The Sermon that Changed a Nation

Intro

Man it feels like it has been forever since I have been able to stand up here more than one week at a time and preach the word with you all! I am glad to be back.

Thank you Jackie for filling in last week!

Let’s look back at our rebel prophet and our merciful God.

Before we head into chapter three I want to take some time and recap what we have learned thus far.

Recap

Chapter One

When we opened up the first chapter of Jonah, we met the rebel prophet, one with a history of prophecy for God, but one who was now being asked to do something harder than ever before.

Because of this, we see this selfish and fearful prophet decide to run!

He ran as far as he could until the Lord intervened. When he did, a boat full of sailors met the LORD, and Jonah met His divine will and wrath as God set him back on the right path.

Jonah was cast into the sea and swallowed up by a fish prepared for this task.

Chapter Two

Jonah nearly dies.

He is taken to the bottom of the sea, to the base of the mountains, as seaweed wraps around his neck, the rebel prophet cries out to the merciful God.

The merciful God hears

Three days Jonah lies in the belly of a fish, learning a lesson.

God appoints that fish to spit Jonah out on dry land, we don’t know how far he traveled in the belly of the fish, but Nineveh was not near the sea! So, at the very least, Jonah is back at step one in his journey to Nineveh.

God Was Not Finished

Before we jump into Jonah 3 today, I want to remind you of something in regards to Jonah’s hesitation. The Ninevites were enemies of God’s people. They were the capital city of the Assyrian Empire, the empire that would eventually conquer the Northern Kingdom of Israel. The kingdom that would eventually fall in Nahum’s time. This is modern day Iraq. All this to say, Jonah’s hesitations were natural, we may have them, but that does not make them any less sinful.

Jonah 3:1–2 “And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.”

We see a couple of wonderful truths when we look at this passage. We see that God was not finished. He still had a will that needed accomplishing. And, this will was two part.

God was Not Finished with Jonah

The first part is that God was not finished with Jonah.

This section of Scripture begins with “And the Word of the LORD came unto Jonah a second time.”

Now, we know that Jonah had heard prophecy from the Lord before the book of Jonah was written, in the 2 Kings era. This clearly is not referencing that. Rather, this is referring to God speaking to Jonah twice in THIS story, in THIS situation.

God could have, and in our eyes probably should have, forgotten about Jonah and sought someone more willing to accomplish this task, but this prophecy was not all about Nineveh!

God had a plan for Jonah through this as much as He did for Nineveh.

In our lives, often we see people disobey God over and over and wonder “God, why wont you just cut them off, wouldn’t that be easier?”

In this mindset, we forget the cross. God does not do what is easy, He does what is necessary to win people to Himself. He wants us in Heaven with Him. So, He does what is necessary to get our attention, something that we have talked about before. And, he does not give up on us.

It is easy to judge those around us by their actions until we look into the mirror of self-reflection and see that very same behavior. That is why Jesus says in Matthew 7:5 “Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.”

This is a serious call to not judge someone else before we judge ourselves, in other words in this context, to do what I have challenged us to do this whole time. To see a little bit of ourselves in the rebel prophet and a little of the rebel prophet in ourselves. When we do this, will we be slow to judge and quick to offer assistance to our brothers or sisters who are in spiritual distress.

God is not finished with Jonah, but the rest of this shows that He is not finished with Nineveh either!

God is Not Finished with Nineveh

Jonah 3:3 “So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days’ journey.”

Jonah listened this time, he arose and went unto Nineveh, the HUGE city. The capital of the enemy empire to preach doom and damnation.

This would be like us going into the depths of the triangle of death in Baghdad in the height of the War on Freedom and preaching doom and repentance. (Let me remind you that Nineveh is around modern day Iraq so this is not a far fetched analogy!)

Scary stuff!

God loved the Ninevites though, He loves the people of Iraq.

God wanted them to repent. Now, history shows that this repentance only lasts one generation as about 150 years after Jonah the Northern Kingdom of Israel is conquered by Assyria and dispersed (a prophecy fulfilled)

But, God wanted this repentance for this time. He wants repentance for all mankind for all generations!

Hebrews 10:10 “By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”

God has always desired the souls of all people to be saved, it is our choice whether or not repentance takes place. It was Nineveh’s choice, and one they made.

The Eight Word Sermon

Jonah 3:4–5 “And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.”

The shorted sermon ever preached reached a nation for repentance.

Don’t you wish I would just preach eight words?

Jonah went to Nineveh, about a days Journey in, so nearly to the middle of the city, spoke 8 words, and left!

This is amazing. These eight words were enough for this city to repent nationally and entirely and turn to God.

I believe God was working on their hearts prior to the arrival of Jonah which is what spurred such a quick decision to follow God.

Nevertheless, even if God wasn’t preparing their hearts, His word is powerful enough that with just eight simple words from the Lord, the hearts of nations change.

What may blow our minds too is that Jonah did not preach a happy-go-lucky message, no. Rather he preached apocalyptically, he preached doom!

Preaching doom has had a bad wrap in our culture, and I would argue that sometimes preaching doom can be done in a way to try to scare people to salvation with no real guidance of the HS.

But, there is proof in Jonah that preaching the raw truth of God, no matter what it is, works.

Now, studies show that this type of preaching is not as effective today as it was 50 and 100 years ago. Preaching a message of belonging to Jesus tends to work better in reaching lost souls.

But, what we see here is that Jonah was simply preaching the words of God, simple and raw; effective.

This is what we are called to do, to share the message found in the Word of God simply, just how He wrote it. Just how He intended it to be. And, the word is effective.

Isaiah 55:11 “So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: It shall not return unto me void, But it shall accomplish that which I please, And it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.”

Jonah knew this truth, this is why he ran to begin with. The first sermon in this series was titled, “The Selfish (or fearful) Prophet.” I believe he was both.

He was scared of the Ninevites but also bitter against them which caused selfishness. He did not want them to be saved!

He knew that the Word of God, when proclaimed, would affect people toward repentance. And that very thing happened.

We see a nation truly repent.

True Repentance

Many scholars disagree that the sailors truly repented, you know I think they did.

Few though would disagree that the nation of Nineveh repented, it is evident in the text.

Jonah 3:6–10 “For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water: But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.”

A message of doom led to the repentance of an evil nation, at least for a while.

How convicting! Do we let the reality of this life and the next lead us to repent?

This repentance was radical too, the King declared that everyone mourn their sin and change their ways, and they did!

You could argue a couple of things here if you are not careful with the text.

One, you could say that they just repented because the king told them to, and you could argue that they were saved based on some sort of works based salvation.

But, neither are true. God knows the hearts of mankind, Luke 16:15 “And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.”

And, with the heart, salvation happens. Romans 10:10 “For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

There is no way our all-knowing God would have saved an entire people if they did not truly repent. They did.

And, this was not some sort of works based salvation. Yes, God saw their works and saved them. But, what were those works? That they turned away from their evil way.

This is repentance! Turning away from sin and turning to God.

This nation was truly saved from their sin because God used Jonah to preach a message of doom to an evil people who, in faith, decided to turn from their sin, accept the grace of God, and turn to Him.

This is true repentance.

God was not finished with them, He was not finished with Jonah, and praise be to His name, He is not finished with you!

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Conclusion

This morning, if God can care about the evil Ninevites, why wouldn’t He care about you? he does. He sees you, He loves you, and He wants you to have a life here on earth spent with Him along with an eternity in bliss with those you love and God Himself.

And, here is the doom of it all, as real as heaven is, so is Hell. Eternally. In fire.

God is a just God and will judge sin.

And, when all is said and done, when the Lord comes back to complete His work, you will see and believe, but then it will be too late. Why not believe now?

Don’t let another day pass without the saving knowledge of Jesus which says that you are a sinner, but He is gracious. He sees your sin, but still paid the price for it by dying on a cross, being buried in a tomb, and rising again three days later.

That all who believe and call on His name, in other words, all who turn from their sin and turn to a God, will be saved.

This morning, I invite you to come pray. To seek God’s forgiveness. To ask Him to forgive you, to accept it, and to turn from those sins you are living in today. To turn to God.

Maybe this morning, you see yourself in Jonah, you need to stop, listen, and obey the Lord. This is something that you need to handle with God. That you stop making excuses, stop running, and submit to the will of the Father. He will work out the details, He will provide for the journey.

Would you come pray?