Jonah - Part 3

Preached at: Mosaic Christian Church, Feb 2017 Jonah Part 3 of 4 Introduction Video: When You Need A REDO Have you ever wished you could have a “redo?” I bet a lot of these people wish they could get a redo! Today, we’re going to look at Jonah’s redo. All the stuff jonah went through. Barfed up… How much time in between? Gets his second chance. Jonah Goes to Nineveh Jonah 3:1–3 (ESV) — 1 Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.” 3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days’ journey in breadth. Jonah seems to have learned his lesson -- at least that he can’t just blow off God’s direct orders. We have no reason to assume that Jonah had changed his basic prejudices about the Ninevites when his second call came. His harrowing scrape with death in the deep forced the prophet to trust God for his survival. The “death-water” conversion shocked Jonah into promising that he would obey God. And so, God begins again with Jonah. The journey to Nineveh from Joppa (where we assume the fish left Jonah) was about 550 miles. Nineveh was a major city of the Assyrian empire. This city was located on the Tigris River, where today is located Mosul, Iraq. Caravans usually traveled twenty to twenty-five miles a day to make the trip in about a month. Nineveh is called a “great city” and “an exceedingly great city.” The phrase is interesting because it’s not only referring to it’s size, but the fact that God thinks this city is important. It was a fortified city with two walls. The outer wall protected the farms and fields from enemies. The inner wall, 50 feet wide and 100 feet high, protected the city. The circumference of the inner wall was nearly eight miles. We’re told that the city is “three days journey in breadth.” This could mean a lot of different things. The size of Nineveh is expressed in terms of the time that it would take Jonah to carry out his assignment. He is not circling the circumference of the walls but going to all the public places in the city to make his proclamation. His itinerary would have included many of the dozen gate areas as well as several of the temple areas. There would have been certain times during the day when significant announcements could be made. Some suggest that a day’s journey was about twenty-two miles, and therefore the reference is to the metropolitan district of Nineveh comprising Nineveh itself and the suburban cluster of villages of the city-state. Other scholars think that “three-day journey” could mean the custom of a three-day visit to a city: one day for arrival, followed by a day of visiting and business, and a day of departure. I much prefer the first theory because excavations of the walls of Nineveh itself have estimated a circumference of the city of at most seven and a half miles. In circumference the larger metropolitan area of Nineveh was more like sixty miles, or what might be called a three-day journey. This fits with verse 4a, “And Jonah began to enter the city on the first day’s walk.” This means that he began to preach when he arrived at the great metropolis, on the very first day. He did not delay announcing his divinely appointed message. What was Jonah’s Message? Jonah 3:4 (ESV) — 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” This message is condensed into only five Hebrew words. Surely Jonah’s message was longer than this, but the emphasis here by the book’s author is that the prophet got right to the point. If you read any commentaries, bible studies, or hear other sermons about Jonah, you might here some people talk about this Hebrew term used here for “overthrown” -- haphak -- has a wide range of meaning depending on context. The basic meaning is “turn,” but the word is used for both destruction (Gen 19:21 - Sodom & Gomorrah) and transformation (Ps 66:6 - turned sea into dry ground). They’ll say that Jonah’s oracle is ambiguous, proclaiming 40 days until Nineveh is turned or changed. The nature of the change depends on the people of Nineveh. If the people do not change, they will experience God’s judgment. If the people change, they will experience God’s mercy. It’s great because no matter what happened, Jonah (and therefore God) will be right. But I disagree. This was clearly something bad God was going to do to the entire city - in Jonah 3:10, it says it’s a “disaster,” and there is no positive translation of that word. God, and Jonah, and now the people of Nineveh, knew exactly what was coming. This type of message was common for a prophet. We should not confuse a prophetic role with a missionary role. The prophet in the ancient world had the task of conveying whatever message God gave him for a particular audience. The missionary has the task of conveying God’s message of salvation given to everyone. The prophet’s message was rarely as pleasant as the missionary’s. In Jonah’s message, there is no hint of a call to repentance or a call to put away their false gods. There is no instruction concerning what God wants of them nor indictment of their evil deeds. There are no conditional offers made. Again, we probably don’t know what else Jonah said or did while he was in Nineveh, but the prophets in the ancient world did not come to deliver a comprehensive theology or to convert people to a particular religious worldview. They came to deliver a message from God. And, after a bit of a detour, that’s exactly what Jonah did. Nineveh Responds Jonah 3:5–9 (ESV) — 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. 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. 7 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, 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. 9 Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.” The response is as simple as the message -- they believed God! And we could see their belief - their trust or faith in God was evidenced by a change in behavior. They fasted, the mourned, they decided to turn from their evil ways. It’s an amazing contrast to what we see elsewhere in the prophetic books and stories from the Old Testament. Israel was sent prophet after prophet for hundreds of years. The typical prophet accepted God’s call. The people of Israel, what was their typical response? Kill the prophet! And then something horrible would happen. This is like the exact opposite of what normally happens! Nineveh was part of the Assyrian empire at this time, do you know what the Assyrians were famous for? Their violence. These evil, despicable, violent, polytheistic pagans, for some reason, put their faith in Yahweh and were saved. Now, there’s a lot of questions we could ask that we just don’t know the answers to. • What caused them to believe? ◦ Was there more to the message that convinced them? ◦ Was it Yahweh’s reputation for power? • Did they actually repent, or were they just scared? ◦ Can you be one of God’s people just because you fear his wrath? • Did they stop worshipping other gods? • Did they do anything else that was different to follow Yahweh? • Was God satisfied that they stopped being so bad and then later they just all died and went to hell anyway? It’s clear that they took Jonah seriously and they changed. And because of that response to Jonah’s message… God Reacts Jonah 3:10 (ESV) — 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. The message is simple, their response is simple, and God’s response seems pretty simple - he didn’t do it. What should we learn from Nineveh? • God gives second chances ◦ to Jonah and to the entire city ◦ It’s never too late to make the next right choice ◦ Jonah 3:1 (NIV) — 1 Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time… • God loves all people ◦ people far off, people who are different races and cultures, people who are lost in darkness, people who seem without hope ◦ 1 Timothy 2:4–6 (ESV) — … [God] desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all… • Never underestimate the power of God’s Word ◦ Isaiah 55:10–11 (NIV) — 10 As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, 11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. ◦ 1 Peter 3:15 (NIV) — 15 … Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have… I don’t often make specific gospel presentations or do invitations when I preach. I have reasons for that and you can ask me about sometime if you like. But with a passage so clearly illustrating the need to turn to God, I think it’s appropriate to end with that today. In the book of Matthew (12:28 ff) Jesus used Nineveh to illustrate an important point. Jesus had preached to that generation for 3 years and had reinforced His message with His miracles, yet they would not repent and believe. The Ninevites heard 1 sermon from 1 preacher, and that sermon emphasized wrath, not love—yet they repented and were forgiven, or at least spared. I don’t want you to walk away this morning without hearing this truth, not for some ancient city, but for you: God loves you. God wants you. God is offering you deliverance from the consequences of your sins. Jesus died on the cross to make that possible. Maybe today is your chance to hear the word of God, turn from your sins, and to accept Jesus as your Lord.