JONAH 3
JONAH OBEYS
I want you to watch a short video clip – you have seen it before – it contains words from people to do with fulfilling the command of Christ to take the gospel to the world. Those words are striking. I also found them haunting and challenging. I want you, if you can, to keep them in mind as we hear from God’s Word this morning about Jonah. Turn with me to Jonah 3.
Verses 1-2 - Let me read to you some words of Jesus – Matthew 28.18-20 and now I want to read to you Jonah 3.1-2. Now listen to these words from Jonah 1.1-2. God had called Jonah and commanded him to go to Nineveh and you know from chapters 1 and 2 Jonah headed for Tarshish with disastrous consequences for his life. Now, back on dry ground, the Word of God comes to Jonah a second time. Note how nothing has changed with the Word of God that comes to Jonah? God’s Word does not change. God’s purpose and priorities have not changed – the message is still for the Ninevites and Jonah is still to be the evangelist.
Verse 1 tells us that the Word of God came to Jonah a second time. He had heard it the first time but had chosen to disobey it. God graciously brought the same word to him a second time. God had not changed, his word had not changed but Jonah has been changed by the grace of God. How many of us could readily identify with that this morning? Here is God giving Jonah a second opportunity to obey. Note will you that God does not bring a new command to Jonah, nor has he brought a new task – he brings the original command and task – Go and preach to the Ninevites. God’s will and purpose have not changed but Jonah is now in a place of obedience. Can I say to you this morning that Jonah’s obedience was an act of faith and not just an act of his will. He has experienced the grace of God in his life and is now obedient – but we will see in a few weeks that Jonah’s heart, whilst obedient to God, still hates the Ninevites.
Verse 2 – we read that God said ‘Go to the Ninevites…’ Jonah now realises that God meant it when he said ‘Go to the Ninevites.’ God takes the command ‘to Go’ seriously, Jonah learnt just how seriously through a storm and whilst languishing in the darkness of the deep. Secondly not only has God’s command remained the same (Go to Nineveh) but so has the task ‘proclaim to it the message I give you.’ God’s command and God’s task for Jonah have remained the same – despite Jonah’s disobedience – the constancy of God remains. Jonah might have wished there was another task, another means by which God would bring his message to the Ninevites but God has chosen, and it remains, preaching/proclamation as the means whereby he brings the message of salvation to men. Please hear that clearly this morning: God’s method for reaching men and women with the truth of the gospel is preaching/proclamation. Jonah might have wished God would send some miraculous sign to Nineveh, or shake the foundations of the city with a whirlwind or an earthquake. He may have wished for God to bring plagues like he did to soften the heart of the Egyptians but it was by the simple means of preaching/proclamation that God decreed his message would come to Nineveh. It is the same today – we may want to have clever gimmicks, great visual aids, multimedia, flashy presentations, great music/praise, starbucks coffee after the service but God still decrees that it is the preaching/proclamation of His Word that will bring men and women to the knowledge of the gospel – Romans 10.14 read.
I want you also to note that Jonah was not at liberty to preach whatever he decided to Nineveh – God would give him the message he was to preach. We know from 1.1-2 this message was to be one of God’s coming judgment because of their wickedness that had come before God. God is the author of the message, Jonah is the messenger. Again there is a simple lesson for us all there – we are not free to change the message which God has given us in His Word. How arrogant we are sometimes to think that we know better than God what people need to hear. That is why we always preach from a Bible passage here at Holy Trinity. That is why the style of preaching here is expository – we take the passage and listen to what God says from the passage – it is not a washing line to hang ideas from. Jonah was called to bring the message God had given him for the Ninevites.
Verses 3-4 – what a stark contrast we have here from 1.3 read. In chapter 1 Jonah disobeys and flees but after his experience of God’s chastisement it simply says ‘Jonah obeyed the Word of the Lord.’ His heart has been changed by grace and it is seen in the change of his response to the command of God. The verse also tells us that Nineveh was a great city. Archaeologists tell us that the city of Nineveh was some 60 miles in circumference and could have had up to 500,000 citizens. To walk around the walls of the city would have taken about three days. That little piece of information which seems incidental to us is actually important in light of what we read in verse 4. We are told that Jonah ‘went one days journey into the city’ before he began to preach the message that God had given him for Nineveh. Jonah journeyed into the heart of the city to proclaim the message of God. There was no standing on the sidelines shouting into the situation. Jonah was not called to a disinterested, half-hearted proclamation but to go into the heart of the city and to proclaim so all could hear the Word of God. Jonah had to venture into the midst of all the wickedness that had come before God and proclaim God’s judgement on all that was going on around him. You see it is easy and safe to stand on the sidelines and shout into a situation – e.g. it is easy and safe to be Pele in the stand at a football match, but it is a different story doing that on the pitch. It is more comfortable to stand on the outskirts and tell people of their need for God – it is a totally different matter going where they are and telling them. Brennan Manning in ‘The Ragamuffin Gospel’ tells many stories of such entering into the reality of Nineveh, so does Philip Yancey in ‘Soul Survivor’ which I recommend highly to you – he tells of people who entered into the reality of the world around them in order to bring the message of Christ to people. The lesson is simple is it not? You cannot bring the message of God to a people from the sidelines – you have got to take a days journey into the heart of Nineveh – remember some of the quotes from the media clip we watched at the start of this sermon.
So what message did God give Jonah to preach? ‘Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.’ What? God has gone to all this trouble for Jonah to preach this sentence! I mean it should have been something much more eloquent, something with much more gravitas than that. Surely there is more than one sentence? I think there probably was more than this sentence spoken by Jonah but I suspect it wasn’t anymore complicated than this sentence. Why would God go to such lengths for this simple message to be proclaimed to the Ninevites? The answer is quite simple: God is jealous for his Word and will go to extraordinary lengths for it to be proclaimed to the people he desires to hear it. Secondly, God is his Word and where God’s Word is preached God’s voice is heard. Thirdly, Jonah was not ashamed to preach these words in their utter simplicity and as we shall see their simplicity came with the power of Almighty God to the people of Nineveh.
I find it interesting that Jonah was not called to retell his story to the Ninevites. Wouldn’t that have been fascinating for the people? What a crowd he could have gathered by telling what had happened to him. But what would have been the outcome if he had? Controversy and conflict – that is all his story would have raised. I mean that is what the book of Jonah raises today – why would Nineveh have been any different? Telling his own story would have brought all sorts of questions to the surface and the sceptics would have had a field day, as they do today with the story of Jonah. They would have focused on the events surrounding the messenger and lost sight completely of the message. So God calls Jonah to tell them the message he had given him. Let us look a little more closely at this message for a moment.
Why 40 days? What was so significant about 40 days? 40 is a biblical number full of meaning. It represents a time of testing and preparation of one’s life or the life of a generation of people. It is a period of time for examining one’s life for truth, for authenticity. It is a period of time given to a person or a people to examine their life before God comes to them and either brings judgment or blessing. Allow me to give you a few biblical examples:
Noah – 40 days in the ark – which was a period of cleansing of a centuries of moral pollution – Noah had to remain inside the ark for that period – resisting the temptation to open the doors and go outside – it was a testing time of faith and obedience.
40 years, a generation, the people of Israel wandered in the wilderness – it was a period of cleansing of a stubborn and stiff necked people but also a period of preparation of a generation to enter the Promised Land. For 40 years they wandered in faith and hope of the Promised Land.
40 days – Elijah was on the run and that period brought him from the dangerous illusions emanating from Jezebel’s court into the place for God’s self-revelation into his life.
40 days – Jesus is in the wilderness before temptation to probe and prove his obedience to the will of His father and the way of the Cross.
40 days – the period between the resurrection of Christ and the Ascension of Christ into heaven and the coming of a new reality of the kingdom of God.
In each case the number 40 is future orientated. The last day, the 40th, shapes the content of the preceding 39. Each of those 39, days or years, is lived in expectation of the 40th and the fulfilment of the Word of God, the promise of blessing for obedience. The 39 become the womb in which a new beginning, a new life, is growing awaiting birth on the 40th. The days become a training ground of living by faith in God and His Word to them. Day 40 brings life in a new way.
However, if day 40 is ignored – then the ark is shipwrecked and all are drowned; the Israelites never enter the Promised Land and go back to slavery in Egypt; Elijah keeps running and never hears the still small voice of God; Jesus takes up the devil’s agenda and the world falls under the anti-christ, gad to be rid of the Cross, but with no hope of redemption and if the 39 days are ignored Jesus disappears in the Ascension and the world remains unaware of the resurrection and the good news of death defeated.
Can you see now the significance of ’40 days…’ in the message Jonah preached?
But let us not ignore the second part of the message either – ‘Nineveh will be overturned.’ Literally ‘Nineveh will be judged and destroyed. God’s wrath is coming upon Nineveh’ You see it would have been easy to preach that in 40 days time there was going to be a visitation of God to Nineveh and to leave the purpose vague. God had made it clear to Jonah he was going to come in judgment because of the wickedness of the people of Nineveh. Jonah came with one message and he was not ashamed of that message – ’40 days and Nineveh will be overturned.’ Jonah is persuaded not only of the truth of the message but also of the urgency of the message (yet 40 days). One without the other can lead to apathy in the hearers. One man has written ‘Nothing concentrates the mind of a man more than to know in the morning he will be hanged.’
Jonah was not ashamed to admit that he believed in God who came in judgment upon sinful people and that his coming would be soon. We have lost both the message of God’s coming judgement and the sense of urgency in the church today – to our peril and the peril of the people around us. Let me ask you: Are you ashamed of the message of God’s coming judgment? If you are not do you have a sense of urgency about that message and sharing it with others?
You see the people of Nineveh saw that Jonah was not ashamed of this simple message and when they saw that he was not ashamed they their hearts were awakened to the urgency in his delivery. Oh, if only we had the same conviction of Jonah – of the truth of God’s Word and of the urgency of the message.
Verses 5-6 Nineveh Repents. Who would expect anyone to act on the sermon just preached by Jonah? But listen to the text – ‘they believed God.’ There is the key. It was not Jonah they heard speaking but God. The eloquence of Jonah was not important because it was God’s Word to them. The Lord put conviction into their hearts. It was not enough for them merely to believe Jonah. Of course Jonah had to have credibility, sincerity and integrity before them but more importantly they needed to believe God. You see they could have believed Jonah and remained lost and under judgment. There is a danger, in lots of churches, that people believe the pastor but not God. Many pastors have a following and that following believes them but the people do not actually believe God and when the pastor moves they fall away. The people of Nineveh believed God. Jonah was not trying to build a following, he had no axe to grind in Nineveh. Success or failure were not in his hands, and they are not in mine either, praise God. Jonah spoke with conviction because God had chastened him – learn that lesson – you speak with conviction when you know for yourself the truth of coming under God’s judgment for your sins – Jonah did and he preached with conviction and simplicity. There was no need to dress up the message because Jonah was convinced it was the Word of God to him for the Ninevites. God did not need Jonah’s help to make his message any more convincing or persuasive. Remember that. When you start to believe that you have to change the Word of God to make it relevant or more persuasive you have started to cease to believe that the Word of God is sufficient for salvation. That is not to say that we do not explain it in terms that people understand but you and I have no right, or authority, to change the message to make it more palatable for people. Jonah didn’t and neither should we.
Turn to the end of verse 5 – we see that Jonah preached without any partiality – from the highest to the lowest heard the message. Jonah preached the same message no matter who was in the congregation. I remember reading once about Bishop Latimer, he was martyred with Bishop Ridley at Oxford, just as he was about to ascend the steps of a pulpit a servant said to him ‘Latimer, be careful what you say today because the king of England is here to hear what you say.’ Latimer replied ‘Latimer, be careful what you say today because the King of kings is here to hear what you say.’ Jonah preached the same message to everyone, regardless of rank or status. The result is that all, from the king to the lowest servant, repented and put on sackcloth and ashes as an outward sign of the inward change that had come about in their lives.
Let me ask you a question: Why did they react in such a way? If you remember back over the past two weeks one of the central lessons of Jonah is the sovereignty of God. God was not idle in the hearts and lives of the Ninevites. God was working, unseen by human eyes, in the hearts and lives of the people of Nineveh preparing them to hear his Word and to respond to it. Examine your own life and is that not also true? Could you not tell how unbeknown to you at the time God was working his purpose to bring you to a point where your ears were opened and you heard him speak into your life and you believed God and repented. Maybe this morning that is exactly where you are at this moment in time.
It is worth noting that the Word of God was believed and accepted first by the people and then it went up to the king. Learn from that – most leaders are actually followers – they follow the 51% in the poll. Most leaders are followers – they just want to be where the power is – they have no sense of destiny and no real vision for where they are going. So the word reaches the king and he too repents. A nation responds but now what of God?
Verses 7-10 The king leads the people in praying to God for his wrath to be turned away from the people of Nineveh. Read verse 7-9. Think about it for a moment – here is the king and the nation convinced that in 40 days Nineveh will be destroyed and the king commands fasting and prayer – in the hope (not the certainty) that God would relent of the punishment. Would that be the reaction of the leadership and people around us here in Carrickfergus? Would the reaction be: ‘In 40 days we are not going to be here so let us just party. Eat. Drink and be merry – for tomorrow we die.’ Is that not the attitude of the world? But the king of Nineveh orders fasting and prayer in light of the message from God. 39 Days of preparation for day 40 is coming. He knew, and they knew, why the message had come. He knew and his people knew they were guilty before God and deserved God’s wrath to be visited upon them – do you?
Listen to the words spoken by the king ‘Who knows? God may yet relent…’ Who knows? God knows – (Hebrews 4.13). The king hears the message and he sees through to the heart of the message – there must be hope if God sent Jonah as a warning to us. That is significant – no army sends a message to the enemy of the date of the invasion – in saying we will invade a change in behaviour is hoped for. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed without warning by God – Nineveh is warned. God warns of his coming judgment because his desire is for them to change their ways. Why else give them 40 days stay of execution?
Verse 9 raises a great theological question: Does God change his mind? The king says: ‘Who can tell?’ Verse 10 tells us that God relents of the judgment and wrath that was coming upon Nineveh. Why? Does he change his mind? God deferred the judgment on Nineveh because the people repented and because of his compassion (his relentless tenderness). God relates to the Ninevites now as people who have turned from their wickedness, repented of their sin and turned to him in faith. They now stand before God in a different place than they did before Jonah brought the Word of God to them.
Friends, God deferred overturning Nineveh for 80 years. 80 years later and Nineveh was destroyed. God did not change his mind but delayed his judgment because the people repented from their wickedness and sin. However, subsequent generations returned to their wicked ways and God’s judgment fell on Nineveh. Judgment was deferred but in God’s sovereign plan it came.
God sent Jonah with a message of judgment preceded by a period of 40 days in which the people of Nineveh had an opportunity to repent and be prepared for the coming judgment. Now apply that to ourselves today. God has left us his Word with the message of a coming judgment with a period preceding it in which we have an opportunity to repent of our sin and prepare for that coming judgment. Friends the day of his coming is one day closer than yesterday. The king of Nineveh and the people of Nineveh believed God and repented. God had compassion upon them and did not bring judgment upon them. The difference is that the judgment which Christ will bring will not be deferred or delayed – it will come in the fullness of time. We have heard the Word of God – repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. On that day will he have compassion on you because of Christ or will the fullness of his wrath fall upon you?
The message is clear – judgment is coming.
The time is clear – today is the day of salvation.
The question: Are you ready?
Amen.
