As we begin looking toward our mission conference next month, I want to share some thoughts with you from the book of Jonah – a prophet who tried to escape from warning a savage nation to repent, because he actually wanted God to judge them!
So he boarded a ship heading the other way, but God sent a storm to intercept him. The mariners threw him overboard to save their lives, the storm miraculously ceased, and these Gentile sailors became Jonah’s first converts as they worshipped the God Who had spared their lives.
Meanwhile, God sent a great fish to swallow Jonah, and miraculously kept him alive for three days and nights during the world’s first submarine voyage until the fish spat him out. Centuries later, Jesus said that Jonah’s journey in the fish’s belly was a picture of Christ’s burial for three days and nights in the tomb.
Jonah finally began moving in the direction God had for him. He entered the city and began delivering his warning, Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown!
And that’s where we left off last week.
5 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.
6 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.
7 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:
8 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.
9 Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?
10 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.
Heavenly Father, we ask for Your Spirit to search our hearts, to try our thoughts and expose any false way in us. Thank you for the Spirit that grieves our hearts over things that grieve Yours – that vexes our souls over sin.
We thank you for leaders who honor you and influence others for good. As we elect our leaders this fall, may there be a fresh stirring in our people’s hearts to lift up those who honor You – and may You expose those who hide their hearts – may You bring their evil to light.
And may the change we want to see You do in our land begin in us – in Jesus’ name, Amen!
A lot of people think that since verse 5 appears before verse 6, it must have happened before verse 6. But I don’t think so. Verse 6 begins by saying, For word came unto the king of Nineveh. That word for means “Because”. That is, what happened in verse 5 was “Because” word came unto the king. And verses 7 and 8 explain that the king was the one who decreed the fasting and wearing of sackcloth that verse 5 shows the people doing.
And if you’re wondering why a king, a civil ruler, would be issuing a religious decree for his people to repent, it’s because in ancient times, outside of Israel, there was no separation of state and religion. The king over the state was also the High Priest of the local religion. And so, you see this priest-king leading the revival.
So the people’s repentance in verse 5 is a response to the king’s actions in verses 6-9. That is, the king of Nineveh was leading from the front, not from behind.
I know that in modern democracies, politicians often check which way the wind is blowing, and then try to get out in front of it. But ancient warlords of aggressor nations didn’t get their thrones by acting like modern spineless politicians!
And this top-down city-wide revival illustrates how cultures are shaped from the top. Perhaps you’ve heard it said – “Everything rises and falls on leadership.”
A culture is good or bad according as its leaders are good or bad. Jesus said in Mattthew 10:24, the disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord.
That’s why James says in James 3:1, be not many masters knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation. A leader’s blunders merit greater condemnation because of the greater harm they cause. In Matthew 23:14, Jesus told the abusive leaders of his day, ye shall receive the greater condemnation.
When wicked King Manasseh ruled, Judah became decadent; when good King Josiah ruled, Judah became decent.
When President Obama announced in 2012 that his thinking had “evolved” and now he supported same sex marriage, opinion polls immediately began tracking a rising public acceptance of same sex marriage.
When Adam fell, everything under his dominion fell with him.
And here the King of Nineveh is repenting at what he’s heard, and he’s using his influence to encourage the whole city to repent as well! And as a result, repentance is sweeping the population! The message of doom, the sign of Jonah, the Word of God, His Holy Spirit – it was bringing the whole city, from the guttermost to the uttermost, to fasting, sackcloth, ashes and believing in God.
Jesus said that Jonah was a sign of the resurrection of Christ Himself. But Christ would rise from something greater than three days in a whale – He arose from three days in hell – the underworld of departed souls! And He says that all who repent and trust in Him will arise as He did someday.
How these heathen Assyrians of Nineveh believed in God after a mere one-day revival is a huge contrast to how the Israelites rebelled against God over and over throughout their generations. And at the sad end of Israel’s history, Jesus Himself used their example to shame His own people. In Matthew 12:41, He said, The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation and shall condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold a greater than Jonah is here.
And that stands as a warning to all men everywhere, but especially to those who have been exposed to more gospel light than others.
Just like the Israelites of Jesus’ day, we in America, and especially down here in the Bible Belt, have had far more than our fair share of access to the gospel. There are people right here in our own community who hear the message of salvation week after week, but have never turned to Christ from their sins, while others across the seas have gladly received it after a single presentation.
And someday in the resurrection, God will summon before His throne all those who turned a deaf ear to His warnings. And for every excuse they might advance, there will arise trophies of His grace – souls who repented with far less opportunity. And their quick obedience will witness against those who stubbornly refused to believe God’s Word. Those who witnessed to them in life will witness against them in death, and Jesus said it would be more tolerable for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah than for those who turned a cold heart to His grace.
The men of Nineveh offered no sacrifices for their sins but the sacrifices of broken and contrite hearts which God never despises. They demonstrated this humility by spontaneously fasting before God and wearing their clothes of mourning – sackcloth, which was rough and irritating.
The verse says they believed in the God of Jonah, the God of Israel Who was famous throughout the ancient world since the time of the Exodus.
The later miracles during the conquest of Canaan and the exploits of the judges would have continued the reputation of Israel’s God to later generations.
In David and Solomon’s Golden Age, His glory spread to the ends of the earth.
The miracles of Elijah and Elishah were still recent in memory.
And now comes Jonah, a sign specifically to the Assyrians themselves. No other God in the ancient world had displayed a power remotely like that of Jehovah.
They not only believed in this God of the Jews, but they also believed in His power to do exactly as Jonah was even then warning them. They believed they were in imminent peril of His righteous judgment. No doubt their own consciences agreed with the prophet’s warnings. And they feared the Lord.
But their humble displays also demonstrate that they believed in Him as a God of mercy with Whom they could plead and possibly avert the coming doom. And so, from the greatest to the least, they prostrated themselves before this God and hoped for His salvation.
6 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.
It says, the king arose from his throne – immediately interrupting all affairs of state, leaving all the ambassadors and nobles and important cases where they stood, vacating his mortal authority to bow before the Authority of heaven. And what could the entire court do but bow with him?
But when a Prophet greater than Jonah cried to another generation, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, kings and clergy and crowds conspired to kill Him!
7 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:
The king decrees a fast that will include even their animals. In the Assyrian mind, it seems that the fortunes of the beasts are wrapped up in the fortunes of their masters, and so they will all be chastened together. For if the judgment is not turned aside, they will all surely perish together.
And while it is true that the beasts have no sense of worship toward God, God certainly understands the suffering cries of His creatures. In Joel 1:20 the prophet says, The beasts of the field cry also unto thee: for the rivers of waters are dried up, and the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness.
And so, as God’s care of the animals is a token of His care toward men, so the fasting of men’s animals were offered as a token of men’s humility toward Him.
Now, did God’s compassion for their animals really play any part in turning his wrath from the city? Apparently so, because in the last verse of this book, God asks Jonah, should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are, among other things, also much cattle?
8 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.
He says, let man and beast be covered with sackcloth – replacing the pompous garments of men and the lively livery of their livestock. This reflects the humility they are now brought under. He says the people should cry mightily unto God – whole-hearted desires cannot be expressed with half-hearted prayers.
And let them turn everyone from his evil way – which is the ultimate proof of repentance. All the sackcloth and ashes in the world, all the fasting and prayers are worthless if the sin itself is not genuinely forsaken. Verse 10 confirms that this was what saved them. It says, they turned from their evil way, and God repented.
And he adds that they must turn from the violence that is in their hands. Violence was the characteristic sin of the Assyrians. We’ve mentioned before the abundance of inscriptions on their monuments boasting of how they tortured and mutilated their victims. The prophet Nahum, 150 years later, says of Nineveh in 3:1, Woe to the bloody city! it is all full of lies and robbery; the prey departeth not.
9 Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?
He had always been merciful to Israel, but these were Israel’s enemies. Could Gentiles as wicked as these hope for any mercy from Israel’s God?
Was there anything in the doom Jonah had pronounced upon the city to give these sinners the least hope of pardon? Often the prophets said to Israel things like, Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
But Jonah’s message was an unremittingly hopeless promise of doom – Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrow. What was there in these eight words that suggested any mercy might extend to these Ninevites at all? Because they’re certainly praying as if some merciful loophole might be found.
The only hints that God might pardon them would have been, first, the 40-day stall that was put on the judgment. What reason was there for that if not to give the city a window of opportunity to show repentance and seek salvation? For that matter, if the doom were irreversible, why send any warning at all?
And second, the lengths God took to bring them the warning. Since Jonah was a sign to them, on a par with the resurrection of Jesus, they must have known about his encounter with the great fish. If God could bring Jonah literally back from the jaws of death, then might He not do likewise for them? Especially since He did this for Jonah specifically to give them this warning? So, Jonah’s resurrection brings them hope, as the greater resurrection he pictured brings hope to all who believe in it.
Thus, with only the vaguest hope of deliverance, they show genuine repentance as though truly sorry for their sins and not merely for the punishment that they have plenty of reason to fear may fall on them all at any rate. And what was the result of their wholesale mourning and reformation? Verse 10 tells us:
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.
God saw their works – not so much their fastings and sackclothes as their turning from their evil way.
And God repented of the evil that he said that he would do unto them.
Sometimes Bible critics on a witch hunt for something to nit-pick will claim that if God never changes, then why did He repent of the evil He would have done to Nineveh? For that matter, why was God going to do them evil to be repented of?
But as we’ve said before, God never commits a moral evil – it was a just punishment on a wicked nation. It only looked evil from their perspective because of the suffering it would’ve brought them. God’s judgment of sin is actually a morally righteous thing – as all the victims of these savage people would immediately agree. And, fortunately for the Ninevites, it led to their own repentance and rescue.
As for God repenting or changing how He dealt with them when they changed their behavior, that is perfectly consistent with His nature. In Jeremiah 18:7-8, God says, At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it; If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them.
This statement of hope that Jeremiah makes – you could put the name of any nation into it. If God speaks concerning America, to pluck up and to pull down, and to destroy it; If America turns from its evil, God says, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them.
And just as the only hope for ancient Nineveh was a wholesale revival, the only hope for America today is a national revival too!
God does not enjoy punishing the wicked. In Ezekiel 33:11 He says, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.
God is so eager to rescue us from our sins that He sent His Son to pay our penalty on the cross and raised Him to give us life beyond the grave. Have you repented of your sins and received His salvation yet?
Turn to II Corinthians 7:11. Now you may be wondering about this repentance. You may wonder, what exactly does real repentance look like. Well, II Corinthians 7:11 answers that.
This is Paul’s seven-fold description of repentance. For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge! In all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter.
He says, ye sorrowed after a godly sort, and then he describes what that’s like.
First, he says: what carefulness it wrought in you. They’d been careless about their lives before – complacent in their sin – indifferent about how they lived.
But real repentance makes a man circumspect. He guards against sin and temp-
tation in a way he never did before. He’s keeping his heart with all diligence.
He’s felt the shame of sin and doesn’t like it – so now he’s careful about where he goes and who with, what he does, what he looks at and listens to.
Titus 3:8 says that they which have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works. He’s eager to change his behavior.
Nobody has to nag a repentant person about changing his behavior.
Nobody has to order him or threaten him or bribe him.
Nobody has to prove every commandment against all his objections.
Behold... what carefulness it wrought in you.
Next phrase – what clearing of yourselves. When a man truly turns from sin, he wants everyone to know it. He’s ashamed of his past reputation and doesn’t want to be associated with a lifestyle that he may have bragged about before. He wants to clear his name of the stigma his past behavior has caused. He’s a new man in Christ, and far from being ashamed of that, he wants the whole world to know it!
Proverbs 22:1, a good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favor rather than silver or gold.
Then he says: what indignation. That’s the righteous indignation he feels against his own former sins. He’s angry at his old self. He’s outraged at the things he did. However mad others may be at him for them, he’s madder!
It’s like Job saying, I abhor myself [I hate myself] and repent in dust and ashes!
It’s like David crying out after his sin with Bath-Sheba, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me!
It’s like Isaiah saying, Woe is me, for I am undone – I am a man of unclean lips, and dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips!
He’s so offended at what his eye has seen that he wants to pluck it out – at what his hand has done that he wants to cut it off.
Then he says, yea, what fear. There’s a fear of the Lord, a holy awe and reverence for God that wasn’t there before. The sinner once proudly flaunted his filth, but now fears bringing reproach on His Father’s name. He once brashly shook His fist at heaven, but now he has a healthy fear of God’s chastening hand.
Glance up at verse 1 – he says we’re to be perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
Proverbs 14:16, a wise man feareth, and departeth from evil: but the fool rageth, and is confident.
Proverbs 28:14 says, Happy is the man that feareth always, but he that hard-
eneth his heart shall fall into mischief.
And then he says, what vehement desire. The repentant man vehemently desires to make things right with God and others. Isaiah 26:8 says, O Lord... the desire of our soul is to thy name.
Psalm 42:1, as the hart panteth after the water brook, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.
He also vehemently longs to be right with those he’s wronged. He yearns to make any reparations he can. True repentance doesn’t avoid making restitution.
Then, what zeal. Zeal is loving something so much you hate whatever hurts it.
A zealous patriot hates whatever threatens his country. A zealous parent hates whatever threatens his child. And a zealous saint hates whatever threatens the honor of God’s name and holiness. David said in Psalm 119:139, My zeal hath consumed me, because mine enemies have forgotten thy words.
When Jesus chased the money changers from the temple, his disciples remembered the scripture which said, the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.
Rev. 3:19: as many as I love, I rebuke and chasten, be zealous therefore and repent.
So now they have a zeal for God and His ways that hadn’t been there before – and it showed real repentance.
And finally, he says, what revenge! A truly repentant person wants to avenge his wrongs, even at his own expense. He wants to pay for his crimes however he can. He goes the second mile. He gives his cloak along with his coat.
In one sense, fasting is taking revenge against the flesh for its previous indulgence – it’s a kind of penance. Wearing sackcloth is the same.
These seven are the characteristics of real repentance – repentance that changes behavior even when no one else is around to observe it – repentance that affects our thoughts where no one but God can see – repentance that breaks the chains of addiction and bondage.
Is this the kind of repentance that has characterized your life?
Is that the kind of repentance you’ve shown over your sin? Is that the kind of turning to God that you’ve experienced?
As a Christian, are you being careful about your walk and your witness? Are you trying to live down your former reputation?
Are you praying for a revival to turn our land back to God? Are you seeking it to begin in your own heart?
Are you praying about the kind of leaders our nation will be electing in a few months? Are you doing what you can to help them? Are you registered to vote?
