JONAH 3:1-10 - The Preacher of Doom and the Merciful God

Introduction

The book of Jonah is an unsettling book for many people. For the skeptics and atheists it is a ridiculous story of a man being swallowed by a fish, which is said to be impossible for any number of reasons, which in turn allows them to simply dismiss the entire book as another example of the foolishness of religion. It is also an uncomfortable book for “respectable” Christians—the ones who want to be well-thought by the elite—you can’t get invited to write an article for The Atlantic, after all, if you believe in such simplistically literal readings of what is obviously meant to be an allegorical picture of God’s dealings with the nations. So Jonah is an embarrassment to Christians who want to claim they believe the Bible while trying to maintain academic and social respectability.

But even if you are completely settled in your mind that you believe the account of Jonah without reservation; you believe it really happened the way the Bible records, and you hold fast to this book as a literal, historical account of YHWH’s dealings with Jonah and the city of Nineveh—you may still be uncomfortable with this book because you can see yourself so clearly in it.

Like Jonah, you belong to God by faith—you believe by faith in the same promises that Jonah believed, though you see them fulfilled in Christ while he only saw the shadows of those promises in Moses’ Law. Like Jonah, you have been saved by grace through faith alone, and you are truly a son or daughter of the Covenant sealed by the blood of Christ. You are, in short, a believer—and yet you have gone through seasons in your life where you have walked away (or run away) from God just as intently as Jonah did.

You recognize yourself in Jonah’s turning his back on God’s call; you have looked into the eyes of people desperately seeking hope and refused to speak just like Jonah did; you have had your plans and the desires of your heart blown apart by the storms of God’s severe mercies, and in the depths of the consequences of your attempt to get away from Him you have cried out for mercy—and found it.

Every one of us—whether our Great Escape from God’s will lasted a few hours or years at a time—every one of us knows what it is like to come back in repentance to God and think to ourselves, “Have I blown it?” “Yes, God forgives me; yes, the blood of Christ is sufficient to wash away my sin and rebellion; yes, He is faithful and just to forgive me my sin and cleanse me from all unrighteousness—but what does He think of me now? Will things ever be the same between us?

I want to suggest to you that the text before us this morning is a great comfort to you who have ever wondered if God can ever look at you the same way again after you have cut and run. Are you troubled by guilt and shame over your failure to obey God? Then take heart, beloved—because

A heart CRUSHED by guilt is PRECIOUS to God

The very first verse of Chapter 3 shows us God’s heart toward Jonah after his repentance, doesn’t it?

Jonah 3:1 LSB

Now the word of Yahweh came to Jonah the second time...

He did not hold Jonah’s rebellion against him—when He forgave Jonah of his sin, He “cast them into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19)—Jonah came back up out of that watery grave, but by God’s grace his sins did not!

Look at the opening verses of this chapter and consider

I. Jonah’s sincere REFORMATION (Jonah 3:1-4)

Jonah is a different man now than he was before his rebellion, isn’t he? God says to him in Verse 2

Jonah 3:2 LSB

“Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and call out to it this very call which I am going to speak to you.”

And

Jonah walked OBEDIENTLY

Jonah 3:3 LSB

So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of Yahweh...

No complaining, no bolting for the high grass, no questions asked. YHWH says “arise and go to Nineveh”, and Jonah arose and went to Nineveh!

But this obedience is more profound than we tend to think when we consider this account. We tend to have the picture in our minds that Jonah 3:1 follows immediately after Jonah 2:10—that as Jonah was laying on the beach covered in sand and whale vomit God said “Now, go to Nineveh”, and so Jonah shows up in Nineveh with seaweed still hanging off his head and smelling like fish.

But take a moment to consider this account and you’ll realize that it wasn’t that simple. The fish that swallowed Jonah probably deposited him on the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea, probably pretty handy to Joppa, the port he had embarked to Tarshish from. Now, the city of Joppa is found in modern-day Tel Aviv in northern Israel. The city of Nineveh is found in Mosul, Iraq—about the same distance as Sykesville to Jacksonville, Florida!

In other words, Jonah’s obedience was not just a matter of wiping his face, shaking out his clothes and walking into the city gates of Nineveh, was it? This would have been about a two-week journey on foot, which would have gone straight through Jonah’s hometown of Gath-hepher, in Galilee, by the way. Jonah would have had time to stop by the house, rest up, get a change of clothes and a shower and head to Nineveh from there. But the text doesn’t say he did that—when YHWH said “Go to Nineveh”, Jonah went to Nineveh. It was a long journey, it was a costly journey, it was a perilous journey, but Jonah walked that journey in simple, immediate obedience.

In the rest of verse 3 and into verse 4 we see another aspect of Jonah’s sincere reformation:

Jonah 3:3–4 LSB

So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of Yahweh. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three days’ walk. Then Jonah began to go into the city, one day’s walk; and he called out and said, “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.”

Jonah walked obediently, and

Jonah preached COURAGEOUSLY

We are told in Jonah 1:2 that the “evil” of Nineveh had come up before YHWH. The Hebrew word used there for “evil” has at its root the idea of a destructive hurtfulness—this was a city full of violence. In fact, later in our text we will see the ruler of the city say the same thing about the evil and “violence” in the hands of its citizens.

Nor was this just any town or settlement—some archaeologists estimate that, in the decades surrounding this account, Nineveh was considered the largest city in the world. Verse 3 says that it was as much as 36 miles across “a three days’ walk”—considering the city proper and the surrounding serfdoms and settlements that depended on Nineveh for their protection and economic stability.

And keep in mind as well that Jonah was not going to a city that was “open” to hearing a message from God; they were not simple, goodhearted people going about their daily lives unaware of God’s presence—they were a violent people, a people who had been threatening the nation of Israel for decades. Picture walking into the capital city of Afghanistan, and declaring to the Taliban, “Yet 40 days and Kandahar will be overthrown!”

And Jonah didn’t stand safely outside the city and shout his message to the Ninevites, did he? The text says Jonah walked “one day’s journey” into the city—about 12-15 miles—way too far in to be able to get out of the city safely if he was attacked for his preaching!

Contrast the courageous, straightforward preaching of Jonah here in these verses with the tight-lipped, uncooperative man we saw in Chapter 1, when he wouldn’t even answer that desperate ship captain who pled with him to appeal to his God. Here you have Jonah the man of God walking into the heart of a violently evil enemy stronghold, full of people who have sworn to destroy your nation, and standing in the street declaring “You have forty days. Then this city will be overthrown.”

Jonah is a different man now than he was at the beginning of this book. His repentance in the belly of that fish has transformed him. He came face to face with his own depravity; he realized how close he had come to death and how great the grace of God was that rescued him; and it has transformed him.

A heart that has been crushed by its guilt is precious to God—Jonah’s transformed life is an example of what God will do for those who have repented of their rebellion. In the belly of that fish, Jonah was sure that his life was over; he had already begun sinking down to the roots of the earth, But Yahweh brought his life up from the pit” (Jonah 2:6). When he came to the absolute end of himself and was despairing over his sin, Jonah cried out in repentance and was answered by God with far more grace than he expected—not only did God rescue him from the belly of the fish, but God graciously gave him another opportunity to serve Him! God delights to bring that heart crushed by guilt back to life in Him, back to worshipping Him, and back to serving Him.

And what Jonah was about to see in the outcome of his preaching in Nineveh would go far beyond anything he could have expected—see in verses 5-9 that hearts crushed by guilt are precious to God as we consider

II. Nineveh’s deep REPENTANCE (Jonah 3:5-9)

Jonah preached in the streets that the city of Nineveh was living on borrowed time—they had forty days, and then the catastrophe would come. Now, some commentators will look at Jonah’s behavior in the first chapter (and look forward to his words to God in Chapter 4!) and say that he was still being rebellious here—he was “dragging his feet” as it were. Preaching the absolute bare minimum that he could to claim that he had “obeyed” God’s command to preach to the city.

But again, look at the immediate context of this chapter—Jonah completely and immediately obeyed YHWH’s command in the first part of Verse 2 by “arising and going”—what warrant do we have then to say he disobeyed God’s command in the rest of the verse:

Jonah 3:2 LSB

“... call out to it this very call which I am going to speak to you.”

I take it then, that if Jonah’s obedience was immediate, complete and courageous, it follows then that what he preached in Verse 4 is exactly the call YHWH spoke to him!

And I believe that the response of the people of Nineveh to Jonah’s preaching is a clear indication that he had spoken clearly and faithfully the message that God had for them—see there in verse 5 their

Complete TRUST in God (v. 5)

Jonah 3:5 LSB

And the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them.

Clearly the Ninevites heard something in Jonah’s call that isn’t immediately clear to us. And I think it becomes clearer when we consider the wording Jonah uses—he says that Nineveh will be overthrown. The Hebrew word translated “overthrown” is used elsewhere in the Scriptures to mean some sort of catastrophic change—it’s used in Genesis 19:21, for instance, where YHWH tells Lot that He will not “overthrow” (destroy) the city of Zoar the way He did Sodom and Gomorrah. But that same word is also used to represent a good catastrophic change in 1 Samuel 10:6 when Samuel tells Saul that YHWH will come upon him and he will be “changed into another man”—transformed so completely as to become a whole new person.

So when Jonah tells Nineveh that they will be overthrown in forty days, he is saying that God is going to so deal with them that they will be utterly unrecognizable—either they will be destroyed so thoroughly or transformed so thoroughly that it will be as though the old Nineveh and passed away...

So when the people of Nineveh heard Jonah’s message from YHWH, they believed in God. It’s important to note that the most accurate reading of the Hebrew here is in the NASB/LSB Bible; they didn’t just believe God, they believed in Him.

And that’s not a trivial distinction. To believe God means that they acknowledged that He was telling the truth about Nineveh being overthrown. But to believe in God implies trust in Him—trusting not just what He says but trusting Who He is. They not only believed His declaration of their overthrow, they believed that He could still spare them. They did not respond to God’s message (or His messenger) with defiance or rebellion or threats; they believed that they were guilty, and they believed that God could spare them. They believed that the “overthrow” that had been declared could be for their good, and not for their destruction; that God could rescue them as well as destroy them. Their response to Jonah’s preaching demonstrated a deep trust in God.

And see in this verse and in verse 6 how this complete trust in God led to

Profound HUMILITY before God (vv. 6-9)

Jonah 3:5–6 LSB

...they called a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them. Then the word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, laid aside his mantle from him, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat on the ashes.

True repentance is always accompanied by profound humility before God—the people were crushed by the realization of their guilt, and so they called a fast—they refused to eat any food out of their great anguish over their guilt. They put on sackcloth—coarse cloth woven of goat hair that was supremely uncomfortable to wear, and which was usually worn as a loincloth to express humility and mourning.

There was no self-justification—no, “Well Jonah, who do you think you are to accuse us? You don’t know us; you have no right to say that God is going to overthrow us!” When God spoke His judgment on Nineveh’s evil, they knew He was right. They knew they deserved everything they were going to get.

Even the ruler of the city himself acknowledged the guilt of the city—not only acknowledged it, but joined himself to it. What a remarkable picture of repentance—the king of the city takes off his royal robes—his symbol of his nobility and superiority—and puts on sackcloth. He removes himself from his throne—his seat of authority—and sits in the ashes, a symbol of death.

And he does not just follow his people into mourning over their sin; he doubles down on what they started:

Jonah 3:7–8 LSB

And he cried out and said, “In Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let man, animal, herd, or flock taste a thing. Do not let them eat, and do not let them drink water. “But both man and animal must be covered with sackcloth; and let men call on God with their strength that each may turn from his evil way and from the violence which is in his hands.

Not only the king, but all his nobles called for a fast. And not only a fast from food, but from water as well. And not only must every man, woman and child wear sackcloth, but even the animals must fast and wear sackcloth as well. Here is another demonstration of how profoundly the Ninevites were crushed by their guilt—there was no area of their lives, no part of their day, no single aspect of their existence that was not utterly undone by their humiliation over their sin.

If you have livestock, you know what happens when your stock is out of water, or when they are hungry, right? They get noisy; they start getting restless, breaking out of their enclosures to find water and feed. The livestock of Nineveh were bawling and bleating, breaking through fences looking for water, crying out in their way to their masters to rescue them from starvation and dehydration even as their masters were crying out to God to give them relief from their guilt.

Here is genuine repentance—the citizens of Nineveh, the whole way up to and including the king and his court—were overthrowing their own lives in repentance and humility before God. They didn’t argue with Jonah; they didn’t complain that God was being unfair or cruel; they didn’t try to justify their behavior or their wickedness—they called out to God with all their might (v. 8) that they might turn from their destructive hurtfulness and violence that was “in their hands”. God had caught them “red-handed” in their sin, and they were desperate to repent and escape the destruction God had threatened.

In verse 9, after he had decreed that the city join him in this desperate attempt to submit to God in repentance, the king makes a final, heartbreaking statement:

Jonah 3:9 LSB

“Who knows, God may turn and relent and turn away from His burning anger so that we will not perish.”

Think of that— “Who knows? Who knows if God will hear us? Is it too late for us? Have we sinned so greatly, has the violence and wickedness of our city gone so far that God will refuse to pardon us? His anger is burning against us, and we cannot stand before it; our sin and shame and violence has risen up before Him to the point where He has every right to utterly destroy us—who knows if all of our humiliation before Him is enough?”

The hearts of the men of Nineveh were crushed by their guilt—and a heart crushed by guilt is precious to God. Look here at the last verse of this chapter—Nineveh’s deep repentance is met by

III. God’s gracious RESPONSE (Jonah 3:10)

Jonah 3:10 LSB

Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way, so God relented concerning the evil which He had spoken He would bring upon them. And He did not bring it upon them.

The citizens of Nineveh did not just say they were sorry for their sin against God; they had completely upended their entire city—their king was in the ashes with them, they were hungering and thirsting for forgiveness so deeply that they were reduced to the same pitiful state as their starving animals. Jonah’s warning that God was about to overthrow the city because of their evil had utterly undone them. And when God saw them, Verse 10 says,

He REGARDED their works

Just as their wickedness had risen up before Him, now their cries of repentance and shame over their guilt rose up before Him. Their evil was real—and now their repentance is real. They were willing to lose everything for just the chance that they could be rescued from God’s wrath against them They knew their only hope was for God to show them His grace, and He saw that.

Do you see here, beloved, that God sees and regards everything that you have done? There is no wicked deed done in a dark corner that He has not taken note of; there is no secret shameful motion of your perverted lusts that He has not watched as it danced across your mind’s eye; there is not a foul word of hatred or bitterness or profanity or blasphemy that has crossed your lips that did not ring in His ears. He sees it all and He remembers.

But just the same, He sees your brokenness over your sin. He has seen every battle you’ve fought and lost; He has heard every despairing cry for rescue you have made to Him; every burning tear of shame that has fallen from your eyes has been collected in His bottle. And your heart that has been crushed by your guilt and shame is precious to Him:

Psalm 51:17 LSB

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.

God saw their evil, and so He sent Jonah to preach to them so that they might repent. And when He saw that Nineveh was crushed over the realization of their guilt before Him

He RELENTED from His anger (cp. Jer. 18:7-8)

When Nineveh repented of their wickedness, God relented from His threat to overthrow them with destruction. Now, this is not an inconsistency with God—don’t make the mistake of thinking that God is being double-minded or unpredictable. As if He says one thing and does another. In fact, Jonah 3:10 is an example of God always doing what He says He will do. As He says to the prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah 18:7-8

Jeremiah 18:7–8 LSB

“At one moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to uproot, to tear down, or to make it perish; but if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the calamity I planned to do against it.

So God’s actions toward Nineveh aren’t inconsistent; His actions here are completely consistent! God does not lie, He does not change—if He threatens a city for its sin and they repent, He will no longer destroy them!

God did not bring the destructive overthrow of Nineveh—but He did overthrow Nineveh nonetheless. He overthrew its wickedness; He overthrew its violence; He overthrew its destructive hurtfulness and its shameful iniquities. Jonah’s prophecy came true—Nineveh was an unrecognizable city by the time God was done with her!

Beloved, can you see the great delight God takes in a broken and contrite heart? Do you wonder whether your sin and shame and guilt has put you outside of God’s reach? Are you, like Jonah, looking back over a past of rebellion against God, refusing to obey what you knew was right, insisting on going your own way instead of submitting to Him? See here in Jonah’s life that God delights in a repentant heart—not only did He forgive Jonah, but He gave him a second chance at obeying Him and serving Him—He not only brought Jonah back to Himself, but his ministry and service to YHWH after his repentance was greater than before! If you have cut and run from Him; if you have disregarded your baptism or despised your confession of Christ, know from God’s Word before you here that when you turn back to Him in true repentance and faith, He will delight to welcome you back to Himself!

And perhaps you are here this morning and see yourself in the Ninevites’ distress. You know what you have done; you know how deep your wickedness runs. You know what you have done and what you have become; as God’s Word has been opened to you this morning you have come face to face once again with every sin, every shame, every perverse and violent motion of your heart; every lie, every curse, every blasphemy you’ve uttered rings in your ears, every foul thought and every destructive and self-destructive act forces itself into your memory. And the worst part of all of it is that you know that God has seen it all as well.

There is no escaping your guilt; your evil has risen before Him. And if He were to proclaim your overthrow—not in forty days, but right this moment—you know you have no defense. There is nowhere you can turn to escape, there is nothing you can do to make this right. You know that because you have tried to make it right; you have tried to stop the destructive hurtfulness, you have tried to turn your life around, but with all of the ways you’ve tried to say to God “I’m sorry”, you still wonder in the back of your mind, “Who knows? Who knows if God will even listen?”

If that is you this morning, then here is the Good News you have from God’s Word. There is a King Who heard the mourns and cries of His people who were suffering in their guilt and shame—just as you are suffering. They were weeping and gnashing their teeth in the streets because they knew that they were doomed to destruction by God for their wickedness. And this King did what the King of Nineveh did—He got up from His throne, took of the royal robes of His glory and identified Himself with His people’s sin. He put on their sins like sackcloth, even though He had no sin at all to bear. He descended from His glorious throne and sat Himself in the ash-heap of this fallen, dying world and became “a man of sorrows, acquainted with suffering”. And even though it was impossible for Him to die, He found a way to do it, suffering an emptiness greater than any fast could cause, taking on excruciating agony more horrible than any sackcloth could inflict.

Friend, as hard as you could ever cry out to God for mercy in your agony over your sin, you could never cry out as loudly or as desperately as that King did on that Cross when He cried out “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” Forty years later, the author of Hebrews would write about that moment:

Hebrews 5:7 LSB

He, in the days of His flesh, offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverence.

And here is the glorious Good News for you this morning—that because He suffered and died on that Cross under the wrath of God for your sin,

Hebrews 5:9 LSB

...He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation,

So this is the invitation from the Word of God this morning: No matter how far you have run, no matter how deep your rottenness goes, no matter how hopeless or lost you believe your life to be, God delights to save a repentant heart crushed by its guilt. When you come to Him in repentance, He will accept you. Bring all of that sin and guilt and shame and hatred and violence and failure and fear and unbelief to Him—there’s nothing He doesn’t already know about, anyway!—lay it all down at the foot of that Cross, cry out to Him for mercy. And He will delight to give it! He has brought you here this morning to hear this invitation; you do not know whether there will be another. So don’t turn away, don’t hide any longer. Come—and welcome!—to Jesus Christ!

BENEDICTION:

Ephesians 3:20–21 LSB

Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or understand, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION:

Read Jonah 1:1-3 and Jonah 3:1-3. What are some of the signs that Jonah had experienced real repentance after his rescue in Chapter 2?

According to the sermon, what are the two ways the word “overthrown” (v. 4) can be understood? How does this help us understand the response of the people who heard Jonah’s preaching?

What are some of the indications that the Ninevites’ repentance was genuine? How do these verses help you understand what real repentance before God should look like in your life?

How could you use this passage to answer an unbeliever who says that they have sinned too greatly for God to forgive? How could you use this passage as an encouragement for a Christian who believes they have ruined their relationship to God by their sin?

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

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