INTRODUCTION
Last week we left Jonah on the beach, probably dazed and confused from his taxi ride on the great fish.
God got Jonah’s attention, now he was ready to listen to God.
God had a plan to use Jonah, the reluctant prophet, in a mighty way.
I believe that God wants to use each of us.
Sometimes God just needs to get our attention
Let’s look at our society today.
Things are getting bad, although nothing like the day of Jonah.
I hear people all of the time say that there is no hope for the future of our nation.
I do not believe that, I believe that one person could be an agent of change for the kingdom of God. One person can make a difference.
Jonah is an example of what one person who is faithful to God can do.
Let’s turn to Jonah 3 to see what one faithful person can do.
SERMON
I. THE MESSAGE OF JONAH. 1-4
3:1 Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, 3:2 "Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you." 3:3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three days’ walk. 3:4 Then Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk; and he cried out and said, "Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown."
• Jonah has an assignment from God. As we look at what God wanted Jonah to do, we see that it is not much different from what He wants all Christian’s to do today. He wants us to let the world know that it is lost without Jesus. In Jonah’s case he was proclaiming God’s judgment upon Nineveh, but maybe we need that to happen in this country today!
• There was a process that Jonah had to follow to carry out God’s will. It is the same process for us today.
• First Jonah had to ARISE.
We spend some much time learning about what to do for Jesus. There comes a point in time were we must arise. How many times have you heard someone say, “I hope or wish someone tells so and so about Jesus.”
If we are going to change the world, we must be inspired to ARISE!
Part of arising is for us to be able to see the need that people have in their lives for Jesus.
• The second part of the process that Jonah needed to follow was to GO!
It is not enough to just get up off the couch, we must GO!
In the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20, Jesus literally tells us “AS YOU GO,” make disciples of all nations.
Jonah would go through the city proclaiming God’s judgment as he traveled. We are to proclaim the message of the Gospel as we go about our everyday lives. We do not have to call in the cavalry to do it for us.
1PE 3:15 but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence;
• God got Jonah’s attention and Jonah was ready to go. He was now ready to proclaim God’s message. Jonah could have gotten caught up in all of the psychological reasons for the evilness of the Ninevites, or he could have made excuses for the people, or he could have just gathered up a few who would believe and forget the rest of the people. Jonah did not do that, he proclaimed God’s message.
o If we are going to be a person who can change a fallen world, we must do it with God’s message. Too many people and churches have gotten away from God’s message in the name of tolerance, and we are paying the price for that as a society.
o Jonah clearly articulated God’s message to the people. It does not get much simpler than the way Jonah put it.
o The message that we have is not hard. We make it hard by throwing in a bunch of terms from the pulpits the people do not understand.
How much simpler does it get.
God created the heaven and earth
God made man for fellowship and love.
Man broke God’s laws, this is sin.
Sin separates us from a Holy God. This spiritual death.
The wages of sin is death.
Jesus came so that we could have eternal life with God.
If Jesus is not your Lord and savior, you will not be able to go to heaven and you will spend eternity in hell.
God sent Jesus because He loves you and desires all to be saved.
• Knowing God’s will is usually not our problem. The real problem is doing it!
• His will is already written for us in the Word, and as we are obedient to that, Proverbs 3:5-6 says, ". . He directs our paths.”
• John 10:4 tells us that God’s obedient sheep know the will of the shepherd, unless they are rebelling or straying. If you’re a Christian, you can expect to know the will of God through reading His word. We can also receive His will through other people and through meditation and prayer.
• What He’s already told you in the Word is enough. He wants you to be faithful. You may not know all the will of God, but you’ll know enough for the next day.
• In fact, here’s a good prayer: “Lord, I expect to be in Your will today; if I’m not, please stop me.”
• Obedience is a big part of the book of Jonah. Jonah was called to be obedient to God. Is our obedience important to God?
JOHN 15:10 “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.
JOHN 14:23-24 Jesus answered and said to him, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.”He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.
II. THE MORNING OF THE PEOPLE. 5-9.
3:5 Then the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them. 3:6 When the word reached the king of Nineveh, he arose from his throne, laid aside his robe from him, covered himself with sackcloth and sat on the ashes. 3:7 He issued a proclamation and it said, "In Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let man, beast, herd, or flock taste a thing. Do not let them eat or drink water. 3:8 "But both man and beast must be covered with sackcloth; and let men call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands. 3:9 "Who knows, God may turn and relent and withdraw His burning anger so that we will not perish."
• Doesn’t this response seem out of character for the Ninevites? Absolutely! Remember, their reputation for responding to enemies was to yank out their tongues, or literally skin them alive and hang their skin on the town walls. But something is different this time. What are we to make of the extreme nature of their response? Verse 6 says, "When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust/ashes.”
It might be helpful to get a couple of definitions as we look at this scene:
Sackcloth was coarse, loose, clothing of a dark color, made of goat’s hair, very itchy—Is. 53; Rev. 6:1. It was literally used for making sacks! It was the garment of mourners (Gen. 37:34) and in extreme measures, was worn next to the skin—I Kings 21:27; II Kings 6:30; Job 16:5.
Ashes were symbols of grief and mourning—John 2:8; Is. 58:5; Jer. 6:26; Matt. 11:21. To sit on ashes was an extreme form of bitter lamentation—Ez. 7:30. If a person wanted to express deep misery and degradation, he might even eat them—Ps. 102:9.
• The people heard the message of from God’s messenger and they believed it.
• Who knows why they listened to this Hebrew prophet?
The report of the sailors?
His appearance?
Inward guilt about the way they were. Maybe they were never challenged?
• Would it have been good enough for the people to just say that they believed and then went about their everyday business?
• True inward repentance requires an outward reaction.
• Repentance is a turning away from sin and a turning toward God. It is not just being sorry you got caught.
• 2CO 7:9-10 I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us. For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death.
• It is popular today to say that if a person says they are sorry, we should just forgive them. That is a partial truth. A person who is truly sorry will SHOW it.
• It is interesting that the King knew exactly what was wrong with the people and himself.
• When confronted by the truth of God, many times people know what they are doing is wrong. That is why many people do not want to come to church, they are afraid that they might be convicted of something in their lives.
• The following are the essential elements of repentance (see II Cor. 7:8-13 for a description of the characteristics of complete repentance).
First, there is genuine sorrow towards God on account of sin—II Cor. 1:9-10; Matt. 5:3-4; Ps. 51. Often immature repentance ends here, but true repentance goes on.
Second, an inward distaste and hate for sin is followed by the actual forsaking of the sin, and purposing not to return to it—Matt. 3:8; Acts 26:20; Heb. 6:1.
Third, there is submission to the will and service of God—Acts 9:6.
REFLECT: If this is what true repentance looks like, how would that affect your ministry?
• In its lowest and most imperfect form, repentance may arise from the fear of consequence, or penalty for sin. If repentance goes no further than this, it will eventually end in despair, or will not last. Repentance deepens in character when a person develops an awe of God and a hatred of sin
III. THE MERCY OF THE LORD. Verse 10.
3:10 When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it.
• The people of Nineveh heeded the message of the prophet and the whole city repented and God relented on His destruction of the city.
• It’s reasonable to think that Jonah said more than just the statements recorded for us in v. 4b—“Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.” He didn’t just repeat these few words without variation, or addition, or further explanation. I think he also responded to the many questions people undoubtedly asked, like:
• Who gave you this message?
• What is your authority?
• Who are you?
• Are you insane?
• How did you get here?
• He might even have told them of his disobedient flight.
• Matthew 12:38-41 indicates that Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, to the people of Christ’s day, and even to us today. Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Him, "Teacher, we want to see a sign from You." But He answered and said to them, "An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment, and will condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.
Jonah was a sign in one sense of the word because he himself was one who had experienced the grace of God.
CONCLUSION
The third chapter of Jonah is important because it shows us many things.
It shows us what one person can do when they are obedient to God. This one person changed a whole city
This chapter shows us the mercy of God. God gave the people every chance to repent before He was to destroy the city. He did not have to do that, but this chapter shows us God’s love for mankind.
The people of Nineveh are a great example of true repentance.
The people of Nineveh repented at because of the message of Jonah, we have the message of Christ.
HEB 2:3 how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard,
Does this story end happily here? Isn’t Jonah happy that the city of Nineveh repented after he preached to them? I would feel great if the whole city of Auburn would repent and turn to the Lord after one of my sermons.
Stay turned next week for the end of the story.
