but I have a feeling if we’re not here in 2032 it wont be because we have gas stoves.
Yet when Nineveh is told that they have 40 days to repent there is a difference… they believe that Jonah’s words are true, and that God will indeed destroy them.
This is what leads them to fast. And as the word reaches their king and he puts out a decree - they have already believed Jonah’s message, and now that their king has given further instruction. Presumably - they respond to the king’s decree affirmatively - since it is what they are already doing and the king’s decree is in agreement - but the king further modifies it with the best interest of Nineveh in mind.
The major difference between Nineveh and our response to Climate Change doomsday predictions is that we are not convinced that there is any present doom. Even the politicians and lobbyists who make these predictions still fly private jets, and drive gas cars.
These figures cry for us to repent of our “climate crimes” and few of us do - at least to their standards. Their message is not different from the King of Nineveh - but we don’t respond. We don’t have a nationwide fast from our carbon emissions, nor do we sell everything to replace it with green energy - though some are trying. But the attitudes are often different from the King of Nineveh.
In many cases - it comes from a place of either faulty evidence or untrustworthy authority. Frankly, we just don’t believe the threat they are promising.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t take care of the planet - we should - the Lord has blessed us with a beautiful planet to live on - and part of us having dominion over that is being good stewards of what he has blessed us and caring for those things. But we ought not fear doomsday predictions from unreliable sources. Yet in addition to that you do not change your life for things that you do not believe in.
No one changes their lives for unbelievable messages from unreliable authorities.
When a doctor tells a man he has diabetes he stops significantly limits his sugar intake.
And when a reliable prophet of God tells a city that they are going to be destroyed they turn from their evil ways.
And this is why the people listen when the King makes a decree of a fast.
Consider what it would look like to see the governor of AZ to call for the entire state to fast. Now I’m sure some of you are thinking well that’s government overreach… and I agree but… stick with me. What if the governor… or even if Mayor Al Gameros called for all of Globe to fast over climate change - only those who believed that this fast would make an impact would fast.
From here the news spreads to all the way up to the king. And upon the king hearing of the message the king rises from his throne, removes his robe and begins to repent with sackcloth and ashes. The King then expands their fast. They are called to expand the fast to animals.
The King of Nineveh takes this message so seriously that he cancels everything. Because what good is food, drink or money if you are going to incur the wrath of God?
And Jesus tells us the same thing:
36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?
Yet there is a sightly different - but more important - scope in what Jesus is saying we have no promise that the US will be destroyed in 40 days if we do not repent. But we do not know how much time we have in this life - but we have the same thing to consider.
What good are possessions, what good is wealth, what good is a legacy, what good is a fun story - if it all results in an eternity of separation from God?
There’s a lot of people out there who think that Hell is a party… but if hell promises separation from the grace of Most Glorious and Most Loving Being and instead promises the wrath of that Most Glorious Righteous Judge… then how can it be even slightly enjoyable.
The wrath that is promised upon Nineveh awaits each and every person who has ever sinned.
In the gospel we receive a believable message, from a reliable authority.
The Bible is the most well attested document in history. There are more manuscripts of the New Testament than ANY other work of ancient literature. Jesus’ words are a believable message from a reliable authority.
When hundreds abandon Jesus in John 6 and he asks his disciples are you going to leave as well they respond with John 6:68-69
68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, 69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”
One of the significant aspects to the king’s decree is in the second part of verse 8:
8 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.
Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands…
The appropriate response to their pending destruction is to turn from their evil.
What happened to Nineveh?
What happened to Nineveh?
However, there’s something else that we ought to ask of this text. If you flip a few pages forward in the Old Testament from Jonah you find to the book of Nahum. The book of Nahum takes place around 150 years after the book of Jonah. In Nahum the Lord tells the people of Israel that Nineveh will be destroyed.
This leaves us to wonder… what happens between Jonah 3 and Nahum 1. We don’t really know. This is about 150 years separate - so the question becomes do the people return to their wickedness? Do they only repent so that God will not destroy them and then they return to their wicked ways? Meaning was it not? Or do they continue to live a life of repentance but their grandkids or great grandkids return to the wickedness of the past?
Some have stated that the kings seems to lack significant faith in God.
9 Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.”
Some people make a lot of that “who knows” question there. But interestingly looking at verse 10...
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.
That is exactly what the Lord does. He relents when he sees that the people turn from their wickedness.
We really do not know what happened in Nineveh that leads to their ultimate destruction.
But I think we can say one of two things happened.
1. It was either temporary repentance and they returned back to their wicked ways after a period of time.
2. They did not do well to communicate to the next generations the stories of God’s mercy for their repentance - and their children return to the wickedness of Nineveh’s past.
This draws us back to my initial point. True Repentance + Biblical Theology = Godly Living. Part of godly living means communicating the faith to the next generation. We’ve all seen someone who played the game as a Christian for a period of time. They stop doing bad things… or they just hide them a little better - until eventually they demonstrate themselves to no longer repent and to have been false converted. The Christian life is a life of repenting of our sins, and dying to ourselves.
As I have read through the book of Jonah for this series, I have encountered many sources that do not think that the events of the book actually occurred. don’t have an issue with the historicity of Jonah. However, while many people have an issue with the whole belly of the fish things - I think more people probably struggle to believe that a whole city turned from their wicked ways and violence. And I imagine that many of those people would struggle to believe it might happen again.
But I think that skepticism is still maintained in how we view our world today. Many of us are convinced that the world is going to hell in a hand basket and there is nothing that we can do about it. This is false. What we can do is preach the gospel. The Gospel changes everything. The gospel still saves sinners.
We can pray. Pray for our city. Our county, Our state, our country. That the gospel may advance and bring revival and salvation
Application
This text teaches us what repentance looks like.
This text should teach us that the idea that “well those people will never come to repentance” should be out of our minds. It’s easy to look at another country and think these people are so wicked… it’s easy to look at the US and think these people are so wicked… and think God will never save them because they will never repent.
There’s no place for that in the mind of a Christian.
I would assume that most Christians believe that the US is too far gone and that there is no chance for gospel to spread here.
Some pastors have even been reported to say that we lose down here.
But that’s not the message I read in the Bible. I read that Jesus is king. That the gospel will spread to the edges of the earth and that the gates of hell will never prevail against the church.
And even if you take a different view of the end times than I do and that’s fine, we all have to agree that if Jesus wins, we do not lose.
This should drive us to pray for our country. Pray for our leaders. November 5th is election day… and we ought to pray for whoever is elected. But we also ought to pray that God brings
As I conclude I want to draw our attention finally to
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.
Gospel…