Scripture: Jonah 3:1-10; Mark 1:14-20 and Psalm 62:5-12
Theme: Mercy/Repentance/New Life
Title: For God So Loved Nineveh or Jonah's Mulligan
Jonah's story reveals to us 1. God's Amazing Mercy and 2. The Awesome Power of True Repentance!
INTRO:
Grace and peace from God our Father and from Jesus Christ who came to take away the sin of the world.
Let's take a moment this morning and recap Jonah's story up to this point: It starts off when God tells His servant Jonah to travel to the Assyrian capital city of Nineveh and prophesy that in 40 days the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY will destroy the city. God's message is extremely simple, clear to the point and direct. What should have been a rather simple but lengthy trip takes a rather interesting and sudden turn.
Rather than obey the LORD, Jonah decides to set out in the opposite direction. He boards a passenger ship in Jaffa with the intentions to travel to the city of Tarshish. Going to Nineveh was the farthest thing on his bucket list. Jonah wants nothing to do with the people of Nineveh especially if it means that in hearing God's message they may repent and be spared. Jonah also believes that he can merely veto's God's assignment without any repercussions. He was greatly mistaken.
In response to Jonah's disobedience the LORD sends a great storm that endangers the lives of everyone on board the ship. God reveals to the sailors that Jonah is the one responsible for the storm and for everyone's life being endangered. Jonah confesses, shares his story and then commands that the only way for everyone to be save is for them to throw him overboard. At first everyone rejects the idea but seeing the storm getting stronger and stronger they finally agree to throw Jonah overboard.
Immediately, the sea becomes calm and the boat continues safely on its journey. Unknown to either them or to Jonah the LORD commands a fish to swallow the prophet. For the next three days the prophet is forced to spend time reflecting, meditating and talking to God inside the fish. It is not a pleasant three days.
That takes us up to where we read this morning. God gives Jonah a mulligan and commands the fish to spit Jonah out. Apparently, disobedient prophets don't make a great meal anyway. Now, that that the LORD has Jonah's full attention He tells Jonah - "Let's try this again. Go immediately to the city of Nineveh and tell them that in 40 days I will destroy the city." And so Jonah begins his 600 - 700 mile trip to Nineveh.
Perhaps more than any other book in the Old Testament the book of Jonah has been greatly misunderstood. The story of Jonah is not centered on how he survived the ordeal of getting swallowed by a fish. It's not centered on the miracle of either the fish swallowing Jonah or the fish spitting him out.
So often when people look at this story they immediately think of "Jonah and the Whale" which is how it is often promoted and proclaimed in children's books and even some sermons. However, the fish is never said to be a whale and only three verses out the entire book is the fish even mentioned. While it is true that the story of Jonah involves a fish it is also abundantly true that it is not merely a fish story.
So, what kind of story is it? What is its message and how does it relate to us this morning who are now nearly 3000 years removed?
Jewish tradition shares with us a few interesting things about Jonah:
+It is believed that Jonah lived in the territory of Galilee near the northwest part of the Sea of Galilee - this would therefore be the same area that later Jesus would teach and would call his first disciples.
+Jonah lived ca. 800 - 700 BC and would therefore have been a contemporary of the prophet Elisha and King Joash of Judah
+Some ancient rabbis believed that Jonah was in fact the son of the Woman of Zarephath whom Elijah raised from the dead ( 1 Kings 17:21-23)
Other than those traditions we don't know a great deal about Jonah except for the fact that he was the most successful of all the prophets of Israel either that lived before him or after him. He was more successful than Isaiah, Jeremiah or Ezekiel. He was more successful than Daniel, Micah or Malachi. In fact, no other prophet in the Old Testament saw his message more received and more acted on than Jonah. Our passage tells us this morning that not only did the people receive Jonah's message they responded by fasting, praying and abandoning their evil ways.
Jonah's words ignited a revival that not only touched humanity but all of creation around Nineveh. It is a remarkable story in the fact that this movement of God's Holy Spirit was not centered around Israel, God's Chosen People. We might understand the story better if in fact Jonah had been sent to Israel or to Judah. Instead, it is the hated pagan nation of Assyria the he is sent and it is the pagan nation of Assyria that responds by fasting, praying, repenting and experiencing a spiritual revival. It is a nation that had threatened the very existence of the Children of Israel and that had over time been brutal to God's people.
So, why is this book a part of our Bible and perhaps more surprisingly the Jewish Bible? Why did the people of God decide among the tens of books written by various prophets to include this book in Holy Scripture? Why is this book read every Yom Kippur even to this very day?
Well, let's look at some things that the book of Jonah reveals to us about the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY. For more than anything else the book reveals to us the heart of the LORD. It reveals to us God's Mercy and the Awesome Power of Repentance!
I. Jonah's Story reveals to us God's Amazing Mercy
More than anything that scholars and pundits have written about concerning Jonah and his story the one thing that comes out over and over again is this:
God's Amazing Mercy
We see that the children of Israel are once again being threatened by a rebellious pagan super power. We are to understand that God's Chosen People's very existence is being weighed in the balance. The question that hangs in the air is - Would the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY come down and destroy Israel's enemies? Would the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY come down and destroy Assyria like He had Egypt and the Canaanites? After all, isn't that what the ancient gods and goddesses were suppose to do for their people?
Well, not the God of Israel - not the Good God of Creation. Yes, it is true that as you read the Old Testament you do find story after story of how the LORD GOD AMIGHTY pronounces judgment and justice upon such rebellious pagan nations like the Egyptians, the Canaanites and a host of other peoples. But as you go back and carefully read those stories you also see that before any judgment or punishment is sent there is always a time of God reaching out in love, mercy and grace. For example:
+ God allowed Lot, his family along with all his workers (which had to number in the hundreds) to live around Sodom and Gomorrah years before He destroyed those two wicked and rebellious cities. I firmly believe it was God's intention for Lot and his clan to evangelize that area and ignite a spiritual revival. Sadly, the people of Sodom and Gomorrah rejected God's mercy and God had no other choice but to destroy them. Even sadder is the fact that not was Lot not able to ignite a spiritual revival it appears that the majority of his family and workers were overtaken by sin and evil.
+ God sends and promotes Joseph to a position of high power not merely to rescue his small Israelite family but to be a messenger of God's power, His love and mercy to the people of Egypt and its surrounding area. The LORD did not have to make it possible for millions of Egyptians and Canaanites to survive the famine. He could have simply allowed the famine to devastate the people of Egypt and its surrounding area. He could have sent rain only to the area where Jacob and his family lived.
However, we are to understand the bigger story surrounding Joseph. It is the story of the Lord God Almighty reaching out to everyone around Egypt. We are to understand that the Lord God Almighty was fulfilling the promise He made to Abraham that through him and his children the people of the world would be blessed. How much more of a blessing can one receive than having one's life and the lives of those around you rescued from death?
Too often people have read the Old Testament and tried to find a God of vengeance, justice and punishment. You can find such a god but only if you misread the stories and if you disregard all the times the LORD sought to bestow mercy, grace and love upon humankind. The God of the Old Testament is the God of mercy, grace and love. Let's get back to our passage.
During the time of Jonah no nation or people group represented evil, godlessness, paganism, violence, cruelty, greed and idolatry more than the nation of Assyria and its capital city of Nineveh. Only Sodom and Gomorrah of old could be said to rival Nineveh's wickedness and violence. Only Sodom and Gomorrah of old could be said to be more full of idolatry, greed and over all sinfulness.
As we read on in Jonah chapter four we see that one of Jonah's major personal problems was that he was all too well aware of God's mercy and love. That is one of the major reasons Jonah didn't want to obey and come and preach to the people of Nineveh. Jonah inwardly hoped and prayed that God would destroy Nineveh and all of Assyria. Jonah hoped that God would rain down fire and brimstone on them as He had on Sodom or that He would tear down their walls and allow their enemies to defeat them as He had the people of Jericho.
But Jonah all too well knew God. He knew God, the Good God of Creation, the God of Covenant, the God of Israel was full of mercy, love and grace. He knew that God would do all that He could to save these people. In his heart Jonah knew the words that Jesus would say some 700+ years later to Nicodemus:
"For God so loved the world that He sent His one and only Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but shall have ever lasting life." - John 3:16
Jonah in his chosen limited humanness chose not to see people as God sees them. In Jonah's heart:
+He believed that it was easier to throw some people away rather than work with them. Jonah believed that some people did not deserve a first or second or even third chance. He believed that some people were not worth the effort.
+He believed that it would be easier and more beneficial to merely dismiss some people as "save able" "redeem able" or "of spiritual value" than it would be to walk among them, speak to them or share the Good News with them. He believed that he had no responsibility to those who hated him, would like to persecute him or destroy him. He believed that he could choose not to reach out to them and God would consider it okay.
+He believed that it would be easier to take a cruise to Joppa than to face the hardship of a 600 - 700 mile walk to the city of Nineveh. He decided to take the easy way out and if God wanted to speak to the people of Nineveh then He could send another prophet. He believed that certain pagan people were not worth his time.
Jonah didn't want to spend the new few months walking across the desert to Nineveh and deliver God's message. He didn't want to spend the time, the resources or the energy going on such a mission. Let the LORD GOD send someone else. Let someone else spend their time and resources going after people who may or may not respond appropriately. Let someone else reach out to those who most people would consider not worth their time or energy.
I am glad this morning to say that God didn't share Jonah's opinions. Nor was God going to allow Jonah to sit on the sidelines while He sent another prophet. The Lord decided to still use Jonah even though he was imperfect and difficult to work with. Why? Because the same mercy and love that God wanted to bestow upon the people of Nineveh the LORD wanted for Jonah as well. God did not want to leave Jonah in a descending state of rebellion and sin. In the end we see that Jonah needed God's mercy, grace and love just as much as did the people of Nineveh.
The Lord doesn't want anyone to miss out on His New Heaven and New Earth. He doesn't want anyone to live a life here on earth void of His mercy and grace. God did not create one group of people to be rescued, redeemed and restored while creating another group to be forgotten, suffer the enslavement of sin and die without everlasting hope.
All of this should cause us to take a pause and examine our own hearts and attitudes. At times do we possess more of a Jonah attitude than we would like to admit? Deep down do we believe at times that:
+Certain people are not worth our time or effort? Is that why we are quiet or don't go out of our way to share with them the message of salvation?
+We don't need to spend our time, resources and efforts on them when we can just as easily spend the all of that energy on people we do like and who will reciprocate towards us? We want to grow and reach out but only when it is easy and advantageous to us?
+We don't need to get our hands dirty by reaching out to certain people groups? We will merely hope that God will send someone else to them that is better equipped or that has more resources than we feel we have at this moment?
You see, we can fall into those traps. We can fall into those traps quite easily.
- We do so at times when we are given the opportunity to invite people and we choose not to or to share the Bible with them and we choose not to as well.
- We do so at times when we do not promote God's House as a place of Prayer, Fellowship and Worship.
- We do so at times when we keep a too tight of a hold on what should be God's money but in reality we see as our money be it personal or church budget.
- We do so when we convince ourselves that we can't use our resources on the lost, on evangelistic advertisement, on compassionate ministries or helping someone because it is already ear marked for this or that. If we are not careful we allow our ear marked monies or our allocated funds to sit like the man's one talent being buried into some hole and not actively being utilized for the Kingdom of God. In the end we will not answer to the whims of mankind but to the will of God.
This morning, it is our privilege along with our joy to realize that all people are able to be rescued, redeemed and restored into God's Holy Image. It is our privilege and joy to realize that we can walk among all people making sure that they hear and therefore are able to respond to the Word of God. It is our privilege and joy to enjoy all the good things of this earth and help others enjoy the good things of this earth - starting with the message of salvation down to the enjoyment of living an abundant life as one of God's authentic human beings. Jonah's story is centered on God's Amazing Mercy, Love and Grace.
II. Jonah's story reveals to us the Power of Repentance
As we stated earlier - no prophet in all of Israel's history was more successful than Jonah. No one else's words were used by the Holy Spirit like the words of Jonah.
Jonah's message was brief - in Hebrew it is only five words long. In most of our English translations it is only eight words long -
"Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown."
One simple message was all it took. How was that possible? What was different? How did a simple message like this once spring forth a revival that permeated all of society and led to a time of complete transformation?
Well, we can surmise that Jonah's message was a little longer than what we read here. I think we can safely assume that Jonah had more than a bullet point message. I think we can also safely assume that the Spirit of God came upon him and Jonah's words became both saturated by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. Jonah's success was more a work of God's Holy Spirit than it was the words of a mere mortal.
The writer of Jonah doesn't speak about signs and wonders but merely about the power of God's word. This leads us to understand that the miracle of repentance is not one that originated from Jonah but one that came from the moving of God's Holy Spirit weeks and months before Jonah's arrival. God merely allowed Jonah to be the catalyst for the outpouring of a Spiritual Revival.
Notice also that this revival - this movement for repentance happened from the ground up. It was not a revival or a time of repentance that was forced upon the people from their King or from their local leaders.
Instead, the common people heard the message and responded by fasting, praying, repenting and abandoning their evil ways. They responding by believing God's words, proclaiming local fasts and even putting on sack cloth to show everyone that they were turning their lives around.
This must have been amazing. First this little group over here begins to fast, pray, repent and wear sack cloth. Then suddenly it has spread over here and then over there. Each group beginning to understand Jonah's words and the seriousness of them.
No doubt the feeling of where their nation was going was already being known to them. Even though they were pagan it does not mean that they were insensitive to where evil was taking their them, their families and the whole of Assyrian society. No doubt their sins were coming back to roost so to speak. That is, the evil that they were participating in was having more and more a devastating effect on their lives and the lives of those around them.
When people live in darkness and choose to live in darkness it has an ever growing effect on everything they touch. Sin is infectious. Evil and sin permeated everything. Evil and sin don't merely exist on this street and leave other streets, homes and families alone. Evil and sin possess a power that seeks to enslave and create chaos and eventually steal, kill and destroy everything and anything they touch.
I can imagine by the time Jonah walked into the city he could feel the full effects that sin was having on the society of Nineveh. No doubt immorality was causing the breakdown of families and was the leading cause of a number of STD's, unwanted pregnancies and the like. No doubt there was all the effects of the misuse of ancient drugs and the misuse of alcohol draining Nineveh's needed resources as well. No doubt the rate of crime was sky high and people feared for their lives, the lives of their families and others as well.
By the time Jonah walked into town he knew very well how much this place deserved God's ultimate punishment. On every street corner there was a visible witness of sin, chaos and evil. You see, unchecked the Devil and sin will totally destroy a culture. Evil has become a part of the Devil's basic nature and sin can't be contained, controlled or managed.
History is full of stories of people groups that have tried to do that very thing. They have thought that they could contain, control and even manage sin and evil. They have told themselves that somehow they could even use sinful things as a way of helping society. Many have thought that if they could only tax "sinful" acts that in the end more good could be done than evil. After all, if you can't stop sin you might as well tax it so that money can be raised to do good things.
But all of that is a fool's mission. It is not sin or evil's nature to be contained, controlled or managed. Sin and evil seek to overtake and overpower everything. Their mission is to infect, create all kinds of addiction and enslavements, create chaos, rob, isolate, kill and destroy. Evil and sin will never be able to be controlled, contained or managed by fallen man. It is beyond our ability.
The only way to deal with sin and evil is to repent heart, mind and soul and experience the freedom of a new life made possible through the infilling of God's Holy Spirit in our lives. The only way to deal with sin and evil is to turn around and instead of going towards the darkness go towards the light of God. The only way to deal with sin and evil is to allow the LORD to remove it from our lives, the lives of our families and from our society. The only way to deal with sin is to die out to sin and through the power and presence of God's Holy Spirit to be made into a whole new creation.
We see in our passage that the ground swell of repentance was so strong in Nineveah that it reached the very halls of the palace. The King himself upon hearing the message, joined his nation in repenting, fasting, praying and wearing sack cloth. Only as we read in verses 6 - 10 he went a couple of steps further - he began sitting in ashes to prove his repentance and commanded that all of his subjects human and animal repent, fast and wear sack cloth and ashes.
The prophet Jonah must have been flabbergasted. No nation had gone to this spiritual depth of repentance. No nation had decided to not only repent as human beings but to have animal kind join in their repentance. What must have been seen as a rather silly sight by on looking humans must have been a welcomed sight by heaven.
This was a complete reversal of the Fall of Man. In Genesis chapter three we witness the rebellion but the thing we do not witness is the spirit of repentance. One has to wonder what would have happened if Adam and Eve along with the serpent had fallen to the earth and cried out for forgiveness, mercy and grace. Could evil and sin have been removed right then and there? Could the history of mankind been transformed and Adam and Eve not been made to leave the garden?
Rather than hearing a story about repentance we witness Adam and Eve blaming one another as well as creation. The serpent who was so talkative before is suddenly silent before the LORD seeking neither repentance or accusation. So, instead of seeking repentance they decided to receive justice and judgment.
However, this was not the case with the city of Nineveh. All of creation falls before the LORD eager and ready to repent and turn from its evil ways. All of creation undergoes a period of fasting and penitence through the wearing of sackcloth and ashes.
One has the wonder if the Jews that had already been taken captive by the Assyrians had helped Jonah in his mission work. We know that a number of Jews had already been displaced by the Assyrians over their many wars with Israel and Judah. Would it really surprise us to know that the LORD was now using some of them to help their new nation repent and therefore come under the blessings of the LORD instead of the condemnation of the LORD?
Jonah's story is far more than a children's bed time story. It is far more than a strange fish tale.
- It is the story of God's love for all of humanity as well as all of creation.
- It is the story of how far God will go to rescue and redeem mankind.
- It is the story of how God chooses to work with people who are a little dense and spiritually insensitive like the prophet Jonah to bring about healing and spiritual wholeness to a pagan nation.
-It is the story that shares with us the immediate and long lasting effects of true repentance, faith, prayer, fasting and the turning away from evil. Nineveh allowed God to rescue them and redeem them.
So goes Nineveh so goes our nation today as well. So goes Nineveh so goes our local community today as well.
In other words could we be a good Jonah to those around us? Could we be used by the LORD to bring about a spiritual renewal and revival? I mean after all how many of our local areas - big or small - are not feeling the hellish effects of sin? How many villages, towns and cities around our country are not feeling the effects of sin's enslavement? Are we not seeing a rise in violence, broken homes and an alarming increase in addictions to alcohol, pornography, sexual immorality and drugs of all kinds?
Have we not opened an onslaught of evil through our mistaken attempts to contain and control sin and evil? We have listened to the lies of the Devil who is constantly telling us that if we only allow evil and sin to exist but tax it all at the same time then we can actually benefit from the sins of prostitution, gaming, pornography, the misuse of drugs etc...
We have been fools. Yes, people may continue to sin and they may always find ways to sin but when a society attempts to profit off the marking of those sins it should be not be surprised to find itself more broken, more violent, greedy and immoral.
We have been fools even inside the Corporate Body of Christ. Lately, we have seen renewed attempts at trying to peacefully live alongside evil and sin. Some have even tried to redefine sin so that it doesn't seem as hideous and revolting as it truly is. Some have even tried to rewrite what is sin and what is not sin. Some have done their best to straddle the Spiritual fence by trying to be committed to the LORD while at the same time be intimately connected with the world. Some have tried to stay consecrated while at the same time doing their best to live a life of spiritual compromise and lukewarmness.
The writer of Proverbs tells us "Can a man kindle fire in his bosom without burning his clothes?" - Proverbs 6:27 (NEB)
The only thing we can do when we see sin, experience evil is to repent, turn to God and seek God's presence and protection. Evil and sin cannot be tolerated in any shape or form. Evil and sin's only mission is to steal, kill and destroy.
We all know this morning that Jesus died to set us free. He sent His Holy Spirit to convict us of our sins, cleanse us of our sins and infill us with the power and presence of His Holy Spirit. Jesus came so that we might be born again and be free from the penalty of sin and have power over sin in our lives. Jesus came so that all people everywhere could experience what the city of Nineveh experienced - a turning from darkness to light. Jesus came so that like Nineveh we could be rescued and redeemed from evil, sin and death!
Jonah's story is more than a fish story. It is a million more times richer than some smelly fish story.
+It is the story of God's amazing mercy, grace and love.
+It is the story of the power of true repentance and the freedom that follows.
+It is the story of rescue, redemption and renewal.
+It is the story of how a people can repent, fast, pray and receive God's blessings.
+It is the story of how God seeks to use His people to preach the Gospel so that others can be freed from the enslavement of sin to be the authentic human beings that He desires for us to be here on this earth and in the New Heaven and Earth to come.
This morning as we wrap our time together up where in the story do we find ourselves?
+Are we the Jonah still in rebellion?
+Are we the Jonah who is attempting to follow God but doing so only out of forced duty? Doing what we have to do so that we don't get swallowed up again?
+Are we the Jonah who is obediently following the LORD?
+Are we more like the city of Nineveh who was living in rebellion and sin? Are we today under the power of sin and feeling its bondage and addiction?
+Are we more like the city of Nineveh who is doing its best to live out a life of repentance, prayer and fasting?
The Good News today is wherever you find yourself the God of Mercy and the God of Repentance is here this morning. He is here to grant to all of us mercy, grace and love. He is here to receive our repentance and to help us to turn away from sin, to cast off sin and to walk towards Him in the fullness of His Holy Spirit.
He is here to meet all of our needs. He is here to forgive us, encourage us, renew us and strengthen us. He is here to pour out on us His Holy Spirit.
As we sing a closing song - let us allow the Holy Spirit to speak to us. The altar is open for any who would like to come and pray. If you would like for one of our altar workers to come and pray with you they would love to do so right now. If you would like to come and spend time with God alone you may do that as well. As the music plays let us be obedient to the call of the LORD.
