The Sound of Repentance—The Sound of Reformation (Jonah 3:4-10)

Father in Heaven, we give You praise for what You have given

us. This day already overwhelms our

souls. We're so thankful for Your

faithfulness to us, so thankful that we trust Your holy Word, so

thankful for Your mercy, so thankful Holy Spirit, for your

illumination. We pray God that You would now

speak to us through Your Word and Spirit, that we would be

eager to turn away from anything that displeases you, that

through the work of Your Word and Spirit we would be enabled

to leave this place obedient, faithful, full of joy and making

known the good news of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Overwhelm us with Your presence and send us, Lord, for Your

glory. We ask this in Jesus name, Amen.

This morning I'm going to be reading from the 3rd chapter of

Jonah, beginning at verse 4. We have been in the study of

Jonah this fall. Next week as John D Phillips

preaches for the missions conference, he'll be preaching

from the book of Haggai and then we will move back into Jonah,

which will take us up to the season of Advent.

If you're new to our church, this very familiar story we

believe is a true story. And so as you hear what is being

read, we believe this is an account of a man who was

swallowed by a fish, spit up on the shore.

And now after God has given him a second word and his obedience,

he's moving towards one of the most evil cities known to man.

And he's moving towards that city to tell them the message

that God has given him. And this is what happens.

Jonah three Beginning at verse 4, Jonah began to go into the

city, going a day's journey, and he called out.

Yet 40 days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

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.

The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his

throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth,

and set 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 heard,

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 from his evil

way and from the violence that is in his hands.

Who knows, God may turn and relent and turn from His fierce

anger so that we may not perish. When God saw what they did, how

they turn from their evil way, God relented of the disaster

that He had said He would do to them, and He did not do it.

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Please be seated when God's word reaches a soul.

When God's word reaches a soul, repentance follows.

Repentance means a change, a different direction, a new way

of thinking, a new way of feeling.

When God's word reaches the soul, repentance follows.

From the beginning of the Bible to the end, the story of

redemption follows that reality. Jonah chapter 1.

Jonah 1 · chapter mention

He receives the word from the Lord.

He is a prophet of God, the prophet of God.

As a prophet of God, he rejects the word that God gave him.

He rebels and moves away from the Lord, as far away from the

city of Nineveh as he can, and as far away from the Lord as he

can. But our sin and our rebellion

cannot outrun God. In God's Providence and in His

power, He gave birth to a fish, 1 fish whose purpose was to

swallow this man, showing God's grace and pursuit of the Sinner.

Jonah would spend 3 days in the belly of that fish, finally

coming to the end of himself. And the fish spits Jonah up on

the shore, and in the word the Lord comes to Jonah a second

time. There was a real fish.

There was a real shore. There was real seaweed wrapped

around Jonah. There was real funk all over

him. Jonah is standing on the shore.

He receives the word again, and this time he rises up.

Instead of running from the Lord, instead of running from

Nineveh, he now moves towards this people.

Now this is what is important to remember.

This is an evil people. It is a big city, 120,000

people. The 120,000 people are led by a

very evil and very violent king, and they are a very evil and

violent people. Jonah walks towards that city.

He doesn't just magically appear in that city, he moves towards

that city, a real place on this real earth.

And as he walks he knows that he has one command.

Tell them the message that God had given them, given him, and

the message was this yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

It's not a self help message, it's not how to have a better

day. It is not a good feeling

message. Even if Jonas said more, and

it's very possible that he did, it would have been what God told

him to say. He's being obedient and God saw

that. As that message is summarized,

this is the summary He wanted us to have yet. 40 days and Nineveh

shall be overthrown. The way we're going to approach

this today and really over the next few weeks after the

missions conference, is to look at what their response, the

people of Nineveh was to the message Jonah gave.

And then what was God's response to the people of Nineveh?

And then what is Jonah's response to their response?

That'll be in two weeks. And then what is our response

which will stay with that as well today, let's begin by

talking about the power of the word of God.

Look with me again at verse 5 after the text tells us Jonah

said yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

Verse 5 tells us, and the people of Nineveh believed God.

This is important. It doesn't say, and the people

of Nineveh believed Jonah. That wouldn't have been

inappropriate because Jonah was the vessel, but it's more it's

in the people of Nineveh didn't just believe the preacher.

They didn't just believe the prophet.

They just didn't believe the one who is an ambassador.

They believed God. They believed that the word that

this man was bringing to them was truly God's word, the power

of God's Word. Verse 6 tells us that the word

reached. I love that word.

The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his

throne. When God's word reaches a soul,

repentance follows. When God's word reaches a soul,

repentance follows. The power of the Word of God is

present here. Jonah did not bring his own

word. He did not bring his own

courage. He did not bring his own

cleverness. He didn't bring his own

creativity. He brought the Word of God.

And the Word of God is living and active.

If you're in Christ Jesus, you've been called to take God's

word as a missionary wherever you live.

We believe in the priesthood of all believers.

We have the privilege of taking that message.

If you're in Christ Jesus, you know what needs to be said.

Many Christians are like, I don't know enough.

What if they ask me a question? I don't know?

Friend in Christ, you know more than you think you know.

And yes, grow, learn more, but you know enough.

And if you don't think you do, we can give it to you quickly.

People that are lost, they don't need your cleverness, they don't

need your cultural analysis. They don't need your quotes from

lots of other books. They need the word of God.

And the word of God is powerful and active, alive, and it's

sufficient. Jonah brings them the word.

Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

Think about that. To the most violent nation at

that time, this large city, this one man in obedience moves with

his message, the message God gave him.

People of Nineveh believed God the king.

The word reached him. Whenever God's word reaches the

soul, repentance follows. John Calvin, commenting on Jonah

Three, speaks of the ways in which kings cannot bear to be

admonished even by their equals. Calvin writes, But Jonah wasn't

an equal. Jonah was a stranger and of

humble condition. That he therefore so touched the

heart of the King, must be ascribed to the hidden power of

God, which God he puts forth through His Word whenever he

pleases. God does not indeed work alike

by the preaching of his word. It doesn't happen the same way

every time and every place. He does not always keep to the

same course. But when when he, God, pleases,

he so efficaciously touches the hearts of men that the success

of his word exceeds all expectation.

Right now I want you to consider what nation, what leader, what

person in your life do you think?

I don't think they could come to Christ.

I don't think it's possible that they could ever believe.

The veil is too thick, the darkness is too great, the evil

is too pronounced. Who is it?

If you were living back then and you were an Israelite, it would

have been the king of Nineveh. We have those kind of people in

our lives. As you pray for their salvation,

do you do so with the confidence of what God can do through His

word, that He can bring an evil king to the end of himself?

And through doing that, he would call on his whole nation to

repent. That's what happened.

Do you believe it next Sunday or this coming weekend?

The whole weekend is the missions conference next Sunday,

as John D Rhodes is here preaching in this pulpit.

I won't be here in God's timing. I'm going to be in Japan.

I'm going to be preaching from a different pulpit with a

translator in a different language.

I'm going to Japan. Leaving early tomorrow morning

to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Christ Bible

Institute, a ministry that we have been partnering with, eager

to support, and are so excited to watch.

Our home church missionaries Brett and Taylor Rail continue

to lead that ministry. It's amazing.

Japan, of all the modern cities of the world, is the least

Christian nation. Less than 1% of that population

professes faith in Jesus. One of the missionaries from our

denomination who's been there a long time, Dan Iverson, will be

here, actually, for our missions conference.

He and his wife landed there, and it took them eight years

before they saw one person profess faith in Jesus Christ.

The soil is hard. I remember the first time I

went, I think it was 2018, my daughter was living there just

out of high school in a gap year, serving with Christ Bible

Institute. My whole family went.

And as we were there, I heard over and over and over again

from missionaries, from those who are serving on the ground.

This is hard, hard soil. And it is.

But my word of encouragement to them was it doesn't take any

more power of God to save one Japanese soul as it did the

apostle Paul's or did the king of Nineveh to bring him to

repentance or me. It's the same power.

It's the same God. It's the same word that they

need. We don't need to worry about the

results. We just need to be faithful to

give God's word wherever He calls us to give it.

And for most of us, it's right here where we live, where we

work, where we play. And the Word of God reaches a

soul, repentance follows. So how did the people of Nineveh

respond to the message? Yet 40 days and Nineveh will be

overthrown. Well, here you're going to hear

the sound of repentance and really the sound of reformation.

Let's go back to verse 5. The people of Nineveh believed

God. They called so vocally, now they

believe God. And whenever some soul has been

reached by the word, repentance follows.

And so you begin to see the action that takes place, A soul

that is now in fear. And we all should be of the

living God. And on reverence, they're

calling out to one another, they call for a fast, they put on

sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least.

To get more specific, the word tells us in verse 6 the word

reached the king of Nineveh When the word reached the king of

Nineveh, Because the word reached the king of Nineveh, it

led to repentance. Repentance follows.

The word says in verse 6 that he arose the same word for when

Nona no Jonah rose and went the wrong direction.

The same word when the king or the the the sailor in the

captain of that ship said rise up the same word here at the

beginning of chapter 3 when it says Jonah arose.

Now the king with the word of God reaching him moves into

action. He rises from his throne, he

takes his robe that only he can wear, He takes it off, and he

covers himself in sackcloth, and he's set in ashes.

The word tells us in verse 7. And he issued A proclamation and

published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his

nobles. Let neither man nor beast heard

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 mighty to God, and let them call out mightily to

God. Let everyone turn from his evil

way. This is the sound of repentance.

The sound of repentance is people living in grief and shame

and fear and humility, and in hope.

They put on sackcloth, because sackcloth is humiliating and

it's rough. Every part of the skin it

touches, you feel it. And as you feel it, you're

reminded of why you were in this posture.

The king sitting in ashes instead of on his throne is a

symbol of profound humility. The word has reached him.

He's repenting. He calls for a fast.

What's interesting, though, is this fast isn't just for the

human beings. Did you notice that the king in

his decree says we can't eat, but neither show our livestock,

never show our beast? I want you to think about that

for a minute. Why?

Why did that matter? Well, if you've ever fasted, you

know that the word of God and calling us the fast is about

penitence, it's about desperation, it's about seeking

wisdom from the Lord. And when you fast, your stomach

doesn't know why. And so your stomach begins to

speak to you and it says, feed me.

It's time for us to eat. And when you feel that hunger

pain, it's because it's there. And that hunger pain reminds you

of your desperation for God. It reminds you of why you were

in this moment. And there is the sound of

repentance. But in this case, the situation

is so severe that the king says not even the animals can eat.

Now I can explain to my children why we're fasting.

You could explain to yours. You could explain to your

friends, but how would you explain it to the animals?

So here's the sound of repentance.

When that hunger pain hits the animals, they're going to let

you know. When they are thirsty and you're

not giving them something to drink like you're supposed to,

they're going to let you know. So in the city of Nineveh, this

really happened. 120,000 people that the Lord has pity on are

now wearing sackcloth. There's ashes which people are

sitting in, they are all fasting.

And the sound of that repentance is these animals moaning,

screaming, begging. That was the sound of repentance

and that's the sound of reformation.

How does God respond? God's response, we are told in

verse 10, is that when He saw what they did, how they turned

from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that He

had said He would do to them, and He did not do it.

God's mercy, they deserved it. We all deserved it.

There's not one who is here, not one who has been born that

deserved mercy and grace. We all deserve the wrath of God

because of our sin, but here God shows mercy to a people that

looks so evil and so violent and so dark because they are.

Jonah didn't even want to go tell him the good news.

Now the king calls on them to pray.

He says in verse 9, Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn

from his fierce anger so that we may not perish.

The king didn't know what would happen, but God shows mercy.

The word for repent in Hebrew that describes the repentance of

the people of Nineveh is a word that describes moving from evil

to good. It means from turning from doing

evil violent things, and they all were doing that to doing

good. In some translations you will

hear in verse 10 where it says and God repented from what he

was about to do. It's not the same word.

God doesn't have to repent from something that is evil because

he doesn't do evil. The word here that is translated

relent is a word that describes how God had an inward suffering

as he considered the people of Nineveh.

That inward suffering led to profound pity.

And that's how the book of Jonah ends.

Verse 10 of chapter 4 or verse 11 of chapter 4.

Jonas hears from God, and God says to Jonah, and should not I

pity Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than

120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their

left. Those who didn't know their

right hand from their left were reached by the word of God, and

when they were reached by that word of God, it led to

repentance from the king to the beast.

There was a fast called sackcloth put not just on the

humans but also on the animals. Can you imagine trying to do

that? The sights and sounds of

repentance were all around them. God's response?

Pity, mercy, because that's His nature.

It's the same way He sees His children.

And in meeting the need that we all have for salvation, He sent

his Son Jesus to die. The greater Jonah, the one and

only one who could pay the price that we all deserve to pay, came

Christ. The message that we have to give

is not just this great story, this great true story about a

man named Jonah, but about the one to whom this points.

And that's Jesus, the only one who can save for eternal life.

In preaching on Jonah and then writing a commentary on this

book, in this chapter, Teaching on Jonah 3, Sinclair's Ferguson

shares a very personal story. We've had Sinclair in this

pulpit many times. He's a dear friend of this

church and maybe the greatest living theologian.

Sinclair Ferguson is in a hospital room.

He's visiting an elder in his congregation.

His life had been truly, remarkably blessed by God.

As Sinclair moves in to see his friend, his friend describes the

unit they're on, and it's all mostly fatal.

Down at the end of the hall, there's two boys who are yet in

their teens. Sinclair's friend looks at him

and says, do you see those two lads?

Yes. I discovered that they had not

ever heard of Jesus. There are people all around you

who have not heard of Jesus or what they've heard of Jesus

isn't right. It's not true.

It's not the true word going out.

Sinclair was so overwhelmed by that moment that he describes

his drive home. He says I drove home feeling as

never before. The failure of the church's

witness and the great need for us in the church to cry to God,

to come down and touch the hearts of people and sovereign

mercy. How much we need a revival as

much as Nineveh did. But it is vital to recognize

that Jonah was not sent to Nineveh with the assurance of

being a revivalist. We'll see in chapter 4 that

Jonah had an idea that God might show mercy, but what happened I

don't think he could have ever imagined.

He wasn't sent to be a revivalist.

He was sent there as an evangelist. 1 commissioned by

God is a herald just like you and just like me.

Years ago, I guess it was 2008, I sat in the fellowship hall

next to my wife, Christina. Some of you were there.

The search committee and the session we're moving forward

with recommending me in the role of senior pastor.

It was full. And then we entered into a

season of Q&A. You could ask me anything you

wanted, and you asked some great questions.

My wife has a habit of putting her hand on my leg when we're

talking, or mostly when I'm talking, and whenever she senses

that I'm about to say something that is going to make you or her

uncomfortable, she might squeeze my leg that day.

Someone asks one of the best questions I've ever been asked,

and God gave me through His Word and Spirit an answer.

The question was, Mark, how do you anticipate steering this

ship and a new direction? And I thought for a minute about

that. I thought about how throughout

the history of the church, a boat and men and women on a boat

are a great symbol of the church on mission, fulfilling,

fulfilling what God calls to do at another time.

Look around the sanctuary. You'll see it in the stained

glass. Don't look now, stop it.

But a couple of things need to be said.

I knew then I'm not the captain of the ship and I never will be.

And if you don't choose me, whoever you choose won't be.

There's one captain, and it's the Lord himself.

It's Christ. My wife didn't squeeze my leg

until I said this, but I don't plan to steer the ship anywhere.

I think we need to dry dock. I think we need to move in and

take a season of just asking the Lord to show us who we really

are and here's who I think we really are.

I said this in the spring of O 8 and I'm offering it as a warning

today and it will be needed again before Christ returns.

I said we are called to be like a military vessel taking the

gospel all over the world right where we live and wherever he

calls us to go. But we're not a military ship, I

said. We're a cruise ship.

My wife grabbed my leg, I said. But it's worse than that.

We're a cruise ship that has painted itself battleship Gray.

So we actually think we're doing a lot of things for the Lord.

But the truth is we're just kind of lined up an endless buffets

of Bible studies, and we need those.

But those Bible studies aren't reaching us.

That word isn't reaching us if it's not leading to constant

joyful repentance, repentance for things that we've committed,

sins of Commission, and repentance for sins of omission.

We are a cruise ship painted battleship Gray, but God can

change that. And how does He do it?

By reaching us with His word. Right now some of you are

saying, I'm so glad he's saying that.

For all these people around here, they need to hear it.

We all need to hear it. In fact, we've heard it.

God's Word is clear. If He has reached you as one of

His children, your life began to be a life of repentance.

Over time, though, we can be seduced into comfort or a lack

of compassion, are idolatry and distraction, and not seek the

things that the Lord's Lord has called us to.

We are all called to give this message away.

He has placed you in families and neighborhoods and places of

recreation and work and service on boards where you have a

chance as He leads you to hold out the Word of God, which is

the only thing that has the power to change a soul.

And when it reaches a soul, that soul repents and enters into a

life of repentance. I told the 8:00 congregational

time together this morning in worship again at 9:30 and here

every week multiple times I hear somebody say to me, I think

we're in the midst of revival or I think 1's coming.

What do you think? I'll be honest, I'm never going

to know and I don't even think about it or worry about it.

I pray for it, but I don't think it's that helpful.

What I will tell you is that revival starts not by

revivalist, but by obedient children of the living God

who've been reached by his word, and then say, I can't believe

this good news, and I can't believe that I get to take this

good news in His power wherever he calls me.

These are the words of eternal life.

They reach people. They're going to reach every

person that belongs to Christ, whether you engage in obedience

or not. He's going to accomplish His

mission. But if you don't, you are

missing out on the most glorious gift of holding Jesus out to a

world that's desperate for Him. Most of you know enough.

If you don't think you do, we would love to show you and it

won't take that long. That's not our biggest struggle.

Our biggest struggle is that we don't care that much.

We don't love that much. We don't have the kind of

compassion that Christ had and we don't trust the power of His

word. If that just was received by

you, if that just reached you, joyfully go to the Lord and

repent. Change by his grace and for his

glory. Father in Heaven, we have

missionaries coming next Sunday. Some are here today, but every

Sunday this sanctuary is full of your people, your missionaries.

So many to missionaries, to islands I could never get to.

And Lord Jesus, we do not need to fear, because you have the

power in an instant to change any heart to reach them with the

power of Your word. So, Father, I pray as you taught

us to pray to the Lord of the harvest, that you would provide

laborers, because the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are

few. And so, Lord, as we bring that

petition to you because it's the way you told us to pray, let us

pray with an ear open, recognizing that it is us that

you desire to use. Show us where, show us when,

show us how, show us what, and let us live and the power that

is ours in Christ and whose name we pray.

Amen. Please stand.