Sackcloth & Ashes

Title: Sackcloth & ashes

a difficult call right now.

Theme: Love and mercy call us to repentance.

Text: Jonah 3; 2 Chronicles 7:14

Goal: God is calling the church to repentance for revival

ME: ORIENTATION: FIND COMMON GROUND WITH THE AUDIENCE

Roaring twenties fur coat

Burlap bag that covered me

Mask and a homage top hat.

One thing I do remember was the feel of burlap rubbing against my skin. My neck.

Very irritating.

WE: IDENTIFICATION (MAKE IT CLEAR THAT YOU STRUGGLE)

Between the virus, the election and other items people are angry and on a short fuse.

Gloom and doom other screaming at the top of their lungs how stupid we are.

The serious frustration.

Isolation.

Masks!

Don’t talk to me about change talk words of comfort and hope.

Church: The one thing that is built into our lives looks and feels strange.

Those feelings you have to some degree he felt.

He was ready to do what he was suppose to do but really needed a heart and attitude adjustment.

GOD: ILLUMINATION (THE GOAL IS TO RESOLVE THE TENSION

I. Recall To Action

3 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 3:1-3 (ESV)

A. Go

“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.”

Go

The prophet receives This second chance to participate in God’s mission of reconciling enemies.

The command “go” is expressed in Hebrew with two verbs (lit., “rising, go”). Together they mean “Go now!” or “Go immediately.

B. Jonah has been reconciled to God’s call.

*The mission to Nineveh can begin again, because God has called again.

* We serve a God of the second chance.

C. Three days to get through the city.

Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days’ journey in breadth. ( Jonah 3:3b ESV)

II. Shortest sermon

Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” Jonah 3:4 (ESV)

A. Eight word sermon (5 in Hebrew)

overturn:

Jonah’s prophecy to Nineveh is succinctly delivered in eight words (only five in Hebrew!): “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned [hapak]” (Jonah 3:4b). Jonah preaches an amazing message. The Hebrew root hapak can mean “turn over,” that is, “destroy” (as with Sodom in Gen. 19), or “turn around,” meaning “bring to repentance.” Sherwood notes that hapak, therefore, refers either to “evil” (catastrophe of destruction) or to “live” (new structure of a repentant life).1

B. Repentance, Burlap, And Ashes

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. ( Jonah 3:5 (ESV)

* He knows that Yahweh’s message implies that the people may repent and God will forgive.

* Such a possibility is exactly why Jonah initially fled to Tarshish (see Jonah 4:2). The Ninevites also seem to understand this when they immediately repent and hear about the hope of forgiveness from the king (3:9)1

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.”

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. Jonah 3:6-10 (ESV)

The people believed and cried out for a general fast (“declared,” 3:5). Finally the king told the people to cry out to Yahweh (“call urgently,” 3:8b).

The king also commands repentance from evil ways and violence (3:8c). Religious signs of repentance (fasting, sackcloth, prayer) are accompanied by a true turning from the cause of their peril. The Hebrew here is more personal and graphic. Literally translated it says, “Let each person repent of his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.” Violence and evil toward others were widely known as Nineveh’s primary point of boasting (see “The Terror Mongers” in the introduction). It is the reason God called on Jonah in the first place (1:2).1

1 Bruckner, J. (2004). Jonah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah (p. 93). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.

Not just the outward signs but also the inward signs.

Theologically, the message (in the context of Nineveh’s short-lived repentance) is that God in all times and in all places desires that all creation be reconciled to him.

Whether that preaching is unsuccessful in the long term or even unsuccessful in the short term (as in Jeremiah) is beside the point.

Through the prophet Jonah, God is asking for our faithfulness in proclaiming the message he gives. This is framed twice by the lack of a message given to Jonah (1:2; 3:2). God simply says, “Go and proclaim.” The message is given when he arrives (see comments on 3:2).1

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Jon 3:6–10). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

Jonah himself finds that their repentance is incredible. It infuriates him to the point of self-destruction. Yet, in spite of the incredulity of readers, Jewish tradition and Jesus each lift up this incredible repentance as an example for others (Yom Kippur and Matt. 12:41; Luke 11:32).1

An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.

40 For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

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.

42 The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here. (Matthew 12:39-42ESV)

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Mt 12:39–42). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

III. Is God calling the people of faith to repent?

14 if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. 2 Chronicles 7:14 (ESV)

The activities of “humbling, praying, seeking, and turning” should be understood as four facets or aspects of the act (or even process) of biblical repentance (7:14).

Each of these words is theologically charged. The word “humble” (knʿ) means to subdue one’s pride and submit in self-denying loyalty to God and his will (cf. Lev. 26:41). “Pray” (pll) in this context is a shameless acknowledgment of personal sin and a plea for God’s mercy, much like that of David’s prayer of repentance (cf. Ps. 51:1–2). “Seek” (bqš) is often used in desperate situations in which God is the only possible hope for deliverance (cf. Deut. 4:29–30). “.

A. Nineveh believes

B. Do we believe?

C. Will we repent?

YOU: APPLICATION (TELL PEOPLE WHAT TO DO AND WHAT THEY HAVE HEARD)

Conclusion:

I have been wondering whether we are being called to repentance

second chance for Burlap