“Returning to God” Part 5
The World’s Greatest Revival
Jonah 3:3-10
We would agree with the great American patriot who wrote. “We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to God that made us It behooves us, then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.” And if they were true when Abraham Lincoln said them when he proclaimed a national day of fasting and prayer in April 1863 how much more true must they be today? Do we need a revival today? Of course we do. We probably have no idea how much!
Yet we are often tempted to believe that it’s the sad moral and spiritual state of our people that is the reason why we are not having revival. But I want you to consider the possibility that it is such conditions that are the cause of revival; not the prevention. In fact, almost every great revival was preceded by times of darkness and depravity.
D.M. Panton wrote, “It is a foolish blunder to suppose that any age can be too evil for revival.” I do believe that revival is possible. Furthermore, I am convinced that our evil age is a case for revival and the reason we need revival. The prophet Isaiah predicted a time when “darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people” (Isa. 60:2). We see that in our nation today and when you study the subject of revival you will find that the days and times preceding any great revival that has occurred in history were days and times of “gross darkness.”
With that said, this morning we are going to take a look at what I’ve entitled the world’s greatest revival. So let’s recap what we learned last week from Jonah and let it lead us into today’s message. One of the great lessons we learned last week from Jonah’s failure and forgiveness is that God can continue to use those who return to Him. Thankfully, we serve the God of a second chance. Just like Jonah, many spiritual leaders received a second chance to do what God called him to do. Adam sinned in the garden and God covered him. Moses murdered a man and God called him. Elijah quit and complained then God recommissioned him. Peter denied the Lord and then God used him at Pentecost. John Mark deserted the mission team at Pamphylia yet God moved upon him to write the second Gospel.
That has been the story of the church through the ages. We have all received a multitude of opportunities to return and serve God and what we have learned is Jonah is no different. So, once God corrected His reluctant prophet Jonah, we are now going to see this morning that God continued the work He intended. This morning, what we will see in Jonah’s third chapter reminds us that authentic revival impacts both the individual and the culture. Read Jonah 3:3-10.
In my opinion, what we see here is the world’s greatest revival, but here’s the question. Could the kind of Revival that took place in Nineveh happen here in USA? In other words, is revival possible today? Church I want to suggest to you this morning that revival is possible if the conditions are met, but with that said we must remember that revival is possible but it’s also costly. It requires much of us, but the results are well worth it.
Let’s allow this revival that took place in Nineveh be an example of how revival can take place in our nation. In verse three Jonah for the second time refers to the city of Nineveh as a “great” city (1:2, 3:2) “So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three-day journey in extent.” Nineveh is a great city because of its size and its significance.
Nineveh was located in modern day Iraq, not very far from present day Bagadad. It was a city surrounded by massive walls 100 feet high and 50 feet thick. It stretched approximately 30 miles along the Tigris River having a breadth of 10 miles. The Biblical description of being “a three-day journey in extent” meant that it would take at least three days to walk through and see the principal sights of the city. Scholars believe that the combined population of the area must have been between 600,000 and a million people at the time Jonah arrived in Nineveh.
The remainder of chapter three is the record of the greatest revival in the history of the world. In verse four we read, “Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" Now as I stated last week these words seems hardly impressive. And yet as we will see today it had tremendous results. This morning I want us to notice the Four Steps To Revival. The First Step on the road to Revival:
I. There Must Be Faithful Preaching and Faithful Hearing of God’s Word. (V. 4)
God told Jonah go and “preach the message that I tell you.” While revival may occur without a preacher or prophet, it never occurs without divine truth and what we see here is that Jonah declared the divine truth of the Word of God. Interestingly, the prophet didn’t sugar-coat the truth out of fear of offending the audience. He neither clamored for their favor, nor trembled from their threats. Jonah preached the truth.
According to verse four, “Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" It was not a lengthy message! It was not a intellectual message! It was not an eloquent message! It was a short, simple message. BUT even though it wasn’t lengthy, intellectual or eloquent it was God’s message!
I’m sad to say that God’s message is not being preached in some of our churches today and our churches are suffering because of this, our churches are becoming spiritually dry because of the lack of God’s Word being preached. Our churches today are becoming spiritually dry because we want to be politically correct rather than scripturally correct and we don’t want to offend nobody, but on the other hand most people don’t want to hear sound doctrine either. In fact, 2 Timothy 4:2-4 says, “Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.”
We are seeing that in our churches today. People want their ears itched and I’m sad to say that there are Pastors that have bought into this myth and they are no longer preaching the truth because they don’t want to offend anyone. Instead, they preach a watered down gospel that makes people feel all tingly, warm and fuzzy inside. I’m here to tell you today that you’re not my dog so I not going to scratch your ears I’m going to preach the truth. I once heard a pastor say that the Word of God was never meant to convict and I’m setting there thinking what are you smoking dude because what about 2 Timothy 3:16-17. Last time I checked the Bible says that, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). However, in order for that to happen the truth of God has to be preached in our churches and we have to be faithful in hearing God’s Word. So, the First Step on the road to Revival is Faithful Preaching and Faithful Hearing of God’s Word.
II. The Second Step on the Road to Revival is a Belief In God (v. 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.” Notice that Jonah doesn’t say the people believed his preaching; he says they believed God. The word “believed” here is the same word used in Genesis 15:6 “[Abraham] believed in the Lord and He accounted it to him for righteousness”. This isn’t just believing in what was said; it is trusting the God who has spoken. They believed that God was going to do what He said He would do. The people believed that Jonah’s message was from God, and they took it seriously.
Someone once asked Jay Kesler, former president of Youth for Christ International, if he believed God’s words when it said in the Book of Jonah that God could make a fish big enough to swallow a man. Dr. Kesler’s reply was one of simple trust in a great God. He answered, "Let me tell you, I not only believe that he can make such a fish, but the God who made the sun and the moon and the stars, if he wanted to, could air-condition and carpet the fish!" If we want revival to come not only do we need to be faithful in hearing God’s Word, but we also need to begin to take God seriously and His Word seriously and believe that He’s going to do what He says He is going to do.
If He says He’s going to come again then we need to take it seriously and prepare ourselves. If we says that if we don’t have a relationship with Him that we will spend eternity in Hell then we need to take that seriously and prepare ourselves. If He says that He’s the way, the truth, and the life and no one comes to the Father except through Him, then we need to take that seriously. If He says that we need to repent and turn from our wicked ways or suffer His wrath, then we need to take that seriously. So the second step to revival is having a belief in who God is and what He says.
III. The Third Step on the Road to Revival in Nineveh was Putting Action to their Belief. (V. 6-8)
“The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 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, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn form his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.” Notice the transformation of the prevailing culture. The Assyrians responded to the message with genuine repentance. To say it differently, they believed the Word of God and then behaved in a consistent manner with the truth. Only God could produce such a radical change in an entire city. Remember that when God regenerates the soul, outward manifestations of holiness should follow. In other words, if there is true repentance then a change will have taken place. So, the person that feels comfortable in his former rebellion probably never truly repented in the first place.
One interesting thing I want to point out here about this revival is that this revival seems to have begun from the bottom up rather than being imposed from the top down. The people we are told believed in God. They called a fast and put on sackcloth (3:5). The response was unanimous from the lowest to the upper classes. By the time the word reached the King the city’s repentance was already well under way. But because the King also believed he made every effort to see that there was complete compliance to the city-wide repentance. So, they backed up what they believed and if we want revival to come we have to begin to walk the talk. We have to begin to put action to what we believe, we must begin to back up what we believe and live it out loud, which brings us to the last step for Revival.
IV. The Fourth Step on the Road to Revival In Nineveh was a Turning Away From Sin. (V. 9-10)
There is some confusion as to what constitutes repentance. Some think that being sorry for their sin is repentance but it is not. That is remorse. Remorse can lead to repentance but is it not repentance. In the Bible the rich young ruler went away sorrowful but he did not repent. Others think that repentance is the same as regret, wishing that our sin had never happened. Many more people regret their sin that ever really repent of it. Pontius Pilate regretted his decision concerning Jesus. But did he ever repent? Some think repentance is the same as resolve; they decide that they are going to do better in the future and although that may lead to reform it is not repentance. Repentance is a change of mind which results in a change of heart which results in a change of action. This is what we plainly see going on in the life of the Ninevites.
Because of their repentance we see that in verse nine the king offers the possibility of hope and God’s compassion. “Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.” He does not know for certain. He says, “Who can tell if perhaps God will turn and relent” It is an expression of humility, but it’s also an expression of hope and when we repent church we can have the same hope that Christ will shower upon us His grace and mercy. Then verse ten gives us the conclusion of the matter, “When God saw what they did, how they turned form their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.” The pagan people of Nineveh believed Jonah’s message and repented. What a miraculous effect God’s words had on those evil people. What we learn hear is that it is not our hearing God’s word that pleases him, but rather us responding obediently to His Word that pleases Him. So, if we want revival to take place in our nation then we as a nation need to return and repent.
The repentance of Nineveh seems unbelievable. When in the history of the world has such a spontaneous, thorough and complete reversal of a violent and arrogant people ever been recorded? In fact Jonah himself finds their repentance not only unbelievable but extremely frustrating. The point however is not the greatness of Nineveh’s faith or of their repentance but of the extravagance of God’s love that he would go to such lengths to save them. Just as God went to great lengths to save Nineveh He went to great lengths so save us. (John 3:16 share plan of salvation)
In closing, God responded in mercy by canceling his threatened punishment. God had said in Jeremiah 18:7-8 that any nation on which he had pronounced judgment would be saved if they repented. God forgave Nineveh, just as he had forgiven Jonah. The purpose of God’s judgment is correction, not revenge. He is always ready to show compassion to any one person or nation that is willing to seek him. So is revival possible in the USA? Yes. But in order for it to happen we must do as the City of Nineveh did. We must listen to the Word of God. Believe and trust in God and take is word seriously. Put action to our beliefs and turn away from the sin that is in our lives, we need to return and repent.
But, do we want revival to sweep across our nation? If we do then I believe that this morning we will come to these altars and repent as Christians, as churches and as a nation and when we do that I promise you that all those sins and all those tears of shame will be washed away forever in Jesus name. This morning we need to come to these altars and lift our hands in repentance and let our hands be held again by someone greater THE GREAT I AM! THE ALMIGHTY GOD THE FATHER, THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA AND THE BEGINNING AND THE END. And if we do that I believe our God will forgive us, our churches and our nations and He will send revival into our lives, our churches and our nation. In fact He promised it “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14).
“Returning to God” Part 5
The World’s Greatest Revival
Jonah 3:3-10
Four Steps on the road To Revival:
Step 1. ______ Preaching and ______ Hearing of God’s Word. (V. 4)
Step 2. Is having a __________ In God. (v. 5)
Step 3. Putting ___________ to your Belief. (V. 6-8)
Step 4. ___________ Away From Sin. (V. 9-10)
